A lively and amusing collection of letters on western living written by Kong Ho, a Chinese gentleman. These addressed to his homeland, refer to the Westerners in London as barbarians and many of the aids to life in our society give Kong Ho endless food for thought. These are things such as the motor car and the piano; unknown in China at this time.

Excerpt:ESTIMABLE BARBARIAN,—Your opportunesuggestion that I should permit the letters, wherein I have describedwith undeviating fidelity the customs and manner of behaving of youraccomplished race, to be set forth in the form of printed leaves forall to behold, is doubtless gracefully-intentioned, and this personwill raise no barrier of dissent against it.

In this he is inspired by the benevolent hope thathis immature compositions may to one extent become a model and aby-word to those who in turn visit his own land of Fragrant Purity;for with exacting care he has set down no detail that has not comeunder his direct observation (although it is not to be denied thathere or there he may, perchance, have misunderstood an involvedallusion or failed to grasp the inner significance of an act), sothat Impartiality necessarily sways his brush, and Truth lurks withinhis inkpot.

In an entirely contrary manner some, who of recentyears have gratified us with their magnanimous presence, havereturned to their own countries not only with the internal fittingsof many of our palaces (which, being for the most part of areplaceable nature, need be only trivially referred to, the incident,indeed, being generally regarded as a most cordial and pressingvariety of foreign politeness), but also—in the lack ofhighly-spiced actuality—with subtly-imagined and trulyobjectionable instances. These calumnies they have not hesitated tocommit to the form of printed books, which, falling into the hands ofthe ignorant and undiscriminating, may even suggest to theirill-balanced minds a doubt whether we of the Celestial Empire reallyare the wisest, bravest, purest, and most enlightened people inexistence.

As a parting, it only remains to be said that, inorder to maintain unimpaired the quaint-sounding brevity and archaicconstruction of your prepossessing language, I have engraved most ofthe remarks upon the receptive tablets of my mind as they wereuttered. To one who can repeat the Five Classics without stumblingthis is a contemptible achievement. Let it be an imposed obligation,therefore, that you retain these portions unchanged as a test and aproof to all who may read. Of my own deficient words, I can only intruest courtesy maintain that any alteration must of necessity makethem less offensively commonplace than at present they are.

The Sign and immutable Thumb-mark of, Kong Ho

By a sure hand to the...