Dickens's England (41 page)

Henry Stanley, ‘Address to the British Association' (1872)

EYES ON AFRICA

‘You find me, my dears,' said Mrs Jellyby, snuffing the two great office candles in tin candlesticks which made the room taste strongly of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), ‘you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies, and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.'

As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very gratifying.

‘It
is
gratifying,' said Mrs Jellyby. ‘It involves the devotion of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that
you
never turned your thoughts to Africa.'

This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me, that I was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate –

‘The finest climate in the world!' said Mrs Jellyby.

‘Indeed, ma'am?'

‘Certainly. With precaution,' said Mrs Jellyby. ‘You may go into Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with Africa.'

I said, ‘No doubt.' – I meant as to Holborn.

‘If you would like,' said Mrs Jellyby, putting a number of papers towards us, ‘to look over some remarks on that head, and on the general subject (which have been extensively circulated), while I finish a letter I am now dictating – to my eldest daughter, who is my amanuensis . . . Where are you, Caddy?'

‘“Presents her compliments to Mr Swallow, and begs –”' said Caddy.

‘“And begs”,' said Mrs Jellyby, dictating, ‘“to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project” – No, Peepy! Not on any account!'

Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most – the bruises or the dirt. Mrs Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she did everything, ‘Go along, you naughty Peepy!' and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.

Charles Dickens,
Bleak House
(1853)

ORIENTAL VISIONS

Southern Asia, in general, is the seat of awful images and associations. As the cradle of the human race, if on no other ground, it would alone have a dim, reverential feeling connected with it. But there are other reasons. No man can pretend that the wild, barbarous and capricious superstitions of Africa, or of savage tribes elsewhere, affect him in the way that he is affected by the ancient, monumental and elaborate religions of Hindustan. The mere antiquity of Asiatic things, of their institutions, histories, above all, of their mythologies, etc., is so impressive, that to me the vast age of the race and name overpowers the sense of youth in the individual. A young Chinese seems to me an antediluvian man renewed. Even Englishmen, though not bred in any knowledge of such institutions, cannot but shudder at the mystic sublimity of
castes
that have flowed apart, and refused to mix, through such immemorial tracts of time . . . South-eastern Asia is, and has been for thousands of years, the part of the earth most swarming with human life . . . Man is a weed in those regions. . . . All this, and much more than I can say, the reader must enter into, before he can comprehend the unimaginable horror which these dreams of Oriental imagery and mythological tortures impressed upon me. Under the connecting feeling of tropical heat and vertical sunlights, I brought together all creatures . . . and assembled them together in China or Hindustan. From kindred feelings, I soon brought Egypt and her gods under the same law . . . I fled from the walk of Bramah through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Shiva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris . . . I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and was laid, confounded with all unutterable abortions, amongst reeds and Nilotic mud.

Thomas De Quincey,
Confessions of an English Opium Eater
(1821)

FROM ‘LINES TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA'

Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly,

And tempests make a soda-water sea,

Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly,

And think of me! . . .

Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowleth,

Making a midnight meal of he and she,

Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth,

And think of me!

Go where the serpent dangerously coileth,

Or lies along at full length like a tree,

Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth,

And think of me!

Go to the land of muslin and nankeening,       [nankeen cotton]

And parasols of straw where hats should be,

Go to the land of slaves and palankeening,       [covered litter]

And think of me!

Go to the land of Jungle and of vast hills,

And tall bamboos – may none
bamboozle
thee!

Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles,

And think of me!

Go where a cook must always be a currier,

And parch the peppered palate like a pea,

Go where the fierce mosquito is a worrier,

And think of me!

Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes,

Consigned for wedlock to Calcutta's quay,

Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes,

And think of me! . . .

Thomas Hood, early nineteenth century

THE EXPENSES

Another young lady of twenty-four, very weak and delicate; her husband is in the Punjab (£6,000 of salary, £1,200 for the expenses of his establishment); she has been for two years in Europe with an affection of the throat, which will return as soon as she returns to India; four young children; they are sent to Europe before they are two years old; the Indian climate kills them; there are here entire boarding schools here recruited by these little Anglo-Indians.

Hippolyte Taine (trans. W.F. Rae),
Notes on England
(1872)

BEWARE THE WILY ORIENTAL

At the College at Haileybury, about 90 gentlemen between the ages of 17 and 20 are instructed in the oriental languages, in the principles of morals, law, logic, and jurisprudence, and are fitted for the high requirements of the civil service in India. . . . The training he receives is of the character that will best enable him to cope with the subtlety of the Hindu intellect, to track the process of intrigue in the courts of native princes – and to make himself familiar with all the phases of the Oriental vices of deceit, dissimulation and treachery. To do this efficiently, presupposes no inconsiderable acquaintance with the springs of human action, the laws of the human mind, and the workings of the human heart. These subjects form a portion of the study at Haileybury.

Anon., ‘An Account of the East India Company's Colleges at Haileybury and Addiscombe',
The Times
(1849)

TIPPOO'S TIGER

[Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum]

January 14th, 1828

To see the India House, where there are many remarkable curiosities. Among them is Tippoo Sahib's dream-book . . . his armour, a part of his golden throne, and an odd sort of barrel-organ, are also preserved here. The latter is concealed in the belly of a very well-represented metal tiger, of natural colours and size. Under the tiger lies an Englishman in scarlet uniform, whom he is tearing to pieces; and by turning the handle, the cries and moans of a man in the agonies of death, terrifically interspersed with the roaring and growling of the tiger, are imitated with great truth.

Prince von Pückler-Muskau (trans. S. Austin),
Tour by a German Prince
(1832)

PROFIT AND INDIA

Absurd and profitless, however, as are the ancient chronicles of first-class empires in general, it would be difficult to find any which disclose so disgusting a picture of human life as the acknowledged histories of early India. Beginning with the impossible, and steadily progressing towards the improbable, the veracious registers come down to the probable – or, maybe, the true – and tell of arbitrary sovereigns with corrupt ministers and favourite mistresses, of intrigues and assassinations, battles and brutalities, cowardice and cruelty, superstition and slavery, despotism and debauchery. Not a vestige of romance variegates the frightful tale; for love, which is the basis and essence of romance, has always been unknown to the Orientals, excepting in that impure state which people of sound morals and properly cultivated sensibilities resolutely refuse to countenance. . . . Let us, then, dismiss to the antiquary and the numismatologist everybody and everything pertaining to Indian history down to the period when England began to make acquaintance with Hindustan. . . . Let it suffice that the British are now absolute masters of the immense territory we have briefly described below, and that, by pursuing a mild system of rule, administering justice in an impartial spirit, exercising the most perfect toleration, fostering commerce, dispensing the blessings of knowledge, and keeping their powder dry, they are contributing alike to the happiness of the people and the glory and prosperity of their mother country.

[Working in India]

In the good old times, when the Hindus were looked upon merely as pigeons for plucking by the hawks of the West, when corruption polluted every description of public office, and the fruits of commerce were permitted to be blended with the spoils of the sword, India was regarded as a perfect El Dorado. Everybody who went out expected to make a fortune in a few years, and to live, during its unholy accumulation, in a luxurious and magnificent style. And the result, in five cases out of ten, justified the anticipation. No candidate for an employment in India cared to inquire into the amount of the
quiddam honorarium
– the pay and allowances – of the offices he was to fill. The opportunity of receiving bribes with one hand, and multiplying them by advantageous mercantile speculation with the other, sufficiently satisfied the ambitious exile that his labours and patriotic sacrifices would receive abundant indemnification. He had no competition to fear from the efforts and the well-applied capital of the honest trader; for the jealousy of the East India Company, and the anxious care with which they guarded their commercial monopoly, kept British merchants out of the country, or suffered their existence only under certain restrictions . . .

‘Old times are changed – old manners gone'

The trading character of the East India Company is at an end – no ‘filthy drachmas' soothe the itching palms of the administrators of the law – no mercantile functions are blended with the collection of the revenue, the conduct of diplomatic affairs, or the exercise of the profession of arms. The advantages of service are confined to the receipt of pay and allowances, the enjoyment of local rank, and an assured competence in old age. . . . As a measure, therefore, fraught with promise of fortune, the going to India at the present day is a species of hallucination. . . . Decent competency, therefore, in the long run, is all that can reasonably be looked for.

An Old Resident,
Real Life in India
(1847)

CALCUTTA AND NEMESIS

New sights and sounds . . . met him at every turn. There were the scorching sun and almost fearful verdure of Bengal; the ceaseless hum of almost unseen animal life; the white, flat-roofed, hundred-doored palaces of the European inhabitants; the mud hovels of the swarming natives; the natives themselves, and their strange language; the dull, broad Hooghly, bearing down the dead bodies of Hindus, glad to have their last home in its holy waters; bearing, too, the living ships of less revering nations to all parts of the globe; there, above all, were the palm and the banyan tree, so alive with oriental association, speaking of a time ere yet that British power, now so manifest in all directions, had emerged from infancy in its own island cradle; when the same scene might have been witnessed here – the same scorching sky – the same rich vegetation – the same funereal river; while primeval Brahmins, sitting in primeval groves, asked, ‘Where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding?' Mixed with the first impressions of outward objects arose, in Oakfield's mind, that wonder which must more or less strike everyone on first arrival in India; which may well follow them all the days of their sojourn there – for most wonderful it is – at the extraordinary fact of British domination, so manifest everywhere; apparently so firmly planted in the soil, and yet so manifestly separate from it; so that while it was impossible to fancy the power being swept away, it was easy to look round and think of it as gone; the prominent feature in the picture, still, were it once removed, the picture would seem almost the same without it. But his wonder was reverent, not unmixed with awe, for he felt how surely Nemesis attended upon the power which he witnessed, and had doubts whether Nemesis had been altogether satisfied.

W.D. Arnold,
Oakfield, or, Fellowship in the East
(1853)

NEMESIS

[After the Indian Mutiny of 1857]

‘Badminton'

Hardly a shot from the gate we stormed,

Under the Moree battlement's shade;

Close to the glacis our game was formed,

There had the fight been, and there we played.

Lightly the demoiselles tittered and leapt,