CHAPTER XXXIX.
I had a chance to indulge in one of my fads. I always respect a man who has a good fad, for there are so many aimless, jelly fish, fad-less people in the world. One of my notions that has strengthened with my years is—that much of the lack of energy in many people, the great cause of drunkenness, and of much of the crime, is the want of good, wholesome, stimulating food. “Pain is the prayer of a nerve for healthy food.” “A man is what he eats,” or as the Hindus put it, “The milk of the cow is in her mouth.”
It may seem absurd to some great lordly persons who know everything for others and little for themselves, for me to have such a thought, yet I do not know why I shouldnot have my opinion about things as well as other people. The views of even the wisest and best men are attacked, so why need I hesitate or fear? Even the lean Cassius dared ask about the great Cæsar,—
“Now, in the name of all the gods at once, upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed—That he is grown so great?” and it is allowed by common consent that even a cat may look at a king.
I have always known from my own introspection that I had more energy to work, more charity for the poor and been less inclined to meanness, when I had good nourishing food, than when as in my school days, I was hungry and faint on watery soup and half-boiled vegetables.
With these views I determined on trying an experiment in “Our Club,” as I was sure it would be for good and certainly do no harm. We engaged an excellent manager of the cookery and refectory in an Eurasian widow. Eurasian, as we had decided to employ only our own people, except for the most menial work. It is not a very good commentary on the native Christians of India, that Christian families, padris, missionaries, church committees or even the Bible and Tract Societies will not employ them, but take heathen servants to their exclusion. If Christianity in two hundred years has not been able to produce a servant that a Christian might employ, is it—but what is the use of talking?
Apropos of this is a statement made by a prominent clergyman at a Church Missionary Congress. “After a century of effort, the expenditure of many noble lives, as well as of some millions of money, the Church of England, extraordinary to say, has signally failed to establish one solitary or single native church in any part of the world—that is to say, a church self-governed, self-supporting and expanding, or exhibiting any true signs of vitality as a church. This is a tremendous indictment, I know, but for long, my heart has been hot within me and at last I have spoken, not without, however, having weighed well my words.”
This woman was a model of cleanliness. One of the mottoes on our walls was “Cleanliness is next to Godliness,” and under it printed in large type was the remark of SirB. W. Richardson: “Cleanliness covers the whole field of sanitary labor. Cleanliness, that is purity of air; cleanliness, that is purity of water; cleanliness in and around the house; cleanliness of person; cleanliness of dress; cleanliness of food and feeding; cleanliness in work; cleanliness in the habits of the individual man and woman; cleanliness of life and conversation, purity of life, temperance, all these are in man’s power.”
It is in man’s power, God-given always, as all good things are, to make his own moral destiny for this life as for that to come. He can best answer his own prayers by putting his own shoulder to the wheel, instead of praying to the gods. There was a world of instruction in the reply of Lord Palmerston to the Scotch elders of Glasgow, when they requested him to appoint a day of fasting and prayer to avert the cholera. He replied that it was useless to do so until they had cleaned the streets of the city. He relied more on scavengers’ shovels than he did on Bishops’ prayers.
We made cleanliness one of the articles in our unwritten creed, for may it not come that cleanliness of life and living will some day be the universal creed to fit us not only for this life, but for the future life?
The next step was to have our manager understand just what we wanted and a number of us formed ourselves into an experimental catering and cooking committee having first secured an excellent range for our cook-house. This cooking really belonged to the women, but we men assumed the right to examine into it, whether it was ours or not. We saw to the procuring of the food, and therefor felt empowered to know that it was properly served. I have always felt great sympathy for Xantippe who is generally written down as a scold, for it is recorded that Socrates would often, unawares to her, invite a number of his friends to dinner when he had not provided a scrap for the larder. What true wife, though she had the temper of an angel, would not give it recriminating voice and action under such circumstances?
We provided, and so had our rights.
Our first effort was with various kinds of good substantial soup. I had enough skimmed broth in my school days to last me for life and the very recollection of it causes in me a kind of water brash.
We succeeded and made out a list of soups to be prepared in a wholesale way of the best materials, at such a price that any wayfarer or aristocrat coming to our club, could relish a bowl of it, and also that families belonging to the club, could send in their orders the day before for what they wanted. The price just above the cost, was so much below what they could be made for in their homes, and so much better, that we had many orders. We also had the best of bread, cake and biscuit, made in the cleanest possible way. If the Europeans in India could see how their bread is made by the natives in the bazars, they would eschew it forever, and diet on fruits and vegetables. It is scarcely credible the methods of the native cooks. I once at table gravely asked my khansaman, if they really strained our soup through their turbans? Putting his hands together in front of him, with a slight bow he replied: “What else can we do if their Honors do not give us towels?”
Once, as a guest, eating food provided by a zemindar, he placidly looking on, I turned and noticed two of the servants, the one pouring milk through the shirt-tail of the other, straining it for me to drink. A sahib blaming his khansaman for boiling the roly poly in one of his master’s socks, the fellow gravely replied: “Sahib! it was not one of the clean ones!”
A friend of mine eating his mutton chops and finding some cottony shreds in his mouth questioned his cook standing by, when the latter replied, that as he had no tallow, he had used the waste ends of the burned candles. The sahib at once seized his chef and holding him by the neck forced all the remaining mess down his throat, for which he was summoned before the magistrate and had to pay a fine of twenty-five rupees. “But,” said my friend, “I would willingly have paid five times that amount for the satisfaction I got in making him swallow the rest of the stuff with the burnt wicks.”
We wanted none of that kind of cooking in our club. Our next experiment was in the making of tea and coffee, and after a number of trials succeeded in producing articles that few of our people had ever tasted the like before, a nectar like coffee not to be paragoned anywhere in the world. “And they in France of the best rank and station are most select and generous,” in making this delicious drink.
Anent the native coffee-making is this told by a khansaman. His Sahib, an English doctor, was always complaining that he did not get good black coffee, such as they made in France. His cook at his wit’s end, finally took some charcoal and grinding it to powder mixed it with the coffee. His Sahib was highly delighted, and boastingly invited his friends to drink his real French coffee. The servant very considerately never told the story until after his master’s death.
Our manager fell in with our ways and suggestions and took great pride in the science as well as the art of cookery, and in having everything in the best possible condition.
It is a saying among the Europeans in India, “If you wish to enjoy your dinner never look into the cook-house.” We reversed that order to “If you wish to enjoy our food see how it is cooked.” Our restaurant was well patronized, and it was of great benefit, morally as well as physically. It was not for the poor alone, though the prices were so low, for the better class, that is, the better well-to-do, did not disdain to favor us, as everything was better than most of them could get in their homes, and I doubt if the great Commissioner Sahib, or the Commanding General, had near as good.
The only vice we tolerated was the smoking of tobacco, and this was confined to the smoking-room or to the grounds outside. In respect to this habit, we thought it best not to stretch the bow of restraint too far, lest it break with its own tension, or we be like “The man that once did sell the lion’s skin while the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.” “We may outrun, by violent swiftness, that which we run at, and lose by overrunning.”
The upper apartments were reserved entirely for thewomen, and reached by a wide, marble staircase from the lower entrance hall. They had their dressing-room, reading and other rooms richly furnished. They had more than an equal share, for besides their own, they had the right of our lecture hall, the library and refectory, but we were pleased with all their encroachments, for they assisted us in every way. The walls of the lecture hall and refectory were bare until we selected some mottoes, which our feminine members, with their skillful taste and hands, ornamented, making them works of art. This was done, not in a day, but during many months of most laborious work, with rivalry and pride as to which should produce the finest work. Some of the mottoes were these:
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart throbs.He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”—Bailey.
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart throbs.He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”—Bailey.
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;In feelings, not in figures on a dial.We should count time by heart throbs.He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”—Bailey.
“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart throbs.
He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”—Bailey.
“There is no religion higher than truth.”—Oriental Proverb.
“I would rather that men should say there never was such a man as Plutarch, than say that Plutarch was unfaithful.”—Plutarch.
“Sin makes us pay toll, if not along the way, surely at the end of the road.”
“Not he that repeateth the name,But he that doeth the will.”—Longfellow.
“Not he that repeateth the name,But he that doeth the will.”—Longfellow.
“Not he that repeateth the name,But he that doeth the will.”—Longfellow.
“Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will.”—Longfellow.
“Every rifle should have its own bullet mold.”
“Everything is bitter to him who has gall in his mouth.”
“Truth is not drowned in water or burned in fire.”
“A fool may throw a stone into a pond; it may take seven sages to pull it out.”
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”—Jesus.
“Purity, even in the secret longings of our hearts, is the greatest duty.”—Xenocrates.
“A good man sees God reflected in his own soul; the cleaner the soul the more vivid the image.”
“Only through the highest purity and chastity we shall approach nearer to God, and receive, in the contemplation of Him, the true knowledge and insight.”—Porphyry.
“The doctrine of our Master consists in having an invariable correctness of heart, and in doing towards others as we would that they should do to us.”—A Disciple of Confucius.
“The thoughts and intents of the heart are deeds in the sight of God.”
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”—Bible.
“All lovers of truth are lovers of God.”
“He only truly lives who lives for others.”
“We must do one of two things—either learn to control the conditions of our lives, or let them control us.”
“The more one lives for his kind, the less need he fear to die.”—Kabalist Proverb.
“The highest service one can do is to serve himself in the highest manner.”
“Whatever good betideth thee, O man, it is from God, and whatsoever ill, from thyself is it.”—Koran.
“There is only one road to Heaven—obedience to the Golden Rule.”
“So long as every man does to other men as he would that they should do to him, and allow no one to interfere between him and his Maker, all will go well with the world.”—Ancient Pagan.
“A man obtains a proper rule of actionBy looking on his neighbor as himself.Do naught to others which, if done to thee,Would cause thee pain; this is the sum of duty.”—Hindu Maxim.
“A man obtains a proper rule of actionBy looking on his neighbor as himself.Do naught to others which, if done to thee,Would cause thee pain; this is the sum of duty.”—Hindu Maxim.
“A man obtains a proper rule of actionBy looking on his neighbor as himself.Do naught to others which, if done to thee,Would cause thee pain; this is the sum of duty.”—Hindu Maxim.
“A man obtains a proper rule of action
By looking on his neighbor as himself.
Do naught to others which, if done to thee,
Would cause thee pain; this is the sum of duty.”
—Hindu Maxim.
“I will set my camel free and trust him to Allah.” Mahomed answered, “Tie thy camel first, and then commit him to God.”—Arabian Saying.
We soon had everything in good working order. A committee of entertainment was appointed; one evening of each week was devoted to instruction and practice in singing,for which an excellent teacher was secured. Another evening was for the literary society, when essays were read and subjects discussed, the members appointed in turn, so as to give every one a chance, and all to take an interest and have something to do. This compelled them to read and think, which took up all their leisure hours from work, formerly spent in idleness and folly. We had no idea of having any one or a few do all the work and receive all the benefit, but every one, no difference who they were, was urged, assisted and required to do their part, not so much for the benefit they might give to others, but what they would do for themselves. Ours was a mutual improvement association, the weakest to be helped the most.