INTRODUCTION
ESTIMABLE BARBARIAN,--Your opportune suggestion that I
should permit the letters, wherein I have described with undeviating
fidelity the customs and manner of behaving of your accomplished race, to
be set forth in the form of printed leaves for all to behold, is doubtless
gracefully-intentioned, and this person will raise no barrier of dissent
against it.
In this he is inspired by the benevolent hope that his immature
compositions may to one extent become a model and a by-word to those
who in turn visit his own land of Fragrant Purity; for with exacting care he
has set down no detail that has not come under his direct observation
(although it is not to be denied that here or there he may, perchance, have
misunderstood an involved allusion or failed to grasp the inner
significance of an act), so that Impartiality necessarily sways his brush,
and Truth lurks within his inkpot.
In an entirely contrary manner some, who of recent years have
gratified us with their magnanimous presence, have returned to their own
countries not only with the internal fittings of many of our palaces (which,
being for the most part of a replaceable nature, need be only trivially
referred to, the incident, indeed, being generally regarded as a most cordial
and pressing variety of foreign politeness), but also--in the lack of highlyspiced
actuality--with subtly-imagined and truly objectionable instances.
These calumnies they have not hesitated to commit to the form of printed
books, which, falling into the hands of the ignorant and undiscriminating,
may even suggest to their ill-balanced minds a doubt whether we of the
Celestial Empire really are the wisest, bravest, purest, and most
enlightened people in existence.