countries. In regard to the
equality of class it may be observed that here also the lack of
variety produces a similar dearth of materials; we miss the
picturesque contrasts of rich and poor, of townsfolk and country folk,
of the diverse groups which make up a European population. The 'short
and simple annals of the poor' cannot be woven into the Indian
tapestry which records higher and broader scenes; the peasantry, for
example, whose quaint figures and idioms are so useful in English
novels, do not come into the Anglo-Indian tale. They cannot be blended
in fiction with the foreign element because they are wholly apart in
reality. In short, the whole company that play upon the exclusively
Anglo-Indian stage belong to one grade of society, and the hero is
invariably a military officer.

The most popular of Anglo-Indian novels are probably those which deal
in exact reproduction of ordinary incidents and conversation, related
in a sprightly and humorous style. This accords with the taste of
present-day readers, many of whom take up a book only for the
momentary amusement that it gives them, and are well content with
interminable dialogues that do little more than echo, with a certain
spice of epigram and smart repartee, the commonplaces interchanged
among clever people at a country house or in a London drawing-room.
Nevertheless, we believe that Anglo-Indian fiction is seen at its best
in the novel of action, since war and love-making must still, as
formerly, rule the whole kingdom of romance; since as emotional forces
they are the same in every climate and country. Each successive
campaign in India, from the first Afghan War to the latest expedition
across the Afridi frontier, has furnished the Anglo-Indian writer with
a new series of striking incidents that can be used for his heroic
deeds and dire catastrophes, for new landscapes and figures, all of
them bearing the very form and stamp of impressive reality. If he is
artist enough to avoid abusing these advantages, if he is neither an
extravagant colourist nor a mere copyist or compiler, he has this
fresh field to himself, he can give us a stirring narrative of
frontier adventures, he can sketch in the aspect of a country or the
distinctive qualities of a people that have preserved many of the
features which in Europe have now vanished into the dim realms of
early romance. His danger lies, as we have seen from some examples
already quoted, in the temptation to make t