Her
bitterest
enemies--and she had many--could hardly accuse Mrs.
Kipling - Poems
"
"Never mind the exceptions. I know which one you are thinking of.
Thirdly, and lastly, after he is polished and made pretty, I shall, as
you said, be his guide, philosopher and friend, and he shall become a
success--as great a success as your friend. I always wondered how
that man got on. Did The Mussuck come to you with the Civil List and,
dropping on one knee--no, two knees, a' la Gibbon--hand it to you and
say, 'Adorable angel, choose your friend's appointment'? "
"Lucy, your long experiences of the Military Department have demoralized
you. One doesn't do that sort of thing on the Civil Side. "
"No disrespect meant to Jack's Service, my dear. I only asked for
information. Give me three months, and see what changes I shall work in
my prey. "
"Go your own way since you must. But I'm sorry that I was weak enough to
suggest the amusement. "
"'I am all discretion, and may be trusted to an in-finite extent,'"
quoted Mrs. Hauksbee from The Fallen Angel; and the conversation ceased
with Mrs. Tarkass's last, long-drawn war-whoop.
Her bitterest enemies--and she had many--could hardly accuse Mrs.
Hauksbee of wasting her time. Otis Yeere was one of those wandering
"dumb" characters, foredoomed through life to be nobody's property. Ten
years in Her Majesty's Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part,
in undesirable Districts, had given him little to be proud of, and
nothing to bring confidence. Old enough to have lost the first
fine careless rapture that showers on the immature 'Stunt imaginary
Commissionerships and Stars, and sends him into the collar with coltish
earnestness and abandon; too young to be yet able to look back upon the
progress he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of
the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the "dead-centre" of his
career. And when a man stands still, he feels the slightest impulse from
without. Fortune had ruled that Otis Yeere should be, for the first part
of his service, one of the rank and file who are ground up in the wheels
of the Administration; losing heart and soul, and mind and strength,
in the process. Until steam replaces manual power in the working of the
Empire, there must always be this percentage--must always be the men
who are used up, expended, in the mere mechanical routine. For these
promotion is far off and the mill-grind of every day very near and
instant. The Secretariats know them only by name; they are not the
picked men of the Districts with the Divisions and Collectorates
awaiting them. They are simply the rank and file--the food for
fever--sharing with the ryot and the plough-bullock the honor of being
the plinth on which the State rests. The older ones have lost their
aspirations; the younger are putting theirs aside with a sigh. Both
learn to endure patiently until the end of the day. Twelve years in the
rank and file, men say, will sap the hearts of the bravest and dull the
wits of the most keen.
Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a few months, drifting, for the
sake of a little masculine society, into Simla. When his leave was over
he would return to his swampy, sour-green, undermanned district,
the native Assistant, the native Doctor, the native Magistrate, the
steaming, sweltering Station, the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised
insolence of the Municipality that babbled away the lives of men.
"Never mind the exceptions. I know which one you are thinking of.
Thirdly, and lastly, after he is polished and made pretty, I shall, as
you said, be his guide, philosopher and friend, and he shall become a
success--as great a success as your friend. I always wondered how
that man got on. Did The Mussuck come to you with the Civil List and,
dropping on one knee--no, two knees, a' la Gibbon--hand it to you and
say, 'Adorable angel, choose your friend's appointment'? "
"Lucy, your long experiences of the Military Department have demoralized
you. One doesn't do that sort of thing on the Civil Side. "
"No disrespect meant to Jack's Service, my dear. I only asked for
information. Give me three months, and see what changes I shall work in
my prey. "
"Go your own way since you must. But I'm sorry that I was weak enough to
suggest the amusement. "
"'I am all discretion, and may be trusted to an in-finite extent,'"
quoted Mrs. Hauksbee from The Fallen Angel; and the conversation ceased
with Mrs. Tarkass's last, long-drawn war-whoop.
Her bitterest enemies--and she had many--could hardly accuse Mrs.
Hauksbee of wasting her time. Otis Yeere was one of those wandering
"dumb" characters, foredoomed through life to be nobody's property. Ten
years in Her Majesty's Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part,
in undesirable Districts, had given him little to be proud of, and
nothing to bring confidence. Old enough to have lost the first
fine careless rapture that showers on the immature 'Stunt imaginary
Commissionerships and Stars, and sends him into the collar with coltish
earnestness and abandon; too young to be yet able to look back upon the
progress he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of
the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the "dead-centre" of his
career. And when a man stands still, he feels the slightest impulse from
without. Fortune had ruled that Otis Yeere should be, for the first part
of his service, one of the rank and file who are ground up in the wheels
of the Administration; losing heart and soul, and mind and strength,
in the process. Until steam replaces manual power in the working of the
Empire, there must always be this percentage--must always be the men
who are used up, expended, in the mere mechanical routine. For these
promotion is far off and the mill-grind of every day very near and
instant. The Secretariats know them only by name; they are not the
picked men of the Districts with the Divisions and Collectorates
awaiting them. They are simply the rank and file--the food for
fever--sharing with the ryot and the plough-bullock the honor of being
the plinth on which the State rests. The older ones have lost their
aspirations; the younger are putting theirs aside with a sigh. Both
learn to endure patiently until the end of the day. Twelve years in the
rank and file, men say, will sap the hearts of the bravest and dull the
wits of the most keen.
Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a few months, drifting, for the
sake of a little masculine society, into Simla. When his leave was over
he would return to his swampy, sour-green, undermanned district,
the native Assistant, the native Doctor, the native Magistrate, the
steaming, sweltering Station, the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised
insolence of the Municipality that babbled away the lives of men.
