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the non-rational, the proper and the passionate. But Indians, I believe, live in more centuries at the same time than most other people . . . p 43

Where else in the world is the promise that something will be "finalized" used with such magic evasion? But it often expresses only the grim determination to pretend to be striving toward a definite goal - and to postpone the reaching of that goal at all cost. p 43-44

The worship of Siva, the subtlest, and ins some ways the most advanced of all conceptions of a deity, is centered eternally in this strange and unwholesome town. (Benares) p 238

Yet in its Indian home what a foul religion this is. Benares itself filthy symbolises the great faith which finds itself centered there. Dark and damp and narrow are her entries and her streets foul smelling with hot and luscious stenches. The marigold, the fit symbol of lust, flares in daisy chains along her every street, and in the hot stagnant courts both air and sun

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are shut off by the dense foliage overhead of her matted pipals. You will find sleek bulls, good-natured pirates of the fruit and confectionery stalls, living emblems of virility, rambling loose in her narrowest streets, and the crash of cymbals and the monotone of drums make hideous discord from behind walls into which the wholesome light of day has never penetrated. No centre of Indian life has been less affected by our presence than Benares. The European quarter lies two miles away near the railway station, and most visitors know little more of this labyrinth of dirty and foetid passages and stairs and courts and tunnels, which like a human warren, undermines the mass of buildings on the river-bank, than can be seen from the platform of a river-boat or a hasty plunge into the slums which encircle the golden temple. Yet if you would understand the life of India this is the place where, and where only it can be learned. p 238-239

from under the sun by Perceval Landon

Doubleday, Page& Co New York 1907