But on what grounds can we think that the natures of clay and
wood desire this application of compasses and square, of arc and
line? Nevertheless, every age extols Po Lo for his skill in
managing horses, and potters and carpenters for their skill with
clay and wood. Those who _govern_ the Empire make the same
mistake.

Although Taoism, of which Lao-Tze was the founder and Chuang-Tze the
chief apostle, was displaced by Confucianism, yet the spirit of this
fable has penetrated deeply into Chinese life, making it more urbane and
tolerant, more contemplative and observant, than the fiercer life of the
West. The Chinese watch foreigners as we watch animals in the Zoo, to
see whether they "drink water and fling up their heels over the
champaign," and generally to derive amusement from their curious habits.
Unlike the Y.M.C.A., they have no wish to alter the habits of the
foreigners, any more than we wish to put the monkeys at the Zoo into
trousers and stiff shirts. And their attitude towards each other is, as
a rule, equally tolerant. When they became a Republic, instead of
cutting off the Emperor's head, as other nations do, they left him his
title, his palace, and four million dollars a year (about £600,000), and
he remains to this moment with his officials, his eunuchs and his
etiquette, but without one shred of power or influence. In talking with
a Chinese, you feel that he is trying to understand you, not to alter
you or interfere with you. The result of his attempt may be a caricature
or a panegyric, but in either case it will be full of delicate
perception and subtle humour. A friend in Peking showed me a number of
pictures, among which I specially remember various birds: a hawk
swooping on a sparrow, an eagle clasping a big bough of a tree in his
claws, water-fowl standing on one leg disconsolate in the snow. All
these pictures showed that kind of sympathetic understanding which one