Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/205

Rh altogether a layman in the matter of agriculture.

"I am not one of those who believe in a new order for China. I belong to the old party, not to the Republicans. I do not believe China ripe for a republic. It is easy for the young, who gather knowledge as a child picks up shells, to be ripe for change. It is easy for children to take apart a clock, not for them to build another from those works and start it running. Many countries have outlived kings. The many millions of my countrymen need a paternal direction. To set them loose would be the same as letting loose an orphan school.

"The world says, China sleeps. I say China waits. To wait, that is her strongest weapon. She has waited, secure in her philosophies and in her ability to acquire knowledge, while kingdoms have risen and fallen, since long before your ancestors stained themselves with woad and listened to the creeds of priests who cut mistletoe from the oak and worshiped it. The so-called conquering nations win with fire and sword. In China the most despised occupation is that of a soldier. The world will come to our way of thinking. We can wait. And we can absorb.

"But my leanings have made me many enemies. Even in San Francisco I was a marked man, if not proscribed. They made me cut off my queue, they watched me, they undermined me with false witness, they set traps for me, I went in danger of my life. At the last—never mind the details—I was forced to flee by stealth, leaving the wreck of my fortunes and my enterprises. And I came to Metzal. I shall