of my life.

On returning to Lucknow in 1906, I insisted on going at once to revisit
the Husainabad, though I was warned that there was nothing to see
there. Alas! in broad daylight and in the glare of the fierce sun the
whole place looked abominably tawdry. What I had taken for
black-and-white marble was only painted stucco, and coarsely daubed at
that; the details of the decoration were deplorable, and the Husainabad
was just a piece of showy, meretricious tinsel. The gathering dusk and
the golden expanse of the Indian sunset sky had by some subtle wizardry
thrown a veil of glamour over this poor travesty of the marvels of
Delhi and Agra. So a long-cherished ideal was hopelessly shattered,
which is always a melancholy thing.

We are all slaves to the economic conditions under which we live, and
the present exorbitant price of paper is a very potent factor in the
making of books. I am warned by my heartless publishers that I have
already exceeded my limits. There are many things in India of which I
would speak: of big-game hunts in Assam; of near views of the mighty
snows of the Himalayas; of jugglers and their tricks, and of certain
unfamiliar aspects of native life. The telling of these must be
reserved for another occasion, for it is impossible in the brief
compass of a single chapter to do more than touch the surface of things
in the vast Empire, the origin of whose history is lost in the mists of
time.

CHAPTER XI

Matters left untold--The results of improved communications--My
father's journey to Naples--Modern stereotyped uniformity--Changes in
customs--The faithful family retainer Some details--Samuel Pepys'
stupendous banquets--Persistence of idea--Ceremonial
incense--Patriarchal family life--The barn dances--My father's
habits--My mother--A son's tribute--Autumn days--Conclusion.

I had hoped to tell of reef-fishing in the West Indies; of surf-riding
on planks at Muizenberg in South Africa; of the extreme inconvenience
to which the inhabitants of Southern China are subjected owing to the
inconsiderate habits of their local devils; of sapphire seas where
coco-nut palms toss their fronds in the Trade wind over gleaming-white
coral beaches; of vast frozen tracts in the Far North where all animate
life seems suspended; of Japanese villages clinging to green hill-sides
where boiling springs gush out of the cliffs in clouds of steam, and of
many other things besides, for it has been my good fortune