More than that, I had learned the tea-growing business, had devoted over three years to its careful study, felt myself in every way competent, and had found a life in many ways suited to my tastes.
All this had to be abandoned.

In India the white man lives in great luxury.

He has a great staff of servants, his every whim and wish is anticipated and satisfied, his comfort watched over.

To leave _this_, to go straight out to the West, the wild and woolly West, where servants were not! The very suggestion of such a thing to me on leaving India would have received no consideration whatever.

It would have seemed utterly impossible, but "El Hombre propone y el Deos depone" as the Mexicans say.
During the whole four years' stay in India I was practically barred from ladies' society, nearly all the planters being unmarried men.