ossibility of experiencing the feelings of love for the average
foreign woman he has seen in China. Their poetry abounds in love
episodes. Students of Chinese civilisation seem to agree that a _mariage
de convenance_ in China is more likely even than on the Continent to
become instantly a marriage of affection. The pleasures of female
society are almost denied the Chinaman; he cannot fall in love before
marriage because of the absence of an object for his love. "The faculty
of love produces a subjective ideal; and craves for a corresponding
objective reality. And the longer the absence of the objective reality,
the higher the ideal becomes; as in the mind of the hungry man ideal
foods get more and more exquisite."

In Meadows' "Essay on Civilisation in China," there is a charming story,
translated from the Chinese, of love at first sight, given in
illustration of the author's contention that "it is the men to whom
women's society is almost unknown that are most apt to fall violently in
love at first sight. Violent love at first sight is a general
characteristic of nations where the sexes have no intercourse before
marriage.... The starved cravings of love devour the first object":--

"A Chinese who had suffered bitter disenchantments in marriage retired
with his infant son to the solitude of a mountain inaccessible for
little-footed Chinese women. He trained up the youth to worship the gods
and stand in awe and abhorrence of devils, but he never mentioned even
the name of woman to him. He always descended to market alone, but when
he grew old and feeble he was at length compelled to take the young man
with him to carry the heavy bag of rice. He very reasonably argued, 'I
shall always accompany my son, and take care that if he does see a
woman by chance, he shall never speak to one; he is very obedient; he
has never heard of woman; he does not know what they are; and as he has
lived in that way for twenty years already, he is, of course, now pretty
safe.'

"As they were on the first occasion leaving the market town together,
the son suddenly stopped short, and, pointing to three approaching
objects, inquired: 'Father, what are these things? Look! look! what are
they?' The father hastily answered: 'Turn away your head. They are
devils.' The son, in some alarm, instantly turned away from things so
bad, and which were gazing at his motions with surprise from under their
fans. He walked to the mountain top in silence, ate