Forster in A Passage to India writes with a deep understanding of humanity, and a lot of racial empathy even in 1920s: (context: Fielding is leaving after visiting Aziz who was ill) "Although the Indians had driven off, and Fielding could see his horse standing in a small shed in the corner of the compound, no one troubled to bring it to him. He started to get it himself, but was stopped by a call from the house. Aziz was sitting up in bed, looking dishevelled and sad. 'Here's your home,' he said sardonically. 'Here's the celebrated hospitality of the East. Look at the flies. Look at the chunam coming off the walls. Isn't it jolly? Now I suppose you want to be off, having seen an oriental interior.' 'Anyhow, you want to rest.' 'I can rest the whole day, thanks to worthy Dr Lal. Major Callendar's spy, I suppose you know, but this time it didn't work. I am allowed to have a slight temperature.' 'Callendar doesn't trust anyone, English or Indian; that's his character, and I wish you weren't under him; but you are, and that's that.' 'Before you go, for you are evidently in a great hurry, will you please unlock that drawer? Do you see a piece of brown paper at the top?' 'Yes.' 'Open it.' 'Who is this?' 'She was my wife. You are the first Englishman she has ever come before. Now put her photograph away.' He was astonished, as a traveller who suddenly sees, between the stones of the desert, flowers. The flowers have been there all the time, but suddenly he sees them. He tried to look at the photograph, but in itself it was just a woman in a sari, facing the world. He muttered, 'Really, I don't know why you pay me this great compliment, Aziz, but I do appreciate it.' 'Oh, it's nothing, she was not a highly educated woman or even beautiful, but put it away. You would have seen her, so why should you not see her photograph?' 'You would have allowed me to see her?' 'Why not? I believe in the purdah, but I should have told her you were my brother, and she would have seen you. Hamidullah saw her, and several others.' 'Did she think they were your brothers?' 'Of course not, but the word exists and is convenient. All men are my brothers, and as soon as one behaves as such he may see my wife.' 'And when the whole world behaves as such, there will be no more purdah?' 'It is because you can say and feel such a remark as that, that I show you the photograph,' said Aziz gravely. 'It is beyond the power of most men. It is because you behave well while I behave badly that I show it you. I never expected you to come back just now when I called you. I thought, 'He has certainly done with me; I have insulted him.' Mr Fielding, no one can ever realize how much kindness we Indians need, we do not even realize it ourselves. But we know when it has been given. We do not forget, though we may seem to. Kindness, more kindness, and even after that more kindness. I assure you it is the only hope.' His voice seemed to arise from a dream. Altering it, yet still deep below his normal surface, he said: 'We can't build up India except on what we feel. What is the use of all these reforms, and Conciliation Committees for Mohurram, and shall we cut the tazia short or shall we carry it another route, and Councils of Notables and official parties where the English sneer at our skins?' 'It's beginning at the wrong end, isn't it? I know, but institutions and the Government don't.' He looked again at the photograph. The lady faced the world at her husband's wish and her own, but how bewildering she found it, the echoing contradictory world! 'Put her away, she is of no importance, she is dead,' said Aziz gently. 'I showed her to you because I have nothign else to show. You may look around the whole of my bungalow now, and empty everthing. I have no other secrets, my three children live away with their grandmamma, and that's all.' Fielding sat down by the bed, flattered at the trust reposed in him, yet rather sad. He felt old. He wished that he too could be carried away on waves of emotion. The next time they met, Aziz might be cautious and standoffish. He realized this, and it made him sad that he should realize it. Kindness, kindness, and more kindness - yes, that he might supply, but was that really all that the queer nation needed? Did it not also demand an occasional intoxication of the blood? What had he done to deserve this outburst of confidence, and what hostage could he give in exchange?" (I'll stop there because I could go on forever if I let myself go. and because that idea of exchanging hostages to express and to build mutual trust, that's an idea in contracts in Economics that Williamson wrote about in the 1980s; Forster understood it so well at a human level so long ago, in fact he understands so much it is wondrous and amazing to read him; Forster is truly alive still through his words and I feel fortunate to be able to read him and connect with his thoughts, his morals ideals ethics, his meaning of being human.)