Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/117

their religious and social feelings: all this is due to the 'simpler theories' of our Anglo-Indian officials, civil and military. The events of the year 1857 were the crowning proof of it. In that year we simplified even these simpler theories into the one simplest theory of all. 'We gave 'em hell' to an extent that they have never forgotten, and Mr. Kipling smiles knowingly over the still active native prejudice against being blown away from the mouths of cannons. The foolish person in search of a little disinterested information about things may find the so-called Indian Mutiny an unexplained historical phenomenon, and eagerly hope for some enlightenment on the subject from a writer of indisputable talent who is 'illustrating' the 'native feature.' He will get little or none from Mr. Kipling. Firstly, he will find the scantiest mention of, or even allusion to, the social movements of the natives. They are viewed merely (as we have seen) in the light of a huge mass of raw, brown, naked humanity to be manipulated by the civil and military officials for the arcane purposes of the Great Indian Empire, or by the inspired amateur detective (Strickland is Mr. Kipling's name for him) as material for his dexterous energy and sagacity, or by the male portion of the Anglo-Indians as a happy hunting-ground for more or less animating, if monotonous, sexual experiences 'without benefit of clergy.'