Chapter 19 chapter 19

Matthew Arnold calls the poetry of the best Greek poets the priestess of imaginative reason. Now the spirit of the Chinese people, as it is seen in the best specimens of the products of their art and literature, is really what Matthew Arnold calls imaginative reason. Matthew Arnold says:_"The poetry of later Paganism lived by the senses and understanding: the poetry of medieval Christianity lived by the heart and imagination. But the main element of the modern spirits life, of the modern European spirit today, is Neither the senses and understanding, nor the heart and imagination, it is the imaginative reason."

Now if it is true what Matthew Arnold says here that the element by which the modern spirit of the people of Europe to-day, if it would live right_has to live, is imaginative reason, then you can see how valuable for the people of Europe this Spirit of the Chinese peo-pie is,_this spirit which Matthew Arnold calls imaginative reason. How valuable it is, I say, and how important it is that you should study it, try to understand it, love it, instead of ignoring, despising and trying to destroy it. But now before I finally conclude, I want to give you a warning. I want to warn you that when you think of this Spirit of the Chinese People, which I have tried to explain to you, you should bear in mind that it is not a science, philosophy, theosophy, or any "ism, " like the theosophy or " ism" of Madame Blavatsky or Mrs. Besant. The Spirit of the Chinese People is not even what you would call a mentality_ an active working of the brain and mind. The Spirit of the Chinese People, I want to tell you, is a state of mind, a temper of the soul, which you cannot learn as you learn shorthand or Esperanto_in short, a mood, or in the words of the poem, a serene and blessed mood.

Now last of all I want to ask your permission to recite to you a few lines of poetry from the most Chinese of the English poets, Wordsworth, which better than anything I have said or can say, will describe to you the serene and blessed mood which is the Spirit of the Chinese People. These few lines of the English poet will put before you in a way I cannot hope to do, that happy union of soul with intellect in the Chinese type of humanity, that serene and blessed mood which gives to the real Chinaman his inexpressible gentleness. Wordsworth in his lines on Tintern Abbey says:_ "... nor less, I trust To them I may have owed another gift Of aspect more sublime: that blessed mood In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened: _that serene and blessed mood In which the affections gently lead us on, _

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things." The serene and blessed mood which enables us to see into the life of things: that is imaginative reason, that is the Spirit of the Chinese People. THE CHINESE WOMAN Matthew Arnold, speaking of the argument taken from the Bible which was used in the House of Commons to support the Bill for enabling a man to marry his deceased wifes sister, said: "Who will believe when he really considers the matter, that when the feminine nature, the feminine ideal and our relations with them are brought into question, the delicate and apprehensive genius of the Indo-European race, the race which invented the Muses, and Chivalry, and the Madonna, is to find its last word on this Question in the institution of a Semitic people whose wisest King had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines?"

The two words I want for my purpose here from the above long quotation are the words "feminine ideal." Now what is the Chinese feminine ideal? What is the Chinese peoples ideal of the feminine nature and their relations to that ideal? further, let me, with all deference to Matthew Arnold, and respect for his Indo-European race, say here that the feminine ideal of the Semitic race, of the old Hebrew people is not such a horrid one as Matthew Arnold would have us infer from the fact that their wisest King had a multitude of wives and concubines. For here is the feminine ideal of the old Hebrew people, as we find it in their literature: "Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies . The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She rises also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens. She layeth her hands to the spindle and her fingers hold the distaff. afraid of snow for her household ; l her household are clothed in scarlet. She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her

tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household and eath not the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also and he praise her." This, I think, is not such a horrid, not such a bad ideal after all,_this feminine ideal of the Semitic race. It is of course not so etherial as the Madonna and the Muses, the feminine ideal of the In-do- European race. However, one must, I think, admit,_the Madonna and the Muses are very well to hang up as pictures in one s room, but if you put a broom into the hands of the Muses or send your Madonna into the kitchen , you will be sure to have your rooms in a mess and you will probably get in the morning no breakfast at all. Confucius says, "The ideal is not away from the actuality of human life. When men take something away from the actuality of human life as the ideal,_that is not the true ideal."* But if the Hebrew feminine ideal cannot be compared with the Madonna and the Muses, it can very well, I think, compare with the modern European feminine ideal, the feminine ideal of the Indo-European race in Europe and America to-day. I will not speak of the suffragettes in England. But com pare the old Hebrew feminine ideal with the modern feminine ideal such as one finds it in modern novels, with the heroine, for instance of Dumas Dame aux Cornelias. By the way, it may interest people to know that of all the books in European literature which have been translated into Chinese, the novel of Dumas with the Madonna of the Mud as the superlative feminine ideal has had the greatest sale and success in the present up-to-date modern China. This French novel called in Chinese the Cha-hua -nuhas even been dramatised and put on the stage in all the up-to-date Chinese theaters in China. Now if you will compare the old feminine ideal of the Semitic race, the woman who is not afraid of the The Universal Order XIII.

snow for her household, for she has clothed them all in scarlet, with the feminine ideal of the Indo-European race in Europe to-day, the Camelia Lady who has no household, and therefore clothing not her household, but herself in scarlet and goes with a Camelia flower on her breast to be photographed: then you will understand what is true and what is false, tinsel civilization.