India, it seems to me that I have lived with all of you and with nobody else, so my English accounts add up well. As for India: looking at it dispassionately and without exaggerating its grievances for fun, I really think I hate it more now than at first. I try to make out for you stories and amusement from the pomp and circumstance of the life, and I can fancy you saying, ‘Oh! they talk so much about that, they must like it;’ but it is because there is nothing else to frame a cheerful letter on. I think the climate a constant and increasing evil, inasmuch as it becomes every day more difficult to occupy myself.
In the meanwhile I flatter myself the English Ministry is changing about this time, or perhaps a month later, and if you can but have us recalled, I do not insist on a second anniversary.
I am particularly bitter to-day. We are returning our Dumdum civilities, and there are some of the artillery officers here; and this morning one of them came in and wished me ‘many happy returns of the day, and all to be spent in India.’ ‘Few, you mean,’ I said; ‘the many and the happy can’t be here.’ But away
