[Gutenberg 42886] • The Blue Dragon: A Tale of Recent Adventure in China

*The Blue Dragon, chosen as a title for this story, is the national emblem of China, adopted as such by a desire to flatter and propitiate that spirit of evil considered to be the most powerful. As the dragon is believed to be big enough and strong enough to overcome and devour all the other wicked genii who continually vex Chinese life, the wise men of the "Black-haired People" thought it best to have him on their side, and consequently accorded him the highest honor in their power to bestow. As we of America chose the eagle, strongest of visible air spirits, for our national emblem, so the Chinese chose the most powerful of invisible spirits in whose existence they believe as firmly as we do in the existence of things that we can see, hear, or feel.

In the story thus entitled, I have endeavored to give an idea of what China has been, is, and may become through education and development, how she is regarded, and how her people are being treated by other nations, and what causes she has for resentment against those who are taking advantage of her feebleness to despoil her.

While travelling in China, and trying to gain the Chinese point of view, I met so many charming people, so many men of intelligence and liberal education, honorable, broad-minded, and devoted to the uplifting of their unhappy country, that I became exceedingly interested in their cause, and anxious to aid it. With this object in view I am striving, through the medium of a story, to present it to those young Americans who, in the near future, will be called upon to decide the ultimate fate of the great Middle Kingdom. With them, more than with any other people, even including the Chinese themselves, will rest the decision, whether China shall remain a nation, open to the unobstructed commerce of the world, or become a series of petty colonial possessions devoted only to the interests of their several ruling powers. That my young readers may be guided to a wise and just solution of this great problem, is the sincere hope of their friend,*