““Here he sensed there was nothing in the landscape but itself. He was delighted at this liberation from history. The trees, the meadows, the houses were just themselves; attractive, healthy, often beautiful, civil in their lack of extremes, open in what they had to offer. There were no poisonous snakes crawling here. How curiously like Americans themselves, he thought. Obviously the characteristics of the land seemed to have entered into the people too. Perhaps, he thought with a start, that was true of India as well. The extremes of kindness and cruelty, the brooding patience, and always, behind the smile, a slithering something.””
