Don't part with your illusions.

When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
-- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth.
-- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
We were driven over Sir Colin Campbell's route by a British officer, and when I arrived at the Residency I was so familiar with the road that I could have led a retreat over it myself; but the compass in my head has been out of order from my birth, and so, as soon as I was within the battered Bailie Guard and turned about to review the march and imagine the relieving forces storming their way along it, everything was upside down and wrong end first in a moment, and I was never able to get straightened out again.

And now, when I look at the battle-plan, the confusion remains.

In me the east was born west, the battle-plans which have the east on the right-hand side are of no use to me.
The Residency ruins are draped with flowering vines, and are impressive and beautiful.

They and the grounds are sacred now, and will suffer no neglect nor be profaned by any sordid or commercial use while the British remain masters of India.