days. But the good Father's French seemed to have taken on no rust in Central Asia, hence he and I were able to dispute our radically divergent views on nearly all abstract topics, while in philology his superior wisdom changed discussion into authoritative declaration.
In such days and in such ways it is learned how slight are the material requirements for satisfactory existence in either one of two planes—that of the lazy, dirty, sensuous, or that of contemplation. We, contemplative, were happy in learning new finite facts about a part of our earth, and in speculations concerning things infinite, unknowable ; and, being few, we were free from pose, almost free from vanity. The daily march across the heated desert, the nightly shake-down in langar (empty roadhouse) or in the comfortable mud home of some village notable, kept body and mind in good mechanical condition and produced a sense of solidarity with stars and sand and trees and men. Without woman, art, or ambition—those chief elements of general life—value in living may yet be found, for a time at least, merely in regulated exercise of body and mind.
As for the values given by the lazy, dirty, and sensuous life, they were abundantly, incontestably in evidence everywhere about us. Leprosy may claim its fiftieth, goitre its fifth, unseen disease its third, dirt its four-fifths, political tyranny its nine-tenths, yet let me fill the belly, destroy ambition, and pour sunshine over all, and I shall guarantee something that a jury of wise men must call happiness—though not the variety which grows in New
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