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EAST ASIA.
recognise in them a certain moral Thus in the last
superiority.
century the enthusiastic
descriptions sent to Europe by the Jesuits conferred a halo of virtue and
wisdom on the natives, which was by no means justified by their history. Authors
delighted in choosing their examples from this new world of the remote East,
comparing the Chinese, taken as their models, with the inferior civilised peoples of
the West.
The Chinese on their part, comparing themselves with the " Western Bar-
barians," naturally claim the superiority, if not in industry, at least in true culture,
and appearances certainly often lend a colour to their pretensions. Nowhere else
are courtesy and kindly feelings more general. The people are naturally reserved,
earnest, good-natured.
" The men of the Four Seas are all brothers," says the
national proverb, and even strangers have travelled from one extremity of the land
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