Kim (Illustrated edition)

Lurgan Sahib had a hawk’s eye to detect the least flaw in the make-up; and lying on a worn teak-wood couch, would explain by the half-hour together how such and such a caste talked, or walked, or coughed, or spat, or sneezed, and, since ‘hows’ matter little in this world, the ‘why’ of everything.

What is a beating when the very head is loose on the shoulders?’

No man could be a fool who knew the language so intimately, who moved so gently and silently, and whose eyes were so different from the dull fat eyes of other Sahibs.

‘Yes, and thou must learn how to make pictures of roads and mountains and rivers—to carry these pictures in thine eye till a suitable time comes to set them upon paper.

‘Much is gained by forgetting, little brother,’

‘There is no holding the young pony from the game,’ said the horse-dealer when the Colonel pointed out that vagabonding over India in holiday time was absurd. ‘If permission be refused to go and come as he chooses, he will make light of the refusal. Then who is to catch him? Colonel Sahib, only once in a thousand years is a horse born so well fitte

I know the price that will be paid for the answer, but I do not know why the question is asked.’

‘News is not meant to be thrown about like dung-cakes, but used sparingly—like bhang.’

Their pay was cut for ignorance. There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.’