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Critics of
Enlightenment
Rationalism

Edited by
Gene Callahan · Kenneth B. McIntyre
 Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism

“Callahan and McIntyre have brought together a distinguished and cosmopolitan

array of contributors who have produced a lively and provocative collection of
essays exploring and analyzing the modern phenomenon of Enlightenment ratio-
nalism, whose distinguished critics range from the historically important Edmund
Burke, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Friedrich Nietzsche, to our near contemporaries
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Eric Voegelin and Michael Oakeshott. The connecting and
fascinating thread that runs through the volume is a relentless critique of a style of
thinking that prioritizes the pursuit of certainty, and a blind belief in the powers of
instrumental reason to overcome all adversity.”
—David Boucher, Professor of Political Philosophy and International
Relations, Cardiff University, UK

“This volume could not have arrived at a better time. McIntyre and Callahan have
given us an excellent set of essays that speaks directly to the fetishization of human
reason. Each of the thinkers examined reminds us of the fallibility of human
beings—a lesson we sorely need to revisit every generation or so.”
—Richard Avramenko, Professor, Department of Political Science,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

“This is a remarkable and remarkably comprehensive collection on thinkers who

questioned enlightenment rationalism, both in the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
tury. The list is impressive: Tocqueville, Kierkegaard, Burke, Nietzsche, Eliot, as
well as Oakeshott, Hayek, Alasdair MacIntyre, and a number of others equally
stellar, and equally deep and complex. The essays are by accomplished scholars,
and show that the opposition to enlightenment rationalism was both diverse and
strikingly coherent, and a treasure trove for thinking beyond the enlightenment. It
will be especially valuable for those with interests in one of these thinkers to see
them in the context of the larger fraternity to which they belong.”
—Stephen Turner, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy,
University of South Florida, USA

“The variety of topics considered, the range of thinkers included, the striking and
ultimately illuminating juxtaposition of approaches combine to cast, not a spot-
light, but indeed multiple of points of light on a rich selection of important think-
ers from the later-modern period. Scholars and students interested in modern
critics of modernity will benefit from the range of figures treated here and the
depth of the commentaries on them.”
—Alexander S. Duff, Assistant Professor of Political Science,
University of North Texas, USA
Gene Callahan • Kenneth B. McIntyre
Editors

Critics of
Enlightenment
Rationalism
Editors
Gene Callahan Kenneth B. McIntyre
New York University Sam Houston State University
Brooklyn, NY, USA Huntsville, TX, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-42598-2    ISBN 978-3-030-42599-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42599-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sam Houston State University for its financial sup-
port and for granting me a sabbatical in which to complete the project. I
would also like to thank The Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy
at The University of Wisconsin for inviting me to spend the 2019–2020
academic year as a Visiting Scholar at the Center, and providing financial
support for the year. Thanks to my mother and father for all of the support
over the years. I want to thank my two daughters, Flannery and Julie, who
rarely agree with me, but, at least, find me occasionally humorous. Finally,
thanks to Maria for taking care of things.
Kenneth B. McIntyre
4 September 2019
Madison, WI
Many thanks to the patience of my wife, Elen, to the support of my
children, Eamon, Emma, and Adam, to Leslie Marsh for encouraging us
in this project, and to David Boucher for his mentorship. Selah.
Eugene Callahan
5 September 2019
Brooklyn, NY

v
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
Gene Callahan and Kenneth B. McIntyre

2 Burke on Rationalism, Prudence and Reason of State 15

Ferenc Hörcher

3 Alexis de Tocqueville and the Uneasy Friendship Between

Reason and Freedom 33
Travis D. Smith and Jin Jin

4 Kierkegaard’s Later Critique of Political Rationalism 47

Robert Wyllie

5 Friedrich Nietzsche: The Hammer Goes to Monticello 61

Justin D. Garrison

6 “Pagans, Christians, Poets” 79

Corey Abel

7 Wittgenstein on Rationalism 95
Daniel John Sportiello

8 Heidegger’s Critique of Rationalism and Modernity107

Jack Simmons

vii
viii Contents

9 Gabriel Marcel: Mystery in an Age of Problems125

Steven Knepper

10 Michael Polanyi: A Scientist Against Scientism139

Charles W. Lowney II

11 C.S. Lewis: Reason, Imagination, and the Abolition of Man159

Luke C. Sheahan

12 Hayek: Postatomic Liberal179

Nick Cowen

13 “Anti-rationalism, Relativism, and the Metaphysical

Tradition: Situating Gadamer’s Philosophical
Hermeneutics”193
Ryan R. Holston

14 Eric Voegelin and Enlightenment Rationalism211

Michael P. Federici

15 Michael Oakeshott’s Critique of Modern Rationalism227

Wendell John Coats

16 Isaiah Berlin on Monism237

Jason Ferrell

17 Russell Kirk: The Mystery of Human Existence251

Nathanael Blake

18 Jane Jacobs and the Knowledge Problem in Cities263

Sanford Ikeda

19 Practical Reason and Teleology: MacIntyre’s Critique of

Modern Moral Philosophy279
Kenneth B. McIntyre

Index295
 Notes on Contributors

Corey Abel studied the history of political thought at The London

School of Economics and Political Science, where he earned an MSc., and
The University of Chicago, where his Ph.D. was on the thought of Michael
Oakeshott. He has taught in both political science and interdisciplinary
humanities at The United States Air Force Academy, The University of
Denver, Metropolitan State University, The University of Colorado, and
The Colorado College. He is the editor of Intellectual Legacy of Michael
Oakeshott and The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott’s Conservatism.
Nathanael Blake earned a PhD in political theory from the Catholic
University of America, and has written for a variety of scholarly and popu-
lar publications. He resides in Missouri.
Gene Callahan has a PhD in political theory from Cardiff University and
a Master’s in the philosophy of the social sciences from the LSE. He is the
author of Economics for Real People, Oakeshott on Rome and America, and
co-editor of Tradition v. Rationalism. He teaches at New York University.
Wendell John Coats is Professor of Government at Connecticut College
where he teaches courses in the history of Western political theory, ancient,
medieval and modern. He is published widely in the field of political the-
ory, especially with regard to the work of the twentieth century, English
philosophic essayist, Michael Oakeshott.

ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Nick Cowen has a PhD from the Department of Political Economy,

King’s College London, and degrees from the University of Oxford and
University College London. He has written for the American Journal of
Political Science, Critical Review and the Review of Austrian Economics.
Michael P. Federici is professor and chair of the Political Science and
International Relations Department at Middle Tennessee State University.
He received his B.S. in economics from Elizabethtown College and his
M.A. and Ph.D. in politics from The Catholic University of America.
He is the former president of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters
and the author of three books and three edited volumes: The Political
Philosophy of Alexander Hamilton, The Challenge of Populism, Eric Voegelin:
The Search for Order, The Culture of Immodesty in American Life and
Politics: The Modest Republic, Rethinking the Teaching of American History,
and The Catholic Writings of Orestes Brownson.
Jason Ferrell currently teaches political theory at Concordia University,
having also taught McGill University and Mount Allison University. His
research interests include the thought of Isaiah Berlin, value pluralism,
and distributive justice. His articles have appeared in Political Theory,
Contemporary Political Theory, and the Critical Review of International
Social and Political Philosophy. He has also authored a “Glossary of Names”
for the second edition of Isaiah Berlin’sRussian Thinkers.
Justin D. Garrison is an associate professor of political science at Roanoke
College in Salem, Virginia. He is a political theorist who researches the rela-
tionship between politics and the imagination. He is the author of journal
articles, book chapters, and the book An Empire of Ideals: The Chimeric
Imagination of Ronald Reagan. He is also co-editor of the book The
Historical Mind: Humanistic Renewal in a Post-­Constitutional Age.
Ryan R. Holston is Professor and holder of the Jonathan Myric Daniels
‘61 Chair for Academic Excellence at Virginia Military Institute. He is also
an Associate Editor at the journal Humanitas. His published work has
appeared in History of Political Thought, Telos, and Harvard Theological
Review, among other places. He is currently writing a monograph, whose
working title is Tradition and the Deliberative Turn, and is co-­editor of a
forthcoming book entitled The Historical Mind: Humanistic Renewal in a
Post-Constitutional Age (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2020).
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi

Ferenc Hörcher is a political philosopher and historian of political

thought. His PhD was on the Scottish Enlightenment. He is research pro-
fessor and director of the Research Institute of Politics and Government at
the National University of Public Service in Budapest. He is senior fellow
and earlier director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences. His publications include Prudentia Iuris: Towards a
Pragmatic Theory of Natural Law (2000) and the coedited volume: Aspects
of the Enlightenment: Aesthetics, Politics, and Religion (2004). Most
recently he co-edited an co-authored the volume: A History of the
Hungarian Constitution. Law, Government and Political Culture in
Central Europe (2019). A Political Philosophy of Conservatism, Prudence,
Moderation and Tradition is in print with Bloomsbury, scheduled to get
published in 2020.
Sanford Ikeda is Professor of Economics at SUNY Purchase. He is an
internationally recognized scholar of Jane Jacobs’ work, and the author of
Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism.
Jin Jin is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He
received his B.A. with honors in Political Science from Concordia
University in Canada, winning the Renée Vautelet Prize as the most out-
standing student in his program. His honors thesis, entitled “The Seas to
Rove and the Sea of Roving Men: Self-Awareness in Tocqueville’s
Recollections and Fortnight in the Wilderness,” discusses Tocqueville’s
self-awareness as a pathway to his thought on human nature.
Steven Knepper is an assistant professor in the Department of English,
Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at Virginia Military Institute. His
research interests include American literature, tragedy, and aesthetics. His
writings have appeared in Telos, The Robert Frost Review, The Cormac
McCarthy Journal, Religion & Literature, and other journals. He is cur-
rently writing about the philosopher William Desmond’s approach to
literature.
Charles W. Lowney II is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Hollins
University, Roanoke, Virginia, USA. He received his masters in philosophy at
Boston College, where he studied Continental Philosophy, and his doctorate
at Boston University, where he studied Analytic Philosophy. He is interested
in applying the concepts of emergentism and tacit knowing to ethics, society,
and religion, and has done so in articles such as “Authenticity and the
Reconciliation of Modernity” (2009), “From Science to Morality” (2009),
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

“Morality: Emergentist Ethics” (2010), “From Morality to Spirituality”

(2010), and in a chapter, “Four Ways of Understanding Mysticism” in
Mysticism and Silence (forthcoming, Palgrave Macmillan, Laura Weed, ed.).
Lowney is also the editor of Charles Taylor, Michael Polanyi and the Critique
of Modernity: Pluralist and Emergentist Directions (2017).
Kenneth B. McIntyre is Professor of Political Science at Sam Houston
State University. He is the author of The Limits of Political Theory: Michael
Oakeshott on Civil Association, Herbert Butterfield: History, Providence,
and Skeptical Politics, and has also written essays on the philosophy of his-
tory, ordinary language philosophy, American constitutionalism, and prac-
tical reason. He is currently working on a book on value pluralism, liberty,
and the rule of law.
Luke C. Sheahan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duquesne
University and a Non-Resident Scholar at the Program for Research on
Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) at the University of
Pennsylvania. He researches the intersection of First Amendment rights
and political theory. Sheahan’s scholarly articles and reviews have appeared
inThe Political Science Reviewer, Humanitas, Anamnesis, and The Journal
of Value Inquiry He has lectured widely on religious liberty, freedom of
speech, and freedom of association. His book Why Associations Matter:
The Case for First Amendment Pluralism is forthcoming from the
University Press of Kansas. From 2018–2019, Sheahan was Associate
Director and Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Freedom Project at
Wellesley College and from 2016–2018, he was a postdoctoral associate in
the Department of Political Science at Duke University. He received a
PhD and MA in political theory from the Catholic University of America
and a B.S. in political science from the Honors College at Oregon State
University. Sheahan is a five-­ time recipient of the Humane Studies
Fellowship, a 2014 recipient of the Richard M. Weaver Fellowship, and a
2018 recipient of the Leonard P. Liggio Memorial Fellowship.
Jack Simmons is a Professor of Philosophy at Georgia Southern
University, in Savannah, Georgia. His research focuses on discourse ethics
and hermeneutics, leading to publications in bio-ethics, film, television,
technology and science.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii

Travis D. Smith is Associate Professor of Political Science at Concordia

University in Montreal. he has published on Thomas Hobbes and Francis
Bacon, and is the author of Superhero Ethics (Templeton, 2018) and co-­
editor (with Marlene K. Sokolon) of Flattering the Demos (Lexington, 2018).
Daniel John Sportiello is an assistant professor of philosophy at the
University of Mary in North Dakota. He has published several book
reviews with the Notre Dame Evolution Working Group; he also contrib-
uted a chapter on Eric Voegelin to Tradition v. Rationalism: Voegelin,
Oakeshott, Hayek, and Others.
Robert Wyllie is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science
at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses upon Spinoza’s
moral psychology as a pivot in the modern understanding of envy. His
work, which includes several articles on the political theory of Kierkegaard,
has appeared in Perspectives on Political Science, Res Philosophica, Telos, and
other journals.
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Gene Callahan and Kenneth B. McIntyre

Enlightenment rationalism may be said to have been birthed with the

writings of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, and to have come to self-­
awareness in the works of the French philosophes (e.g., Voltaire, Diderot,
Condorcet, and d’Alembert), and their allies, such as Thomas Jefferson,
Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Paine. But almost contemporaneously with
the birth of this movement, it attracted critics. The aim of this project is to
provide an overview of some of the most important of the many critics of
“Enlightenment rationalism,” a term we use in an historically loose sense,
to cover not just leaders of the Enlightenment itself, but also latter figures
whose model of what is rational closely resembled that espoused during
the Enlightenment.1
The essays on each thinker are intended not merely to offer a commen-
tary on that thinker, but also to place him in the context of this larger
stream of anti-rationalist thought. Thus, while this volume is not a history
of anti-rationalist thought, it may contain the intimations of such a his-
tory. Some may wonder at the mixed bag of thinkers we address: poets,

G. Callahan (*)
New York University, Brooklyn, NY, USA
K. B. McIntyre
Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX, USA
e-mail: kbm014@SHSU.EDU

© The Author(s) 2020 1

G. Callahan, K. B. McIntyre (eds.), Critics of Enlightenment
Rationalism, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42599-9_1
2 G. CALLAHAN AND K. B. MCINTYRE

philosophers, economists, political theorists, and urbanists. But there is

unity in this diversity. Although these authors worked in a variety of forms,
they all sought to demonstrate the narrowness of rationalism’s description
of the human situation. It is our hope that surveying the variety of per-
spectives from which rationalism has been attacked will serve to clarify the
difficulties the rationalist approach to understanding faces, rather than dis-
persing our critical attention. In other words, we hope that these diver-
gent streams flow together into a river, rather than meandering out to sea
like the channels of a delta.2
The subjects of the volume do not share a philosophical tradition as
much as a skeptical disposition toward the notion, common among mod-
ern thinkers, that there is only one standard of rationality or reasonable-
ness, and that that one standard is or ought to be taken from the
presuppositions, methods, and logic of the natural sciences. In epistemol-
ogy, this scientistic reductionism lends itself to the notion that knowing
things consists in conceiving them in terms of law-like generalizations that
allow for accurate predictability. In moral philosophy, scientism leads to
the common notion among modern ethicists that any worthy moral the-
ory must produce a single decision procedure that gives uniform and pre-
dictable answers as to what is moral in any particular situation.
While the subjects of the volume are united by a common enemy, the
sources, arguments, and purposes of their critiques are extraordinarily
various and, though they often overlap, they often contradict one another.
There are epistemological pluralists like Gadamer, Oakeshott, and Berlin
who draw sharp distinctions between scientific, aesthetic, historical, and
practical modes of discourse, and, thus, reject the Enlightenment rational-
ists’ claims concerning the superiority of scientific explanation. There are
religious believers like Kierkegaard who criticize the “faith” in human rea-
son exhibited by Enlightenment rationalists (this group of critics tends to
be Augustinian Christians). There are aesthetes like Eliot, Lewis, and Kirk
who decry the insipid and desiccated conception of humanity put forward
by the Enlightenment rationalists. There are critics of modernity itself like
Heidegger and MacIntyre who deplore not merely Enlightenment ratio-
nalism, but other forms of modern rationalism associated with many of the
other subjects of this collection. And there are those who attack the
Enlightenment rationalists’ understanding of scientific activity and expla-
nation, like Polanyi and Hayek.
Other than Nietzsche, we have not included thinkers who are deeply
skeptical of any form of human reason, and who view human interactions
 1 INTRODUCTION 3

almost solely as the result of power relations or unconscious desires,

motives, or beliefs. So the variety of postmodern thought that owes such
a great debt to Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud is not included (Lacan,
Foucault, Derrida, et al.), though all are highly critical of Enlightenment
rationalism. Additionally, due to limitations on space and time, we were
not able to include a number of other figures within our bailiwick, such as
Herder, De Maistre, Carlyle, Coleridge, Spengler, Arendt, Gray, and
Scott. We hope to produce a second volume that can remedy these
omissions.
Having looked at our criteria for selecting what thinkers to include, let
us now turn to the thinkers themselves. In his chapter on Edmund Burke
(1729–1797), Ferenc Horcher argues that Burke’s critique of the French
Revolution focuses specifically on the inappropriateness of the philos-
ophes’ and revolutionaries’ attempt to apply an abstract and rationalistic
blueprint to the messy complexities of French political life. According to
Horcher, Burke is justly understood as the founder of a political tradition
which might with good reason be labelled as British conservatism. One of
the central features of Burke’s position is his skepticism about the useful-
ness and applicability of theoretical abstractions in political affairs. Horcher
notes that Burke’s criticism of the French philosophes centered on the
practical destruction caused by their “social engineering,” and on the ever
more radical (and more bloodthirsty) revolutionary regimes created by
such “social engineering.”
Further, Burke argued that the nature of politics is exceedingly com-
plex. (As Jane Jacobs, discussed later in this volume, would have put it, it
is a matter of organized complexity, rather than simple order or pure ran-
domness.) Thus, the optimism characteristic of enlightened intellectuals
when they enter the political arena is not only logically unfounded, but
also politically counterproductive and often pernicious. Horcher focuses
his attention on those parts of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in
France which helped to identify a less optimistic, but more realistic view of
politics which has characteristic British traits, the most significant of which
is a belief in the value of such non-instrumentally rational political institu-
tions as precedents, custom, and political experience.
Travis Smith and Jin Jin discuss Alexis de Tocqueville’s (1805–1859)
nuanced criticism of rationalism by examining his views on the relation-
ship between philosophy and politics in Democracy in America and
Recollections. According to Smith and Jin, Tocqueville claims that the
preservation of liberty requires a new political science to educate the
4 G. CALLAHAN AND K. B. MCINTYRE

ineluctably emerging democratic social state. Tocqueville argues that the

ascendant political science of the Enlightenment, which aimed at whole-
sale social engineering, is actually an unscientific and partial ideology that
is oblivious to certain aspects of the human condition, and obliterates
other parts.
For Smith and Jin, Tocqueville’s recognition that both ethics and poli-
tics require educated virtue means that reason and political liberty are
inherently complementary. However, Tocqueville notes that the kind of
rationalism espoused by the French philosophes depends on assuming
ever more control over people’s lives. Smith and Jin observe that
Tocqueville witnessed at firsthand multiple attempts to implement ratio-
nalistic systems following the end of the Old Regime, and his more realis-
tic science of politics explains why they necessarily failed to produce the
supposedly just society or free people they were purportedly designed to
construct while succeeding instead at fostering ever more dehumanizing
injustices.
According to Smith and Jin, Tocqueville insists that political freedom
requires virtue, and virtue requires reason, but reason is best developed
when human beings are given the freedom to meet their greatest poten-
tial. Politics dominated by uncritical veneration of reason, especially an
Enlightenment conception of reason that is simultaneously excessive and
deficient, undermines virtue and freedom alike.
While Tocqueville focused on the political and social consequences of
the spread of Enlightenment ideas, Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855),
often considered to be the first existentialist philosopher, turned his atten-
tion primarily to the theological and ethical conflicts following in their
wake. Nevertheless, he addressed political matters as well, as noted by
Robert Wyllie in his essay on the Dane: “Kierkegaard is a famous critic of
rationalism, though less well known as a critic of political rationalism”.
Kierkegaard condemned what he saw as his era’s tendency to replace deci-
sive action with political “talkativeness, chatter, or chit-chat”: such a trend
betrayed a lack of passion on the part of citizens. The age, he believed,
“lets everything remain, but subtly drains the meaning out of it”. Wyllie
draws a connection between the object of Kierkegaard’s critique and the
concept of the rationality of the public sphere in the work of Habermas.
As Wylie portrays it, Kierkegaard could be viewed as offering a century-in-­
advance takedown of Habermas. For Kierkegaard, politics, at least as prac-
ticed in his age, was a distraction from fixing one’s own character. The
rationalism he criticizes consists in the belief that endless palaver about the
 1 INTRODUCTION 5

“reasons” such-and-such should occur can take the place of true, ethical
commitment to an ideal of life.
Justin Garrison offers an account of Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844–1900)
critique of Enlightenment rationalism which is unique in this volume in
that, according to Garrison, Nietzsche rejects not only Enlightenment
rationalism, but even the idea of rational discourse itself. Garrison offers us
Thomas Jefferson, rather than the French philosophes, as his primary foil.
Of course, Jefferson was a great admirer of the philosophes specifically and
the Enlightenment generally. As Garrison notes, Jefferson consistently
proclaimed the innate goodness and rationality of human beings, and
believed that governments propped up by irrational claims of authority,
particularly the “monkish ignorance” of religious authority, had subverted
these qualities too often. For Jefferson, a new science of politics, one
grounded in reason rather than superstition, offered hope because it
allowed for the discovery of a rational foundation for government worthy
of the people it would serve.
Per Garrison, Nietzsche would find Jefferson’s political thought naïve
and unphilosophical. Nietzsche argued instead that Enlightenment ratio-
nalism did not inaugurate a break from the religious past so much as it
re-packaged pre-existing ethical and political beliefs in verbiage stripped of
many pre-existing theological and metaphysical associations. Thus, mod-
ern rationalism was not a new thing under the sun, but was instead an
example of a serious problem Nietzsche believed he had already identified
in Christianity: nihilism. Garrison explores Nietzsche’s understanding of
reason, morality, equality, Christianity, and democracy, and applies
Nietzsche’s analysis to those elements in Jefferson’s political thought. By
borrowing Nietzsche’s hammer to “sound out” Jefferson’s mind, Garrison
suggests that Jefferson’s oft-celebrated democracy of reason is tinged with
misanthropy and world hatred. In other words, such a vision is a manifes-
tation of the ascetic ideal and thus is ultimately nihilistic. Because many see
Jefferson as a paradigmatic figure in the American Founding, even as an
incarnation of the American spirit, the chapter has broad implications for
interpreting a fundamental dimension of the American political tradition.
Corey Abel grapples with the conundrum of how T.S. Eliot
(1888–1965), one of the paradigmatic “modernist” writers, could also
have been a staunch defender of tradition. Abel quotes Eliot arguing,
“The sound tree will put forth new leaves, and the dry tree should be put
to the axe,” and describes the quote as “a vivid image of Eliot’s modernism”.
6 G. CALLAHAN AND K. B. MCINTYRE

So, for this paradigmatic modernist, what, exactly, is the value of tradi-
tion? Abel argues that Eliot actually had a nuanced view of culture and art
grounded in a robust conception of tradition. He interprets Eliot as believ-
ing that, “from the poet’s standpoint, a tradition provides buoyancy…
Tradition, for the artist, is the gift of form”. When poets are writing within
a tradition, each poet has less work to do to express themselves than does
any poet who attempts to abandon all traditions. (Of course, as Oakeshott
demonstrated, such an abandonment is never really possible.) Abel sug-
gests that Eliot’s sensibility provides a view of tradition that powerfully
challenges modern ideological habits of thinking.
Daniel Sportiello, in his chapter on Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951),
examines how Wittgenstein’s later philosophy brings into question many
of the assumptions of Enlightenment rationalism, especially its focus on
quasi-mathematical reasoning. According to Sportiello, the focus of
Wittgenstein’s critique of rationalism was his rejection of the thesis that
there is a single right way to do whatever it is that we do, and that way can
be discovered by the use of an abstract faculty called reason.
Sportiello observes that, for Wittgenstein, our words and deeds are
justified only by the rules of particular language games, but these language
games are themselves justified only insofar as they meet our needs; cer-
tainly none of them need be justified by reference to any of the others. In
claiming this, Wittgenstein is something more than a pragmatist since he
believes that the rectitude of all of our discourse is a matter of its use (for
whatever ends we happen to have). Taken together, our language games
constitute our form of life, though this form of life is not entirely arbitrary,
as some of its features can be explained by reference to our nature.
Nonetheless, per Sportiello, Wittgenstein claims that our form or forms of
life could be different in many ways. Indeed, the forms of life that have
characterized human communities have been and will continue to be
marked by significant differences. Thus, for Wittgenstein, the failure of
Enlightenment rationalism lies in its attempt to reduce the variety of lan-
guage games and forms of life to a single, abstract, rational unity. Sportiello
suggests that Wittgenstein reminds us that, on some level, we all know
this. Philosophy at its worst is the attempt to forget it; philosophy at its
best is, therefore, the attempt to remember it.
The work of Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), Jack Simmons says, can
be understood largely as a critique of scientism. As he writes, “Science sees
the world scientifically and Heidegger contends that this method of reveal-
ing the natural world conceals non-scientific ways in which the world
 1 INTRODUCTION 7

might appear to us, ways that might represent a more authentic encounter
with the world”. As Simmons notes, the supposedly timeless “natural sci-
entific reasoning” is itself an historical phenomenon, and has no valid
claim to resist being evaluated as such. And, in fact, “The reductionist
approach of modern, scientific reasoning makes it well-suited to a utilitar-
ian worldview Heidegger calls technological thinking”. Here we might
note the similarity to both Marcel’s and Oakeshott’s attacks on “the tyr-
anny of technique.”
According to Simmons, the relevance of Heidegger‘s critique of tech-
nological thinking is demonstrated by “Our current affinity for STEM
education, wedding science to technology, engineering and mathematics,
in order to satisfy the needs of the community as determined by a reduc-
tionist, economic theory, and reducing the student to an economic
resource”.
Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), notes Steven Knepper, hosted one of
the most important salons in Paris both before and after the Second World
War, attended by Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Maritain,
Emmanuel Levinas, and others. As such, he influenced several major intel-
lectual movements, such as Catholic personalism and existentialism. He
would doubtlessly be better known today if he had chosen to align himself
with some such movement, and adopt a “doctrine” which could have
yielded him “followers.”
However, Knepper argues, “Marcel worried that such labels distort or
lead to assumptions”. Philosophy should be an open inquiry that did not
imprison him in a “sort of shell”. Nevertheless, an attack on “technocratic
rationalism” is a continuing theme in Marcel’s work.
Marcel’s concern with the “tyranny of technique,” which “drowns the
deeper human in a conspiracy of efficiency and a frenzy of industry” closely
echo Oakeshott’s criticism of the “sovereignty of technique,” and
Heidegger’s attack on “technological thinking.” The focus on technique
tended to turn life into a technological problem to be solved, and other
human beings into resources to be possessed for the assistance they might
provide in solving life‘s problems. (As evidenced by the ubiquity of
“human resource” departments.) Mystery is drained out of existence:
death becomes a tricky biomedical challenge to be handled as discreetly as
possible, and love is a matter of achieving as high a “relationship rating”
as possible in some romance “app.”
This solution to this problem, for Marcel, was not to abandon tech-
nique, or reject technological progress. Instead, he argued, “What I think
8 G. CALLAHAN AND K. B. MCINTYRE

we need today is to react with our whole strength against that disassocia-
tion of life from spirit which a bloodless rationalism has brought about”.
Charles Lowney’s essay on Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) argues that
Polanyi’s work demonstrates that the Enlightenment’s standards defining
knowledge contain distortions that often have destructive effects, and in a
variety of ways. According to Lowney, Polanyi was a sympathetic critic of
the Enlightenment, which makes sense given Polanyi’s own success as a
natural scientist. Polanyi admired the Enlightenment’s political ideals, but
its rationalism led to a misunderstanding of the character of science, a
misunderstanding that Polanyi called “scientism.” Lowny notes that, for
Polanyi, this ideological “scientism” tended to reject the objectivity of
anything not based on physics and chemistry, thus relegating human val-
ues to the realm of the purely subjective.
Lowney claims that Polanyi’s post-critical philosophy revises
Enlightenment standards to more accurately reflect the limits of knowl-
edge and how science actually proceeds. This involves critiquing (1) the
viability of complete objectivity, (2) the adequacy of Cartesian explicit
analysis to simple self-evident truths, (3) the concomitant reductive analy-
sis of reality to smallest physical components, and (4) reductive dichoto-
mies between mind and matter, and between fact and value. Polanyi
accomplishes this with his conceptions of (1) personal knowledge, (2) tacit
knowing, (3) emergent being, and (4) discovery and indwelling. For
Lowney, Polanyi’s work undermines the traditional conception of scien-
tific knowledge, and shows that, instead, science moves toward truth, and
better contact with reality, by using the same tools of practical knowing
that produce understanding in those cultural and religious traditions that
are open to dialogue and discovery. Values, and not just physical facts, can
be real discoveries about the world. Polanyi’s post-critical epistemology
thus provides a non-skeptical fallibilism that goes beyond simple dualisms
and reductionism, forestalls a regression into nihilism, and renews hope in
human progress.
C.S. Lewis (1898–1963), notes Luke Sheahan, may seem an unlikely
candidate for inclusion in a book on anti-rationalists. After all, in a series
of books, he used reasoned arguments to defend the Christian faith. But
he believed that the effectiveness of such arguments “depended upon a
deeper mode of knowing”. Lewis is considered one of the most prominent
Christian apologists of the twentieth century. But he held a deep distrust
of the work of the rational faculty that was not properly oriented by the
imagination, which explains in large part his turn to writing imaginative
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 CHAPTER II.
Cachar or Silchar—We are fêted there—The hill tribes: Kukis, Tongkhuls, etc.—
Their dress and habits—Rest houses, and difficulties therein—Manipuri
Sepoys: camp on the Makru River—Logtak Lake—Colonel Samoo Singh—
The Senaputti.

Cachar, or rather Silchar, deserves a description, as it has been of

such importance during the recent troubles at Manipur. The town is
about one hundred and thirty miles from the Manipur capital, but only
twenty-four miles from the boundary. The state of Manipur is
separated from the Cachar district by a river called the Jhiri, where
we have outposts garrisoned by troops. Silchar itself is not a very
large station, though it boasts of more Europeans than most Assam
districts, there being a regiment always quartered there besides the
usual civil authorities. The district has a very large planting
community, and abounds in tea-gardens; and as the planters are
constantly in and out, there is a very fair amount of gaiety, especially
in the winter months, when there are always two or three race
meets, each lasting for a week, which bring people in from far and
near.
Silchar has seen much trouble during the last year. In September,
1890, the Lushai disaster occupied everyone’s attention, and troops
poured through the place on their way to the hills about Fort Aïjal to
avenge the treachery of the tribes inhabiting those regions—
treachery which resulted in the loss of two valuable lives. A few
weeks later curiosity was rife to see the ex-Maharajah of Manipur,
who had been driven from his throne by his brother the Senaputti,
and was passing through on his self-imposed pilgrimage to the
sacred city of Brindhaban on the Ganges, accompanied by three of
his brothers. Christmas brought the usual round of races, dances,
and dinners with it; but the sound of the Christmas bells had scarcely
ceased when the New Year brought tidings of a disaster which
caused men’s faces to pale, and almost out-rivalled the horrors of
the mutiny. But I am anticipating events, and must return to
ourselves and our experiences three years earlier.
We stayed two or three days in Silchar on our first arrival there
and made some new friends, and were fêted, as is the custom when
new-comers arrive at a station in India. Hospitality is a law, and you
have only to be English to be assured of a welcome from your fellow-
countrymen, who are ready to put themselves, their houses, and
possessions all at your service. There are disadvantages, maybe, to
be met with in India which are many and great, and one loses much
by having to live out there; but one never meets with such true-
hearted kindness anywhere else as in India. The narrow prejudices
and questioning doubts as to who you are, and what your station in
life is, which assail you at home, vanish entirely when you need
hospitality out there. The civil list or the army list will tell your position
and income, and for the rest you are English, you come from the old
country, and all are glad to see you and be kind to you. I am happy
to think of the good friends made when I was out there too—friends
who were ready to share their pleasures with me, and who were still
more ready to help me when the dark days of trouble came and
human sympathy was so needed. Their names will ever live in my
heart, and may all good luck be theirs!
Our short stay in Silchar came to an end very soon, and we were
on our way to Manipur in real earnest by the end of the third day.
The first two marches out to the Jhiri were uneventful, and we then
found ourselves on the banks of the river, with a vast expanse of
forest jungle before us to be traversed the following day. Unluckily, it
rained all that night, and when the morning arrived it was still damp
and drizzling. We changed our coolies here, and got Nagas (hillmen)
to carry the baggage. They were fine-looking men, belonging to the
various hill tribes about Manipur. There were Kukis, Tongkhuls, and
Kupoës, and they seemed to my uninitiated eyes very alarming
people indeed. They wore very few clothes, and their necks were
adorned with many necklaces made of gaudily-coloured glass
beads. Their ears were split to a hideous extent, and in the loops
thus formed they stuffed all kinds of things—rolls of paper (of which
they are particularly fond), and rings of bamboo, which stretched
them out and made them look enormous.
Their hair was cut in different ways. The Tongkhuls’ heads were
shaved with the exception of a ridge along the top, which extended
to the nape of the neck, and gave them the appearance of
cockatoos.
The Kukis’ hair was long, and gathered up into a loose and very
untidy knot at the back of their heads, and the Kupoës had theirs cut
so that it stuck out all round their heads and made them look as
though they had fur hats on. They made no fuss over the
Memsahib’s trunks, and I was much amused at the way they all
rushed for the bath, which had a flat cover to it, and was easy to
carry and cool against their backs. It was a muggy kind of day in the
middle of April—a day that invariably brings out legions of horse-flies
and gnats and things of that species to worry you and your horses.
Worry us they most certainly did. They collected in rows under the
brims of our hats and stung our faces, and they settled in swarms on
our horses, and what with the dreadful state of the so-called road,
and the heat and the flies, we were dreadfully tormented. We had a
guard of Manipuri Sepoys with us, who marched along in front of us
and helped to lead our horses through the sea of deep mud which
covered the road. For seven miles we plodded on like this, and then
we came to the first range of high hills and got out of the mud. These
hills are the backbone of Assam, and the Manipur ranges are a
continuation of those known as the Naga Hills. The highest range on
the road to Manipur is about 6,000 feet, but they are all steep, and
the road over them is very rough, making riding difficult in places.
They are covered with bamboo jungle, and here and there you come
across villages, but they are not numerous.
At every five miles the Manipuris had Thanas for the purpose of
keeping a look-out against enemies, and acting as stages for the
dak-runners. These Thanas were not always fortified, but the larger
ones were, and they had been attacked more than once by Lushais
out on a head-hunting expedition. There was great excitement at our
advent at all the Thanas, and the Sepoys on guard at each stage
turned out in style and gave us the ‘General’s salute.’ They had a
particular fondness for bugling, and they exercised it on every
possible occasion; but I’m afraid they were not struck with our
appearance that day, as we were very tired and hungry, and covered
with mud.
We did not get to the end of our march till late in the evening, and
we then found we had to cross a river, as our camping-place was on
the left bank, and our horses had to be left on the other side. We
crossed by means of a bamboo suspension-bridge—a most
alarming-looking erection. These bridges are really curiosities. They
are made of wire twisted into thick ropes, and stretched from trees
on either side of the river at different heights. Bamboos are hung on
to the wires close together to form a kind of railing on each side, and
these are fastened with cane to the floor of the bridge, which is made
of bamboo also, woven into a kind of coarse matting, and although
they look most flimsy and airy erections, they are really very strong,
and can carry any number of men on them at once, and animals too,
if necessary. They are a great height from the water, which you can
see between the chinks of the matting as you walk across, and they
have an unpleasant fashion of swinging violently when you are in the
middle of them, making it very difficult to keep your footing. I did not
like going over it at all, and tumbled down in the most awkward
fashion more than once, much to the amusement of the Manipuris,
who laughed very heartily.
It began to rain shortly after we had arrived at the rest-house, a
large barn-like place built of bamboo also, with one doorway and no
windows of any kind, and a mud floor. Not an atom of furniture
graced this abode, and there was nothing to be done but to sit down
on the ground and wait until our luggage should arrive—very hungry,
and generally out of sorts. Nothing came in until nine at night, when
the cook arrived with the kitchen paraphernalia, and we had a sort of
dinner on the floor, and then had to wait until two in the morning for
our heavy baggage and beds, which were travelling on elephants. It
was a dreadful four hours, for in the meanwhile swarms of
mosquitoes and sandflies came out and attacked us—hands, faces,
and, in fact, any part of us that was not covered. The delay was
caused by the road being too steep and slippery for the elephants,
and their having to be unloaded five or six times—a most tedious
operation.
About three in the morning we got our beds put up and turned in,
longing for sleep, but I hadn’t been there an hour before the rain,
which had poured down in torrents ever since dinner, made its
appearance through the roof and descended upon my head. So we
had to get up and move everything, and then were able to sleep in
peace for the remainder of the night. Of course, all idea of going on
the next day was out of the question, as servants, coolies, and
elephants were all too tired, and, to add to this, the rain never
ceased, so I made the best of things and stayed in bed all day, while
the coolies busied themselves in making me a dooly out of bamboos,
as we found that my horse had got a sore back from his long climb
the day before, and my husband decided that it would be better to
have me carried the rest of the way. I had time to notice particularly
our escort of Manipuri Sepoys during our halt at this place. We were
supposed to have thirty men altogether, but I never saw more than
twelve. When marching, they had counted themselves over twice by
running on ahead directly they had presented arms once, and going
through the same performance round the corner, fondly imagining
that we should be under the impression that we had double the
number with us. Their uniforms were limited. There were about three
complete ones amongst them, and the remainder adorned
themselves in confections of their own. When halting, we were
provided with a sentry to keep guard over us all day, and he was
relieved about every three hours, which gave rise to a most amusing
scene. A dirty-looking individual came up to the Sepoy on duty, and
saluted him with the ordinary native salaam. The sentry then
proceeded to divest himself of his uniform coat, belt, etc., and rifle,
which he threw down on the ground; whereupon the dirty-looking
person picked them up, hastily put them on his own manly form, and,
having done so, came up to where we were sitting and saluted in
fine style. The other man had meanwhile disappeared. At night we
had two sentries, and they frequently asked us whether they might
mount guard in the veranda of our hut. This meant that before very
long they would both be fast asleep upon the floor, snoring so loud
that we were awakened.
 When marching, each man went as he pleased and whatever
route he pleased. If he were of a lazy turn of mind he slid down all
the short cuts, but we generally had one or two walking in front of us,
one of whom invariably possessed a bugle, which he made the most
of by giving us selections on it from his own imagination. I believe he
meant well. Their rifles were carried over their shoulders, and their
worldly possessions were done up in a cloth and slung on to the end
of them in large bundles. The Manipuri Sepoy was no doubt a very
funny animal indeed.
We left our wet camp at the Makru River the next day, very glad to
get out of it, and proceeded on our journey towards Manipur. Every
day was the same: up and down hill all day and a bamboo hut at
night; but our experiences of the first day had taught us wisdom, and
we put the things which we wanted most upon coolies, and the
elephants carried the rest, as they went so slowly. The Nagas used
to swarm out of their villages as we came along to see us, and they
were especially interested in me, as many of them had never seen
an English lady before. Seven days in the hills, and the eighth
brought us at last to the topmost ridge of the last range, and then I
had my first glimpse of the valley of Manipur lying beneath us,
looking delightfully calm and peaceful in the afternoon sunshine. It
looked so beautiful to us after the hills of the previous seven days,
stretching away smooth and even as far as the eye could see, and
we stopped on the top of the hill some time for the pleasure of
looking at it. We could distinguish far away in the plain the white
walls of the Maharajah’s palace, and the golden-roofed temple of his
favourite god. Just below us stretched the blue waters of the Logtak
Lake, studded with islands, each one a small mountain in itself.
Villages buried in their own groves of bamboo and plantain-trees
dotted the plain, and between each village there were tracts of rice-
fields and other cultivation. The whole valley looked rich and well
cared for, and we longed for the next day, which was to see us at our
journey’s end.
We were met at the foot of the hill by ten elephants and a guard of
fifty Sepoys, under the command of a high officer of state called
Colonel Samoo Singh, who was one of the most hideous old
gentlemen I have ever seen. However, he was politeness itself,
presenting us with large baskets of fowls and vegetables, and
escorting us to the rest-house, to which we all went mounted on
elephants gaily rigged out in red cloth. I wanted to go on the same
elephant as my husband, but the interpreter said ‘his Excellency the
Colonel Sahib’ would not like it if we did not make use of all the
elephants brought out for our glorification, so I proceeded in solemn
dignity behind my husband’s quadruped. The old colonel came up to
the house with us, as also did the guard of honour; and then after a
final salute they all departed and left us to our own devices.
Early next morning we were up and ready for the last seventeen
miles into Manipur. We had tried to smarten ourselves up as much
as possible, as we were to be met by some of the princes before we
reached our journey’s end, but, alas! a mischievous rat had busied
himself during the night by eating a large hole in my husband’s hat
and all the fingers off my right-hand glove, and we could not get at
our boxes to rummage for others, so we had to go as we were.
The old colonel rode with us, and seven miles from Manipur we
were met by four princes. They had had a small hut built, which was
nicely matted and arranged with chairs. As we rode up, the four
royalties came forward to meet us, amidst much blowing of trumpets
and presenting of arms by their several guards of honour. This was
my first introduction to the Senaputti of Manipur, and little did we
foresee the terrible influence he was destined to bear on our future!
He was not a very striking-looking personage. I should think he was
about five feet eight inches in height, with a lighter skin than most
natives, and rather a pleasing type of countenance. He had nice
eyes and a pleasant smile, but his expression was rather spoilt by
his front teeth, which were very much broken. We liked what we saw
of him on this occasion, and thought him very good-natured-looking.
The other brothers did not strike us at all, and there were so many
people there, including important officers of state, that I became
confused, and ended by shaking hands with a Sepoy, much to that
warrior’s astonishment.
We were escorted to the reception-barn by the princes. The
Senaputti was the only one who could speak Hindostani amongst
them, and my husband was able to talk to him; but the others only
knew Manipuri, so contented themselves with smiling continuously,
and I followed suit by smiling back, and it didn’t tire any of us. They
presented us with an enormous quantity of things, and I do not know
how many baskets of fowls, ducks, and vegetables they didn’t give
us, for they seemed unending. At last, after more hand-shaking,
which entirely ruined my already fingerless glove, some polite
speeches from my husband and more amiable smiles from me, we
mounted our horses and, accompanied by our four royal friends and
their retinue, rode into Manipur. A salute of twelve guns was fired on
our arrival, and after we had taken leave of the princes at the
entrance to the Palace we turned into the gates of the Residency,
and felt that our journey was really at an end.
 CHAPTER III.
Favourable impressions of our new home—The Residency—The Maharajah—His
brother the Jubraj—Polo with the Princes—The Senaputti a fine sportsman—
Visits us on Sunday afternoons—Shell-firing—Prince Zillah Singh—We try to
learn the Manipuri language.

I always think a great deal depends on one’s first impressions of

anything, be it place or people. One is struck with a house or a
garden if it looks pleasant at first sight, even though a closer
acquaintance with it may bring disappointment. My first impressions
of our house and surroundings on this occasion were of the most
favourable description. A long carriage-drive led up from the
entrance-gate to the house. There were trees each side, and a
delightful stretch of grassland dotted about with deodars and
flowering shrubs, with a tennis-court in the centre on the right. A
hedge of cluster roses all in blossom divided the outer grounds from
the flower-garden surrounding the house, at the end of which was a
small lake with an island in the middle of it, where, late as it was, a
few wild-duck were still swimming about. We cantered our horses up
the drive to the entrance, a long flight of steps covered by a porch,
over which grew a beautiful Bougainvillia, whose gorgeous purple
blossoms entirely hid the thatch with which the porch was
surmounted.
The Residency was a long low house with a thatched roof. The
walls were painted white, and the wood-work picked out in black. A
veranda surrounded it, comfortably matted and strewn about with
rugs and skins. In front of the house there was a circular lawn
covered with flower-beds blazing with colour, and at the end of the
lawn was the flagstaff of my dreams and the ensign of Old England
waving proudly in the breeze. To us, fresh from the jungles of the
previous nine days, the place seemed beautiful, and even after we
had grown accustomed to it, we always returned to it with a fresh
sense of pleasure. The inside of the house was equally charming,
and after our little hut at Sylhet it seemed a mansion. The red-coated
servants were all in attendance, and a couple of Ghoorka orderlies,
so that my aspirations in that direction were amply satisfied.

VIEW OF THE RESIDENCY AT MANIPUR.

In a very few days we had shaken down most comfortably. We had

brought with us everything we possessed, and I soon had as pretty a
drawing-room as anyone could wish for. The next thing my husband
had to do was to make friends with the Maharajah. For this purpose
a durbar was arranged, and it took place about two days after we
had been there, at eight in the morning. It was a very imposing
function indeed. Red cloth was spread all over the veranda and on
the front steps, and our whole escort of sixty Ghoorkas was drawn
up on the front lawn. The Maharajah arrived with a grand flourish of
trumpets, attended by all his brothers, and accompanied also by a
large following of Sepoys, slaves and ministers of state, each of the
latter with his own retinue. The Maharajah was a short, fat, ugly little
man, with a face something between that of a Burmese and a
Chinaman—rather fairer than the Bengal natives, but much scarred
with small-pox. He was dressed very simply in white—a white coat
with gold buttons, and a very fine white muslin Dhotee.[2] He had a
large white turban on his head, in which was stuck a spray of yellow
orchids. Gray woollen stockings covered his legs, fastened at the
knee with blue elastic garters with very fine brass buckles and little
bows, and his feet were encased in very large roughly-made laced
boots, of which he seemed supremely proud.
His eldest brother, the Jubraj, was a second edition of himself,
only stouter and uglier. Next in order rode the Senaputti, whom I
have already described, and he was followed by five younger
brothers. My husband had to go to the outer gate to meet his
highness with his hat off, where he shook hands with all the princes,
and then walked with the Maharajah back to the house and into the
durbar hall, which was in the centre of the Residency. The whole
durbar, being only a complimentary ceremony, did not last more than
ten minutes, but before he left the Maharajah expressed a wish to
see me; so I appeared and shook hands with them all, and smiled
amiably, as I did not know enough of the language then to speak to
them. They all stared at me very solemnly, as though I were a
curious kind of animal, and shortly afterwards they took their
departure.
I shall not attempt a detailed account of our life at Manipur, as it
was very monotonous and uneventful. We got to know the princes
very well. My husband played polo with them, and I frequently rode
with them. The Senaputti in particular was our very good friend.
There was something about him that is not generally found in the
character of a native. He was manly and generous to a fault, a good
friend and a bitter enemy. We liked him because he was much more
broad-minded than the rest. If he promised a thing, that thing would
be done, and he would take the trouble to see himself that it was
done, and not be content with simply giving the order. He was
always doing little courteous acts to please us. On one occasion I
mentioned to him that I had been very much frightened by a lunatic
in the bazaar, who was perfectly harmless, but dreadfully deformed
as well as insane. He used to spring out upon you suddenly, making
terrible grimaces, which was not pleasant, and he frightened me
several times. I noticed after speaking to the Senaputti about him
that he had not been in the bazaar for a long time, and afterwards I
was told that the prince had ordered him to be kept at home in the
evenings, at the time we usually went out for a walk.
Another time I had been very ill, and when I was getting better,
kind inquiries came every day from the Senaputti, accompanied by
half a dozen small birds which he thought were eatable, as he had
often seen my husband bring snipe home. The birds were useless,
of course, but I valued the kind thoughts which prompted him to send
them. If anything went amiss with my husband’s polo-ponies, the
Senaputti was quite ready to send him as many as he wanted of his
own, and he always mounted any visitor who might be staying with
us and wish for a game. He was a keen sportsman and a capital
shot. In the cold weather he often organized a week’s deer-shooting
for my husband, to which I always went, and very good fun it was.
The Senaputti would meet us at the place with a number of
elephants, and we used to start very early in the morning, and
generally returned with a good bag. Bigger game was scarcely
known in the valley. Occasionally a stray tiger would wander down
and kill a bullock or two, the news of which was immediately
conveyed to the Maharajah and a shooting-party organized.
A number of men kept for the purpose would start out to the spot
where the tiger was supposed to be with nets and enormous spears.
They surrounded the bit of jungle first with nets and afterwards with a
strong bamboo fence, which, when erected, enabled them to remove
the nets. The whole of the royal family then arrived and ourselves,
and ascended into little platforms built up very high off the ground to
be safely out of reach of the tiger should he escape; and then, with
much blowing of trumpets and shouting, the fun began. The jungle
inside the fence was then cut down, each cutter being protected by
another man armed with an enormous spear. By degrees all the
jungle was cut and the tiger forced to appear, when the occupants of
the platforms all shot at him at once and ended his career.
Sometimes the tiger was speared by the men inside the fence, but
the poor beast always had ten or twelve wounds in him when we
came to examine him. It was exciting, but it was not sport, and I
always felt sorry for the tiger. Whenever I was present the Maharajah
presented me with the skin and claws, and I got quite a collection in
my three years at Manipur.
The princes always seemed to like our taking an interest in their
concerns, and they frequently visited us, even sometimes on
Sundays with a small following, and without any ceremony. Their
people remained in the veranda, and they used to come into the
drawing-room and talk to us, and look at our photographs and my
husband’s guns.
Any new invention in the latter pleased them immensely, and they
immediately wished to know where the weapon was made and all
particulars. They generally stayed with us some time on these
occasions. Two or three days afterwards they would ask my husband
to shoot or ride with them, and we always saw something of them
during the week. On one occasion I mentioned to them that I had
never seen a shell fired, so they got the Maharajah to arrange for a
field-day, and we rode out to their own rifle-range, and saw their two
mountain-guns brought out with different kinds of shell, and fired by
the Senaputti himself.
When I think over the events of the last few months, it seems
difficult to realize the friendly terms on which we had ever been with
the Court at Manipur. How little we could foresee the terrible
destruction those same guns were to bring upon our peaceful home
in the near future! I was so delighted that day at watching the effect
of a shell on the hill we were firing at, and the Manipuris got the
range very well, almost every shot taking effect. We were out that
morning four or five hours, and all rode back together. The
Maharajah rode a beautiful pony on a gold saddle, with large flaps
on each side to protect his legs, also of gold. The pony’s bridle was
made of gold cord, and his head and back covered with balls of soft
white cotton. These saddles are really curiosities, and are peculiar to
Manipur. The balls of cotton are arranged to protect the pony’s sides
from being hit at polo, and the whole turn-out is very well made,
though rather heavy for the small steeds.
It was a fine sight to see the Senaputti play polo. He was very
strong; in fact, the Manipuris used to tell us that he was the strongest
man in the country. He could lift very heavy weights and throw long
distances, and to see him send the ball skimming half across the
ground with one hit was a very pretty sight. He could do strokes that
few Manipuris knew, which is saying a great deal, for an average
player at Manipur can beat most Englishmen. The Senaputti was a
magnificent rider, and he was always mounted on beautiful ponies.
He wore a very picturesque dress for polo—a green velvet zouave
jacket edged with gold buttons, and a salmon-pink silk Dhotee, with
white leather leggings and a pink silk turban. He had long hair, which
he used to twist up into a knot at the back of his neck, and he always
looked very nice on these occasions. All the princes played polo.
There was one called Zillah Singh, a boy of about seventeen,
whom we used to call the Poem. He was a slight, graceful-looking
lad, and he used to ride a tiny mite of a pony, and never troubled
himself with too many garments. His turban was always coming off,
and his long black hair streamed in the wind as he flew about all over
the ground. Even the little son of the Maharajah used to play. He was
a dear little fellow, of about eight years old, and once a week there
was generally a youngsters’ game, in which all the little royalties
used to perform, and remarkably well too, considering how young
most of them were. My husband played regularly twice a week, all
the year round. The Senaputti liked to play for stakes, which were
generally muslin cloths or turbans. These were all hung up at the
end of the ground, and when the game was ended, the winning side
were presented with them, and the losers had to pay for them, which
gave an interest to the game, and made both sides play up.
I have said more about the Senaputti than the other princes,
because he was the one of them all that we knew intimately. He
could speak Hindostani well, while the other princes spoke nothing
but their own language, and when we first went to Manipur my
husband, of course, didn’t know a word of Manipuri, so had to speak
to them through an interpreter. He did not lose much time in setting
to work to learn it, and he had an old pundit[3] who used to come
every day to give him lessons. This old gentleman was rather a
character. His name was Perundha Singh, and he deprived
Government of fifty rupees annually, by virtue of calling himself
‘Burmese Interpreter to the Political Agent,’ which designation he
had engraved on a brass plate which he wore on the front of his belt.
Whether he really knew Burmese was another matter, but he had
certainly been in Burmah, and had seen some fighting there and
even got wounded himself. He never turned up on wet days,
because the bullet, which, he affirmed, had never been extracted,
got affected by the damp and became rusty, causing him much pain
and preventing his sitting down.
I had a grand idea of learning Manipuri too, but the old pundit used
to pay me such florid compliments over the extreme rapidity with
which I was picking up the language, that my husband thought I
should learn it before he did, and said we must have our lessons at
different times, which I found rather dull work, so ceased them
altogether. The old pundit was a grand gossip. He had a thousand
stories of the good and evil deeds of all the Sahibs who had been
before us, and I must honestly confess the deeds seemed chiefly evil
ones. He invariably ended by saying that there never was, and never
would be, such a good and excellent Sahib as the present one,
which judicious piece of flattery he hoped would be productive of
great pecuniary results.
 CHAPTER IV.
Collect various animals around us—Habits of our pets—Our beautiful grounds—
The Nagas—Amusing incident—The liquor zu—Roast dog—Villages allotted
to us for food, labour, etc.—Women do the work—Children of the Maharajah
—A water-party—Every child dances in Manipur—The Manipuri women not
shut up.

Such was our life at Manipur. It seldom varied day by day. We

used to ride every morning, and directly after breakfast go the round
of the place, visit the stables and kitchen-garden, and feed all the
animals, from the horses down to the two little otters, which were so
tame that they followed us about like dogs. What would life in India
be without one’s animals, I wonder? We were never tired of
collecting around us all kinds of creatures, and the natives got to
know it, and used to bring us anything they caught. We had three
monkeys, little brown fellows, which were my delight. They lived
during the day in boxes nailed to posts, and were tied by ropes long
enough to enable them to run up and down. Sometimes they got
loose, and we had a long chase to get them again, as we could not
leave them to do their pleasure upon our garden. One of them was
so clever that we had to get him a chain to fasten him by, as he
could undo any knot, and gnaw any rope in half in no time. He used
to untie the rope and then look cautiously round, and if he saw
anyone watching him he would sit on the end he had undone and
pretend to be deep in the mysteries of his toilette; but if no one were
looking, he would rush off to a large bed of sunflowers on the front
lawn and snatch at the blossoms, tearing them to pieces, and
strewing the petals all over the place. After this he would make for
the house, and, if he were not discovered, run into whatever door or
window happened to be open and do dreadful damage to anything
that took his fancy. Directly he was seen there used to be a grand
hunt after him, when he would betake himself to a particular tree in
the grounds, clamber up to the very top, where the branches were
too thin to bear any man, and remain there making the most hideous
faces at us below. We had to station a man to watch him, as if
everyone disappeared he would immediately come down and do
more mischief. Sometimes it would be a whole day before the young
ruffian was caught, but he generally came down for his evening
meal, and then was captured. All three monkeys slept together on a
beam in the roof of my bedroom veranda, and they were as good as
any watch-dog, for if anything came into the veranda after dark they
would begin chattering and making a great commotion. Poor little
monkeys! I cannot bear to think of what their fate must have been.
We had a bear, two otters, a tame deer, and two large gray and
red cranes, besides the monkeys. The bear was a small ball of black
fluff when he came to us, with tiny teeth that could not hurt. We
brought him up on milk and rice, and he grew a huge beast. I was a
little afraid of him when he grew up. He was always getting loose,
and was almost as difficult to catch as Jacko. When he was caught,
it was very amusing to see him standing up behind his post playing
hide and seek with the servant who was tying him up. He used to put
his paw round the post and give the man’s bare leg a friendly pat,
which must have been very painful, and he stood all the while upon
his hind-legs. He got very fierce as he grew older, and one day I was
out in the garden gathering flowers and suddenly noticed the
Chupprassies and orderlies flying towards the house—a proceeding
that always happened directly the bear was at large. He very soon
spied me out, and came rushing towards me, and I began to run; but
long before I could get to the house he had overtaken me. I threw
the flowers I had collected behind me, hoping that he would stop for
them, but he just sniffed at them and then came on. He caught me
up in a moment and clawed at my back, and tore my jacket all the
way down. Fortunately it was a very cold day, and I had put on a
thick winter coat, which saved me from getting badly clawed; but he
gave me some nasty scratches. Luckily the Ghoorka orderly saw it
from the house, and ran up and beat him off; and then the other
servants came and captured him and chained him up. So my
husband said we must get rid of him, and the next day he was
conveyed away by four Nagas and a couple of Ghoorkas to a hill
covered with jungle about fifteen miles away and let loose there, with
a heap of rice and a lot of plantains to keep him going.
The next day we heard that the Manipuris had kept a holy festival
on the identical hill, but we never asked whether they had seen our
poor bear afterwards, and we never heard of him again. Our large
grounds were a great delight to us at Manipur. We had quite a park
at the back, with fine large trees and bushes of gardenias and roses
and oleanders. The kitchen-garden was separated from the rest of
the grounds by a wall which ran all round it. It always reminded me
of an English garden with fruit-trees growing on the wall, and English
vegetables all the year round. We had nine gardeners, or Malis, as
they are called in India.
Talking of them reminds me of an amusing incident which
happened in connection with them. They were Nagas belonging to
one of our villages which lay at the back of the Residency grounds,
between us and the river. The Nagas never burden themselves with
too many clothes, and these in particular wore little beside a
necklace or two. I mentioned this fact to a spinster lady friend of
mine on one occasion, and she was so horrified that she sent me
shortly afterwards nine pairs of bathing-drawers to be given to them.
They were very beautiful garments; some had red and white stripes,
and some blue, and they were all very clean. I presented them
gravely one morning to my nine Malis, and a few days after I went
into the garden in the evening and found two of the men at work.
One had made a hole in his bathing apparatus and had put his head
through it, while his arms went into the places for the legs, and he
was wearing it with great pride as a jacket; and the other had
arranged his with an eye for the artistic on his head as a turban.
After this I gave up trying to inculcate decency into the mind of the
untutored savage.
We had a good many Naga servants. My second Khitmutghar[4]
was a Naga, and a very excellent servant he was too, except when
he was drunk, which I am sorry to say was very often. If we were
going into camp, or if we had just returned, were the particular
occasions which, in his mind, were the ones of all others to be
celebrated with much spirituous fluid. A message would come from
the village to say that Mecandaï (the gentleman in question) was
very dangerously ill—in fact, that he was not expected to live through
the day. At first my sympathies were all aroused in his cause, but
after a little experience I discovered the nature of his illness, and had
him conveyed to the house. The native doctor was then sent for, and
if he said the man was ill he was put into the hospital; if not, he went
under military escort to the quarter-guard.
The Nagas will drink anything, but the stronger it is the better they
are pleased. They have a beverage of their own which they make of
fermented rice water. They can drink great quantities of it with no
bad effect at first, but they get very drunk on it if they go beyond a
certain limit. They call this liquor Zu, and I have heard my husband
say he found it very refreshing after a long hot march; but I never
had the courage to touch it, as they offered it to one out of a bottle
that was never cleaned and that everybody drank from. I suppose to
a Naga there is nothing more delicious than roast dog washed down
with quarts of this Zu. Poor doggies! They are only kept to be eaten.
They are well fed while they are growing up, and then, when they are
ready to be eaten, they are starved for a day. At the end of this they
are given an enormous feed of rice and the remains of a former
comrade, perhaps, which they eat up ravenously; and then the head
man of the village gives the victim a blow on the head and converts
him into curry and rice.
On one occasion we were going up to our hill bungalow, and our
village Nagas, wishing to do us honour, erected a triumphal arch at
the entrance to our garden. Fortunately I looked up at it before going
under, and saw, to my horror, the head of a dog, which had just been
cut off, hanging in the centre of the erection, whilst his four paws and
tail graced the sides, and the whole archway was so low that I
should have touched the top of it as I rode under. I dismounted,
however, and walked through.
The hill bungalow mentioned was situated about fifteen miles from
Manipur. It was about 6,000 feet above sea-level, with a delightfully
cool climate all the year round, though the rainfall was excessive
during the summer months, and damp mists came up from the valley
below, hiding even the garden round the house, and making the
place very cold. Still, it was pleasant to be able to get away up there
for a few days’ change from the heat at Manipur, and we generally
went up from Saturday till Tuesday every week. The village below
the house belonged to us, and rejoiced in the name of Khan-jhub-
khul. We had some five or six villages, which were given us by the
Maharajah, the inhabitants of which worked for us. They were
situated in different parts of Manipur, and we found it very
convenient. The Nagas preferred working for us to working for the
Maharajah, as we paid them for their labour, whereas the durbar
considered it as revenue, and gave them nothing. At the same time,
the way the Manipuris managed all the hill-tribes about them was
very creditable. Every village had to work for the Rajah so many
months in the year—about four. Some had to cut wood, and bring so
many bundles in for the palace; others had to give so much rice, or
go down to Cachar or to Kohima for trading purposes, and each tribe
had its own duties. This system extended throughout Manipur, and
not only amongst the hill-tribes, but also among the Manipuris
themselves, and was called ‘Lalup.’ In return for their services they
got their land rent free, and were not restrained from trading in their
own interests as soon as they had performed their ‘Lalup’ for the
Maharajah. It was a system that answered very well, and the people
seemed well-to-do and contented.
The women did all the hard work, as a rule. They wove all their
own and their husbands’ clothing, and cooked and looked after the
house generally, besides working in the fields and coming every
evening to the big bazaar[5] with merchandise for sale or exchange.
No men were allowed to sell in this bazaar with the exception of a
few Bengalee traders, who sat in a different part of the market and
sold cloths. It was a pretty sight in the evening to see all the women
hurrying along with their wares on their heads, and their little babies
slung on their backs. They sat in long rows in the bazaar, and it was
divided up in a most methodical way. Vegetables and fish occupied
one end, and cloths and jewellery the other, and the whole of the
female population turned out, and even the princesses occasionally
sold in the bazaar. The princesses were more numerous than the
princes, as each of the latter had several wives. The Senaputti was