[Transcriber's note: this page was entirely taken up by part of footnote 1, which is now on page 252 in its entirety.]
[Transcriber's note: this page was entirely taken up by part of footnote 1, which is now on page 252 in its entirety.]
[Transcriber's note: this page was entirely taken up by part of footnote 1, which is now on page 252 in its entirety.]
CHAPTER XVIII
SOME REVOLUTION FACTORS
Revolution is endemic in this land of great movements. The particular spirit that sways the feelings of the sensuous populace manifests itself now in the sporadic riotings that seem to occur everywhere and everywhen, and from no conceivable cause; again in the more widespread upheaval to which we give the name of "rebellion"—an abortive revolution; but ever and anon, gathering momentum from varying petty upheavals, the torrent of passions aroused bursts all restraining bounds and the country is swept from end to end by the onrushing flood. All erstwhile authority is at an end; fire and sword are the only "powers that be"; the land drinks deeply of the life-blood of its sons and daughters; and then, when the torrent of fury has spent its strength, Nature reclothes herself in a new garb, new homesteads and teeming villages spring into existence, and a new authority takes to itself power and grows on to greatness. Decades and centuries roll by; and this Dynasty also, like the effete Government it displaced, totters through a long period of hoary childishness to its terrible fall.
Even the casual observer realises that the last scene of a last act is being played out before our eyes. Full soon the curtain will fall and the Ta Ts'ing Dynasty exist in history only. Its "cup of iniquity" seems long to have been full.