Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston

“ There are enormous areas in that country covered with primeval forests in which man's foot has never trod, lofty mountains whose peaks are crowned with sparkling diadems of eternal snow, grand and savage gorges in which Nature has carved for herself in indelible letters the story of the world's youth, and gloomy chasms through which rush the mighty rivers that carry to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific snows that melted on the white roof of the world. ”

“ But Japan is not China: and if Confucianism be such a good thing, exclaims the wondering European, how is it that China is in a state of decay, that Chinese officials are corrupt, that the population is sodden with opium, that the country is only now, after centuries of sloth and stagnation, beginning to show an interest in Western civilisation and modern science? The real condition of China, or at least of the Chinese people, is perhaps not so rotten as it is sometimes believed to be, in spite of the grave political and social dangers that at present lie ahead. ”

“ Not the most unobservant visitor to China can fail to notice the ubiquity of graveyards. In Western countries one is usually obliged to ask the way to a cemetery; in China one finds the way by merely walking in any direction one pleases. Nowhere so vividly as in China does one realise that not only the path of glory but every other kind of path leads but to a grave. The sight is sometimes a melancholy one; as dreary as some of the city churchyards in England are the vast cemeteries for the poor that cover the bare hillsides in the neighbourhood of many great Chinese cities. ”

“ All I will venture to say myself—though I have already paid my fine—is that no description of the scenery of the gorges can do justice to the reality. For though I have beheld scenery more beautiful and quite as grand, I never saw anything in my travels that filled me with a deeper sense of awe. Perhaps one of the secrets of the fascination of the gorges is the ever-present contrast between the dumb forces of nature and evanescent humanity. For ages past human muscle has matched itself in a brave struggle with those titanic forces. ”

“ The only source of comfort to a young wife who is unfortunate enough to displease her husband's mother is that some day, in the course of nature, she herself will be in the proud position of a mother-in-law. If she is of a cantankerous or tyrannical disposition, or if her temper has been soured by her own domestic troubles, she will then doubtless treat her son's wife with just as little kindness as she received in her own early days of wifehood, and her daughter-in-law will fear and dislike her just as she herself feared and disliked her own husband's mother. ”

“ Do the gentleness, the patience, the humanity, the kindness to animals, the winning manners and the limitless charity and generosity of the Burmese owe nothing to Buddhism? If Buddhism has had even a minor share in the shaping of the character of the modern Burman we dare not call it a mere bloom or varnish. That there is, however, a very broad stratum of animism in the various deposits that have helped through the shadowy centuries of an unrecorded past to build up the religious mind of Burma may be granted without dispute. ”

“ I worship them because my fathers did so before me! Are there not thousands and thousands of Western people who might in all sincerity use those very words? For in spite of everything that all the Churches and all the prophets and all the philosophers have done for us, in spite of all we have learned from dogmas and revelations and sacred books, we are still groping in darkness. The whole thing is a mystery, and the man who can solve it is wiser than any man who has yet lived. ”

“ The wonders of mountain and snow, ocean and sky, need not the explanatory or descriptive notes of any commentator when we have the reality before our own eyes. The man to whose deeper nature they do not at once appeal will not learn their secrets any the better for listening to the ecstatic ejaculations of the noisy friend who is for ever at his elbow telling him how lovely are those purple mountains, or how rich the colours of that splendid sunset. ”

“ Those who know how sound China is at heart, how able, industrious and intelligent are her sons, and how well fitted their great country is in many ways to play a grand part in the history of the world and in the development of civilisation, are perhaps even more ready than others to denounce the Manchu government of China for its gross mismanagement of the internal and external affairs of the nation, its pitiful misuse of splendid material and its shameful waste of magnificent opportunities. ”

“ LOVE OF NATURE IN CHINA
It is a mistake to regard the Chinese as essentially a prosaic race, caring only for material things and nothing at all for what we should call things of the spirit. If they have less power of artistic creation than the Japanese—and even that may be doubted—they are quite as sensitive as the people of any other race to the magic of beauty in either nature or art; and especially do they—like our own Ruskin—take a vivid delight in the loveliness of mountain scenery. ”

“ And yet a few years of residence in this unpampered little patch of territory—years spent to a great extent without European companionship, when one must either come to know something of the inhabitants and their ways or live like a mole—have convinced one observer, and would doubtless convince many others, that to the people of Weihaiwei life is as momentous and vivid, as full of joyous and tragic interest, as it is to the proud people of the West, and that mankind here is no less worthy the pains of study than mankind elsewhere. ”

“ Yet when in some parts of south-eastern Asia we have once breathed that Nirvana-like spirit of restfulness and peace, may we not be pardoned if we find there a strange and magical beauty that all the wisdom of the West can never yield us? It may be, indeed, that our complex Western civilisation, in spite of its materialism and its grossness, contains germs of a higher perfection than ever Burma or Indo-China dreamed of. ”

“ Be true to yourself and charitable towards your neighbour. Carry out those rites of filial piety and of religious worship that have been handed down to you by your fathers, even if you have doubts about the nature or even the very existence of the objects of your worship; there is nothing to be ashamed of in honest doubt, but do not let doubts interfere with your duty. Let not your knowledge and practice of the traditional rituals mislead you into thinking that you are on intimate terms with the spiritual world; treat the unseen Powers with all reverence but keep aloof from them. ”

“ When we consider how seldom the memory even of our own dead ancestors touches our sympathies or prompts an affectionate thought it will not seem strange that in the days to come the victorious Yellow man may regard the extinct White man with no more emotion than the visitor to a museum now regards the wire-linked bones of a prehistoric monster. No creature that is doomed to failure in the struggle for existence need look to the conquerors for the least sign of pity or sympathy. ”

“ Brave women do not give birth to ignoble sons; and when we contemplate the present and speculate as to the future condition of China we may do well to remember that women like those of whom we have just read are among the mothers of the great race that constitutes perhaps more than a quarter of the world's population. The woman who offers herself as a willing sacrifice to-day on the altar of what may be called a domestic ideal is the mother of a man who may, to-morrow, offer himself with readiness and gladness on the altar of a political or a national ideal. ”

“ The mountain, if it could think and feel, might perhaps console itself for the contempt shown to its corner-stones with the reflection that since its history began nations have grown up and passed away like the wild-flowers that live and die on its green slopes, and that the great thrones and dynasties of to-day will have become empty names, signifying nothing, long before its jewelled fingers cease to traffic with the eternal stars, or to duplicate themselves in the still waters of the Tali lake. ”

“ China from a time when the ancestors of those administrators were painted savages and England was not even a name: it is filial piety, it is reverence for law and respect for those in authority, it is the cult of ancestors,—it is, in short, Confucianism. "The same readiness with which we serve our father," says one of the Chinese classics, "we should employ in serving our Ruler, and the reverence must be the same for both. To honour those who are in a high position and to respect those who are in authority is our first duty." ”

“ It should never be forgotten that the true Oriental—even more than the Englishman bred at Winchester and New College—is a firm believer in the truth embodied in William of Wykeham's old motto, Manners makyth man; and nothing is more certain than that if we want China to welcome us as teachers, as engineers, as builders of railways, as merchants, as missionaries or as capitalists we must approach her with frankness and courtesy, not with professions of altruism covering only greedy selfishness, not with the sinister motives of Chaucer's "smyler with the knyf under the cloke." ”

“ For the native magistrate, who knows without special training his countrymen's character and their peculiarities of thought and speech, it is, of course, much easier than it is for the European to detect the element of truth that lies embedded in the absurd and inaccurate statements made before him in court. To say that even a Chinese magistrate can always be sure when a man is speaking the truth would certainly be ridiculous; there are accomplished liars in China as in Europe, just as there are forgers so skilful that they can deceive experts in handwriting ”

“ No doubt one of the greatest achievements of a civilisation such as that of Laos or Burma consists in the spirit of peace and restfulness that it seems to embody. There is, of course, a fallacy in supposing that a contented feeling of "having arrived" is to be expected at all in this human life. Whether we believe in an existence beyond the grave or not, few of us dare to be so optimistic as to suppose that perfection in any form can be realised on earth, although we instinctively feel that we must not be satisfied with anything less. ”

“ One might almost suppose from this that in Christian England there is no cruelty, no fraud, no impurity. If a Chinese were to go to England and declare that the vices of the country were the results of Christianity he would probably be anathematised as a wicked blasphemer and hounded out of the land; why should the Western nations show surprise if the Chinese are indignant with foreigners who use words which in their obvious and natural sense would lead the world to suppose that the cases of cruelty, fraud and impurity one meets with in China are the result of Confucianism! ”

“ Some of the existing features of Chinese civilisation are so admirably suited to the genius of the people that they might with great advantage be allowed to remain almost unchanged. If everything goes into the melting pot, China will lose almost as much as she can ever hope to gain. It is a great mistake, for example, to suppose that the Chinese system of government is thoroughly bad. The Government has failed so often and so signally to uphold the dignity of China in her quarrels with other Powers that we are apt to regard the whole system as rotten, inside and out. ”

“ Meanwhile, China is beginning to realise that the most wide-awake of modern states does not propose to hamper her own freedom by watching over a nation that has hitherto been regarded as the most somnolent in the world. Even the strong matronly arms of the United States might grow weary of carrying about so bulky an infant as a China that only woke up in order to experience the luxurious delight of going to sleep again. ”

“ The Burman who has not become half-occidentalised does not aim at wealth for its own sake: he does not bow down and worship people who have money: Mammon has not yet secured a niche in his pantheon. He only wants enough to feed his relations and himself, to bring up his children in health and strength, and to clothe them with garments that are not only comfortable to wear but pleasant to the eye. If his fields produce more food than he needs, he sells the surplus, and spends the money in works of charity and religion and in graceful hospitalities. ”

“ Fire-crackers, the delight of old and young in China, are let off at every doorstep, helping at each explosion to dissipate any traces of bad luck that may be lingering in the neighbourhood and to frighten away the last malignant spirit who might otherwise mar the happiness of the New Year. ”

“ The purple crags and jewelled peaks rising in sombre majesty from the white slopes of the sun-lit snow-fields were sights upon which one might gaze from dawn till dark and ever find new treasures of beauty, and which, when the eye had once seen, the mind could never forget. ”

“ If I were to tell you that the dead are conscious, you might waste your substance in funerals and sacrifices, and thus neglect the living to pay court to the dead. If on the other hand I were to tell you that the dead are unconscious, filial piety might diminish and sons begin to leave the bodies of their parents uncared for and unburied. Seek not to know whether the departed are indeed conscious. If they are, you will know it some day; meanwhile study the world you live in and have no fear that you will exhaust its treasures of knowledge: the world takes a lot of knowing. ”