[8] We must learn their language better, or we must teach
them our own, before we can venture to introduce among them those
free institutions which would oblige us to meet them on equal terms
at the bar, on the bench, and in the senate.[9] Perhaps two of the
best secular works that were ever written upon the facilities and
operations of the human mind, and the duties of men in their
relations with each other, are those of Imam-ud-din Ghazzali, and
Nasir-ud-din of Tus.[10] Their idol was Plato, but their works are of
a more practical character than his, and less dry than those of
Aristotle.
I may here mention the following, among many instances that occur to
me, of the amusing mistakes into which Europeans are liable to fall
in their conversation with natives.
Mr. J. W------n, of the Bengal Civil Service, commonly known by the
name of Beau W------n,[11] was the Honourable Company's opium agent
at Patna, when I arrived at Dinapore to join my regiment in 1810.[12]
He had a splendid house, and lived in excellent style; and was never
so happy as when he had a dozen young men from the Dinapore
cantonments living with him.
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