Edmond Plauchut

“ A CHINESE TOMB
FIG. 27.—CHINESE TOMBS.
"As man," he wrote, "is the most perfect being under heaven, that of which he is made up is worthy of the very greatest respect; as he is by nature the king of the earth, every other creature upon that earth is subject to his laws and bound to do him homage; to be indifferent to what becomes of his remains when the breath of life no longer animates those remains, is to a certain extent to degrade him from his dignity, [79] and to reduce him to the level of the brutes. ”

“ In spite of its prosperity and importance, however, the town is anything but a pleasant place to stop in, and the foreign visitor soon gets tired of being jostled about by busy coolies and tipsy sailors. The great delight of the latter is to get drunk in the brandy-stores of Victoria Street, and then to dance, not, strange to say, with women, but without partners, to the music of a violin and a big drum. In the evening the floating and resident population alike resort in crowds to the opium-dens and houses of ill fame in the upper portions of the town. ”

“ Within the compass of a single volume the writer has hit off a circle of varied characters, all true to nature—some true to the highest nature—and she has entangled them in a story which keeps us in suspense till the knot is happily and gracefully resolved; while, at the same time, a pathetic interest is sustained by an art of which it would be difficult to analyse the secret. It is a choice gift to be able thus to render human nature so truly, to penetrate its depths with such a searching sagacity, and to illuminate them with a radiance so eminently the writer's own."—The Times. ”

“ At the entrance to this lovely sheet of water is the island of ChÃ1⁄4n-Shan, celebrated throughout the Celestial Empire for its tea, considered the best in China, a portion of which is set apart for the use of the Son of Heaven, or the Emperor, and for the chief dignitaries of the province in which it is grown. The lake, lovely as it is in appearance, is of little depth, and except for the clouds of venomous insects which hover over it, inflicting torture on those who venture to navigate it, there is but little life about it. ”

“ Perhaps the saddest part of the tragedy was that the fate of so many human creatures who had disappeared for ever in the depths of that blind and reckless destroyer, the Ocean, should have raised so little regret, either amongst the white-skinned traders in human flesh or the yellow-faced Celestials of Macao and Hong-Kong. Maybe the latter themselves realize that they really are too prolific, and are not sorry when their numbers are lessened, no matter by what means. ”

“ In the eyes of the Court officials and their ladies it must have appeared far more startling than any of the political changes with which the air is rife.
The Chinese people, who know next to nothing of what is going on, and are more ignorant of the transformation taking place than even illiterate Europeans, are as indifferent to the past as to the future; they have been accustomed for centuries to obey unchanging laws of a wisdom acknowledged by even hostile critics; and startling innovation touching their own lives is the one thing which moves them out of their constitutional apathy. ”

“ No one seems to feel any shame at being seen to enter these places, the windows of which are wide open, so that all can look into the brightly illuminated rooms, whence proceeds the sound of oaths in all manner of languages, whilst the loud clash of gongs mingles with the muffled songs of the Chinese beauties, and every now and then a shower of crackers is flung into the street below, bursting into zigzags of fire on the heads of the startled passers-by. ”

“ But when all is said and done, have not Asiatics just as much right to rejoice in the sunshine, such as it is, of the West as Europeans have to bask in that of the East? Is not the life of a Tartar, a Mongol, or a Mandarin really as sacred as that of a native of France or of England? ”

“ The ordinary opium-smoker does not light his pipe to induce sleep, but just to enable him to forget his troubles for a time, and no De Quincey or Sylvestre de Sacy is needed to prove that a man in rags may indulge in happy dreams of prosperity without leaving some cheap and dingy tavern. Still we cannot fail to contrast the ugly Chinese apparatus with all its paraphernalia, including the horribly smelling lamp needed to keep it alight, with the simple European pipe, so easily filled to begin with, and so readily replenished. The lover of opium seeks to be alone ”

“ After my elevation to the throne, when I reached the twentieth year of my reign, I did not dare to count on seeing the thirtieth, and arrived at the thirtieth, I did not dare look forward to the fortieth, yet now find myself in the sixtieth. Happiness is said to consist in five things: long life, wealth, tranquillity, love of virtue, and a peaceful end. The last-named takes the highest rank amongst these advantages, no doubt, because it is so difficult to secure it. The age I now am proves that I have lived a long time ”

“ The cemetery of Canton is of vast extent, and every year in the month of May, the pious Celestials all flock to it in white robes, to lay offerings of rice, fruit, and flowers on the graves of those they have lost. The gifts would be left unmolested for a long time, but for the fact that they are presented in the spring, just when countless birds are nesting in the branches of the lofty bamboos growing in the neighbourhood, and who consequently look upon the rice and fruit as provided especially for them. ”

“ Moreover, it is even now the exception for rich Celestials to yield themselves body and soul to the temptation. One opium-smoker goes to call on another, and the two indulge in a friendly pipe together as they chat about the weather, or the state of trade, or perhaps arrange a marriage for a son or a daughter; but the host does not expect to see his guest fall asleep and roll on the ground like a pig, any more than a European now-a-days expects his visitor to succumb to drink, and slip under the table as was so common an occurrence at the beginning of the nineteenth century. ”

“ Time, however, never fails to bring about the poetic justice of revenge. Six centuries after the sack of Cracow a little Anglo-French force entered Pekin with drums beating and flags flying, pillaged the Imperial Palaces, and returned to Europe laden with rich spoil. Chinese, Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus had all alike allowed themselves to be beaten by a mere handful of resolute men. What had they to oppose to European tactics, European weapons, and above all European discipline? ”

“ The modern Chinese are ardent lovers of their homes, and the humblest artisan lives alone, with his family, in the strictest seclusion. "There is nothing," adds this true observer, "to distinguish any one house from another, and it is the same with the theatres and opium dens; uniformity is the guiding principle in everything, and even the priests of the various missions have adopted the Chinese customs and mode of plaiting the hair." The town of Pekin is, in fact, unique in the power it seems to have of making all who reside in it conform to one style. ”

“ Those who are unfortunate enough to die abroad will not allow their dust to aid in fructifying the soil of the land of their exile, for their bodies are brought by steamers from San Francisco, Peru, the Philippine Islands, Australia, and elsewhere, to be buried in their native land, in the same last resting-place as that of their ancestors, where their memory will be held sacred by their own descendants. There is indeed something very pathetic and touching in the intense devotion of the Chinese to their native land, in spite of their ignorant readiness to leave it. ”

“ The Chinese have the trading instinct as fully developed as have the descendants of Shem. They carry on commerce with the same wonderful finesse, the same keen eye for a bargain, and they are as fond of money as the Jews themselves. At the same time in really important affairs they are as much to be trusted, as thoroughly loyal to the other side, as any great merchant of the City of London, or the Rue du Sentier in the French capital. These Chinese traders gave credit for enormous sums to the first foreign firms which had the audacity to found the Canton factories. ”

“ We are, in fact, inclined to endorse the opinion of the missionary Gutzlaff, who, speaking of the revered sage, remarks: "By not giving a proper rank in society to females, by denying to them the privileges which are their due as sisters, mothers, wives, and daughters ... he has marred the harmony of social life, and put a barrier against the improvement of society. The regeneration of China will, in fact, never take place, unless the females be raised from the degraded state which Confucius assigned to them." ”

“ This Kublai Khan, though a conqueror and of foreign race, so won the affections of the Chinese that he was justly called the Father of his people, and during his reign the country enjoyed a prosperity never since equalled. The native rulers who had preceded the Mongols had been mere phantom sovereigns, the puppets of their eunuchs and the women of their harems, altogether oblivious of the great example set them by the early monarchs of China. ”

“ In China, as elsewhere, the glory of the Portuguese colonies is departed, and the settlement at Macao is no exception to the rule. For many years the name of that port was synonymous with decay and degradation. The native population was more debased; the foreign traders were more grasping, more greedy of gain, and more reckless of the means employed to secure it than anywhere else, and one tri-colour flag, floating above a hospital for invalid sailors, was the only note of true civilization to redeem a deplorable state of things. ”

“ I went to look at the French concession, where there is not a single French inhabitant, though the names of the streets, such as the Rue de la Fusée, the Rue de la Dordogne, and the Rue de la Charente, recall the vessels once manned by the brave sailors who had for a brief time sojourned in this remote Chinese town. One curiosity which every visitor to Canton ought to see, is the so-called Fatim garden, where each tree represents some fantastic animal, and in which prowl herds of pigs, more quaint in appearance than the shrubs tended by pale-faced young bonzes wearing yellow garments. ”

“ It has only been for the last forty years that either China or Japan can be said to have been open to Europeans. The history of the latter nation is a proof of what an active, brave, and intelligent people may achieve in the course of a few years; whilst that of the former illustrates all that may remain undone where the natives of a country are convinced that they have for forty centuries had an ideal government, the best possible religion, and that the products of their industries are quite incapable of improvement. ”

“ More important still, as breaking up finally the isolation on which China has prided herself for so many centuries, is the fact that already pretty well all the important towns of the vast Empire are connected by telegraph with each other, and with the outside world. The search-light of publicity is in fact turned full upon the land once so fraught with mystery, and before long there will be no hidden thing connected with either court or country which will not be revealed to the inquisitive gaze of all the world. ”

“ On the eve of the holiday the Chinese merchant puts his business affairs into scrupulous order, balancing his accounts as he sits at his desk, bending over his numerous little ledgers, or his calculator made of tiny balls of ivory, his big spectacles upon his nose, and a pencil or a reed pen in his hand. ”