Dress has thus far not been touched by the fashion, and anything more beautiful than the richly embroidered silk and velvet mantles of the wealthy classes can hardly be imagined. Neither has Americanism been able to obliterate the old-world manners and rules of courtesy, or to sever the bond of family affection and the inborn respect to parents. A Chinaman protects his home above all that is dear to him. In my intercourse with the Chinese I have noticed that even the most advanced among them, who have lived for years in England or in France, and who have enjoyed all the advantages of our commercial and industrial achievements, scrupulously avoid imitating the private life of the West. All that relates to business is zealously excluded from the home, and it frequently happens that the wife or the child has never entered the office of husband or father, nor does the father ever mention business matters in the home circle. The office is for work, he says, the home for rest. It has often been remarked to me that with us the wear and whirl of business and of excessive ambition, destroy the joy of living. One of my acquaintances at Hong Kong once said, "The conditions of life in the West nowadays make man his own enemy. He sacrifices his whole life to acquire what is in the main worthless, without giving himself time to enjoy what he already possesses." A banker expressed himself in a similar manner. "Most people in Europe," he said, "love money for its own sake, but not for what money can do to ennoble their lives." The more intimately I have become acquainted with Chinese mood and thought, the better have I learned to understand the psychical condition of the people. It has been said that the Chinaman, when first he comes to Europe, is struck by the sad expression on all the faces. They say that the Anglo-Saxon, or perhaps more still the Latin nations, appear to be more upset by some paltry superficial annoyance, a social slight or deception, than the Chinaman is at the sight of death. They say that we prize exorbitantly what is of small real value, while the things which make life worth living and give inward satisfaction are neglected by us. And I must confess that I have not been able to confute this statement. Life in the West--that is to say, the stability of the moral equilibrium of existence--is very precarious. Steam-engines have long since killed all sentimentality in us, and deeper feelings are only too frequently sacrificed to outward appearances and conventionalities. Where even the basis of religious conviction fails, there is nothing left to compensate for the vicissitudes of life.