LE COMITE FRANCO-HINDOU. [To TH2 EDITOR OR TIER .. EITECTATOR.1 SIE, - 4 11
the Temps of June 50 is a short account of a Franco. Indian Committee organized by Mr. Krishnavarma, with the help of M. Pauliat, who, it seems, is an expert in the politics of dependencies. The honorary President of the Committee is no less a person than "Pierre Loth" the distinguished sailor-Academician, whose literary genius is not leas appre- ciated on this than on the other side of the Channel. It is not, perhaps, for foreigners to appreciate the many admirable qualities of his art. But Sterne long ago asserted that all Frenchmen have one defect. They are, he said, "too serious." Do not most of us feel that, in spite of his happy gift of phrase and unequalled power of picturesque description, we miss a sense of humour in "Pierre Loti's" lightest utterances? Take, for instance, the open letter be has written in his capacity of Presi- dent of the new Committee. May I attempt a translation of his first paragraph P-
.• India, home of magnificence and fairy glamour, slumbered for long years under a foreign yoke, but yearns at last to shake off her torpor and live her own life as of yore, as in the days of her glorious past. She does not dream of an appeal to arms, but craves for moral union with our France, with the one Western nation which has least cruelly posed as her 'protector,' with the nation whose genius is most akin to hers. Already enrolled under the title of the Franco-Indian Committee, thousands of Indians aspire to facilitate and extend their relations with our country, to acquire all that is sanest in our ideas and our sciences, to send their princes to visit our shores, and to entrust their students to our universities."
The remainder of "Pierre Loti's " letter is an eloquent invocation of personified India, "the India of the loftiest splendours of art and thought; the India, too, of monstrous mysteries that thrill us with shuddering awe ; India, our cradle; India, on whose soil all that germinates has ever been prodigious and colossal," &c., &c.
One good turn deserves another. The India Office Com- mittee for the befriending and guidance of young Indians in this country seems to be regarded with undeserved suspicion and impatience by the young Indians themselves. Might it not turn its benevolent attention to young students from Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Madagascar, and Info-China P It would be difficult to find a President of such literary distinc- tion as "Pierre Loti." But it should be easy to discover a Cambodian or Tonkinese counterpart to Mr. Krislinavarma. Or would the attempt seem like taking "Pierre Loti's " inimitable seriousness too seriously P—I am, Sir, &a,
T. D. A.
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