No. VII



WITH THE RAJA



[September 20, 1879.]

Try not to laugh, Dear Vanity. I know you don't mean anything by it;
but these Indian kings are so sensitive. The other day I was
translating to a young Raja what Val Prinsep had said about him in his
"Purple India"; he had only said that he was a dissipated young ass
and as ugly as a baboon; but the boy was quite hurt and began to cry,
and I had to send for the Political Agent to quiet him and put him to
sleep. When you consider the matter philosophically there is nothing
_per se_ ridiculous in a Raja. Take a hypothetical case: picture to
yourself a Raja who does not get drunk without some good reason, who
is not ostentatiously unfaithful to his five-and-twenty queens and his
five-and-twenty grand duchesses, who does not festoon his thorax and
abdomen with curious cutlery and jewels, who does not paint his face
with red ochre, and who sometimes takes a sidelong glance at his
affairs, and there is no reason why you should not think of such a one
as an Indian king. India is not very fastidious; so long as the
Government is satisfied, the people of India do not much care what the