DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25988#0160
Life of Mountstuart Elphinstoue.
ch. y.
1 3 6
arranged with Sindia and Holkar, there remained nothing for
the Resident to do bnt to watch the progress of the Pindarrees,
and to carry ont small cessions of territory that was handed
over to the Raja in the following year. The situation became
very trying to a young man of high spirits, and yearning for
the society of his countrymen. The capital of Berar was so
completely separated from the great centres of interest in
India, that he had not a prospect of seeing any of his old
friends, or even casual visitors. His letters express an im-
patience of his position and a desire for change, either by an
appointment to another Court, or by a trip to England with
liis friend. There is much of his reading which is somewhat de-
sultory, and in very desperation he for a time took to poetry,
and his friend was overwhelmed with his effusions. They
began with a series of characters after the manner of Chaucer,
and Mr. Strachey appears to have .repaid him in the same
currencjn As the society was limited the stock was soon ex-
hausted, and then followed translations from the Persian,
imitations of Hafiz, lines on the death of Nelson, and other
pieces, till he went on leave to Calcutta. The letters from
the Presidency are written in the highest spirits, and we hear
no more of his compositions.
In the letters to Strachey are occasional allusions to fits of
depression, and the subject returns more frequently in his
later journals. They are sometimes traceable to the state of
his health, but evidently had their origin in a constitutional
temperament, and were the natural reaction from an overfiow
of animal spirits. These predisposing causes gathered strength
from the practice in which he indulged of day-dreaming and
giving loose to his imagination, a habit with which he after-
wards bitterly reproached himself, and wliich he set to work
in earnest to eradicate. He speaks in one of his letters of
having given up the mystical poetry of the Persians on account
of its pernicious tendency on the mind, and adding to his
habitual depression. The solitary life he was leading could
not fail to have an effect in depressing the spirits, but this
would not have affected himself so powerfully had it not been
ch. y.
1 3 6
arranged with Sindia and Holkar, there remained nothing for
the Resident to do bnt to watch the progress of the Pindarrees,
and to carry ont small cessions of territory that was handed
over to the Raja in the following year. The situation became
very trying to a young man of high spirits, and yearning for
the society of his countrymen. The capital of Berar was so
completely separated from the great centres of interest in
India, that he had not a prospect of seeing any of his old
friends, or even casual visitors. His letters express an im-
patience of his position and a desire for change, either by an
appointment to another Court, or by a trip to England with
liis friend. There is much of his reading which is somewhat de-
sultory, and in very desperation he for a time took to poetry,
and his friend was overwhelmed with his effusions. They
began with a series of characters after the manner of Chaucer,
and Mr. Strachey appears to have .repaid him in the same
currencjn As the society was limited the stock was soon ex-
hausted, and then followed translations from the Persian,
imitations of Hafiz, lines on the death of Nelson, and other
pieces, till he went on leave to Calcutta. The letters from
the Presidency are written in the highest spirits, and we hear
no more of his compositions.
In the letters to Strachey are occasional allusions to fits of
depression, and the subject returns more frequently in his
later journals. They are sometimes traceable to the state of
his health, but evidently had their origin in a constitutional
temperament, and were the natural reaction from an overfiow
of animal spirits. These predisposing causes gathered strength
from the practice in which he indulged of day-dreaming and
giving loose to his imagination, a habit with which he after-
wards bitterly reproached himself, and wliich he set to work
in earnest to eradicate. He speaks in one of his letters of
having given up the mystical poetry of the Persians on account
of its pernicious tendency on the mind, and adding to his
habitual depression. The solitary life he was leading could
not fail to have an effect in depressing the spirits, but this
would not have affected himself so powerfully had it not been