This was the place where I bought my little girls last year, and it is a curious coincidence, that their nominal father, who went to the Punjâb and took service with Shere Singh, has left him, and arrived at this place last night, found Rosina’s tent, woke her up in the middle of the night, and the little girls too, and cried and sobbed and kissed the children, and wanted very much to have them back again. They are so afraid he will carry them off, that they will not lose sight of Rosina for a moment. Shere Singh gave this man a rupee a day to teach his cook English cookery like ours. The man had only waited at our table, so his imitation of an English cuisine must have been faint and nasty.
Thanjou, Saturday, Nov. 9.
The dear overland post came in just as we came off the march, and were sitting in front of the tents, sipping gritty tea, dusty up to the eyes, and with a wretched ‘up-before-breakfast’ feeling, which evinces itself in different manners: X. and Z. sneeze at each other; W. O. smokes a double allowance; F. suffers from hunger; I yawn; G. groans and turns black; the doctor scolds C. because the road was dusty, and A. rushes off to business; but this bad bit was cut short by that packet.
I know so well all you say, dearest, about these weary feelings of life; not that you have any right to them, because you have so many young lives growing up round you—first volumes of novels that you ought to carry on to third volumes.
I have a right to feel vapid and tired and willing to lie down and rest; for during the last four years my life has been essentially an artificial life; and, moreover, from my bad health it is physically fatiguing, and I feel I am flagging much more than I ever expected to do. I should like to see you and to be at home again; but I have no wish to begin a fresh course of life—not from any quarrel with it, for I know nobody who is in fact more spoiled, as far as worldly prosperity goes. I never wish for a thing here that I cannot have, and G., who has always been a sort of idol to me, is, I really think, fonder of me than ever, and more dependent on me, as I am his only confidant. I feel I am of use to him, and that I am in my right place when I am by his side. Moreover, his government here has hitherto been singularly prosperous and his health very good, so that there is nothing outward to find fault with, and much to be thankful for. Still, I have had enough of it, and as people say in ships, there is a difficulty in ‘carrying on.’
‘My blood creeps now only in drops through its courses, and the heart that I had of old, stirs feebly and heavily within me.’ It is the change from youth to age, and made in unfamiliar scenes, so that it is the more felt. I never had any opinion of
The glories serenely adorning the close of our day,
The calm eve of our night;....
and never wanted the caution,—
Nor from the dregs of life hope to receive
What the first sprightly runnings would not give.