irm.

The tedium of the Sunday in that draughty inn gave me an insight into
their common lives which I had not before, causing me to meditate upon
their simple lives and their simple needs. They did not raise the
forests in order to get gold; they did not squander their patrimony in
youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years. They held to simple
needs; they had a simplicity of taste, which was also a peculiar source
of independence and safety. The more simple they lived the more secure
their future, because they were less at the mercy of surprises and
reverses. In adversity these people would not act like nurslings
deprived of their bottles and their rattles, but would, by virtue of
their common simplicity, probably be better armed for any struggles. I
do not desire the life for myself, but the ethics of their simple living
cannot but be recommended. Multitudes possess in China what multitudes
in the West pursue amid characteristic hampering futilities of European
life. We would aspire to simple living, and the simplicity of olden
times in manners, art and ideas is still cherished and reverenced; but
we cannot be simple or return to the simplicity of our forefathers
unless we return to the spirit which animated them. They possessed the
spirit of real simplicity. And this same spirit the Chinese possess
to-day; but they are minus the incomparable features of healthful
civilization, inward and outward, of which our forebears were masters.
Our ways to-day are not their ways, and their ways not our ways; but one
cannot but realize as he moves among them that with a happy infusion of
the spirit of their simplicity into the restlessness of our modern life
our wearied minds would dream less and realize more of the true
simplicity of simple living.

* * * * *

To a man the village of T'ai-p'ing-p'u turned out early on the Monday
morning to express regrets that my departure was at hand. When, in
parting with this people who had done all in their power to make my
comfort complete, I threw a handful of cash to some little children
standing wonderingly near by, general approval was expressed, and
elaborate felicities anent my beneficence exchanged by the ear-ringed
Lolo women. A short apron hung down over their blue trousers, and as I
passed out of their sight, they admired me and gossiped about me, with
their hands under their aprons, in much the same manner as their more
enlightened siste