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Theosophical Society
Up the Country is the English writer and aristocrat Emily Eden’s book of letters about her travels to India in the late 1830s. Eden’s brother was the governor-general (the British Empire’s top official in India), and so her perspective highlights the way that English colonizers lived opulently at native Indians’ expense. Eden largely inspired the character of Flora Crewe in Indian Ink—in fact, Nirad Das gifts her a copy of Up the Country during the play.
Up the Country Quotes in Indian Ink
The Indian Ink quotes below are all either spoken by Up the Country or refer to Up the Country. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Act 2 Quotes
Codswallop! Your “house within a house,” as anyone can see, is a mosquito net. And the book is Emily Eden, it was in her suitcase. Green with a brown spine. You should read the footnotes!
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“Twenty years ago no European had ever been here, and there we were with a band playing, and observing that St Cloup’s Potage à la Julienne was perhaps better than his other soups, and so on, and all this in the face of those high hills, and we one hundred and five Europeans being surrounded by at least three thousand Indians, who looked on at what we call our polite amusements, and bowed to the ground if a European came near them. I sometimes wonder they do not cut all our heads off and say nothing more about it.”
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Up the Country Term Timeline in Indian Ink
The timeline below shows where the term Up the Country appears in Indian Ink. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1
...Nazrul brings Flora lemonade, and as a gift, Das gives her an old copy of Up the Country , Emily Eden’s book of letters about traveling through India.
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Act 2
...vine is only a vine.” She points out that Das has painted a copy of Up the Country on Flora’s pillow, and Eldon Pike drops in with a footnote to explain that Emily...
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...Durance. Flora finishes dressing, so Durance enters her bedroom. He picks up her copy of Up the Country and finds the Rajah’s miniature painting of Krishna and Radha inside.
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...part, Nell goes through Flora’s suitcase, finding the blue dress, Das’s canvas, the copy of Up the Country , and the Rajah’s miniature painting.
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The play ends with Flora reading aloud one of Emily Eden’s letters from Up the Country . Eden describes a small group of Europeans throwing a beautiful celebration for the Queen’s...
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