Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/21

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CHINA

ITS HISTORY ARTS AND

LITERATURE

Chapter I

THE FEATURES OF THE COUNTRY

NOTHING surprises the student of Chinese history and the Chinese people more than the incomplete and uncertain character of available information. The subject is profoundly interesting. No other nation with which the world is acquainted has been so consistently true to itself; no other nation has preserved its type so unaltered; no other nation has developed a civilisation so completely independent of extraneous influences; no other nation has elaborated its own ideals in such absolute segregation from alien thought; no other nation has preserved the long stream of its literature so entirely free from foreign affluents; no other nation has ever reached a moral and national elevation comparatively so high above the heads of contemporary States. About a land thus

Vol. X. — I

1

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