ption of Eastern peoples, but I must
admit I felt it this afternoon. And so perhaps it is with the majority
of Europeans in the Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the
language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always
aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys
and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or
understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest
lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the
language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a
heathen--it is easier.

Now, to the Chinese his country is the best in the world, his province
better than any other of the eighteen, and the village in which he lives
the most enviable spot in the province--the center of his universe.
Speak disparagingly about that little circle, critically or
sympathetically, and he is at once up against you. It may develop
narrowness of mind and smallness of soul. We Westerners think we know
that it does; and the fact that he allows his mental horizon to be
bounded by such narrow confines appears to us to render him anything but
a desirable citizen and a full-sized man. But no matter. The Chinese, on
the other hand, regards as barbarians all those men who have never
tasted the bliss of a true home in the Empire which is celestial--part
of this feeling is patriotism and love of country, part is rank conceit.
But Englishmen are saying that England is the most Christian country in
the world for the very same reason!

Rationally speaking, John is the "old brother" of the world, oldest of
any nation by very many centuries. In common with all other travelers
and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a
serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums
which cannot be solved. Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial,
and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought
into his being. Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some
directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of
young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late
manhood and early youth. I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary
political economy--but why? This man explored centuries ago the cardinal
theories of some of our present-day Western classics. However, I have to
teach him the form of the earth and the natural causes of e