Japanese impressions, with a note on ConfuciusTranslated from the French by Frances Rumsey; with a prefby Anatole France . hat upheaval which attends the commencementof a conflict. War seizes a people as a passionseizes a man : both experiences are of a basic forcebefore which everything else is effaced. Sacrifice,suffering and death exact no cost and life has nointrinsic price apart from the momentous circumstances are always regarded as uniqueand unparalleled ; yet the individual is only onemore man touched by the eternal genius of life,and the nation is, with equal completeness,
Japanese impressions, with a note on ConfuciusTranslated from the French by Frances Rumsey; with a prefby Anatole France . hat upheaval which attends the commencementof a conflict. War seizes a people as a passionseizes a man : both experiences are of a basic forcebefore which everything else is effaced. Sacrifice,suffering and death exact no cost and life has nointrinsic price apart from the momentous circumstances are always regarded as uniqueand unparalleled ; yet the individual is only onemore man touched by the eternal genius of life,and the nation is, with equal completeness, in thehands of the god of destruction, the irresistibleSiva. Those actively engaged in a war can never explainits causes. At the root of these is an instinct notof hate but of pride. The sonorous old word gloryis still the same motive of combats; and, when apeople fling themselves into carnage, it is aboveall because of their idea of this idealism. In thiswar almost all the Japanese believe themselves benton the ruin of Russia ; only a few of them knowthat what they hope to conquer is her esteem. CONFUCIUS CONFUCIUS. E had left the train which, in recent years, has run from Tsinan-fou to Nankin, through the most ancient China ; the holy mountain of Tai- chan, at the base of which we had crept, was gone from the horizon. In the vast plain the shimmering harvest was ripening in the July sun; its golden riches, swollen by the last rain, seemed, in their dry brilliancy, to be already thirsting for the next. We took our places in the Chinese cart, one ofus bent to suffocation beneath the dark canopy, theother half protected by the awning stretched abovethe horse. The wheels slipped into ruts older thantime, and with its accustomed lurch the cart swunginto the long slow movement of the horse and thedriver who walked beside him. We found ourselves in the immeasurably ancientdistrict of Lou, two hours journey from the juris-diction of Kiu-feou, the city where Confucius wasfor more tha
Size: 1532px × 1631px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectconfucius, bookyear19
