She read a little of it.
I give her review verbatim:--"Oh, your book? It's all about those how-wid
Wajahs. I didn't understand it."
. . . . . . . . .
Wressley of the Foreign Office was broken, smashed,--I am not exaggerating--by
this one frivolous little girl. All that he could say feebly was:--"But, but
it's my magnum opus! The work of my life." Miss Venner did not know what magnum
opus meant; but she knew that Captain Kerrington had won three races at the
last Gymkhana. Wressley didn't press her to wait for him any longer. He had
sense enough for that.
Then came the reaction after the year's strain, and Wressley went back to the
Foreign Office and his "Wajahs," a compiling, gazetteering, report-writing
hack, who would have been dear at three hundred rupees a month. He abided by
Miss Venner's review. Which proves that the inspiration in the book was purely
temporary and unconnected with himself. Nevertheless, he had no right to sink,
in a hill-tarn, five packing-cases, brought up at enormous expense from Bombay,
of the best book of Indian history ever written.
When he sold off before retiring, some years later, I was turning over his
shelves, and came across the only existing copy of "Native Rule in Central
India"--the copy that Miss Venner could not understand.
Pages:
805
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