Chinese Sketches
- Pages
- about 177
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3.2 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
The following Sketches owe their existence chiefly to frequent
peregrinations in Chinese cities, with pencil and note-book in hand.
Some of them were written for my friend Mr. F. H. Balfour of Shanghai,
and by him published in the columns of the Celestial Empire. These
have been revised and partly re-written; others appear now for the
first time.
It seems to be generally believed that the Chinese, as a nation, are
an immoral, degraded race; that they are utterly dishonest, cruel, and
in every way depraved; that opium, a more terrible scourge than gin,
is now working frightful ravages in their midst; and that only the
forcible diffusion of Christianity can save the Empire from speedy and
overwhelming ruin. An experience of eight years has taught me that,
with all their faults, the Chinese are a hardworking, sober, and happy
people, occupying an intermediate place between the wealth and
culture, the vice and misery of the West.
His Imperial Majesty, Tsai-Shun, deputed by Heaven to reign over all
within the four seas, expired on the evening of Tuesday the 13th
January 1875, aged eighteen years and nine months. He was erroneously
known to foreigners as the Emperor T'ung Chih; but T'ung Chih was
merely the style of his reign, adopted in order that the people should
not profane by vulgar utterance a name they are not even permitted to
write.[*] Until the new monarch, the late Emperor's cousin, had been
duly installed, no word of what had taken place was breathed beyond
the walls of the palace; for dangerous thoughts might have arisen had
it been known that the State was drifting rudderless, a prey to the
wild waves of sedition and lawless outbreak. The accession of a child
to reign under the style of Kuang Hsu was proclaimed before it was
publicly made known that his predecessor had passed away.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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