In a few months,—I hope, indeed, in a few weeks,—we shall send up the Penal Code to Government. We have got rid of the punishment of death, except in the case of aggravated treason and wilful murder. We shall also get rid indirectly of everything that can properly be called slavery in India. There will remain civil claims on particular people for particular services, which claims may be enforced by civil action; but no person will be entitled, on the plea of being the master of another, to do anything to that other which it would be an offence to do to a free-man.
Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. We find it difficult,—indeed, in some places impossible,—to provide instruction for all who want it. At the single town of Hoogly fourteen hundred boys are learning English. The effect of this education on the Hindoos is prodigious. No Hindoo, who has received an English education, ever remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as matter of policy; but many profess themselves pure Deists, and some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytise; without the smallest interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the prospect.
I have been a sincere mourner for Mill. He and I were on the best terms, and his services at the India House were never so much needed as at this time. I had a most kind letter from him a few weeks before I heard of his death. He has a son just come out, to whom I have shown such little attentions as are in my power.
Within half a year after the time when you read this we shall be making arrangements for our return. The feelings with which I look forward to that return I cannot express. Perhaps I should be wise to continue here longer, in order to enjoy during a greater number of months the delusion,—for I know that it will prove a delusion,—of this delightful hope. I feel as if I never could be unhappy in my own country; as if to exist on English ground and among English people, seeing the old familiar sights and hearing the sound of my mother tongue, would be enough for me. This cannot be; yet some days of intense happiness I shall surely have; and one of those will be the day when I again see my dear father and sisters.
Ever yours most affectionately T. B. MACAULAY.
Calcutta: November 30, 1836.
Dear Ellis,—How the months run away! Here is another cold season; morning fogs, cloth coats, green peas, new potatoes, and all the accompaniments of a Bengal winter. As to my private life, it has glided on, since I wrote to you last, in the most peaceful monotony. If it were not for the books which I read, and for the bodily and mental growth of my dear little niece, I should have no mark to distinguish one part of the year from another. Greek and Latin, breakfast; business, an evening walk with a book, a drive after sunset, dinner, coffee, my bed,—there you have the history of a day. My classical studies go on vigorously. I have read Demosthenes twice,—I need not say with what delight and admiration. I am now deep in Isocrates and from him I shall pass to Lysias. I have finished Diodorus Siculus at last, after dawdling over him at odd times ever since last March. He is a stupid, credulous, prosing old ass; yet I heartily wish that we had a good deal more of him. I have read Arrian's expedition of Alexander, together with Quintus Curtius. I have at stray hours read Longus's Romance and Xenophon's Ephesiaca; and I mean to go through Heliodorus, and Achilles Tatius, in the same way. Longus is prodigiously absurd; but there is often an exquisite prettiness in the style. Xenophon's Novel is the basest thing to be found in Greek. [Xenophon the Ephesian lived in the third or fourth century of the Christian era. At the end of his work Macaulay has written: "A most stupid worthless performance, below the lowest trash of an English circulating library." Achilles Tatius he disposes of with the words "Detestable trash;" and the Aethiopics of Heliodorus, which he appears to have finished on Easter-day, 1837, he pronounces "The best of the Greek Romances, which is not saying much for it.">[ It was discovered at Florence, little more than a hundred years ago, by an English envoy. Nothing so detestable ever came from the Minerva Press. I have read Theocritus again, and like him better than ever.
As to Latin, I made a heroic attempt on Pliny's Natural History; but I stuck after getting through about a quarter of it. I have read Ammianus Marcellinus, the worst written book in ancient Latin. The style would disgrace a monk of the tenth century; but Marcellinus has many of the substantial qualities of a good historian. I have gone through the Augustan history, and much other trash relating to the lower empire; curious as illustrating the state of society, but utterly worthless as composition. I have read Statius again and thought him as bad as ever. I really found only two lines worthy of a great poet in all the Thebais. They are these. What do you think of my taste?
"Clamorem, bello qualis supremus apertis
Urbibus, aut pelago jam descendente carina."
I am now busy with Quintilian and Lucan, both excellent writers. The dream of Pompey in the seventh book of the Pharsalia is a very noble piece of writing. I hardly know an instance in poetry of so great an effect produced by means so simple. There is something irresistibly pathetic in the lines