us some permanganate of potash, and for the last hour I have been bathing the wrist, assisted by Bella, who has ruined two of my best handkerchiefs in the process. The damaged G. has just departed, and I do hope won't be much the worse. Such awful things happen here. You meet people well and strong one day and hear of their death the next. Death seems appallingly near. One isn't given time to be ill. Either you are quite well or else you are dead.
Now I must stop and go and dress, I see Bella fidgeting. When this reaches you the Old Year will be very near its end. I hate to let it go: it has been such a good old year. Is it that I forget the unpleasant parts? Perhaps, but in looking back I seem to remember only sunny days and pleasant things.
To you, my friend, I send every possible good wish for the New Year. May it be the best you have ever had. May it bring you health, wealth, and, above all, happiness.
"The world is so full of a number of things,
I am sure we should all be as happy as kings."
Isn't that a lovable sentiment?
Dec. 19.
I am trying to take an interest in Germany and the Germans for your sake, but, as I told you before, Germany is a place I know little or nothing about. France—that noble, fine land—I know and love well. Italy I should like better if there were not so many Madonnas and Children (or ought I to say Madonnas and Childs?) to look at; Switzerland is my darling own place, but Germany I have hitherto only associated with Goethe whom as a poet I dislike, large sausages, and theological doubts. Your description makes me feel that I may have misjudged the country and the people; in fact, your little town sounds a most attractive place to live in. No, I don't think I would expect you to make friends easily. I think you are the sort of man to have hosts of acquaintances and only one or two real friends. You know, you rather scare people. I think it is partly your manner and greatly your monocle; you have such a detached air, and often I have noticed you very unresponsive when people were trying to be amusing. Oh, I don't mean you are ever rude, but you are sometimes chilling. If I hadn't known from Boggley that you were, as he puts it, a perfect jewel, I think I should have shrunk away from before you that first day we met and sat next each other at lunch. I remember I talked a great deal of nonsense, partly, I think, because I was rather afraid of you; and somehow or other we have always gone on talking nonsense to each other since. It has become a habit.
But you don't really want to have a great crowd of friends, do you? It is only weak-minded people like myself who flop on any stranger's neck with protestations of undying affection. It is the easiest thing in the world for any Douglas that ever was to make friends: I think because we are always willing to laugh at the feeblest jest. Nothing endears one so quickly to one's fellow-beings as laughing at their jokes. We have a way, too, of making friends with any casual stranger we may meet in trains, or coach, or steamer. You superior people, who, ignoring your fellow-passengers, sit in a corner and read The Spectator, don't know what you miss. The thrilling stories I have listened to! Once I heard a circumstantial story of a wreck in the South Seas told by the plucky little wife of the captain, who had stayed by her husband's side—"Papa" she called him—while the ship slowly sank on a coral reef, and then drifted about in an open boat for days before they were rescued. It is Mother, however, who meets with the oddest adventures travelling. One day last summer I saw her off in the Scotch Express from Euston, comfortably seated in a corner with books and papers, expecting she would have a nice quiet day. The occupant of the other corner was a Russian lady, and the friend who saw her off asked Mother if she would see she had lunch all right, for she knew no English. This Mother readily promised, and the train started. Mother tried once or twice to speak to the creature, but, receiving only grunts in reply, began a book. She hadn't read the first chapter when the old gentleman opposite said sternly, "Your friend is fainting," and turning, Mother was just in time to catch the Russian as she slid to the floor. She wrestled with her for an hour, reviving her with smelling-salts, and making her comfortable with her air-cushion and rug, distracted all the time by the yelling of young infants somewhere near. As soon as she could leave her she went to see what was wrong, and found twin-babies making day hideous with their din, while their poor mother lay stretched on a seat, too ill to cope with them.
She was a missionary's wife, it turned out, on her way home, with no nurse and much malaria, so, of course, Mother had to stay and nurse the twins until luncheon was ready, when another Good Samaritan came and took a turn. While having luncheon she was hailed by a friend, lately left a widow, who insisted on Mother accompanying her to her compartment, where she wept on her shoulder while telling her all the details of her husband's last illness; then back again to nurse the Russian and the babies until the journey's end, when she emerged almost as hot, and crumpled, and exhausted as if she had run behind all the way.
How heartily, my friend, I agree with you about the tiresomeness of balls. I think it must be old age approaching, but I can't see any use in going off at the hour when, under happier circumstances, I would be thinking of bed, to a hot, crowded ballroom; and just at present Calcutta is simply congested with balls. I don't like things that cost a lot; simple little pleasures please me much more. To drive out to Tollygunge of an afternoon, have tea and a game of croquet, look at the picture papers, and come quietly home again, is to me the height of bliss.
Tollygunge is a club, some miles out of Calcutta, with a race-course, golf-links, croquet-lawns—a very delectable spot. The correct thing is to drive out on Sunday morning and have breakfast out in the open air. Then one sees everyone one knows, and it is very gay; but I think it is much pleasanter to drive out quietly in the afternoon.
The road to Tollygunge lies partly through the jungle, past clusters of native huts where little chocolate-coloured babies roll and chatter in the sunlit dust. You know, the jungle is quite near Calcutta. When I lie at nights and listen to the jackals howling, I remember Kipling's story, and wonder if we were driven out and the jungle were let in, how long it would be before Calcutta became a habitation for the beasts of the field.
Yesterday I drove out with Mrs. Townley and G., and three tired people we were, too tired even to play the gentle game of croquet; glad to sit still in comfortable chairs on the greensward and steep ourselves in the peace and quietness.
At tea, Chil the kite, hovering in mid-air, watched us jealously. Suddenly there was a swoop, a dark flutter of wings, a startled squeak from G., and our cake was gone. That's India!
Tea finished, while we still sat loath to leave, a curious odour forced itself upon our attention. G. sniffed. I sniffed. "Whatever is it?" asked G. Mrs. Townley pointed riverwards to where a thin column of blue-grey smoke rose and hung like a cloud in the hot, still air.
"It's a burning ghat," she said. "They are burning a body."
And that is India!
When one is feeling fairly peaceful and secure, something ghastly, like the smell of burning Hindoo, recalls to one the uncertainty of all things. We rose to go home, feeling depressed, the smell pursuing us.
I have two pieces of news for this letter.
First, Boggley can take a few days' holiday at Christmas, so he means to take me to Darjeeling to see if we can catch a glimpse of the snows. We shall only be there from Saturday afternoon till Monday at noon, and Boggley says that Kangchenjunga is often cloud-covered for weeks, so it is a mere chance whether we shall see it. But surely, surely Kangchenjunga won't be coy with me. I came to India, of course, in the first place to see Boggley, but in the second place to see the snows, and I can't believe that the gods will be so unkind as to deny a humble worshipper of great mountains a sight of the vision glorious.
The other piece of news is quite important.
Boggley has got a new billet. What it is I shan't try to explain, for I don't understand the
