There is a theory that colour and gaiety in dress signify colour and gaiety in life itself. Just as Mr. Ruskin sees a sure sign of the divorce of the religious life from the daily life in the fact of our erecting Gothic buildings to worship in, and buildings not Gothic to dwell in, 80 do some see in the sameness of cut and sombreness of hue of our clothes, evidence of that loss of originality, of individuality, of joyousness, of ope, which the prophets of evil descry as the inevitable result of the methods of modern civilisation.
Doubtless the blessings of modern ci ration are bought with a great price benefits are attended with no inconsiderable evils. Commercialism plants a heavy heel pen many of the pleasures and ities of life. Indoor routine work of the dreariest and most dispiriting kind has become the common lot of the world. An existence such as that of the working population of our large commercial towns is hardly conductive to joyousness. A man gets up in the morning, swallows a hasty breakfast, and hurries off to his business; in the evening returns, dead beat, dines, snoozes, and so to bed. What of the possibilities of life in such s case? What chance of colour and gaiety have we here? What place for individuality or originality in "The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The vet gray life?"
Yes! the "set gray life" is the price - the heavy price—which civilisation, as at present conceived of, demands. Many of us think the price too heavy, the bargain a bed one. Some of us hope for a time when anew bargain will be struck. But that will not be till men's notions concerning what constitutes happiness alter a little; till men conceive of civilisation differently till men learn net to mistake the mean: for the end; in a word, till we learn a higher wisdom. Until then the set gray life" is the price man will have to pay for civilisation, and the "set gray life" makes set gray minds, and set gray minds naturally attire the bodies to which they happen to attached, in sad and sombre garments. Thence the theory above quoted.
Like many another Western theory it finds its contradiction among the sons of Han. Directly it sets foot in China it sees itself quite out of joint with local experience. Were it universally true, what a bright and happy individual would John Chinaman be! Picture him at this New Year time What a "swell" he is! What gay garments adorn his now portly person as he struts and swaggers in 'k vanity, all stuffed and distended with wadding, and born dandy he is How ly conscious of the admiring the glance of admiration which surely the passers-by,
if even Teufelsdrckh felt compelled to throw to the Piccadilly coxcomb we need feel no shame to grant to the Foochow Real fop.
The native masher" at any time is an object of admiration. His feathers are the bonniest of any of the species that we have yet seen. The Kings of Hyde Park godown before him, the admired of the Row wax feeble. Thisatany time. But at China New Year he surpasses all previously known or dreamed-of dandi-s. One seems to have dropped down among nation of dandies. The streets are ablaze with colour. - Reds, and blues, and greens, and yellows, of every shade, and every hue, move, and and cross, and come, like the colours ina kaleidoscope. And if the men are gaily and beautifully dressed what shall we say of the exquisite silks and embroideries that adorn the small-footed ladies who drive about in those delicate spider wheeled carriages, themselves objects of beauty and wonder Orof thechildren—the sturdy little vagabonds—gayest of the gay? How sweetly pretty and picturesquely droll is the little heathen as he toddles along in his queer quaint garb. On his head a gilded crown, and around his tiny body the colours of the rainbow embroidered and worked in all directions—a wonder to alltosee, Yes, there is a prodigious wealth of colour and gaiety displayed in dress.
But of the corresponding gaiety and colour in life itself what shall we say Must we not say that it is non-existent? The gaiety is all on theChinaman's back. There is none in his ming," It isthe last characteristic any one could credit him with, Every day am impressed with the seeming intensity of their depression, their all too apparent melancholy. Front the spectacled Compra-dare to the bamboo coolie with his load of tea every man has a dispirited air. They seem like a conquered race, they look so\dejected. And even at their great festival, even at China New Year, they seem incapable of high spirits, They seem to have no idea of any healthful amusement, they wander aimlessly about the streets, apparently in that unhappy condition of having " nowhere to go and nothing to do." And, over all, men and women alike, depression reigns and melancholy sits enthroned.
Even the children, mournful little mashers, seem to partake of the prevailing; low spirits. Their stolid little faces lac the light which brightens the eye of an English child. There is nothing of wonder in their gaze. They come trailing no clouds of glory. From the first they seem subdued, oppressed. Poor little pilgrim strangers in an inhospitable land, queer little cotton-wadded bundles of humanity, what hope of happiness can life hold out to you, what gifts of joy has she in store? Few indeed! Certainly not a full of colour and gaiety, be your clothes ever so gay! No, in truth the theory does not hold good among the Sons of Han. And all their gaudiness and vain show at New Year time serves but to emphasise the eneral dejection, and colour and gaiety in ires stands over against, and in striking contrast to, an utter and woeful want of anything approaching to colour and gaiety in life itself.
I have to thank friendly readers for enabling me to send Father Watson a further remittance this week of $55.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.