LONG RESIDENCE IN INDIA 189 



to the extreme point of slow. Let us not 

 forget 



" With what a leaden and retarding weight 

 Does expectation load the wings of time." 



It is incessantly being impressed upon me that a 

 prolonged residence in the country is an essential 

 condition to any knowledge of India. Doubtless 

 in India as elsewhere intimacy with the inhabi- 

 tants, topographical knowledge, and personal 

 experience of the special conditions which prevail, 

 present inestimable advantages, but after all 

 human nature is human nature all the world over. 



It is the wider knowledge of the world rather 

 than the restricted knowledge of India which I 

 have so often found lacking in those who have to 

 guide the destinies of this country. How com- 

 pletely a man who has never set foot on Indian 

 soil can grasp the fundamental principles which 

 govern some of our difficulties is well exemplified 

 in Lord Morley. Would thirty years' residence 

 in India have enabled him to express with greater 

 accuracy or more precision the movement with 

 which here we are so conversant and which he 

 himself has denned as a living movement in the 

 mind of the peoples, a movement for objects which 

 we ourselves have taught them to think desirable 

 objects, and he goes on to say in that perfect 

 English of which he is master: " Much of this 

 movement arises from the fact that there is now 

 a large body of educated Indians who have been 

 fed, at our example and our instigation, upon some 

 of the great teachers and masters of this country- 

 Milton, Burke, Macaulay, Mill, and Spencer. 

 Surely it is a mistake in us not to realise that these 

 masters should have mighty force and irresistible 

 influence. Who can be surprised that educated 

 Indians who read those high masters and teachers 



