Page:The Awakening of Japan, by Okakura Kakuzō; 1905.djvu/121

 even as an embodiment of the White Disaster itself. But our mental standpoint of a few generations back was that of the conservative Chinese patriot of to-day, and we saw in Western advance but the probable encompassing of our ruin. To the down-trodden Oriental the glory of Europe is but the humiliation of Asia.

If we place ourselves in the position of a Chinese patriot of to-day we shall be able to understand how the march of contemporary events appeared to our grandfathers. ‘Their fears were not altogether without reason, for to the wounded imagination of Orientals history told of the gradual advance of the White Disaster which was descending on Asia. The Italian Renaissance marks the time when, freed from its chains, the roving spirit of Western