Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/35

 had served us when we were struggling to keep a precarious foothold on the coasts of India.

Such great and rapid changes could not be worked without leaving sore grudges and dangerous cankers of discontent. Our policy had been so much dictated by selfish strength, that it is no wonder if the natives should conceive respect rather than love for us. Even after higher motives began to come into play, our best intentions were apt to be misunderstood by those placed under us, or to be foiled by our own want of sympathy with and our ignorance of their feelings. The strong points and the weak ones of the two races are almost poles apart, and neither has proved ready to learn from the other. Our characteristic virtues of truth and honesty are hardly comprehensible to the slavish Oriental, who for his part displays a flattering courtesy and gentle kindliness, with which appears in harsh contrast our frankly blunt masterfulness, often degenerating into insolence of manner and foolish contempt for all that is not English. While many of our best officers have shown a spirit of enlightened and conscientious interest in their duties, the average Briton, who goes out to India merely to gain money more easily than at home, is unhappily too seldom the man to conciliate the prejudices of those whom he treats as contemptible "niggers,"