Ootacamund and Anglo-Indian Life 339 



Few and far between there are to be found women 

 who will make a big splash in the future, who have 

 started circles in quiet tarns which are widening still. 



To affect deep interest in things native is incorrect. 

 A lady was asked what she had seen of the people since 

 she came out. " Oh ! nothing," said she. " Thank 

 goodness, I know nothing at all about them, and don't 

 wish to ; really, I think the less one sees and knows 

 about them the better. As for Hindustani, I should 

 never dream of trying to learn it ! " 



India is the paradise, neither of young girls nor 

 married women, but of the middle-aged man. London 

 to women, Paris to girls, fling open the golden gates ; 

 but in India it is the middle-aged man who wears 

 the crown. 



Penniless youth, making or marring its fortune, 

 is little accounted of; the omnipotent god in India 

 is the everlasting rupee, and by their rupees ye shall 

 know them (or not know them). At the age of forty 

 or thereabouts it is " high in the service" or, " has had 

 raf id promotion" ; such a thing as u the wrong side of 

 forty " is not breathed. It is then that Society beckons 

 and hails the fortunate individual as a " young man," 

 and invitations to dinners and moonlight picnics 

 positively romp in. 



A couplet runs, 



It is not wealth, nor rank, nor state, 

 But get-up-and-git that makes men great. 



But greatness in India depends upon one book a 



