DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25988#0161
1803—07.
A Tagpoor.
T37
aicled by the dreamy existence in which he used to lnxuriate.
Here is his own account of the matter. The date of the letter,
which is a fragment, is missing, but it appears from some
passages to have been written during the latter part of his
residence at Nagpoor.
‘ I have left off thinking all for the worst since I got three
thousand rupees a month, consequently I have got rid of Ahir-
man. Since I came to Nagpoor I have been dreadfully coarse
and unfeeling. This I attribute in some measure to business,
which forces me to deal much with common sense, and leads
me to despise refined thought; but I think it more owing to
a gross manner of life (spending one’s whole day in hunting,
eating, talking insipid stuff, &c.), and which prevents one
quitting the vulgar path—
“ Atque affigit humo divinse particnlam aurse.”
Now that I spend most of the day in a little private room
where I am seldom interrupted, I sometimes read with effect,
and often get warmed by things that I read, or by others that
come into my mind of themselves: then I get up, and walk
up and clown the room; ancl if I get more into the spirit of it,
I strike up the march in “ Lodoiska,” and take wing for the
seventh heaven. It signifies little what I think of, or whether
I think of anything. These sensations are produced by very
little, but they are glorious when excited. Alas! they won’t
last. Tbe novelty will wear off; the glorious colours will fade ;
and I shall see the bare walls, the brown fields, and all nature
in its ancient deformity.’
At the close of the year 1805 he resumed the practice.
which he had suspended fromhis arrival at Nagpoor, of keeping
a journal. It is diffuse in matters of every-day life, snch as
hunting, reading, state of health; but it contains very few
allusions to political events. Its chief interest consists in the
record of his studies. To Grreek, which he had taken up at
Benares, and had not abandoned even in the miclst of the late
campaign, he now turned in earnest. When the journal com-
menced he had just finished the ‘ Iliad,’ not the first time of
A Tagpoor.
T37
aicled by the dreamy existence in which he used to lnxuriate.
Here is his own account of the matter. The date of the letter,
which is a fragment, is missing, but it appears from some
passages to have been written during the latter part of his
residence at Nagpoor.
‘ I have left off thinking all for the worst since I got three
thousand rupees a month, consequently I have got rid of Ahir-
man. Since I came to Nagpoor I have been dreadfully coarse
and unfeeling. This I attribute in some measure to business,
which forces me to deal much with common sense, and leads
me to despise refined thought; but I think it more owing to
a gross manner of life (spending one’s whole day in hunting,
eating, talking insipid stuff, &c.), and which prevents one
quitting the vulgar path—
“ Atque affigit humo divinse particnlam aurse.”
Now that I spend most of the day in a little private room
where I am seldom interrupted, I sometimes read with effect,
and often get warmed by things that I read, or by others that
come into my mind of themselves: then I get up, and walk
up and clown the room; ancl if I get more into the spirit of it,
I strike up the march in “ Lodoiska,” and take wing for the
seventh heaven. It signifies little what I think of, or whether
I think of anything. These sensations are produced by very
little, but they are glorious when excited. Alas! they won’t
last. Tbe novelty will wear off; the glorious colours will fade ;
and I shall see the bare walls, the brown fields, and all nature
in its ancient deformity.’
At the close of the year 1805 he resumed the practice.
which he had suspended fromhis arrival at Nagpoor, of keeping
a journal. It is diffuse in matters of every-day life, snch as
hunting, reading, state of health; but it contains very few
allusions to political events. Its chief interest consists in the
record of his studies. To Grreek, which he had taken up at
Benares, and had not abandoned even in the miclst of the late
campaign, he now turned in earnest. When the journal com-
menced he had just finished the ‘ Iliad,’ not the first time of