THE SOUL OF A PEOPLE
THE
SOUL OF A PEOPLE
BY
H. FIELDING
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1899
First Edition, 1898
Second Edition, 1898
Third Edition, 1899
DEDICATION TO SECOND EDITION
I dedicate this book to you about whom it is written. It has been madea reproach to me by the critics that I have only spoken well of you,that I have forgotten your faults and remembered only your virtues. Ifit is wrong to have done this, I must admit the wrong. I have written ofyou as a friend does of a friend. Where I could say kind things of you Ihave done so, where I could not I have been silent. You will find plentyof people who can see only your faults, and who like to tell you ofthem. You will find in the inexorable sequence of events a corrector ofthese faults more potent than any critics can be. But I am not yourcritic, but your friend. If many of you had not admitted me, a stranger,into your friendship during my many very solitary years, of what sortshould I be now? How could I have lived those years alone? You keptalive my sympathies, and so saved me from many things. Do you think Icould now turn round and criticise you? No; but this book is my tributeof gratitude for many kindnesses.
PREFACE
In most of the quotations from Burmese books containing the life of theBuddha I am indebted, if not for the exact words, yet for the sense, toBishop Bigandet's translation.
I do not think I am indebted to anyone else. I have, indeed, purposelyavoided quoting from any other book and using material collected by anyone else.
The story of Ma Pa Da has appeared often before, but my version is takenentirely from the Burmese song. It is, as I have said, known to nearly every Burman.
I wanted to write only what the Burmese themselves thought; whether Ihave succeeded or not, the reader can judge.
I am indebted to Messrs. William Blackwood and Sons for permission touse parts of my article on 'Burmese Women'—Blackwood's Magazine, May,1895—in the present work.