BY G. LOWES DICKINSON AUTHOR OF "A MODERN SYMPOSIUM," "JUSTICE AND LIBERTY," ETC.   MCMXIV LONDON & TORONTO J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. All rights reserved...

The articles included in this book have already appeared, those from the East in the Manchester Guardian , those from America in the English Review . In reprinting them, I have chosen a title which may serve also as an apology. What I offer is not Reality; but appearances to me. From such appearances perhaps, in time, Reality may be constructed. I claim only to make my contribution. I do so because the new contact between East and West is perhaps the most important fact of our age; and the probl

"But why do you do it?" said the Frenchman. From the saloon above came a sound of singing, and I recognised a well-known hymn. The sun was blazing on a foam-flecked sea; a range of islands lifted red rocks into the glare; the wind blew fresh; and, from above, Male voices were singing; voices whose owners, beyond a doubt, had no idea of clinging to anything. Female voices, too, of clingers, perhaps, but hardly to a cross. "Why do you do it?"—I began to explain. "For the same reason that we play d

Some recent travellers have expressed disappointment or even disgust with what they saw or learned or guessed of China. My own first impression is quite contrary. The climate, it is true, for the moment, inclines one to gloomy views. An icy wind, a black sky, a cold drizzle. March in England could hardly do worse. But in Canton one almost forgets all that. Imagine a maze of narrow streets, more confused and confusing than Venice; high houses (except in the old city); and hanging parallel to thes

Japan, surely, must be a mirage created by enchantment. Nothing so beautiful could be real. Take the west coast of Scotland, bathe it in Mediterranean light and sun, and let its waves be those of the Pacific. Take the best of Devonshire, enlarge the hills, extend the plains, and dominate all with the only perfect mountain in the world—a mountain that catches at your breath like a masterpiece of art. Make the copses woods, and the woods forests. For our fields with their hedgerows substitute the

The great countries of the East have each a civilisation that is original, if not independent. India, China, Japan, each has a peculiar outlook on the world. Not so America, at any rate in the north. America, we might say, does not exist; there exists instead an offshoot of Europe. Nor does an "American spirit" exist; there exists instead the spirit of the average Western man. Americans are immigrants and descendants of immigrants. Putting aside the negroes and a handful of orientals, there is n

The preceding pages were written in the course of travel and convey the impressions and reflections of the moment. Whatever interest they may have depends upon this immediacy, and for that reason I have reprinted them substantially as they first appeared. Perhaps, however, some concluding reflections of a more considered nature may be of some interest to my readers. I do not advance them in a dogmatic spirit nor as final judgments, but as the first tentative results of my gropings into a large a