It often seems to me that we do not sufficiently value the best things in life, particularly some of the pleasures and delights that are always within our reach. There are, for instance, certain books—do they not lead us into the society of the best and noblest of our fellows, mould our thoughts and guide our opinions, act on us as a happy influence to awaken and stimulate independent thought and reasoning? It is wrong to pass over such books in silence, for to do so is to leave unnoticed pleasures for which many a mind may yearn. To this category belongs, in my opinion, “Indian and Home Memories,” a book as fresh now as on the first day of publication, whose author, Sir Henry Cotton, having spent more than thirty-five years of his life in India and occupied there the responsible posts, first of judge, and later on of Lieutenant-Governor of Assam, was a great authority on Indian affairs. On his return to England in 1906, Sir Henry was elected a Member of Parliament, where his defence of Indian feelings has always been conspicuous by its solid foundation on fact and experience, and where his past judicial activity served him in such good stead, as much from the dialectical standpoint as from that of an extreme conscientiousness in relation to every question upon which he touched.

Of Sir Henry’s reminiscences I will refer to only such as concern ourselves—in other words, the pages that touch upon Russia’s role in Tibet, and upon the author’s interview with that sincere friend of Russia and that enthusiastic champion of sobriety, the great Gladstone. Let me turn, first of all, to far-away Tibet, and afterwards to the question that unhappily touches us so closely, that of the unrestrained sale and consumption of alcohol, so rapidly abolished by the Imperial Order and infamously reintroduced by the Bolsheviks, together with their other infamous measures.

It is obvious from Sir Henry’s descriptions that every mention of Russia’s policy in Asia was immediately converted by Lord Beaconsfield and his party into a scare. Even the Viceroy of India at the time, a man of wide culture and intelligence, did not escape this contagion, and on one occasion, indeed, the rumour having reached Simla that a stray Mongolian Buddhist had forced his way to the almost unapproachable Dalai Lhama, he grew seriously alarmed, and saw in the incident a dangerous Russian intrigue. These feelings, however, did not prevent the Anglo-Russian Entente from becoming a fact some years later.

But let us return to the distant timorous Tibet of that time, whose somewhat childlike prayer to its gods was that it might be left in peace and saved from the attentions of any uninvited guests that may find excuse or reason for entering its sacred precincts. Tibet, with its beloved Dalai Lhama, had acknowledged the supremacy of China, and was, as it seems, perfectly happy and contented in its inviolable isolation: thanks to the distance that separated her from her ally, and turned that intimacy into a very platonic one. In England, however, at that time, they grew excited on account of the above-mentioned Mongolian, and sent to Lhassa the ironically called “peace-loving expedition.” Sir Henry, however, at the time did not give it that euphemistic title. Things have changed, however, even in distant Tibet. I do not know whether a curious report has reached English ears to the effect that the last Dalai Lhama, so far from being afraid of foreign faces, some years later even negotiated with Russia for his personal visit to the Emperor Nicholas II. This naturally would have been a great event in Tibet, and something new and very amusing for Petrograd.

Let us turn now to another question touched upon by Sir Henry, a question of vital interest to Russia—that of sobriety. I will quote Sir Henry’s words on this subject, in connection with his reminiscences of that kind Slavophil, Gladstone:

“I found Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone quite alone, with the exception of Mrs. Drew, who was not well enough to come to table, and remained lying on a couch. There were no servants admitted during the meal, so that complete privacy and frankness of conversation was possible, and we helped ourselves from the sideboard, Mr. Gladstone refusing assistance in carving or in any other way. He spoke of his departed son William with emotion, and pressed me to tell him of my recollections of him as a young man. After that the conversation somehow drifted on temperance, and he indulged in reminiscences of his own past. In his youth there had been heavy drinking at table, especially of port, in which he had himself shared, but he had early broken himself of the habit. ‘By drinking nothing,’ said he, ‘you can easily cure yourself from any desire to drink. And so I trained myself until during a long day’s tramping on the Scotch moors I would need to drink nothing at all, not even water. Give me now a glass or two of good sound claret and I want no more.’ Then he asked me what I was accustomed to drink in India, and I said two or three long glasses of whisky and soda. ‘Too much!’ he interposed; ‘one a day should be enough.’ And when I ventured to suggest that with the heat and exhaustion of the climate some greater stimulus than that was occasionally wanted—‘Not at all, not at all.’”

“Then,” continues Sir Henry Cotton, “I boldly raised the subject of India, and referred to the difficulties and intricacies of the problem we were destined to face in that country. He lifted his hands, and in a tone of pathos cried: ‘All true! all true! Of that I feel sure. But who is enough for these things? It all comes too late for me. I am too old to take up any big question now! At last he said he must rest.”

This little page of Gladstonian reminiscences interests me, and reminds me of countless occasions on which Gladstone spoke of the advisability of encouraging tea-drinking among the people. Indeed, there were many who even laughed at his enthusiastic advocacy of this harmless beverage. He himself, I am told, never limited himself to one large cup, but could do with many, and that draws a curious parallel between the great Gladstone and some of my Tamboff peasants, on the occasions when they came to tell me their troubles, and I also offered them tea.

It has always been my dream to see India, and it was also the dream of my brother Alexander to inspect the magnificent scenery, the numerous monuments, the different striking nationalities, the beauty of which has often been described in Russian books, and is grandly painted by our Vereschagin. When I was in England during the Slavonic agitation I had the chance of being asked to go out to stay with an English official. The invitation was tempting—but at that time I was very young, and suddenly got frightened at the idea that the presence of a Russian in an English official house in India could do harm to my host. So I declined the invitation, an action which, of course, was absurd, as they were sure to know their interests better than I. That did not prevent me, however, from travelling in my imagination to Hindustan, and I naturally enjoyed conversations on India, and I liked to see that Sir Henry, with all his sympathies for the Indian people, was always guided by his great sense of duties to his own country. However that may be, his remarks testify to the outspokenness of his political views.