eserted wife, to King
Dushyanta, when he declined to recognize her and his son. And when he
refuses to listen to her appeal, what does she appeal to as the
highest authority?--_The voice of conscience._

"If you think I am alone," she says to the king, "you do not know that
wise man within your heart. He knows of your evil deed--in _his_ sight
you commit sin. A man who has committed sin may think that no one
knows it. The gods know it and the old man within."[81]

This must suffice. I say once more that I do not wish to represent the
people of India as two hundred and fifty-three millions of angels, but
I do wish it to be understood and to be accepted as a fact, that the
damaging charge of untruthfulness brought against that people is
utterly unfounded with regard to ancient times. It is not only not
true, but the very opposite of the truth. As to modern times, and I
date them from about 1000 after Christ, I can only say that, after
reading the accounts of the terrors and horrors of Mohammedan rule, my
wonder is that so much of native virtue and truthfulness should have
survived. You might as well expect a mouse to speak the truth before a
cat, as a Hindu before a Mohammedan judge.[82] If you frighten a
child, that child will tell a lie; if you terrorize millions, you must
not be surprised if they try to escape from your fangs. Truthfulness
is a luxury, perhaps the greatest, and let me assure you, the most
expensive luxury in our life--and happy the man who has been able to
enjoy it from his very childhood. It may be easy enough in our days
and in a free country, like England, never to tell a lie--but the
older we grow, the harder we find it to be always true, to speak the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The Hindus too had
made that discovery. They too knew how hard, nay how impossible it is,
always to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
There is a short story in the _S_atapatha Brahma_n_a, to my mind full
of deep meaning, and pervaded by the real sense of truth, the real
sense of the difficulty of truth. His kinsman said to Aru_n_a
Aupave_s_i, "Thou art advanced in years, establish thou the
sacrificial fires." He replied: "Thereby you tell me henceforth to
keep silence. For he who has established the fires must not speak an
untruth, and only by not speaking at all, one speaks no untruth. To
that extent the service of the sacrificial fires consists in
truth."[83]

I doubt