in dying." In China such an excuse would never be offered, nor, if it were offered, would it be accepted.
It remains to speak of the worries and anxieties to which humanity is everywhere subjected in this distracted world. The Chinese are not only as accessible to these evils as any other people, but far more so. The conditions of their social life are such that in any given region there is a large proportion who are always on the ragged edge of ruin. A slight diminution of the rainfall means starvation to hundreds of thousands. A slight increase in the rainfall means the devastation of their homes by destructive floods, for which there is no known remedy. No Chinese is safe from the entanglement of a lawsuit, which, though he be perfectly innocent, may work his ruin. Many of these disasters are not only seen, but their stealthy and steady approach is perceived, like the gradual shrinking of the iron shroud. To us nothing is more dreadful than the momentary expectation of a calamity which cannot be forefended, and which may bring all that is horrible in its train. The Chinese face these things, perhaps because they seem to be inevitable, with a "clear-eyed endurance," which is one of the most remarkable phenomena of the race. Those who have witnessed the perfectly quiet starvation of millions in times of devastating famine will be able to understand what is here meant. To be fully appreciated, it must be seen, but seen on no matter what scale, it is as difficult for an Occidental really to understand it as it is for a Chinese truly to understand the idea of personal and social liberty, which the Anglo-Saxon has inherited and developed. In whatever aspect we regard them, the Chinese are and must continue to be to us more or less a puzzle, but we shall make no approach to comprehending them until we have it settled firmly in our minds that, as compared with us, they are gifted with the "absence of nerves." What the bearing of this pregnant proposition may be on the future impact of this
