Page 19

 

Letter №85-B, p. 19

[4]

Ergo — the only "victim of accident" in this case is myself. The innocent cross examination to which I am subjected by you — & that I do not object to — and the positively pre-determined purpose of catching me tripping whenever he can, on Mr. Hume's part, — a proceeding regarded as highly legal and honest in western law, but to which we, Asiatic savages, object most emphatically — has given my colleagues and Brothers a high opinion of my proclivities to martyrdom. In their sight I have become a kind of Indo-Tibetan Simon Stylites. Caught by the lower hook of the Simla interrogation mark and impaled on it, I see myself doomed to equilibrize upon the apex of the semicircle for fear of slipping down at every uncertain motion either backward or forward. — Such is the present position of your humble friend. Ever since I undertook the extraordinary task of teaching two grown up pupils with brains in which the methods of western science had crystallized for years; one of whom is willing enough to make room for the new iconoclastic teaching, but who, nevertheless, requires a careful handling while the other will receive nothing but on


Notes: 

Simon Stylites was one of three similarly-named Greek Orthodox ascetic saints who each lived for many years on top of a pillar.