Item 44 - Letter from James Perch Bedford to R. C. Trevelyan

1 sheet

Salem, South India. - Thanks Trevelyan for his letter. Since his visit, Perch has 'done one or two hill-excursions', but such things are hard now: it was 104 degrees in the shade in Salem a month ago!' Glad Trevelyan had a good time at Tanjore; the 'dancers there include the best in India and are considerably appreciated'; some of them get 'as much as 200 rupees (say 14£) for a night's entertainment', about ten times as much as in England'. 'The Pandittar daughter's [children of Abraham Pandithar] are of course mere amateurs, but they are (or used to be) quite pleasing to look at and well-behaved'.

Envies Trevelyan for seeing Travancore, 'having heard such a lot about the beauty of the country and also of the people'. When he was in Madras recently, got a drawing of a boy's head 'by some nomadic Russian who settled in Tracancore for a spell', which seems to him to 'embody something of the spirit of this country, in which people have the look of graceful timid half-wild animals. They say that this is such a mysterious country and that you can never tell what the people really think'. Perch 'doubt[s] whether more of them trouble to think at all, unless with a definite practical object, and surely there is something to be said for this'.

Wonders 'how far the similarity of this country with what one reads about old lyric impressed Dickinson... It certainly strikes me and particularly with respect [?] to Dickinson's own book on lyrics. Even the Platonists have their counterpart in the Theosophists' - who are currently 'having themselves turned inside and [out? omitted] in the Madras Law-Courts just now. One can't help admiring Mrs Besan't courage in facing judge and jury over a case turning [?] with indecent suggestions, and it seems as if she was fighting for her life'.

Supposes it is 'unfair' to compare Theosophy with Platonism, but both seem to him to have 'elements of mysticism, eclecticism and a certain element of eroticism, planted in the middle of and contrasting wildly with the simple healthy emotions of an agricultural population'. The arguments currently being raised against Theosophy 'might be paralleled by those urged in the Trial of Socrates'. On the other side, the Church 'claims to be judged by conventional ethics and protests against a philosophy by which young men are led to consider themselves superior to all moral laws'. As the judge points out to Mrs Besant, the 'sincerity [of such young men, such as her colleague C. W. Leadbeater] is, as it were, no excuse for moral eccentricity in one who proposes to guide youth. But Leadbetter [sic] won't be killed, nor even posted [?] in the stocks I suppose'.

Hopes he and Trevelyan may meet in England some time, but fears he is 'tied here for some years now'.