Ebook: China: the long-lived empire

New York: The Century Co., 1900. — 466 p; illustr.In adding to the long list of books about China, one can only hope to give another individual experience and point of view, to add new testimony to that so abundantly offered. No one can cover the whole field, give the only key, or utter the last word; and during seven visits to China in the last fifteen years, the mystery of its people and the enigma of its future have only increased. It is such an impossible, incomprehensible country that one labors vainly to show it clearly to others. To the hypercritical residents of treaty ports, all writers have gone astray among the plainest Chinese facts; but as these same critics often controvert one another, the outsider can claim a certain privilege, while at the same time begging their indulgence for his views.