to station at our cost, as
vapourised ladies at home run about from spa to spa. All situations have
their discomforts; and there are times when we all wish that our lot had
been cast in some other line of life, or in some other place."

With regard to a proposed coat of arms for Hooghly College, he says

"I do not see why the mummeries of European heraldry should be
introduced into any part of our Indian system. Heraldry is not a
science which has any eternal rules. It is a system of arbitrary canons,
originating in pure caprice. Nothing can be more absurd and grotesque
than armorial bearings, considered in themselves. Certain recollections,
certain associations, make them interesting in many cases to an
Englishman; but in those recollections and associations the natives of
India do not participate. A lion, rampant, with a folio in his paw, with
a man standing on each side of him, with a telescope over his head,
and with a Persian motto under his feet, must seem to them either very
mysterious, or very absurd."

In a discussion on the propriety of printing some books of Oriental
science, Macaulay writes

"I should be sorry to say anything disrespectful of that liberal
and generous enthusiasm for Oriental literature which appears in Mr.
Sutherland's minute; but I own that I cannot think that we ought to be
guided in the distribution of the small sum, which the Government has
allotted for the purpose of education, by considerations which seem
a little romantic. That the Saracens a thousand years ago cultivated
mathematical science is hardly, I think, a reason for our spending any
money in translating English treatises on mathematics into Arabic. Mr.
Sutherland would probably think it very strange if we were to urge the
destruction of the Alexandrian Library as a reason against patronising
Arabic literature in the nineteenth century. The undertaking may be, as
Mr. Sutherland conceives, a great national work. So is the breakwater at
Madras. But under the orders which we have received from the Government,
we have just as little to do with one as with the other."

Now and then a stroke, aimed at Hooghly College, hits nearer home. That
men of thirty should be bribed to continue their education into mature
life "seems very absurd. Moghal Jan has been paid to learn something
during twelve years. We are told that he is lazy and stupid; but there
are hopes that in four years more he will have completed his course
of study. We