p. 33

31

...were back for dinner.
Meanwhile I am reading some books on India which are increasing the interest in the country but which demonstrate completely the impossibility of entering into the spirit of it in a [illegible] stay. Even those who have lived here long freely admit they do not understand it and every author assures his readers that no one ever has understood it. The tremendous number of castes and the rules laid down for them seems to be the trouble. The people of one caste may not marry into another, nor eat with those of another. Each caste is governed by its own rules which are too numerous for any human to know or understand. Surely it is the most complicated society in the world.