Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | страница 14

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
In the Library of the Madras Literary Society and
may be seen, in
position
above
the
one
doorways, a
of
a conspicuous
Auxiliary of the Royal Asiatic Society
striking portrait in oil-colours.
This portrait at a distance
one takes to be that of some Hindu, clothed in white,
wearing a white turban, and holding in one hand the
bamboo
A
staff
that tradition assigns to a
closer inspection, however,
shows that
Hindu
the portrait of a European, albeit the face
and so furrowed with the lines of age
the first
It is
a face that
literally
is
so tanned,
and thought, that
impression that one receives of
dispelled.
pilgrim.
in reality it is
it
is
not easily
speaks to you from
the canvas. The broad forehead, the well-shaped but
somewhat prominent nose, the firm but kindly mouth,
and above all the marvellously intelligent eyes, all bespeak
a man of no common mould. Whoever the artist was
(and I have not been able to discover his name or the
circumstances which led to his executing the work), there
can be no doubt that he has succeeded in depicting a
while as a back-
range of bare,
low
ground to his picture he has painted a
with his
keeping
thorough
in
rugged hills that seem to be
hard,
the
inspiration,
kind
of
as
suggest,
a
subject, and to
self-denying, but solid life-work of him whose features he
countenance that
is
full
of character
;
has handed down.
This portrait
Missionary
is
that of the
who laboured
for
Abbe
J.
A. Dubois, a Christian
some thirty-one years
in India,
the task which his sense of religious duty
imposed upon him. Merely in this respect one can claim
.striving to fulfil