Notes of a Reader.
Reading edition
SERVANTS IN INDIA.
[Captain Skinner, in his Excursions in India, makes the following sensible observations on the tyranny over servants in India:]
There are throughout the mountains many of the sacred shrubs of the Hindoos, which give great delight, as my servants fall in with them. They pick the leaves; and running with them to me, cry, "See, sir, see, our holy plants are here!" and congratulate each other on having found some indication of a better land than they are generally inclined to consider the country of the Pariahs. The happiness these simple remembrances shed over the whole party is so enlivening, that every distress and fatigue seems to be forgotten. When we behold a servant approaching with a sprig of the Dona in his hand, we hail it as the olive-branch, that denotes peace and good-will for the rest of the day, if, as must sometimes be the case, they have been in any way interrupted.
Even these little incidents speak so warmly in favour of the Hindoo disposition, that, in spite of much that may be uncongenial to an European in their character, they cannot fail to inspire him with esteem, if not affection. I wish that many of my countrymen would learn to believe that the natives are endowed with feelings, and surely they may gather such an inference from many a similar trait to the one I have related. Hardness of heart can never be allied to artless simplicity: that mind must possess a higher degree of sensibility and refinement, that can unlock its long-confined recollections by so light a spring as a wild flower.
I have often witnessed, with wonder and sorrow, an English gentleman stoop to the basest tyranny over his servants, without even the poor excuse of anger, and frequently from no other reason than because he could not understand their language. The question, from the answer being unintelligible, is instantly followed by a blow. Such scenes are becoming more rare, and indeed are seldom acted but by the younger members of society; they are too frequent notwithstanding: and should any thing that has fallen from me here, induce the cruelly-disposed to reflect a little upon the impropriety and mischief of their conduct, when about to raise the hand against a native, and save one stripe to the passive people who are so much at the mercy of their masters' tempers, I shall indeed be proud.
[Again, speaking of the condition of servants, Captain Skinner remarks—]
It is impossible to view some members of the despised class without sorrow and pity, particularly those who are attached, in the lowest offices, to the establishments of the Europeans. They are the most melancholy race of beings, always alone, and apparently unhappy: they are scouted from the presence even of their fellow-servants. None but the mind of a poet could imagine such outcasts venturing to raise their thoughts to the beauty of a Brahmin's daughter; and a touching tale in such creative fancy, no doubt, it would make, for, from their outward appearances, I do not perceive why they should not be endowed with minds as sensitive at least as those of the castes above them. There are among them some very stout and handsome men; and it is ridiculous to see sometimes all their strength devoted to the charge of a sickly puppy;—to take care of dogs being their principal occupation!
Our attention has been drawn to the above passage in Captain Skinner's work, by its ready illustration of the views and conclusions of the late Dr. Knox, in his invaluable Spirit of Despotism, Section 2, "Oriental manners, and the ideas imbibed in youth, both in the East and West Indies, favourable to the spirit of despotism." How forcibly applicable, on the present occasion, is the following extract:—"from the intercourse of England with the East and West Indies, it is to be feared that something of a more servile spirit has been derived than was known among those who established the free constitutions of Europe, and than would have been adopted, or patiently borne, in ages of virtuous simplicity. A very numerous part of our countrymen spend their most susceptible age in those countries, where despotic manners remarkably prevail. They are themselves, when invested with office, treated by the natives with an idolatrous degree of reverence, which teaches them to expect a similar submission to their will, on their return to their own country. They have been accustomed to look up to personages greatly their superiors in rank and riches, with awe; and to look down on their inferiors in property with supreme contempt, as slaves of their will and ministers of their luxury. Equal laws and equal liberty at home appear to them saucy claims of the poor and the vulgar, which tend to divest riches of one of the greatest charms, over-bearing dominion. We do, indeed, import gorgeous silks and luscious sweets from the Indies, but we import, at the same time, the spirit of despotism, which adds deformity to the purple robe, and bitterness to the honied beverage." "That Oriental manners are unfavourable to liberty, is, I believe, universally conceded. The natives of the East Indies entertain not the idea of independence. They treat the Europeans, who go among them to acquire their riches, with a respect similar to the abject submission which they pay to their native despots. Young men, who in England scarcely possessed the rank of the gentry, are waited upon in India, with more attentive servility than is paid or required in many courts of Europe. Kings of England seldom assume the state enjoyed by an East India governor, or even by subordinate officers. Enriched at an early age, the adventurer returns to England. His property admits him to the higher circles of fashionable life. He aims at rivalling or excelling all the old nobility in the splendour of his mansions, the finery of his carriages, the number of his liveried train, the profusion of his tables, in every unmanly indulgence which an empty vanity can covet, and a full purse procure. Such a man, when he looks from the window of his superb mansion, and sees the people pass, cannot endure the idea, that they are of as much consequence as himself in the eye of the law; and that he dares not insult or oppress the unfortunate being who rakes his kennel or sweeps his chimney."
FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.
It is well known, that during the revolutionary troubles of France, not only all the churches were closed, but the Catholic and Protestant worship entirely forbidden; and, after the constitution of 1795, it was at the hazard of one's life that either the mass was heard, or any religious duty performed. It is evident that Robespierre, who unquestionably had a design which is now generally understood, was desirous, on the day of the fête of the Supreme Being, to bring back public opinion to the worship of the Deity. Eight months before, we had seen the Bishop of Paris, accompanied by his clergy, appear voluntarily at the bar of the Convention, to abjure the Christian faith and the Catholic religion. But it is not as generally known, that at that period Robespierre was not omnipotent, and could not carry his desires into effect. Numerous factions then disputed with him the supreme authority. It was not till the end of 1793, and the beginning of 1794, that his power was so completely established that he could venture to act up to his intentions.
Robespierre was then desirous to establish the worship of the Supreme Being, and the belief of the immortality of the soul. He felt that irreligion is the soul of anarchy, and it was not anarchy but despotism which he desired; and yet the very day after that magnificent fête in honour of the Supreme Being, a man of the highest celebrity in science, and as distinguished for virtue and probity as philosophic genius, Lavoisier, was led out to the scaffold. On the day following that, Madame Elizabeth, that Princess whom the executioners could not guillotine, till they had turned aside their eyes from the sight of her angelic visage, stained the same axe with her blood!—And a month after, Robespierre, who wished to restore order for his own purposes—who wished to still the bloody waves which for years had inundated the state, felt that all his efforts would be in vain if the masses who supported his power were not restrained and directed, because without order nothing but ravages and destruction can prevail. To ensure the government of the masses, it was indispensable that morality, religion, and belief should be established—and, to affect the multitude, that religion should be clothed in external forms. "My friend," said Voltaire, to the atheist Damilaville, "after you have supped on well-dressed partridges, drunk your sparkling champaigne, and slept on cushions of down in the arms of your mistress, I have no fear of you, though you do not believe in God.—-But if you are perishing of hunger, and I meet you in the corner of a wood, I would rather dispense with your company." But when Robespierre wished to bring back to something like discipline the crew of the vessel which was fast driving on the breakers, he found the thing was not so easy as he imagined. To destroy is easy—to rebuild is the difficulty. He was omnipotent to do evil; but the day that he gave the first sign of a disposition to return to order, the hands which he himself had stained with blood, marked his forehead with the fatal sign of destruction.
—Memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantes.
SOUNDS DURING THE NIGHT.
The great audibility of sounds during the night is a phenomenon of considerable interest, and one which had been observed even by the ancients. In crowded cities or in their vicinity, the effect was generally ascribed to the rest of animated beings, while in localities where such an explanation was inapplicable, it was supposed to arise from a favourable direction of the prevailing wind. Baron Humboldt was particularly struck with this phenomenon when he first heard the rushing of the great cataracts of the Orinoco in the plain which surrounds the mission of the Apures. These sounds he regarded as three times louder during the night than during the day. Some authors ascribed this fact to the cessation of the humming of insects, the singing of birds, and the action of the wind on the leaves of the trees, but M. Humboldt justly maintains that this cannot be the cause of it on the Orinoco, where the buzz of insects is much louder in the night than in the day, and where the breeze never rises till after sunset. Hence he was led to ascribe the phenomenon to the perfect transparency and uniform density of the air, which can exist only at night after the heat of the ground has been uniformly diffused through the atmosphere. When the rays of the sun have been beating on the ground during the day, currents of hot air of different temperatures, and consequently of different densities, are constantly ascending from the ground and mixing with the cold air above. The air thus ceases to be a homogeneous medium, and every person must have observed the effects of it upon objects seen through it which are very indistinctly visible, and have a tremulous motion, as if they were "dancing in the air." The very same effect is perceived when we look at objects through spirits and water that are not perfectly mixed, or when we view distant objects over a red hot poker or over a flame. In all these cases the light suffers refraction in passing from a medium of one density into a medium of a different density, and the refracted rays are constantly changing their direction as the different currents rise in succession. Analogous effects are produced when sound passes through a mixed medium, whether it consists of two different mediums or of one medium where portions of it have different densities. As sound moves with different velocities through media of different densities, the wave which produces the sound will be partly reflected in passing from one medium to the other, and the direction of the transmitted wave changed; and hence in passing through such media different portions of the wave will reach the ear at different times, and thus destroy the sharpness and distinctness of the sound. This may be proved by many striking facts. If we put a bell in a receiver containing a mixture of hydrogen gas and atmospheric air, the sound of the bell can scarcely be heard. During a shower of rain or of snow, noises are greatly deadened, and when sound is transmitted along an iron wire or an iron pipe of sufficient length, we actually hear two sounds, one transmitted more rapidly through the solid, and the other more slowly through the air. The same property is well illustrated by an elegant and easily repeated experiment of Chladni's. When sparkling champagne is poured into a tall glass till it is half full, the glass loses its power of ringing by a stroke upon its edge, and emits only a disagreeable and a puffy sound. This effect will continue while the wine is filled with bubbles of air, or as long as the effervescence lasts; but when the effervescence begins to subside, the sound becomes clearer and clearer, and the glass rings as usual when the air-bubbles have vanished. If we reproduce the effervescence by stirring the champagne with a piece of bread the glass will again cease to ring. The same experiment will succeed with other effervescing fluids.—Sir David Brewster.
No man is so insignificant as to be sure his example can do no hurt.