Page 103 - Life of Gertrude Bell

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time went on. Burma, Hong Kong, China, Japan; new places and
places she had seen before; new experiences and old. Elephant
rides, boat trips along the Irrawaddy, diplomatic receptions and
bizarre conversations, colourful natives and eccentric Englishmen
—it was a keenly observed journey but hardly enjoyable, especi­
ally for Hugo who, by the time they had reached America on the
way home, was heartily fed up with his sister and elected to
separate from her and make his own way across the United States.
On the way from Calcutta to Burma there had been a characteristic
exchange. They talked of English and French novels and differ­
ences of national temperament which the two literatures exempli­
fied. Hugo thought the English character was so made as to lean
less towards its vices. Gertrude said that the worst of English
vices was a lack of discrimination. Hugo responded that he could
not see how discrimination was a moral virtue, or the want of it a
vice. ‘Of course, it is one of your vices not to be able to see that,’
said Gertrude. They went on to talk of democracy and John
Stuart Mill. ‘The greatest good of the greatest number’ was a
pointless idea, insisted Gertrude. The important tiling was the
happiness of the ‘agent’. Sentiment, she said, was the most
dangerous of frailties. ‘It makes the world stagnate more than
anything else.’
In Canada Gertrude went off to climb the Rocky Mountains.
When she and Hugo met up again they found themselves arguing
about reason and emotion. She did not, she told him, approve of
his tendency to appeal to the emotions rather than the mind. She
would rather people stayed wicked than that they should be
reformed by appeals to the emotions. Hugo asked her why she
climbed the Rocky Mountains. Was that not simply for the
pleasure she would get? And what sort of pleasure was that?
Was it not simply and solely an emotion? Gertrude had replied
that it was emotion controlled by reason. She went on to Boston
to meet Lisa Robins while Hugo stayed in Chicago. ‘The air was
electric,’ Gertrude wrote in her diary. Brother and sister returned
to England on July 26th, 1903.

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