Bevezetés

'I do love these Indian races so much, and I do so long to obtain a hearing for India in Europe!' Thus wrote Sir William Hunter in early manhood, when the glamour of the East fell upon him and inspired the guiding principles of his strenuous career. They were 'first to enable England to learn India's wants; next to help England to think fairly of India; and, finally, to make the world feel the beauty and pathos of Indian life.' The first fruits of this resolve were seen in the 'Annals of Rural Bengal,' which told the ryot's simple story and the blind struggles of his masters at the dawn of British rule. For more than a third of a century no year passed by without its contribution to Indian literature from the same practised and sympathetic pen. Apart from his books, which would fill a library, Sir William Hunter's many-sided energy found an outlet in journalism; and many of his ephemerides have a value extending far beyond the day for which they were written. Lady Hunter has made a selection of the most noteworthy; and she is deeply indebted to the editors of 'The Times,' the 'Pioneer' of Allahabad, the 'Nineteenth Century,' the 'Fortnightly ' and 'Contemporary' Reviews: to Messrs. Smith & Elder and Messrs. W. H. Allen & Co. for permission to reproduce them in a permanent form.

In 1887 Sir William Hunter bade farewell to the land which he had served so well, and returned to English life. A time when the innermost fibres of our national existence were stirred by the first Jubilee was propitious for a review of the changes which had passed over India during the Victorian era. He complied with a request that he should describe them in 'The Times'; and 'The India of the Queen' afforded him some solace in the deep distress caused by the loss of his only daughter. These brilliant essays were published in the leading journal between November 4 and December 8, 1887; and they attracted wide notice by the grace of their style and the sympathy which thrills in every line.

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The concluding sketch, 'A Pilgrim Scholar,' was published by the 'Pioneer' of Allahabad during the spring of 1885. The writer's personal tastes were certainly not those of the ascetic. Like Walter Savage Landor, he 'warmed both hands at the fire of life,' and valued it rather for the sensations with which it may be filled than for its length. But he had a true reverence for the ideals of self-sacrifice and self-devotion; and the career of the lonely Hungarian scholar who endured severe privations in the pursuit of science touched an inner chord in his nature. And we get a glimpse of Hunter's own mental struggles in his eloquent description of those of Csoma de Körös, who, 'in addition to his physical sufferings, had to wrestle with those spiritual demons of self-distrust, the bitter sense of the world's neglect, and the paralyzing uncertainty as to the value of his labours.' Such touches as these are in themselves sufficient warrant for rescuing this beautiful story from oblivion.

It has been truly remarked that Sir William Hunter was the discoverer of India in as real a sense as those early navigators who carried home such wondrous tales of its riches and glory. He left an enduring mark on its administration, and inspired his countrymen with a sentiment of its potentialities and grandeur. Had he survived to take part in the late imperial pageant he would have seen the full result of his teachings. He would have heard Lord Curzon of Kedleston proclaiming to the representatives of one-sixth of the human race assembled at Delhi that 'to the majority of these millions the King's Government has given freedom from invasion and anarchy; to others it has guaranteed their rights and privileges; to others it opens ever-widening avenues of honourable employment; to the masses it dispenses mercy in the hour of suffering, and to all it endeavours to give equal justice, immunity from oppression, and the blessings of enlightenment and peace. To have won such a dominion is a great achievement, to hold it by fair and righteous dealing is a greater; to weld it by prudent statesmanship into a single and compact whole will be, and is, the greatest of all.'