t to
lose all enjoyment of the present through thinking of the disasters that
may come at some future date? Should our lives be passed in building a
mansion that we shall never have leisure to inhabit?

The Chinese answer these questions in the negative, and therefore have
to put up with poverty, disease, and anarchy. But, to compensate for
these evils, they have retained, as industrial nations have not, the
capacity for civilized enjoyment, for leisure and laughter, for pleasure
in sunshine and philosophical discourse. The Chinese, of all classes,
are more laughter-loving than any other race with which I am acquainted;
they find amusement in everything, and a dispute can always be softened
by a joke.

I remember one hot day when a party of us were crossing the hills in
chairs--the way was rough and very steep, the work for the coolies very
severe. At the highest point of our journey, we stopped for ten minutes
to let the men rest. Instantly they all sat in a row, brought out their
pipes, and began to laugh among themselves as if they had not a care in
the world. In any country that had learned the virtue of forethought,
they would have devoted the moments to complaining of the heat, in order
to increase their tip. We, being Europeans, spent the time worrying
whether the automobile would be waiting for us at the right place.
Well-to-do Chinese would have started a discussion as to whether the
universe moves in cycles or progresses by a rectilinear motion; or they
might have set to work to consider whether the truly virtuous man shows
_complete_ self-abnegation, or may, on occasion, consider his own
interest.

One comes across white men occasionally who suffer under the delusion
that China is not a civilized country. Such men have quite forgotten
what constitutes civilization. It is true that there are no trams in
Peking, and that the electric light is poor. It is true that there are
places full of beauty, which Europeans itch to make hideous by digging
up coal. It is true that the educated Chinaman is better at writing
poetry than at remembering the sort of facts which can be looked up in
_Whitaker's Almanac_. A European, in recommending a place of residence,
will tell you that it has a good train service; the best quality he can
conceive in any place is that it should be easy to get away from. But a
Chinaman will tell you nothing about the trains; if you ask, he will
tell you wrong. What he tells you is that there i