In common with all other travelers
and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a
serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums
which cannot be solved. Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial,
and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought
into his being. Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some
directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of
young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late
manhood and early youth. I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary
political economy--but why? This man explored centuries ago the cardinal
theories of some of our present-day Western classics. However, I have to
teach him the form of the earth and the natural causes of eclipses. He
is frightened by ghosts, burns mock money to maintain his ancestors in
the future state, worships a bit of rusty old iron as an infallible
remedy for droughts; I have seen him shoot at clouds from the city walls
to frighten away the rain--and I despise him for it all. As I revise
this copy, a rumor is current in the town in which I am resting to the
effect that foreigners are buying children and using their heads to oil
the wheels of the new Yuen-nan railway, and I despise him for believing
it.
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