The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Soul of a People, by H. Fielding

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Title: The Soul of a People

Author: H. Fielding

Release Date: July 27, 2009 [EBook #29527]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE SOUL OF A PEOPLE

[Illustration: Publisher's logo]

THE SOUL OF A PEOPLE

BY

H. FIELDING

'For to see things in their beauty is to see them in their truth'

MATTHEW ARNOLD

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1899

_First Edition, 1898_
_Second Edition, 1898_
_Third Edition, 1899_

DEDICATION TO SECOND EDITION

_I dedicate this book to you about whom it is written. It has been made
a reproach to me by the critics that I have only spoken well of you,
that I have forgotten your faults and remembered only your virtues. If
it is wrong to have done this, I must admit the wrong. I have written of
you as a friend does of a friend. Where I could say kind things of you I
have done so, where I could not I have been silent. You will find plenty
of people who can see only your faults, and who like to tell you of
them. You will find in the inexorable sequence of events a corrector of
these faults more potent than any critics can be. But I am not your
critic, but your friend. If many of you had not admitted me, a stranger,
into your friendship during my many very solitary years, of what sort
should I be now? How could I have lived those years alone? You kept
alive my sympathies, and so saved me from many things. Do you think I
could now turn round and criticise you? No; but this book is my tribute
of gratitude for many kindnesses._

PREFACE

In most of the quotations from Burmese books containing the life of the
Buddha I am indebted, if not for the exact words, yet for the sense, to
Bishop Bigandet's translation.

I do not think I am indebted to anyone else. I have, indeed, purposely
avoided quoting from any other book and using material collected by
anyone else.

The story of Ma Pa Da has appea