Chapter (অধ্যায়): EPISTLES (Third Series) PAGE-516Page: 516 of 526
I remember your place at Reading, where I was fed with boiled cabbage and potatoes and boiled rice and boiled lentils, three times a day, with your wife's curses for sauce all the time. I do not remember your giving me any cigar to smoke-shilling or penny ones. Nor do I remember myself as complaining of either the food or your wife's incessant curses, though I lived as a thief , shaking through fear all the time, and working every day for you.
The next memory is of the house on St. George's Road-you and Miss Muller at the head. My poor brother was ill there and Miss Muller drove him away. There too I don't remember to have had any luxuries as to food or drink or bed or even the room given to me .
The next was Miss Muller's place. Though she has been very kind to me, I was living on nuts and fruits. The next memory is that of the black hole of London where I had to work almost day and night and cook the meals oft-times for five or six, and most nights with a bite of bread and butter.
I remember Mrs. Sturdy giving me a dinner and a night's lodging in her place, and then the next day criticising the black savage-so dirty and smoking all over the house.
With the exception of Capt. and Mrs. Sevier, I do not remember even one piece of rag as big as a handkerchief I got from England. On the other hand, the incessant demand on my body and mind in England is the cause of my breakdown in health. This was all you English people gave me, whilst working me to death; and now I am cursed for the luxuries I lived in!! Whosoever of you have given me a coat? Whosoever a cigar? Whosoever a bit of fish or flesh? Whosoever of you dare say I asked food or drink or smoke or dress or money from you? Ask, Sturdy, ask for God's sake, ask your friends, and first ask your own "God within who never sleeps."