Periodically there is an Occidental agitation for the advancement and the emancipation of the women of the Orient. As far as that agitation aims at giving the women of the East medical succour in their hours of pain, as far as it seeks to teach them the best possibilities and the best care of their own bodies and of their children’s, it has my warmest sympathy; but when it attempts their disturbance, mental and moral, I deplore it. Intellectuality, education, enfranchisement, are all very fine, but happiness is far finer. Over-educate, abnormally develop woman’s intellect, create in her a longing for freedom which will gall her, and you destroy half her happiness. We are very learned, you and I who live in the West; we understand quadratic equations and we read Greek; we are man’s equal, or think we are. Let us be satisfied with our own big mental attainments, and let us leave the Marthas of the East their placid content, their sweet, unsophisticated happiness.
CHAPTER XXXV
AT SUBATHU, WHERE THE BAGPIPES PLAY AND THE LEPERS HIDE
We went from Bombay to Mhow,—such a desolate cantonment!—such a dâk bungalow! But we had a charming audience for our first funny little performance. The last time I had played—some months before in Bombay—the bill had been the Merchant of Venice, and we had had ample accessories of scenery and supernumeraries. This was very different; there were only four of us. When we were not on the stage we were rushing madly into another costume and another character; and the less said about the regimental scenery the better. But the regimental audience was ideal. Uncle’s Will, scenes from Hamlet, scenes from Othello, and sprinklings of recitations—they received them all with the greatest good-nature, and beamed upon us with hearty kindness.
Our next halt was at Allahabad, where we felt almost at home. We divided our nights between the Railroad Theatre and the Regimental Theatre, and our days went all too swiftly in the bazaars and in the barracks.
Then we went to Cawnpore. We played there, but for once in my life I felt that acting was a very secondary consideration. One could not think of one’s self, nor even of one’s work, when one stood for the first time upon that sadly sacred ground. I should, in time, no doubt, have grown used to being in Cawnpore, and have taken up right merrily the petty thread of my personal existence; but we were in Cawnpore but a few days, and all the time I seemed to hear the cries of women and children, and see the red-handed natives drunk with butchery.
An army friend went to Cawnpore with us, so that for the nonce our little “troupe” was augmented to five—quite a regiment. In Cawnpore I went through the bazaars very little, but we wandered back each day to the little graveyard that clusters about the Well, and to the Memorial Church. An uncle of my husband’s was killed at the Cawnpore massacre,—that saddened him and saddened me.
Lucknow and Agra were very beautiful, and greatly interesting; and through the streets of both marched the soldiers—our soldiers!
The Residency at Lucknow is a tomb commemorating the fidelity and devotion of English women. At Agra is the Tomb of Tombs—the most beautiful of all tombs. It tells the story of a man’s love and grief—love for a wife, and grief for her death.
On through Meerut and Muttra—through regiments of new friends and companies of old. How pleasant those days were, and how hot! Umballa was a place of horror.