he soul takes flight. She is no stranger, for everything
is soul--houses, trees, men, the elements into which the body is
resolved. Death is not annihilation, it is change of form; and through
all changes of form the essence persists.

But now turn back to Canton. We pass the shops of the coffin-makers. We
linger. But "No stop," says our guide; "better coffins soon." "Soon" is
what the guide-books call the "City of the Dead." A number of little
chapels; and laid in each a great lacquered coffin in which the dead man
lives. I say "lives" advisedly, for there is set for his use a table and
a chair, and every morning he is provided with a cup of tea. A bunch of
paper, yellow and white, symbolises his money; and perhaps a couple of
figures represent attendants. There he lives, quite simply and
naturally as he had always lived, until the proper time and place is
discovered in which he may be buried. It may be months, it may be, or
rather, might have been, years; for I am told that a reforming
Government has limited the time to six months. And after burial? Why,
presumably he lives still. But not with the life of the universal soul.
Oh no! There have been mystics in China, but the Chinese are not
mystical. What he was he still is, an eating and drinking creature, and,
one might even conjecture, a snob. For if one visits the family chapel
of the Changs--another of the sights of Canton--one sees ranged round
the walls hundreds of little tablets, painted green and inscribed in
gold. These are the memorials of the deceased. And they are arranged in
three classes, those who pay most being in the first and those who pay
least in the third. One can even reserve one's place--first, second, or
third--while one is still alive, by a white tablet. You die, and the
green is substituted. And so, while you yet live, you may secure your
social status after death. How--how British! Yes, the word is out; and I
venture to record a suspicion that has long been maturing in my mind.
The Chinese are not only Western; among the Western they are English.
Their minds move as ours do; they are practical, sensible, reasonable.
And that is why--as it would seem--they have more sympathy with
Englishmen, if not with the English Government, than with any other
Westerners. East may be East and West West, though I very much doubt it.
But if there be any truth in the aphorism, we must define our terms. The
East must be confined to India, and China included in t