Then
He Will Discover That The English Are Not Brave, Nor Clever, Nor
Generous, Nor Civilised, Nor Anything But Surpassing Rogues; That Every
Official Takes Bribes, That Their Manners Are Utterly Offensive, And
That They Are Rank Infidels.
Then he will descant complacently upon the
probability of a general Bartholomew's Day in the East, and look
forward
To the hour when enlightened Young India will arise and drive
the "foul invader" from the land.[FN#12] Then he will submit his
political opinions nakedly, that India should be wrested from the
Company and given to the Queen, or taken from the Queen and given to
the French. If the Indian has been a European traveller, so much the
worse for you. He has blushed to own,-explaining, however , conquest by
bribery,-that 50,000 Englishmen hold 150,000,000 of his compatriots in
thrall, and for aught you know, republicanism may have become his idol.
He has lost all fear of the white face, and having been accustomed to
unburden his mind in
"The land where, girt by friend or foe,
A man may say the thing he will,"-
he pursues the same course in other lands where it is exceedingly
misplaced. His doctrines of liberty and
[p.39]equality he applies to you personally and practically, by not
rising when you enter or leave the room,-at first you could scarcely
induce him to sit down,-by not offering you his pipe, by turning away
when you address him; in fact, by a variety of similar small affronts
which none knows better to manage skilfully and with almost impalpable
gradations.
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