Everybody in India is, more or less, somebody. It must be a very sad
change to go home to England and be (comparatively) poor and shabby,
and certainly obscure, to have people remark vaguely they suppose
you are "something in India." I suppose we are all snobs at heart.
Snobbery, sir, doth walk about the orb like the sun, it shines
everywhere. A good lady talked to me quite seriously lately about what
the Best People in Calcutta did. It has become a light table joke with
us, and when I plant my elbows on the table and hum a tune while we
are waiting for the next course at dinner, Boggley mildly inquires,
"Do the Best People do that?"
It is a subject I never gave much attention to, but now awful doubts
assail me. Am I the Best People? One thing is certain: I am of very
little importance. I am only a _chota_ Miss Sahib and my _chota_-ness
is my great protection. No one is going to bother much what I do, or
trouble to pull my clothes and my conduct to pieces, and I can creep
along unnoticed to a great extent; I watch the game and find it vastly
entertaining.
It grieves me to say that I am one of the class who ought to remain
in England. There I am quite a nice person up to my lights, fairly
unselfish, loving my neighbour as myself. But I have proved myself
pinchbeck. No, you needn't say I'm sweet, I'm not. I find myself
saying the most detestable things about people. Oblivious of the beam
in my own eye, I stare fixedly and reprovingly at the mote in my
neighbour's.
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