Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/45

Rh grave study. For her the past half-century has been one of violent and incessant change. From a period of stress and storm, when the land was racked by revolution and civil war from within and menaced with violent interference from without, has emerged the Japan of to-day,—a force utterly unsuspected and unforeseen, an Asiatic Power wielding with unexampled skill and precision the weapons and inventions of the collective genius of the West. What may be the psychic effect of such volcanic change upon the mind and thought of an Eastern people lies hidden from Western eyes deep down in the inscrutable soul of the race: this only may be affirmed without question or hesitation, that no one who has had the opportunity of coming into close contact with Government or people can fail to be deeply impressed with a sense of the growing ambitions of the people, or of the inflexible determination of those in high places to do everything in their power to assist them in bringing such ambitions to fruition. Forced in the teeth of their own determined and strenuous opposition to open