Page:Letters from Abroad.pdf/30

 21

God. It would be an insult to humanity, if I use the sacred energy of my moral indignation for the purpose of spreading a blind passion all over my country. It would be like using the fire from the altar of Jajna for the purpose of incendiarism. Please ask Suren to translate into English the series of my papers which I wrote during the great political excitement over the partition of Bengal. They will.be useful in thé present situation.

Dinner is announced—the time is approaching for our departure—so I may say ‘God be with you, and take my leave.

Recently I chanced to find a copy of Professor Lowes Dickenson’s report of his travels in the East. It made me realise clearly the mentality of the British people in their relation to India. When the author indicates, in it, the utter difference of their temperament from ours, it fills me with despair at the unnaturalness of our relationship, which is so humiliating on our side and so demoralising on theirs.

In-the pamphlet, he quotes, with approval, a remark made to him by an Englishman, an officer in India, whom he describes as “intelligent and enlightened”, It is about the maintaining by Englishmen of an impassable social gulf between themselves and the people of India, and it says: