How little we dreamed of the trouble which would so soon break over the official classes with the overthrow of the Empire, and the establishment of a Republic. I remember the last visit we paid to those friends, and our departure from the Yamen in the brilliant moonlight, whilst huge lanterns lighted our path through the archways and great gateways. As we left the huge enclosure the guard fired the first night watch. "Except the Lord keep the city the watchman watcheth but in vain." That night the Revolution broke out in Hankow, and the next time we saw our hostesses they were in terrible distress, imploring our permission to make our house their shelter, should the hatred of the mob break forth and their residence be rioted. They were in a most defenceless position, for the Mandarin had taken a journey to Taiyüanfu, and did not return. He was one of the old school, and faithful to the traditions of the Manchus whose court he had accompanied to Sianfu in the flight of 1900. It was still far from certain which party would gain the ascendancy, and he, as most of his class, wished to refrain from an expression of opinion until the situation was clearly defined. This, however, was not allowed, and during the massacres of the Manchus in Taiyüanfu he was arrested, and made to declare himself.
He held the Hanlin degree, the highest honour to which the Chinese scholar is admitted, the Emperor himself conducting the examinations. Faced by his enemies and fearing summary execution, he sheltered himself behind the age-long reverence for scholarship which exists in China as in no other country: "Death has no terrors for me," he calmly said, "but, alas, that such a scholar should be lost to China!" No armed bodyguard could have afforded him such protection as this transference of insult from his own person to the learning he represented. No man present was prepared to strike a blow at the embodiment of the Divine Right of Scholarship.
He lived to return to Hwochow, where he faced death a second time and was dragged through the streets by an angry populace, but finally escaped and with his wives reached a place of safety.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1911
"For an event to be great, two things must be united—the lofty sentiment of those who accomplish it, and the lofty sentiment of those who witness it. No event is great in itself, even though it be the disappearance of whole constellations, the destruction of several nations, the establishment of vast empires, or the prosecution of wars at the cost of enormous forces: over things of this sort the breath of history blows as if they were flocks of wool.... Hence the anxiety which every one must feel who, observing the approach of an event, wonders whether those about to witness it will be worthy of it."—F. Nietzsche.