I wonder if you will
understand
it.
Kipling - Poems
McIntosh, wrapped
in a cotton cloth, was too weak to resent a fur coat being thrown over
him. He was very active as far as his mind was concerned, and his eyes
were blazing. When he had abused the Doctor who came with me so foully
that the indignant old fellow left, he cursed me for a few minutes and
calmed down.
Then he told his wife to fetch out "The Book" from a hole in the wall.
She brought out a big bundle, wrapped in the tail of a petticoat, of old
sheets of miscellaneous note-paper, all numbered and covered with fine
cramped writing. McIntosh ploughed his hand through the rubbish and
stirred it up lovingly.
"This," he said, "is my work--the Book of McIntosh Jellaludin, showing
what he saw and how he lived, and what befell him and others; being also
an account of the life and sins and death of Mother Maturin. What Mirza
Murad Ali Beg's book is to all other books on native life, will my work
be to Mirza Murad Ali Beg's! "
This, as will be conceded by any one who knows Mirza Ali Beg's book, was
a sweeping statement. The papers did not look specially valuable; but
McIntosh handled them as if they were currency-notes.
Then he said slowly:--"In despite the many weaknesses of your education,
you have been good to me. I will speak of your tobacco when I reach the
Gods. I owe you much thanks for many kindnesses.
"But I abominate indebtedness. For this reason I bequeath to you now the
monument more enduring than brass--my one book--rude and imperfect in
parts, but oh, how rare in others!
I wonder if you will understand it.
It is a gift more honorable than. . . Bah! where is my brain rambling
to? You will mutilate it horribly. You will knock out the gems you call
'Latin quotations,' you Philistine, and you will butcher the style to
carve into your own jerky jargon; but you cannot destroy the whole of
it. I bequeath it to you.
"Ethel. . . My brain again! . . Mrs.
in a cotton cloth, was too weak to resent a fur coat being thrown over
him. He was very active as far as his mind was concerned, and his eyes
were blazing. When he had abused the Doctor who came with me so foully
that the indignant old fellow left, he cursed me for a few minutes and
calmed down.
Then he told his wife to fetch out "The Book" from a hole in the wall.
She brought out a big bundle, wrapped in the tail of a petticoat, of old
sheets of miscellaneous note-paper, all numbered and covered with fine
cramped writing. McIntosh ploughed his hand through the rubbish and
stirred it up lovingly.
"This," he said, "is my work--the Book of McIntosh Jellaludin, showing
what he saw and how he lived, and what befell him and others; being also
an account of the life and sins and death of Mother Maturin. What Mirza
Murad Ali Beg's book is to all other books on native life, will my work
be to Mirza Murad Ali Beg's! "
This, as will be conceded by any one who knows Mirza Ali Beg's book, was
a sweeping statement. The papers did not look specially valuable; but
McIntosh handled them as if they were currency-notes.
Then he said slowly:--"In despite the many weaknesses of your education,
you have been good to me. I will speak of your tobacco when I reach the
Gods. I owe you much thanks for many kindnesses.
"But I abominate indebtedness. For this reason I bequeath to you now the
monument more enduring than brass--my one book--rude and imperfect in
parts, but oh, how rare in others!
I wonder if you will understand it.
It is a gift more honorable than. . . Bah! where is my brain rambling
to? You will mutilate it horribly. You will knock out the gems you call
'Latin quotations,' you Philistine, and you will butcher the style to
carve into your own jerky jargon; but you cannot destroy the whole of
it. I bequeath it to you.
"Ethel. . . My brain again! . . Mrs.
