reach the trim Dutch garden, moat-encircled, in the centre of which
stands the prim old-fashioned villa, which, to the simple Dutchman,
appears a palace. The concierge, an old soldier, bows low to you and
introduces you to his wife—a stately, white-haired dame, who talks
most languages a little, so far as relates to all things within and
appertaining to this tiny palace of the wood. To things without,
beyond the wood, her powers of conversation do not extend:
apparently such matters do not interest her.

   She conducts you to the Chinese Room; the sun streams through the
windows, illuminating the wondrous golden dragons standing out in
bold relief from the burnished lacquer work, decorating still further
with light and shade the delicate silk embroideries thin taper hands
have woven with infinite pains. The walls are hung with rice paper,
depicting the conventional scenes of the conventional Chinese life.

   You find your thoughts wandering. These grotesque figures, these
caricatures of humanity! A comical creature, surely, this Chinaman,
the pantaloon of civilization. How useful he has been to us for our
farces, our comic operas! This yellow baby, in his ample pinafore,
who lived thousands of years ago, who has now passed into this
strange second childhood.

   But is he dying—or does the life of a nation wake again, as after
sleep? Is he this droll, harmless thing he here depicts himself?
And if not? Suppose fresh sap be stirring through his three hundred
millions? We thought he was so very dead; we thought the time had
come to cut him up and divide him, the only danger being lest we
should quarrel over his carcase among ourselves.

   Suppose it turns out as the fable of the woodcutter and the bear?
The woodcutter found the bear lying in the forest. At first he was
much frightened, but the bear lay remarkably still. So the woodman
crept nearer, ventured to kick the bear—very gently, ready to run if
need be. Surely the bear was dead! And parts of a bear are good to
eat, and bearskin to poor woodfolk on cold winter nights is grateful.
So the woodman drew his knife and commenced the necessary
preliminaries. But the bear was not dead.

   If the Chinaman be not dead? If the cutting-up process has only

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