civilisation, a man must be deep, broad and simple, for the three characteristics of the Chinese character and the Chinese civilisation are: depth, broadness and simplicity.
The American people, I may be permitted to say here, find it difficult to understand the real Chinaman and the Chinese civilisation, because the American people, as a rule, are broad, simple, but not deep. The English cannot understand the real Chinaman and Chinese civilisation because the English, as a rule, are deep, simple, but not broad. The Germans again cannot understand the real Chinaman and the Chinese civilisation because the Germans, especially the educated Germans, as a rule, are deep, broad, but not simple. The French,—well the French are the people, it seems to me, who can understand and has understood the real Chinaman and the Chinese civilisation best.[1] The French, it is true, have not the depth of nature of the Germans nor the broadness of mind of the Americans nor the simplicity of mind of the English,—but the French, the French people have to a preeminent degree a quality of mind such as all the people I have mentioned above as a rule, have not,—a quality of mind which, above all things, is necessary in order to understand the real Chinaman and the Chinese civilisation; a quality of mind viz: delicacy, For, in addition to the three
- ↑ The best book written in any European language on the spirit of the Chinese civilisation is a book called "La Cité Chinoise" by G.—Eug. Simon who was once French Consul in China. It was from this book that Prof. Lowes Dickinson of Cambridge, as he himself told me, drew his inspiration in writing his famous "Letters from John Chinaman."
