Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
WHETHER the present Chinese Republic shall stand or fall is but a matter of suppositional interest when compared with ultimate standards that will undoubtedly control the awakened race. China is no longer "shut in"; the world at large must respect its brand in the universal round-up of nations.
Ernest Francisco Fenollosa holds that a trite opportunity for the ignorant is to declare that "China is China." He then continues, "That is enough for the professed sinologue. To find evidence regarding it (China) outside of its own forbidding records, is what they never ask. 'East is East and West is West, and never the two shall meet, ' so runs Kipling's specious dictum; and American orators use it to-day to affect our treaty legislation. But the truth is that they have met, and they are meeting again now; and history is a thousand times richer for the contact. They have contributed a great deal to each other, and must contribute still more; they interchange views from the basis of a common humanity; and humanity is thus enabled to perceive what is stupid in its insularity."
Fenollosa's words are adequate.
The author of The Yellow Angel is encouraged by their sincerity; and the simple story of "Sue Chang" shall go forth with the hope that it may in some measure dispel Occidental prejudice.
