BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A MODERN SYMPOSIUM.
THE MEANING OF GOOD.
JUSTICE & LIBERTY, a Political Dialogue.
PROBLEMS OF THE DAY SERIES
RELIGION & IMMORTALITY.
LETTERS FROM JOHN CHINAMAN.
RELIGION: A Forecast.
APPEARANCES
APPEARANCES
BEING
NOTES OF TRAVEL
BY
G. LOWES DICKINSON
AUTHOR OF "A MODERN SYMPOSIUM,"
"JUSTICE AND LIBERTY," ETC.
MCMXIV
LONDON & TORONTO
J. M. DENT & SONS LIMITED
NEW YORK: DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO.
All rights reserved
PREFACE
The articles included in this book have already appeared, those from theEast in the Manchester Guardian, those from America in the EnglishReview. In reprinting them, I have chosen a title which may serve alsoas an apology. What I offer is not Reality; but appearances to me. Fromsuch appearances perhaps, in time, Reality may be constructed. I claimonly to make my contribution. I do so because the new contact betweenEast and West is perhaps the most important fact of our age; and theproblems of action and thought which it creates can only be solved aseach civilisation tries to understand the others, and, by so doing,better to understand itself. These articles represent at any rate a goodwill to understand; and they may, I hope, for that reason throw onegleam of light on the darkness.
For the opportunity of travelling in the East I am indebted to themunificence of Mr. Albert Kahn of Paris, who has founded what are knownin this country [vi]as the Albert Kahn Travelling Fellowships.[1] Theexistence of this endowment is perhaps not as widely known as it shouldbe. And if this volume should be the occasion of leading others to takeadvantage of the founder's generosity it will not have been written invain.
I have hesitated long before deciding to republish the letters onAmerica. They were written in 1909, before the election of PresidentWilson, and all that led up to and is implied in that event. It was not,however, the fact that, so far, they are out of date, that caused me tohesitate. For they deal only incidentally with current politics, andwhatever value they may have is as a commentary on phases of Americancivilisation which are of more than transitory significance. Much hashappened in the United States during the last few years which is ofgreat interest and importance. The conflict between democracy andplutocracy has become more conscious and more acute; there have beenimportant developments in the labour movement; and capital has been so"harassed" by legislation that it may, for the moment, seem odd tocapitalists to find America called "the paradise of Plutocracy." Nodoubt the American public has awakened to its situation [vii]since 1909. Butsuch awakenings take a long time to transform the charact