moralists and enemies cause to cry out at English rapine; and enables
patriots to boast of invincible British valour--besides the splendour and
conquest, the wealth and glory, the crowned ambition, the conquered
danger, the vast prize, and the blood freely shed in winning it--should
not one remember the tears, too? Besides the lives of myriads of British
men, conquering on a hundred fields, from Plassey to Meanee, and bathing
them cruore nostro: think of the women, and the tribute which they
perforce must pay to those victorious achievements. Scarce a soldier goes
to yonder shores but leaves a home and grief in it behind him. The lords
of the subject province find wives there; but their children cannot live
on the soil. The parents bring their children to the shore, and part from
them. The family must be broken up--keep the flowers of your home beyond
a certain time, and the sickening buds wither and die. In America it is
from the breast of a poor slave that a child is taken. In India it is
from the wife, and from under the palace, of a splendid proconsul.

The experience of this grief made Newcome's naturally kind heart only the
more tender, and hence he had a weakness for children which made him the
laughing-stock of old maids, old bachelors, and sensible persons; but the
darling of all nurseries, to whose little inhabitants he was uniformly
kind: were they the collectors' progeny in their palanquins, or the
sergeants' children tumbling about the cantonment, or the dusky little
heathens in the huts of his servants round his gate.

It is known that there is no part of the world where ladies are more
fascinating than in British India. Perhaps the warmth of the sun kindles
flames in the hearts of both sexes, which would probably beat quite
coolly in their native air: else why should Miss Brown be engaged ten
days after her landing at Calcutta? or why should Miss Smith have half a
dozen proposals before she has been a week at the station? And it is not