“While still on board ship I had been startled when I saw the rest of the passengers feeding on the flesh of animals. ‘By what right,’ I asked them, ‘do you kill other animals to feed upon their flesh?’ They could not answer, but they continued to eat their salted flesh as much as ever. For my part, I would have rather died than have eaten a piece of it. But now it is far worse. I can pass through no street in which there are not poor slaughtered animals, hung up either entire or cut into pieces. Every moment I hear the cries of agony and of alarm of the victims whom they are driving to the slaughter-house,—see their struggles against the murderous knife of the butcher. Ever and again I ask of one or other of the men who surround me, by what right they kill them and devour their flesh; but if I receive an answer, it is returned in phrases which mean nothing or in repulsive laughter.”
In fact the Hindu traveller had been but a brief space of time in Christian lands when he finds himself, almost unconsciously, in the position of a catechist rather than of a catechumen. One day, for example, he finds himself in the midst of a vast crowd, of all classes, hurrying to some spectacle. Inquiring the cause of so vast an assemblage, he learns that some persons are to be put to death with all the frightful circumstances of public executions. After travelling through a great part of Germany, he fixes his residence, for the purpose of study, in the University of Lindenberg. In the society of that place he meets with a young girl, Leonora, the daughter of a Secretary of Legation, who engages his admiration by her exceptional culture and refinement of mind. On the occasion of an excursion of a party of her father’s visitors, of some days, to an island on the neighbouring coast, the first discussion on humane dietetics takes place, when, being asked the reason of his eccentricity, he appeals to the ladies of the party, believing that he shall have at least their sympathy with the principles he lays down:—
“From you, ladies, doubtless I shall meet with approval. Tell me, could you, with your own hands, kill to-day a gentle Lamb, a soft Dove, with whom perhaps you yesterday were playing? You answer—No? You dare not say you could. If you were to say yes, you would, indeed, betray a hard heart. But why could you not? Why did it cause you anguish, when you saw a defenceless animal driven to slaughter? Because you felt, in your inmost soul, that it is wrong, that it is unjust to kill a defenceless and innocent being! With quite other feelings would you look on the death of a Tiger that attacks men, than on that of a Lamb who has done harm to no one. To the one action attaches, naturally, justice; to the other, injustice. Follow the inner promptings of your heart,—no longer sanction the slaughter of innocent beings by feeding on their bodies (beförden Sie nicht deren Tödtung dadurch dass Sie ihr Fleisch essen).”
This exhortation, to his surprise, was received by all “the softer sex” with coldness, and even with signs of impatience, excepting Leonora, who acknowledged the force of his appeal and promised to the best of her power to follow his example. Pleased and encouraged by her approval, he proceeds:—
“Assuredly it will not repent you to have formed this resolution. The man who, with firmly-grounded habits, denies himself something which lies in his power, to spare pain and death to living and sentient beings, must become milder and more loving. The man who steels himself against the feeling of compassion for the lower animals, will be more or less hard towards his own species; while he who shrinks from giving pain to other beings, will so much the more shrink from inflicting it upon his fellow men.”
Leonora, however, was a rare exception in his experience; and the more he saw of Christian customs, the less did he feel disposed to change his religion, which, by the way, was of an unexceptionable kind. Some time before his leaving Lindenberg, the secretary’s wife gave a dinner in his honour, which, in compliment to her guest, was without any flesh-dish. As a matter of course, the conversation soon turned upon Dietetics; and one of the guests, a cleric, challenged the Hindu to defend his principles. Mandaras had scarcely laid down the cardinal article of his creed as a fundamental principle in Ethics—that it is unjust to inflict suffering upon a living and sensitive being, which (as he insists) cannot be called in question without shaking the very foundations of Morality (welcher nicht die Sittenlehre in ihren Fundamenten erschüttern will)—when opponents arise on all sides of him. A doctor of medicine led the opposition, confidently affirming that the human frame itself proved men to be intended for flesh-eating. Mandaras replied that:—
“It seemed to him, on the contrary, that it is the bodily frame of man that especially declares against flesh-eating. The Tiger, the Lion, in short, all flesh-eating animals seized their prey, running, swimming, or flying, and tore it in pieces with their teeth or talons, devouring it there and then upon the spot. Man cannot catch other animals in this way, or tear them in pieces, and devour them as they are.... Besides he has higher, and not merely animal, impulses. The latter lead him to gluttony, intemperance, and many other vices. Providence has given him reason to prove what is right and what wrong, and power of will to avoid what he has discovered to be wrong. The doctor, however, in place of admitting this argument, grew all the warmer. ‘In all Nature,’ said he, ‘one sees how the lower existence is serviceable to the higher. As man does, so do other animals seize upon the weaker, and the weakest upon plants, &c.’”
To this the Hindu philosopher in vain replies, that the sphere of man, is wider, and ought therefore to be higher than that of other animals, for the larger the circle in which a being can freely move, the greater is the possible degree of his perfection; that, if we are to place ourselves on the plane of the carnivora in one point, why not in all, and recognise also treachery, fierceness, and murder in general, as proper to man that the different character of the Tiger, the Hyæna, the Wolf on the one side, and of the Elephant, the Camel, the Horse on the other, instruct us as to the mighty influence of food upon the disposition, and certainly not to the advantage of the flesh-eaters; that man is to strive not after the lower but the higher character, &c., &c. To this the hostess replies: “This may be all very beautiful and good, but how is the housekeeper to be so skilful as to provide for all her guests, if she is to withhold from them flesh dishes?” “Exactly as our housekeepers do in the Himalayan valley—exactly as our hostess does to-day,” rejoins Mandaras. He alleges many other arguments, and in particular the high degree of reasoning faculty, and even of moral feeling, exhibited by the miserable slaves of human tyranny. Various are the objections raised, which, it is needless to say, are successfully overthrown by the champion of Innocence, and the company disperse after a prolonged discussion.
The second division of the story takes us to the Valley of Suty, the Himalayan home of Mandaras, and introduces us to his amiable family. A young German, travelling in that region, chances to meet with the father of Urwasi (Mandaras’s betrothed), whom he finds bowed down with grief for the double loss of his daughter, who had pined away in the protracted absence of her lover and succumbed to the sickness of hope deferred, and of his destined son-in-law, who, upon his return to claim his mistress, had fallen (as it appeared) into a death-swoon at the shock of the terrible news awaiting him. The old man conducts the stranger to the scene of mourning, where Damajanti, the sister of Mandaras, with her friend Sunanda, is engaged in weaving garlands of flowers to deck the bier of her beloved brother. An interesting conversation follows between the European stranger and the Hindu ladies, who are worthy representatives of their countrywoman, Sakuntalà.[273] Accidentally they discover that he is a flesh-eater.
Sunanda: Is it possible that you really belong to those men who think it lawful to kill other beings to feed upon their bleeding limbs?