The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Kong Ho, by Ernest Bramah

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Title: The Mirror of Kong Ho

Author: Ernest Bramah

Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #1077]
Release Date: October 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MIRROR OF KONG HO ***

Produced by John Bickers

THE MIRROR OF KONG HO

By Ernest Bramah

A lively and amusing collection of letters on western living
written by Kong Ho, a Chinese gentleman. These addressed to
his homeland, refer to the Westerners in London as
barbarians and many of the aids to life in our society give
Kong Ho endless food for thought. These are things such as
the motor car and the piano; unknown in China at this time.

INTRODUCTION

ESTIMABLE BARBARIAN,--Your opportune suggestion that I should permit the
letters, wherein I have described with undeviating fidelity the customs
and manner of behaving of your accomplished race, to be set forth in
the form of printed leaves for all to behold, is doubtless
gracefully-intentioned, and this person will raise no barrier of dissent
against it.

In this he is inspired by the benevolent hope that his immature
compositions may to one extent become a model and a by-word to those who
in turn visit his own land of Fragrant Purity; for with exacting care
he has set down no detail that has not come under his direct observation
(although it is not to be denied that here or there he may, perchance,
have misunderstood an involved allusion or failed to grasp the inner
significance of an act), so that Impartiality necessarily sways his
brush, and Truth lurks within his inkpot.

In an entirely contrary manner some, who of recent years have gratified
us with their magnanimous presence, have returned to their own countries
not only with the internal fittings of many of our palaces (which,
being for the most part of a replaceable nature, need be only trivially
referred to, the incident, indeed, being generally regarded as a most
cordial and pressing variety of foreign politeness), but also--in
the lack of highly-spiced actuality--with subtly-imagined and truly
objectionab