Produced by Ronald Lee
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
A MODERN SYMPOSIUM.
THE MEANING OF GOOD.
JUSTICE & LIBERTY, A POLITICAL DIALOGUE.
_PROBLEMS OF THE DAY SERIES_
RELIGION & IMMORTALITY.
LETTERS FROM JOHN CHINAMAN.
RELIGION: A FORECAST.
APPEARANCES
APPEARANCES
BEING
NOTES OF TRAVEL
BY
G. LOWES DICKINSON
AUTHOR OF "A MODERN SYMPOSIUM,"
"JUSTICE AND LIBERTY," ETC.
[Illustration]
MCMXIV
LONDON & TORONTO
J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED
NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
All rights reserved
PREFACE
The articles included in this book have already appeared, those from the
East in the _Manchester Guardian_, those from America in the _English
Review_. In reprinting them, I have chosen a title which may serve also
as an apology. What I offer is not Reality; but appearances to me. From
such appearances perhaps, in time, Reality may be constructed. I claim
only to make my contribution. I do so because the new contact between
East and West is perhaps the most important fact of our age; and the
problems of action and thought which it creates can only be solved as
each civilisation tries to understand the others, and, by so doing,
better to understand itself. These articles represent at any rate a good
will to understand; and they may, I hope, for that reason throw one
gleam of light on the darkness.
For the opportunity of travelling in the East I am indebted to the
munificence of Mr. Albert Kahn of Paris, who has founded what are known
in this country as the Albert Kahn Travelling Fellowships.[1] The
existence of this endowment is perhaps not as widely known as it should
be. And if this volume should be the occasion of leading others to take
advantage of the founder's generosity it will not have been written in
vain.
I have hesitated long before deciding to republish the letters on
America. They were written in 1909, before the election of President
Wilson, and all that led up to and is implied in that event. It was not,
however, the fact that, so far, they are out of date, that caused me to
hesitate. For they deal only incidentally with current politics, and
whatever value they may have is as a commentary on phases of American
civilisation which are of more than transitory significance. Much has
happened in the United States during the last few years which is of
great interest and importance. The conflict between democracy and
plutocracy has become more conscious and more acute; there have been
important developments in the labour movement; and capital has been so
"harassed" by legislation that it may, for the moment, seem odd to
capitalists to find America called "the paradise of Plutocracy." No
doubt the American public has awakened to its situation since 1909. But
such awakenings take a long time to transform the character of a
civilisation and all that has occurred serves only to confirm the
contention in the text that in the new world the same situation is
arising that confronts the old one.
What made me hesitate was something more important than the date at
which the letters were written. There is in them a note of exasperation
which I would have wished to remove if I could. But I could not, without
a complete rewriting, by which, even if it were possible to me, more
would have been lost than gained. It is this note of exasperation which
has induced me hitherto to keep the letters back, in spite of requests
to the contrary from American friends and publishers. But the
opportunity of adding them as a pendant to letters from the East, where
they fall naturally into their place as a complement and a contrast, has
finally overcome my scruples; the more so, as much that is said of
America is as typical of all the West, as it is foreign to all the East.
That this Western civilisation, against which I have so much to say, is
nevertheless the civilisation in which I would choose to live, in which
I believe, and about which all my hopes centre, I have endeavoured to
make clear in the concluding essay. And my readers, I hope, if any of
them persevere to the end, will feel that they have been listening,
after all, to the voice of a friend, even if the friend be of that
disagreeable kind called "candid."
Footnotes:
[Footnote 1: These Fellowships, each of the value of £660, were
established to enable the persons appointed to them to travel
round the world. The Trust is administered at the University of
London, and full information regarding it can be obtained from
the Principal, Sir Henry Miers, F.R.S., who is Honorary
Secretary to the Trustees.]
CONTENTS
PART I
INDIA
PAGE
I. IN THE RED SEA. 3
II. AJANTA. 7
III. ULSTER IN INDIA 12
IV. ANGLO-INDIA. 16
V. A MYSTERY PLAY. 20
VI. AN INDIAN SAINT. 24
VII. A VILLAGE IN BENGAL 28
VIII. SRI RAMAKRISHNA. 32
IX. THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN 38
X. THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR 42
XI. A MALAY THEATRE 47
PART II
CHINA
I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA 55
II. NANKING 60
III. IN THE YANGTSE GORGES 65
IV. PEKIN 72
V. THE ENGLISHMAN ABROAD 79
VI. CHINA IN TRANSITION 87
VII. A SACRED MOUNTAIN 95
PART III
JAPAN
I. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF JAPAN 105
II. A "NO" DANCE 111
III. NIKKO 116
IV. DIVINE RIGHT IN JAPAN 122
V. FUJI 129
VI. JAPAN AND AMERICA 136
VII. HOME 142
PART IV
AMERICA
I. THE "DIVINE AVERAGE" 149
II. A CONTINENT OF PIONEERS 153
III. NIAGARA 160
IV. "THE MODERN PULPIT" 164
V. IN THE ROCKIES 171
VI. IN THE ADIRONDACKS 178
VII. THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS 184
VIII. RED-BLOODS AND "MOLLYCODDLES" 192
IX. ADVERTISEMENT 199
X. CULTURE 205
XI. ANTÆUS 211
CONCLUDING ESSAY 218
PART I
INDIA
I
IN THE RED SEA
"But why do you do it?" said the Frenchman. From the saloon above came a
sound of singing, and I recognised a well-known hymn. The sun was
blazing on a foam-flecked sea; a range of islands lifted red rocks into
the glare; the wind blew fresh; and, from above,
"Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling."
Male voices were singing; voices whose owners, beyond a doubt, had no
idea of clinging to anything. Female voices, too, of clingers, perhaps,
but hardly to a cross. "Why do you do it?"--I began to explain. "For the
same reason that we play deck-quoits and shuffle-board; for the same
reason that we dress for dinner. It's the system." "The system?" "Yes.
What I call Anglicanism. It's a form of idealism. It consists in doing
the proper thing." "But why should the proper thing be done?" "That
question ought not to be asked. Anglicanism is an idealistic creed. It
is anti-utilitarian and anti-rational. It does not ask questions; it has
faith. The proper thing is the proper thing, and because it is the
proper thing it is done." "At least," he said, "you do not pretend that
this is religion?" "No. It has nothing to do with religion. But neither
is it, as you too simply suppose, hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies that you
know what religion is, and counterfeit it. But these people do not know,
and they are not counterfeiting. When they go to church they are not
thinking of religion. They are thinking of the social system. The
officers and civilians singing up there first learned to sing in the
village church. They walked to the church from the great house; the
great house stood in its park; the park was enclosed by the estate; and
the estate was surrounded by other estates. The service in the village
church stood for all that. And the service in the saloon stands for it
still. At bottom, what that hymn means is not that these men are
Christians, but that they are carrying England to India, to Burma, to
China." "It is a funny thing," the Frenchman mused, "to carry to 300
million Hindus and Mahometans, and 400 million Confucians, Buddhists,
and devil-worshippers. What do they do with it when they get there?"
"They plant it down in little oases all over the country, and live in
it. It is the shell that protects them in those oceans of impropriety.
And from that shell they govern the world." "But how can they govern
what they can't even see?" "They govern all the better. If once they
could see, they would be lost. Doubt would enter in. And it is the
virtue of the Englishman that he never doubts. That is what the system
does for him."
At this moment a voice was borne down the breeze. It was that of my
travelling companion, and it appeared, as he approached, that he was
discoursing to the captain on the merits of Dostoievsky's novels. He is
no respecter of persons; he imposes his own conversation; and the
captain, though obviously puzzled, was polite. "Russians may be like
that," he was remarking as he passed, "but Englishmen aren't." "No,"
said my friend, "but don't you wish they were?" "I do _not_," said the
captain with conviction. I looked at the Frenchman. "There," I said,
"behold the system." "But your friend?" "Ah, but he, like myself, is a
pariah. Have you not observed? They are quite polite. They have even a
kind of respect--such as our public school boys have--for anyone who is
queer, if only he is queer enough. But we don't "belong," and they know
it. We are outside the system. At bottom we are dangerous, like
foreigners. And they don't quite approve of our being let loose in
India." "Besides, you talk to the Indians." "Yes, we talk to the
Indians." "And that is contrary to the system?" "Yes, on board the boat;
it's all very well while you're still in England." "A strange system--to
perpetuate between rulers and ruled an impassable gulf!" "Yes. But, as
Mr. Podsnap remarked, 'so it is.'"
We had penetrated to the bows of the ship and hung looking over.
Suddenly, just under the surf, there was an emerald gleam; another; then
a leap and a dive; a leap and a dive again. A pair of porpoises were
playing round the bows with the ease, the spontaneity, the beauty of
perfect and happy life. As we watched them the same mood grew in us till
it forced expression. And "Oh," I said, "the ship's a prison!" "No,"
said the Frenchman, "it's the system."
II
AJANTA
A dusty road running through an avenue across the great plateau of the
Deccan; scanty crops of maize and cotton; here and there low hills,
their reddish soil sparsely clothed with trees; to the north, a receding
line of mountains; elsewhere infinite space and blazing light. Our
"tonga," its pair of wheels and its white awning rolling and jolting
behind two good horses, passes long lines of bullock-carts. Indians,
walking beside them with their inimitable gait, make exquisite gestures
of abjection to the clumsy white Sahibs huddled uncomfortably on the
back seat. Their robes of vivid colour, always harmoniously blent, leave
bare the slender brown legs and often the breast and back. Children
stark naked ride on their mothers' hips or their fathers' shoulder. Now
and again the oxen are unyoked at a dribble of water, and a party rests
and eats in the shade. Otherwise it is one long march with bare feet
over the burning soil.
We are approaching a market. The mud walls of a village appear. And
outside, by a stream shrunk now into muddy pools, shimmers and wimmers
a many-coloured crowd, buzzing among their waggons and awnings and
improvised stalls. We ford the shallow stream, where women are washing
clothes, cleaning their teeth, and drinking from the same water, and
pass among the bags of corn, the sugar-cane, and sweetmeats, saluted
gravely but unsolicited.
Then on again for hours, the road now solitary, till as day closes we
reach Fardapur. A cluster of mud-walled compounds and beehive huts lies
about a fortified enclosure, where the children sprawl and scream, and a
Brahmin intones to silent auditors. Outside they are drawing water from
the puddles of the stream. And gradually over the low hills and the
stretches of yellow grass the after-glow spreads a transfiguring light.
Out of a rosy flush the evening star begins to shine; the crickets cry;
a fresh breeze blows; and another pitiless day drops into oblivion.
Next day, at dawn, we walk the four miles to the famous caves, guided by
a boy who wears the Nizam's livery, and explains to us, in a language we
do not know, but with perfect lucidity, that it is to him, and no one
else, that backsheesh is due. He sings snatches of music as old and
strange as the hills; picks us balls of cotton, and prickly pear; and
once stops to point to the fresh tracks of a panther. We are in the
winding gorge of a watercourse; and presently, at a turn, in a
semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As
we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats
explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light,
and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat
pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and
ceiling, narrow slits opening into dark cells, and opposite the
entrance, set back in a shrine, a colossal Buddha, the light falling
full on the solemn face, the upturned feet, the expository hands. This
is a monastery, and most of the caves are on the same plan; but one or
two are long halls, presumably for worship, with barrel-vaulted roofs,
and at the end a great solid globe on a pedestal.
Of the art of these caves I will not speak. What little can be seen of
the painting--and only ill-lighted fragments remain--is full of
tenderness, refinement, and grace; no touch of drama; no hint of
passion. The sculpture, stripped of its stucco surface, is rude but
often impressive. But what impresses most is not the art but the
religion of the place. In this terrible country, where the great forces
of nature, drought and famine and pestilence, the intolerable sun, the
intolerable rain, and the exuberance of life and death, have made of
mankind a mere passive horde cowering before inscrutable Powers--here,
more than anywhere, men were bound under a yoke of observance and ritual
to the gods they had fashioned and the priests who interpreted their
will. Then came the Deliverer to set them free not _for_ but _from_
life, teaching them how to escape from that worst of all evils, rebirth
again and again into a world of infinite suffering, unguided by any
reason to any good end. "There is no god," said this strange master,
"there is no soul; but there is life after death, life here in this
hell, unless you will learn to deliver yourselves by annihilating
desire." They listened; they built monasteries; they meditated; and now
and again, here, perhaps, in these caves, one or other attained
enlightenment. But the cloud of Hinduism, lifted for a moment, rolled
back heavier than ever. The older gods were seated too firmly on their
thrones. Shiva--creator, preserver, destroyer--expelled the Buddha. And
that passive figure, sublime in its power of mind, sits for ever alone
in the land of his birth, exiled from light, in a cloud of clinging
bats.
But outside proceeds the great pageant of day and night, and the
patient, beautiful people labour without hope, while universal nature,
symbolised by Shiva's foot, presses heavily on their heads and forbids
them the stature of man. Only the white man here, bustling, ungainly,
aggressive, retains his freedom and acts rather than suffers. One
understands at last the full meaning of the word "environment." Because
of this sun, because of this soil, because of their vast numbers, these
people are passive, religious, fatalistic. Because of our cold and rain
in the north, our fresh springs and summers, we are men of action, of
science, of no reflection. The seed is the same, but according to the
soil it brings forth differently. Here the patience, the beauty, the
abjection before the Devilish-Divine; there the defiance, the cult of
the proud self. And these things have met. To what result?
III
ULSTER IN INDIA
"Are you a Home Ruler?" "Yes. Are you?" Instantly a torrent of protest.
He was a Mahometan, eminent in law and politics; clever, fluent,
forensic, with a passion for hearing himself talk, and addressing one
always as if one were a public meeting. He approached his face close to
mine, gradually backing me into the wall. And I realised the full
meaning of Carlyle's dictum "to be a mere passive bucket to be pumped
into can be agreeable to no human being."
It was not, naturally, the Irish question for its own sake that
interested him. But he took it as a type of the Indian question. Here,
too, he maintained, there is an Ulster, the Mahometan community. Here,
too, there are Nationalists, the Hindus. Here, too, a "loyal" minority,
protected by a beneficent and impartial Imperial Government. Here, too,
a majority of "rebels" bent on throwing off that Government in order
that they may oppress the minority. Here, too, an ideal of independence
hypocritically masked under the phrase "self-government." "It is a law
of political science that where there are two minorities they should
stand together against the majority. The Hindus want to get rid of you,
as they want to get rid of us. And for that reason alone, if there were
not a thousand others"--there were, he hinted, but, rhetorically, he
"passed them over in silence"--"for that reason alone I am loyal to the
British raj." It had never occurred to me to doubt it. But I questioned,
when I got a moment's breathing space, whether really the Hindu
community deliberately nourished this dark conspiracy. He had no doubt,
so far as the leaders were concerned; and he mistrusted the "moderates"
more than the extremists, because they were cleverer. He "multiplied
examples"--it was his phrase. The movement for primary education, for
example. It had nothing to do with education. It was a plot to teach the
masses Hindi, in order that they might be swept into the anti-British,
anti-Mahometan current. As to minor matters, no Hindu had ever voted for
a Mahometan, no Hindu barrister ever sent a client to a Mahometan
colleague. Whereas in all these matters, one was led to infer,
Mahometans were conciliation and tolerance itself. I knew that the
speaker himself had secured the election of Mahometans to all the seats
in the Council. But I refrained from referring to the matter. Then there
was caste. A Hindu will not eat with a Mahometan, and this was taken as
a personal insult. I suggested that the English were equally boycotted;
but that we regarded the boycott as a religious obligation, not as a
social stigma. But, like the Irish Ulstermen, he was not there to listen
to argument. He rolled on like a river. None of us could escape. He
detected the first signs of straying, and beckoned us back to the flock.
"Mr. Audubon, this is important." "Mr. Coryat, you must listen to this."
Coryat, at last, grew restive, and remarked rather tartly that no doubt
there was friction between the two communities, but that the worst way
to deal with it was by recrimination. He agreed; with tears in his eyes
he agreed. There was nothing he had not done, no advance he had not
made, to endeavour to bridge the gulf. All in vain! Never were such
obstinate fellows as these Hindus. And he proceeded once more to
"multiply examples." As we said "Good-bye" in the small hours of the
morning he pressed into our hands copies of his speeches and addresses.
And we left him perorating on the steps of the hotel.
A painfully acquired mistrust of generalisation prevents me from saying
that this is _the_ Mahometan point of view. Indeed, I have reason to
know that it is not. But it is a Mahometan point of view in one
province. And it was endorsed, more soberly, by less rhetorical members
of the community. Some twenty-five years ago, they say, Mahometans woke
to the fact that they were dropping behind in the race for influence and
power. They started a campaign of education and organisation. At every
point they found themselves thwarted; and always, behind the obstacle,
lurked a Hindu. Lord Morley's reform of the Councils, intended to unite
all sections, had had the opposite effect. Nothing but the separate
electorates had saved Mahometans from political extinction. And
precisely because they desired that extinction Hindus desired mixed
electorates. The elections to the Councils have exasperated the
antagonism between the two communities. And an enemy might accuse the
Government of being actuated, in that reform, by the Machiavellian maxim
"Divide et impera."
What the Hindus have to say to all this I have not had an opportunity of
learning. But they too, I conceive, can "multiply examples" for their
side. To a philosophic observer two reflections suggest themselves. One,
that representative government can only work when there is real give and
take between the contending parties. The other, that to most men, and
most nations, religion means nothing more than antagonism to some other
religion. Witness Ulster in Ireland; and witness, equally, Ulster in
India.
IV
ANGLO-INDIA
From the gallery of the high hall we look down on the assembled society
of the cantonment. The scene is commonplace enough; twaddle and tea,
after tennis; "frivolling"--it is their word; women too empty-headed and
men too tired to do anything else. This mill-round of work and exercise
is maintained like a religion. The gymkhana represents the "compulsory
games" of a public school. It is part of the "white man's burden." He
plays, as he works, with a sense of responsibility. He is bored, but
boredom is a duty, and there's nothing else to do.
The scene is commonplace. Yes! But this afternoon a band is playing. The
music suits the occasion. It is soft, melodious, sentimental. It
provokes a vague sensibility, and makes no appeal to the imagination. At
least it should not, from its quality. But the power of music is
incalculable. It has an essence independent of its forms. And by virtue
of that essence its poorest manifestations can sink a shaft into the
springs of life. So as I listen languidly the scene before me detaches
itself from actuality and floats away on the stream of art. It becomes
a symbol; and around and beyond it, in some ideal space, other symbols
arise and begin to move. I see the East as an infinite procession. Huge
Bactrian camels balance their bobbing heads as they pad deliberately
over the burning dust. Laden asses, cattle, and sheep and goats move on
in troops. Black-bearded men, men with beard and hair dyed red, women
pregnant or carrying babies on their hips, youths like the Indian
Bacchus with long curling hair, children of all ages, old men
magnificent and fierce, all the generations of Asia pass and pass on,
seen like a frieze against a rock background, blazing with colour,
rhythmical and fluent, marching menacingly down out of infinite space on
to this little oasis of Englishmen. Then, suddenly, they are an ocean;
and the Anglo-Indian world floats upon it like an Atlantic liner. It has
its gymnasium, its swimming-bath, its card-rooms, its concert-room. It
has its first and second class and steerage, well marked off. It dresses
for dinner every night; it has an Anglican service on Sunday; it flirts
mildly; it is bored; but above all it is safe. It has water-tight
compartments. It is "unsinkable." The band is playing; and when the
crash comes it will not stop. No; it will play this music, this, which
is in my ears. Is it Gounod's "Faust" or an Anglican hymn? No matter! It
is the same thing, sentimental, and not imaginative. And sentimentally,
not imaginatively, the Englishman will die. He will not face the event,
but he will stand up to it. He will realise nothing, but he will shrink
from nothing. Of all the stories about the loss of the _Titanic_ the
best and most characteristic is that of the group of men who sat
conversing in the second-class smoking-room, till one of them said, "Now
she's going down. Let's go and sit in the first-class saloon." And they
did. How touching! How sublime! How English! The _Titanic_ sinks. With a
roar the machinery crashes from stem to bow. Dust on the water, cries on
the water, then vacuity and silence. The East has swept over this colony
of the West. And still its generations pass on, rhythmically swinging;
slaves of Nature, not, as in the West, rebels against her; cyclical as
her seasons and her stars; infinite as her storms of dust; identical as
the leaves of her trees; purposeless as her cyclones and her
earthquakes.
The music stops and I rub my eyes. Yes, it is only the club, only tea
and twaddle! Or am I wrong? There is more in these men and women than
appears. They stand for the West, for the energy of the world, for all,
in this vast Nature, that is determinate and purposive, not passively
repetitionary. And if they do not know it, if they never hear the strain
that transposes them and their work into a tragic dream, if tennis is
tennis to them, and a valse a valse, and an Indian a native, none the
less they are what a poet would see them to be, an oasis in the desert,
a liner on the ocean, ministers of the life within life that is the
hope, the inspiration, and the meaning of the world. In my heart of
hearts I apologise as I prolong the banalities of parting, and almost
vow never again to abuse Gounod's music.
V
A MYSTERY PLAY
A few lamps set on the floor lit up the white roof. On either side the
great hall was open to the night; and now and again a bird flew across,
or a silent figure flitted from dark to dark. On a low platform sat the
dancers, gorgeously robed. All were boys. The leader, a peacock-fan
flashing in his head-dress, personated Krishna. Beside him sat Rhada,
his wife. The rest were the milkmaids of the legend. They sat like
statues, and none of them moved at our entry. But the musicians, who
were seated on the ground, rose and salaamed, and instantly began to
play. There were five instruments--a miniature harmonium (terrible
innovation), two viols, of flat, unresonant tone, a pair of cymbals, and
a small drum. The ear, at first, detected little but discordant chaos,
but by degrees a form became apparent--short phrases, of strong rhythm,
in a different scale from ours, repeated again and again, and strung on
a thread of loose improvisation. Every now and again the musicians burst
into song. Their voices were harsh and nasal, but their art was
complicated and subtle. Clearly, this was not barbarous music, it was
only strange, and its interest increased, as the ear became accustomed
to it. Suddenly, as though they could resist no longer, the dancers, who
had not moved, leapt from the platform and began their dance. It was
symbolical; Krishna was its centre, and the rest were wooing him. Desire
and its frustration and fulfilment were the theme. Yet it was not
sensual, or not merely so. The Hindus interpret in a religious spirit
this legendary sport of Krishna with the milkmaids. It symbolises the
soul's wooing of God. And so these boys interpreted it. Their passion,
though it included the flesh, was not of the flesh. The mood was
rapturous, but not abandoned; ecstatic, but not orgiastic. There were
moments of a hushed suspense when hardly a muscle moved; only the arms
undulated and the feet and hands vibrated. Then a break into swift
whirling, on the toes or on the knees, into leaping and stamping, swift
flight and pursuit. A pause again; a slow march; a rush with twinkling
feet; and always, on those young faces, even in the moment of most
excitement, a look of solemn rapture, as though they were carried out of
themselves into the divine. I have seen dancing more accomplished, more
elaborate, more astonishing than this. But never any that seemed to me
to fulfil so well the finest purposes of the art. The Russian ballet, in
the retrospect, seems trivial by comparison. It was secular; but this
was religious. For the first time I seemed to catch a glimpse of what
the tragic dance of the Greeks might have been like. The rhythms were
not unlike those of Greek choruses, the motions corresponded strictly to
the rhythms, and all was attuned to a high religious mood. In such
dancing the flesh becomes spirit, the body a transparent emblem of the
soul.
After that the play, I confess, was a drop into bathos. We descended to
speech, even to tedious burlesque. But the analogy was all the closer to
mediæval mysteries. In ages of Faith religion is not only sublime; it is
intimate, humorous, domestic; it sits at the hearth and plays in the
nursery. So it is in India where the age of Faith has never ceased. What
was represented that night was an episode in the story of Krishna. The
characters were the infant god, his mother, Jasodha, and an ancient
Brahmin who has come from her own country to congratulate her on the
birth of a child. He is a comic character--the sagging belly and the
painted face of the pantomime. He answers Jasodha's inquiries after
friends and relations at home. She offers him food. He professes to have
no appetite, but, on being pressed, demands portentous measures of rice
and flour. While she collects the material for his meal, he goes to
bathe in the Jumna; and the whole ritual of his ablutions is elaborately
travestied, even a crocodile being introduced in the person of one of
the musicians, who rudely pulls him by the leg as he is rolling in
imaginary water. His bathing finished, he retires and cooks his food.
When it is ready he falls into prayer. But during his abstraction the
infant Krishna crawls up and begins devouring the food. Returning to
himself, the Brahmin, in a rage, runs off into the darkness of the hall.
Jasodha pursues him and brings him back. And he begins once more to cook
his food. This episode was repeated three times in all its detail, and I
confess I found it insufferably tedious. The third time Jasodha scolds
the child and asks him why he does it. He replies--and here comes the
pretty point of the play--that the Brahmin, in praying to God and
offering him the food, unwittingly is praying to him and offering to
him, and in eating the food he has but accepted the offering. The mother
does not understand, but the Brahmin does, and prostrates himself before
his Lord.
This is crude enough art, but at any rate it is genuine. Like all
primitive art, it is a representation of what is traditionally believed
and popularly felt. The story is familiar to the audience and intimate
to their lives. It represents details which they witness every day, and
at the same time it has religious significance. Out of it might grow a
great drama, as once in ancient Greece. And perhaps from no other origin
can such a drama arise.
VI
AN INDIAN SAINT
It was at Benares that we met him. He led us through the maze of the
bazaars, his purple robe guiding us like a star, and brought us out by
the mosque of Aurungzebe. Thence a long flight of stairs plunged sheer
to the Ganges, shining below in the afternoon sun. We descended; but,
turning aside before we reached the shore, came to a tiny house perched
on a terrace above the ghat. We took off our shoes in the anteroom and
passed through a second chamber, with its riverside open to the air, and
reached a tiny apartment, where he motioned us to a divan. We squatted
and looked round. Some empty bottles were the only furniture. But on the
wall hung the picture we had come to see. It was a symbolic tree, and
perhaps as much like a tree as what it symbolised was like the universe.
Embedded in its trunk and branches were coloured circles and signs, and
from them grew leaves and flowers of various hues. Below was a garden
lit by a rising sun, and a black river where birds and beasts pursued
and devoured one another. At our request he took a pointer and began to
explain. I am not sure that I well understood or well remember, but
something of this kind was the gist of it. In the beginning was
Parabrahma, existing in himself, a white circle at the root of the tree.
Whence sprang, following the line of the trunk, the egg of the universe,
pregnant with all potentialities. Thence came the energy of Brahma; and
of this there were three aspects, the Good, the Evil, and the Neuter,
symbolised by three triangles in a circle. Thence the trunk continued,
but also thence emerged a branch to the right and one to the left. The
branch to the right was Illusion and ended in God; the branch to the
left was Ignorance and ended in the Soul. Thus the Soul contemplates
Illusion under the form of her gods. Up the line of the trunk came next
the Energy of Nature; then Pride; then Egotism and Individuality; whence
branched to one side Mind, to the other the senses and the passions.
Then followed the elements, fire, air, water, and earth; then the
vegetable creation; then corn; and then, at the summit of the tree, the
primitive Man and Woman, type of Humanity. The garden below was Eden,
until the sun rose; but with light came discord and conflict, symbolised
by the river and the beasts. Evil and conflict belong to the nature of
the created world; and the purpose of religion is by contemplation to
enable the Soul to break its bodies, and the whole creation to return
again to Parabrahma, whence it sprung.
Why did it spring? He did not know. For good or for evil? He could not
say. What he knew he knew, and what he did not know he did not. "Some
say there is no God and no Soul." He smiled. "Let them!" His certainty
was complete. "Can the souls of men be reincarnated as animals?" He
shrugged his shoulders. "Who can say?" I tried to put in a plea for the
life of action, but he was adamant; contemplation and contemplation
alone can deliver us. "Our good men," I said, "desire to make the world
better, rather than to save their own souls." "Our sages," he replied,
"are sorry for the world, but they know they cannot help it." His
religion, I urged, denied all sense to the process of history. "There
may be process in matter," he replied, "but there is none in God." I
protested that I loved individual souls, and did not want them absorbed
in Parabrahma. He laughed his good cheery laugh, out of his black beard,
but it was clear that he held me to be a child, imprisoned in the Ego. I
felt like that, and I hugged my Ego; so presently he ministered to it
with sweetmeats. He even ate with us, and smoked a cigarette. He was the
most human of men; so human that I thought his religion could not be as
inhuman as it sounded. But it was the religion of the East, not of the
West. It refused all significance to the temporal world; it took no
account of society and its needs; it sought to destroy, not to develop,
the sense and the power of Individuality. It did not say, but it
implied, that creation was a mistake; and if it did not profess
pessimism, pessimism was its logical outcome. I do not know whether it
is the religion of a wise race; but I am sure it could never be that of
a strong one.
But I loved the saint, and felt that he was a brother. Next morning, as
we drifted past the long line of ghats, watching the bright figures on
the terraces and stairs, the brown bodies in the water, and the Brahmins
squatting on the shore, we saw him among the bathers, and he called to
us cheerily. We waved our hands and passed on, never to see him again.
East had not met West, but at least they had shaken hands across the
gulf. The gulf, however, was profound; for many and many incarnations
will be needed before one soul at least can come even to wish to
annihilate itself in the Universal.
VII
A VILLAGE IN BENGAL
At 6 A.M. we got out of the train at a station on the Ganges; and after
many delays found ourselves drifting down the river in a houseboat. To
lie on cushions, sheltered from the sun, looking out on the moving
shore, to the sound of the leisurely plash of oars, is elysium after a
night in the train. We had seven hours of it and I could have wished it
were more. But towards sunset we reached our destination. At the wharf a
crowd of servants were waiting to touch the feet of our hosts who had
travelled with us. They accompanied us through a tangle of palms,
bananas, mangoes, canes, past bamboo huts raised on platforms of hard,
dry mud, to the central place where a great banyan stood in front of the
temple. We took off our shoes and entered the enclosure, followed by
half the village, silent, dignified, and deferential. Over ruined
shrines of red brick, elaborately carved, clambered and twined the
sacred peepul tree. And within a more modern building were housed images
of Krishna and Rhada, and other symbols of what we call too hastily
idolatry. Outside was a circular platform of brick where these dolls
are washed in milk at the great festivals of the year. We passed on, and
watched the village weaver at his work, sitting on the ground with his
feet in a pit working the pedals of his loom; while outside, in the
garden, a youth was running up and down setting up, thread by thread,
the long strands of the warp. By the time we reached the house it was
dusk. A lamp was brought into the porch. Musicians and singers squatted
on the floor. Behind them a white-robed crowd faded into the night. And
we listened to hymns composed by the village saint, who had lately
passed away.
First there was a prayer for forgiveness. "Lord, forgive us our sins.
You _must_ forgive, for you are called the merciful. And it's so easy
for you! And, if you don't, what becomes of your reputation?" Next, a
call to the ferry. "Come and cross over with me. Krishna is the boat and
Rhada the sail. No storms can wreck us. Come, cross over with me." Then
a prayer for deliverance from the "well" of the world where we are
imprisoned by those dread foes the five senses of the mind. Then a
rhapsody on God, invisible, incomprehensible. "He speaks, but He is not
seen. He lives in the room with me, but I cannot find Him. He brings to
market His moods, but the marketer never appears. Some call Him fire,
some ether. But I ask His name in vain. I suppose I am such a fool that
they will not tell it me." Then a strange ironical address to Krishna.
"Really, sir, your conduct is very odd! You flirt with the Gopis! You
put Rhada in a sulk, and then ask to be forgiven! You say you are a god,
and yet you pray to God! Really, sir, what are we to think?" Lastly, a
mystic song, how Krishna has plunged into the ocean of Rhada; how he is
there drifting, helpless and lost. Can we not save him? But no! It is
because his love is not perfect and pure. And that is why he must be
incarnated again and again in the avatars.
Are these people idolaters, these dignified old men, these serious
youths, these earnest, grave musicians? Look at their temple, and you
say "Yes." Listen to their hymns, and you say "No." Reformers want to
educate them, and, perhaps, they are right. But if education is to mean
the substitution of the gramophone and music-hall songs for this
traditional art, these native hymns? I went to bed pondering, and was
awakened at six by another chorus telling us it was time to get up. We
did so, and visited the school, set up by my friend as an experiment; a
mud floor, mud-lined walls, all scrupulously clean; and squatting round
the four sides children of all ages, all reciting their lessons at once,
and all the lessons different. They were learning to read and write
their native language, and that, at least, seemed harmless enough. But
parents complained that it unfitted them for the fields. "Our fathers
did not do it"--that, said my impatient young host, is their reply to
every attempt at reform. In his library were all the works of Nietzsche,
Tolstoy, Wells, and Shaw, as well as all the technical journals of
scientific agriculture. He lectured them on the chemical constituents of
milk and the crossing of sugar-canes. They embraced his feet, sang their
hymns, and did as their fathers had done. He has a hard task before him,
but one far better worth attempting than the legal and political
activities in which most young Zemindars indulge. And, as he said, here
you see the fields and hear the birds, and here you can bathe in the
Ganges. We did; and then breakfasted; and then set out in palanquins for
the nearest railway station. The bearers sang a rhythmic chant as they
bore us smoothly along through mustard and pulses, yellow and orange and
mauve. The sun blazed hot; the bronzed figures streamed with sweat; the
cheerful voices never failed or flagged. I dozed and drowsed, while East
and West in my mind wove a web whose pattern I cannot trace. But a
pattern there is. And some day historians will be able to find it.
VIII
SRI RAMAKRISHNA
As we dropped down the Hooghly they pointed to a temple on the shore as
lately the home of Sri Ramakrishna. He was only a name to me, and I did
not pay much attention, though I had his "Gospel" [2] actually under my
arm. I was preoccupied with the sunset, burning behind a veil of smoke;
and presently, as we landed, with the great floating haystacks
smouldering at the wharf in the red afterglow. As we waited for the
tram, someone said, "Would you like to see Kali?" and we stepped aside
to the little shrine. Within it was the hideous idol, black and
many-armed, decked with tinsel and fed with the blood of goats; and
there swept over me a wave of the repulsion I had felt from the first
for the Hindu religion, its symbols, its cult, its architecture, even
its philosophy. Seated in the tram, it was with an effort that I opened
the "Gospel" of Sri Ramakrishna. But at once my attention was arrested.
This was an account by a disciple of the life and sayings of his master.
And presently I read the following:
"_Disciple._ Then, sir, one may hold that God is 'with form.'
But surely He is not the earthen image that is worshipped!
"_Master._ But, my dear sir, why should you call it an earthen
image? Surely the Image Divine is made of the Spirit!
"The disciple cannot follow this. He goes on: But is it not
one's duty, sir, to make it clear to those who worship images
that God is not the same as the clay form they worship, and that
in worshipping they should keep God Himself in view and not the
clay images?
* * * * *
"_Master._ You talk of 'images made of clay.' Well, there often
comes a necessity of worshipping even such images as these. God
Himself has provided these various forms of worship. The Lord
has done all this--to suit different men in different stages of
knowledge.
"The mother so arranges the food for her children that every one
gets what agrees with him. Suppose she has five children. Having
a fish to cook, she makes different dishes out of it. She can
give each one of the children what suits him exactly. One gets
rich _polow_ with the fish, while she gives only a little soup
to another who is of weak digestion; she makes a sauce of sour
tamarind for the third, fries the fish for the fourth, and so
on, exactly as it happens to agree with the stomach. Don't you
see?
"_Disciple._ Yes, sir, now I do. The Lord is to be worshipped in
the image of clay as a spirit by the beginner. The devotee, as
he advances, may worship Him independently of the image.
"_Master._ Yes. And again, when he sees God he realises that
everything--image and all--is a manifestation of the Spirit. To
him the image is made of Spirit--not of clay. God is a Spirit."
As I read this, I remembered the answer invariably given to me when I
asked about Hindu idolatry. The people, I was told, even the humblest
and most ignorant, worshipped not the idol but what it symbolised.
Actually, this hideous Kali stood to them for the Divine Mother. And I
was told of an old woman, racked with rheumatism, who had determined at
last to seek relief from the goddess. She returned with radiant face.
She had seen the Mother! And she had no more rheumatism. In this popular
religion, it would seem, the old cosmic elements have dropped out, and
the human only persist. So that even the terrifying form of Shiva, the
Destroyer, stands only for the divine husband of Parvati, the divine
wife. Hinduism, I admitted, is not as inhuman and superstitious as it
looks. But I admitted it reluctantly and with many reserves, remembering
all I had seen and heard of obscene rites and sculptures, of the
perpetual repetition of the names of God, of parasitic Brahmins and
self-torturing ascetics.
What manner of man, then, was this Sri Ramakrishna? I turned the pages
and read:
"The disciples were walking about the garden. M. walked by
himself at the cluster of five trees. It is about five in the
afternoon. Coming back to the verandah, north of the Master's
chamber, M. comes upon a strange sight. The Master is standing
still. Narendra is singing a hymn. He and three or four other
disciples are standing with the Master in their midst. M. is
charmed with their song. Never in his life has he heard a
sweeter voice. Looking at the Master, M. marvels and becomes
speechless. The Master stands motionless. His eyes are fixed. It
is hard to say whether he is breathing or not. This state of
ecstasy, says a disciple in low tones, is called Samadhi. M. has
never seen or heard of anything like this. He thinks to himself,
'Is it possible that the thought of God can make a man forget
the world? How great must be his faith and love for God who is
thrown into such a state!'"
"Yes," I said, "that is the Hindu ideal--ecstatic contemplation."
Something in me leapt to approve it; but the stronger pull was to
Hellenism and the West. "Go your way, Ramakrishna," I said, "but your
way is not mine. For me and my kind action not meditation; the temporal
not the eternal; the human not the ultra-divine; Socrates not
Ramakrishna!" But hardly had I said the words when I read on:
"M. enters. Looking at him the Master laughs and laughs. He
cries out, 'Why, look! There he is again!' The boys all join in
the merriment. M. takes his seat, and the Master tells Narendra
and the other disciples what has made him laugh. He says:
"'Once upon a time a small quantity of opium was given to a
certain peacock at four o'clock in the afternoon. Well,
punctually at four the next afternoon who should come in but the
selfsame peacock, longing for a repetition of the
favour--another dose of opium!'--(Laughter.)
"M. sat watching the Master as he amused himself with the boys.
He kept up a running fire of chaff, and it seemed as if these
boys were his own age and he was playing with them. Peals of
laughter and brilliant flashes of humour follow upon one
another, calling to mind the image of a fair when the Joy of the
World is to be had for sale."
I rubbed my eyes. Was this India or Athens? Is East East? Is West West?
Are there any opposites that exclude one another? Or is this
all-comprehensive Hinduism, this universal toleration, this refusal to
recognise ultimate antagonisms, this "mush," in a word, as my friends
would dub it--is this, after all, the truest and profoundest vision?
And I read in my book:
"M.'s egotism is now completely crushed. He thinks to himself:
What this God-man says is indeed perfectly true. What business
have I to go about preaching to others? Have I myself known God?
Do I love God? About God I know nothing. It would indeed be the
height of folly and vulgarity itself, of which I should be
ashamed, to think of teaching others! This is not mathematics,
or history, or literature; it is the science of God! Yes, I see
the force of the words of this holy man."
Footnotes:
[Footnote 2: _Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna._ Second Edition. Part
1. Madras: Published by the Ramakrishna Mission. 1912.]
IX
THE MONSTROUS REGIMEN OF WOMEN
Here at Cape Comorin, at India's southernmost point, among the sands and
the cactuses and the palms rattling in the breeze, comes to us news of
the Franchise Bill and of militant suffragettes. And I reflect that in
this respect England is a "backward" country and Travancore an
"advanced" one. Women here--except the Brahmin women--are, and always
have been, politically and socially on an equality and more than an
equality with men. For this is one of the few civilised States--for
aught I know it is the only one--in which "matriarchy" still prevails.
That doesn't mean--though the word suggests it--that women govern,
though, in fact, the succession to the throne passes to women equally
with men. But it means that woman is the head of the family, and that
property follows her line, not the man's. All women own property equally
with men, and own it in their own right. The mother's property passes to
her children, but the father's passes to his mother's kin. The husband,
in fact, is not regarded as related to the wife. Relationship means
descent from a common mother, whereas descent from a common father is a
negligible fact, no doubt because formerly it was a questionable one.
Women administer their own property, and, as I am informed, administer
it more prudently than the men.
Not only so; they have in marriage the superior position occupied by men
in the West. The Nair woman chooses her own husband; he comes to her
house, she does not go to his; and, till recently, she could dismiss him
as soon as she was tired of him. The law--man-made, no doubt!--has
recently altered this, and now mutual consent is required for a valid
divorce. Still the woman is, at least on this point, on an equality with
the man. And the heavens have not yet fallen. As to the vote, it is not
so important or so general here as at home. The people live under a
paternal monarchy "by right divine." The Rajah who consolidated the
kingdom, early in the eighteenth century, handed it over formally to the
god of the temple, and administers it in his name. Incidentally this
gave him access to temple revenues. It also makes his person sacred. So
much so that in a recent prison riot, when the convicts escaped and
marched to the police with their grievances, the Rajah had only to
appear and tell them to march back to prison, and they did so to a man,
and took their punishment. The government, it will be seen, is not by
votes. Still there are votes for local councils, and women have them
equally with men. Any other arrangement would have seemed merely
preposterous to the Nairs; and perhaps if any exclusion had been
contemplated it would have been of men rather than of women.
Other incidental results follow from the equality of the sexes. The
early marriages which are the curse of India do not prevail among the
Nairs. Consequently the schooling of girls is continued later. And this
State holds the record in all India for female education. We visited a
school of over 600 girls, ranging from infancy to college age, and
certainly I never saw school-girls look happier, keener, or more alive.
Society, clearly, has not gone to pieces under "the monstrous regimen of
women." Travancore claims, probably with justice, to be the premier
native State; the most advanced, the most prosperous, the most happy.
Because of the position of women? Well, hardly. The climate is
delightful, the soil fertile, the natural resources considerable. Every
man sits under his own palm tree, and famine is unknown. The people, and
especially the children, are noticeably gay, in a land where gaiety is
not common. But one need not be a suffragette to hold that the equality
of the sexes is one element that contributes to its well-being, and to
feel that in this respect England lags far behind Travancore.
Echoes of the suffrage controversy at home have led me to dwell upon
this matter of the position of women. But, to be candid, it will not be
that that lingers in my mind when I look back upon my sojourn here. What
then? Perhaps a sea of palm leaves, viewed from the lighthouse top,
stretching beside the sea of blue waves; perhaps a sandy river bed, with
brown nude figures washing clothes in the shining pools; perhaps the
oiled and golden skins glistening in the sun; perhaps naked children
astride on their mothers' hips, or screaming with laughter as they race
the motor-car; perhaps the huge tusked elephant that barred our way for
a moment yesterday; perhaps the jungle teeming with hidden and menacing
life; perhaps the seashore and its tumbling waves. One studies
institutions, but one does not love them. Often one must wish that they
did not exist, or existed in such perfection that their existence might
be unperceived. Still, as institutions go, this, which regulates the
relations of men and women, is, I suppose, the most important. So from
the surf of the Arabian sea and the blaze of the Indian sun I send this
little object lesson.
X
THE BUDDHA AT BURUPUDUR
To the north the cone of a volcano, rising sharp and black. To the east
another. South and west a jagged chain of hills. In the foreground
ricefields and cocoa palms. Everywhere intense green, untoned by grey;
and in the midst of it this strange erection. Seen from below and from a
distance it looks like a pyramid that has been pressed flat. In fact, it
is a series of terraces built round a low hill. Six of them are
rectangular; then come three that are circular; and on the highest of
these is a solid dome, crowned by a cube and a spire. Round the circular
terraces are set, close together, similar domes, but hollow, and pierced
with lights, through which is seen in each a seated Buddha. Seated
Buddhas, too, line the tops of the parapets that run round the lower
terraces. And these parapets are covered with sculpture in high relief.
One might fancy oneself walking round one of the ledges of Dante's
"Purgatorio" meditating instruction on the walls. Here the instruction
would be for the selfish and the cruel. For what is inscribed is the
legend and cult of the lord of tenderness. Much of it remains
undeciphered and unexplained. But on the second terrace is recorded, on
one side, the life of Sakya-Muni; on the other, his previous
incarnations. The latter, taken from the "Jatakas," are naïve and
charming apologues.
For example: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a hare. In order to
test him Indra came down from heaven in the guise of a traveller.
Exhausted and faint, he asked the animals for help. An otter brought
fish, a monkey fruit, a jackal a cup of milk. But the hare had nothing
to give. So he threw himself into a fire, that the wanderer might eat
his roasted flesh. Again: Once the Buddha lived upon earth as an
elephant. He was met by seven hundred travellers, lost and exhausted
with hunger. He told them where water would be found, and, near it, the
body of an elephant for food. Then, hastening to the spot, he flung
himself over a precipice, that he might provide the meal himself. Again:
Once the Buddha lived upon earth as a stag. A king, who was hunting him,
fell into a ravine. Whereupon the stag halted, descended, and helped him
home. All round the outer wall run these pictured lessons. And opposite
is shown the story of Sakya-Muni himself. We see the new-born child with
his feet on lotuses. We see the fatal encounter with poverty, sickness,
and death. We see the renunciation, the sojourn in the wilderness, the
attainment under the bo-tree, the preaching of the Truth. And all this
sculptured gospel seems to bring home to one, better than the volumes of
the learned, what Buddhism really meant to the masses of its followers.
It meant, surely, not the denial of the soul or of God, but that warm
impulse of pity and love that beats still in these tender and human
pictures. It meant not the hope or desire for extinction, but the
charming dream of thousands of lives, past and to come, in many forms,
many conditions, many diverse fates. The pessimism of the master is as
little likely as his high philosophy to have reached the mind or the
heart of the people. The whole history of Buddhism, indeed, shows that
it did not, and does not. What touched them in him was the saint and the
lover of animals and men. And this love it was that flowed in streams
over the world, leaving wherever it passed, in literature and art, in
pictures of flowers or mountains, in fables and poems and tales, the
trace of its warm and humanising flood.
Still, there is the other Buddhism, the Buddhism of the thinker; his
theory of human life, its value and purpose. And it was this that filled
my mind later as I sat on the summit next to a solemn Buddha against the
setting sun. For a long time I was silent, meditating his doctrine. Then
I spoke of children, and he said, "They grow old." I spoke of strong
men, and he said, "They grow weak." I spoke of their work and
achievement, and he said, "They die." The stars came out, and I spoke of
eternal law. He said, "One law concerns you--that which binds you to the
wheel of life." The moon rose, and I spoke of beauty. He said, "There is
one beauty--that of a soul redeemed from desire." Thereupon the West
stirred in me, and cried "No!" "Desire," it said, "is the heart and
essence of the world. It needs not and craves not extinction. It needs
and craves perfection. Youth passes; strength passes; life passes. Yes!
What of it? We have access to the youth, the strength, the life of the
world. Man is born to sorrow. Yes! But he feels it as tragedy and
redeems it. Not round life, not outside life, but through life is the
way. Desire more and more intense, because more and more pure; not
peace, but the plenitude of experience. Your foundation was false. You
thought man wanted rest. He does not. We at least do not, we of the
West. We want more labour; we want more stress; we want more passion.
Pain we accept, for it stings us into life. Strife we accept, for it
hardens us to strength We believe in action; we believe in desire. And
we believe that by them we shall attain." So the West broke out in me;
and I looked at him to see if he was moved. But the calm eye was
untroubled, unruffled the majestic brow, unperplexed the sweet, solemn
mouth. Secure in his Nirvana, he heard or he heard me not. He had
attained the life-in-death he sought. But I, I had not attained the life
in life. Unhelped by him, I must go my way. The East, perhaps, he had
understood. He had not understood the West.
XI
A MALAY THEATRE
It seems to be a principle among shipping companies so to arrange their
connections that the traveller should be compelled to spend some days in
Singapore. We evaded this necessity by taking a trip to Sumatra, but
even so a day and a night remained to be disposed of. We devoted the
morning to a bathe and a lunch at the Sea View Hotel, and the afternoon
to the Botanical Gardens, where the most attractive flowers are the
children and the most interesting gardeners their Chinese nurses. There
remained the evening, and we asked about amusements. There was a
bioscope, of course; there is always a bioscope; we had found one even
in the tiny town of Medan, in Sumatra. There was also an opera company,
performing the "Pink Girl." We seemed to know all about her without
going to see her. Was there nothing else? Yes; a Malay theatre. That
sounded attractive. So we took the tram through the Chinese quarter,
among the "Ah Sins" and "Hup Chows," where every one was either a tailor
or a washerman, and got down at a row of red lights. This was the
Alexandra Hall, and a bill informed us that the performers were the
Straits Opera Company. This dismayed us a little. Still, we paid our
dollars, and entered a dingy, dirty room, with a few Malays occupying
the back benches and a small group of Chinese women and children in
either balcony. We took our seats with half a dozen coloured aristocrats
in the front rows, and looked about us. We were the only Europeans. But,
to console us in our isolation, on either side of the proscenium was
painted a couple of Italians in the act of embracing as one only
embraces in opera. We glanced at our programme and saw that the play was
the "Moon Princess," and that Afrid, a genie, figured in the cast. It
was then, at least, Oriental, though it could hardly be Malay, and our
spirits rose. But the orchestra quickly damped them; there was a piano,
a violin, a 'cello, a clarionet, and a cornet, and from beginning to end
of the performance they were never in tune with themselves or with the
singers. And the music? It was sometimes Italian, sometimes Spanish,
never, as far as I could detect, Oriental, and always thoroughly and
frankly bad.
No matter! The curtain rose and displayed a garden. The Prince entered.
He was dressed in mediæval Italian costume (a style of dress, be it said
once for all, which was adopted by the whole company). With gestures of
ecstatic astonishment he applied his nose to the paper roses. Then he
advanced and appeared to sing, for his mouth moved; but the orchestra
drowned any notes he may have emitted. The song finished, he lay down
upon a couch and slept. Whereupon there entered an ugly little girl, in
a short white frock and black stockings and ribbons, with an expression
of fixed gloom upon her face, and began to move her feet and arms in a
parody of Oriental dancing. We thought at first that she was the Moon
Princess, and felt a pang of disappointment. But she turned out to be
the Spirit of Dreams; and presently she ushered in the real Princess,
with whom, on the spot, the Prince, unlike ourselves, became violently
enamoured. She vanished, and he woke to find her a vision. Despair of
the Prince; despair of the King; despair of the Queen, not unmixed with
rage, to judge from her voice and gestures. Consultation of an
astrologer. Flight of the Prince in search of his beloved. Universal
bewilderment and incompetence, such as may be witnessed any day in the
East when anything happens at all out of the ordinary way. At this point
enter the comic relief, in the form of woodcutters. I am inclined to
suppose, from the delight of the audience, that there was something
genuine here. But whatever it was we were unable to follow it.
Eventually the woodcutters met Afrid, whether by chance or design I
could not discover. At any rate, their reception was rough. To borrow
the words of the synopsis, "a big fight arose and they were thrown to
space"; but not till they had been pulled by the hair and ears,
throttled and pummelled, to the general satisfaction, for something like
half an hour.
The next scenes were equally vigorous. The synopsis describes them thus:
"Several young princes went to Genie Janar, the father of the Moon
Princess, to demand her in marriage. Afrid, a genie, met the princes,
and, after having a row, they were all thrown away." The row was
peculiar. Afrid took them on one by one. The combatants walked round one
another, back to back, making feints in the air. Then the Prince got a
blow in, which Afrid pretended to feel. But suddenly, with a hoarse
laugh, he rushed again upon the foe, seized him by the throat or the
arm, and (I cannot improve on the phrase) "threw him away." After all
four princes were thus disposed of I left, being assured of a happy
ending by the account of the concluding scene: "The Prince then took the
Moon Princess to his father's kingdom, where he was married to her
amidst great rejoicings."
Comment perhaps is superfluous. But as I went home in my rickshaw my
mind went back to those evenings in India when I had seen Indian boys
perform to Indian music dances and plays in honour of Krishna, and to
the Bengal village where the assembled inhabitants had sung us hymns
composed by their native saint. And I remembered that everywhere, in
Egypt, in India, in Java, in Sumatra, in Japan, the gramophone
harmonium is displacing the native instruments; and that the
bioscope--that great instrument of education--is familiarising the
peasants of the East with all that is most vulgar and most shoddy in the
humour and sentiment of the West.
The Westernising of the East must come, no doubt, and ought to come. But
in the process what by-products of waste, or worse! Once, surely, there
must have been a genuine "Malay theatre." This is what Europe has made
of it.