We recently had a vacation in India. As is our custom, we did a lot of sightseeing, and saw the remains of many empires. In India we saw a lot of Mughal architecture, and also stuff in Jaipur and Udaipur which belonged to the maharajas of the Indian princely states, which in that case were independent up to the time of union. I always imagine myself back in those times, thinking about what it would be like to be either an emperor or a peon. I was convicted by the extent to which my attitude toward the ruling authority was a reflection on how I felt about their architecture. I was much more sympathetic to the Mughals than to the maharajas, though I couldn’t tell you one thing about the relative merits of their governance and administration of justice.