The City of Dreadful Night

The City of Dreadful Night

We are all backwoodsmen and barbarians togetherwe others dwelling beyond the Ditch, in the outer darkness of the Mofussil. There are no such things as commissioners and heads of departments in the world, and there is only one city in India. Bombay is too green, too pretty, and too stragglesome; and Madras died ever so long ago. Let us take off our hats to Calcutta, the many-sided, the smoky, the magnificent, as we drive in over the Hugli Bridge in the dawn of a still February morning. We have left India behind us at Howrah Station, and now we enter foreign parts. No, not wholly foreign. Say rather too familiar. All men of certain age know the feeling of caged irritationan illustration in the Graphic, a bar of music, or the light words of a friend{6} from home may set it ablazethat comes from the knowledge of our lost heritage of London. At home they, the other men, our equals, have at their disposal all that town can supplythe roar of the streets, the lights, the music, the pleasant places, the millions of their own kind, and a wilderness full of pretty, fresh-colored Englishwomen, theatres, and restaurants. It is their right. They accept it as such, and even affect to look upon it with contempt. And we, we have nothing except the few amusements that we painfully build up for ourselvesthe dolorous dissipations of gymkhanas where every one knows everybody else, or the chastened intoxication of dances where all engagements are booked, in ink, ten days ahead, and where everybodys antecedents are as patent as his or her method of waltzing. We have been deprived of our inheritance. The men at home are enjoying it all, not knowing how fair and rich it is, and we at the most can only fly westward for a few months and gorge what, properly speaking, should take seven or eight or ten luxurious years. That is the lost heritage of London; and the knowledge of the forfeiture, wilful or forced, comes to most men at times and seasons, and they get cross. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 61834
Author: Kipling, Rudyard
Release Date: Apr 14, 2020
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Farrand, Charles D