Mark Channing (1879–1943)

"The Indian drawing-room is a treacherous revealer of intimate secrets...In Cawnpore I saw a three-foot cobra slide along a Tottenham Court sofa piled with Liberty (of London) cushions. India refuses to be disguised." p. 33 Also, there are discussions of the perfection of the Indian butler (who is even more imperious than his English counterpart, and just as resourceful in a crisis). But as in all compliments, there is more than a little of what we would say today was a patronizing tone. Perhaps it is preferable to other ways of describing that which is alien, but to an outsider, it will sound as entitled as it was in those days. Anyway, this is the reading material of royalty.… (mais)