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The Strength of the Strong and Other Stories-Part6_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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reinforcements and new drivers and horses. The mob had done its



work and was scattering, and Catherine Van Vorst, still watching,

could see the man she had known as Freddie Drummond. He towered a



head above the crowd. His arm was still about the woman. And she

in the motor-car, watching, saw the pair cross Market Street, cross



the Slot, and disappear down Third Street into the labour ghetto.

In the years that followed no more lectures were given in the



University of California by one Freddie Drummond, and no more books

on economics and the labour question appeared over the name of



Frederick A. Drummond. On the other hand there arose a new labour

leader, William Totts by name. He it was who married Mary Condon,



President of the International Glove Workers' Union No. 974; and he

it was who called the notorious Cooks and Waiters' Strike, which,



before its successful termination, brought out with it scores of

other unions, among which, of the more remotely allied, were the



Chicken Pickers and the Undertakers.

THE UNPARALLELED INVASION



It was in the year 1976 that the trouble between the world and

China reached its culmination. It was because of this that the



celebration of the Second Centennial of American Liberty was

deferred. Many other plans of the nations of the earth were



twisted and tangled and postponed for the same reason. The world

awoke rather abruptly to its danger; but for over seventy years,



unperceived, affairs had been shaping toward this very end.

The year 1904 logically marks the beginning of the development



that, seventy years later, was to bring consternation to the whole

world. The Japanese-Russian War took place in 1904, and the



historians of the time gravely noted it down that that event marked

the entrance of Japan into the comity of nations. What it really



did mark was the awakening of China. This awakening, long

expected, had finally been given up. The Western nations had tried



to arouse China, and they had failed. Out of their native optimism

and race-egotism they had therefore concluded that the task was



impossible, that China would never awaken.

What they had failed to take into account was this: THAT BETWEEN



THEM AND CHINA WAS NO COMMON PSYCHOLOGICAL SPEECH. Their thought-

processes were radically dissimilar. There was no intimate



vocabulary. The Western mind penetrated the Chinese mind but a

short distance when it found itself in a fathomless maze. The



Chinese mind penetrated the Western mind an equally short distance

when it fetched up against a blank, incomprehensible wall. It was



all a matter of language. There was no way to communicate Western

ideas to the Chinese mind. China remained asleep. The material



achievement and progress of the West was a closed book to her; nor

could the West open the book. Back and deep down on the tie-ribs



of consciousness, in the mind, say, of the English-speaking race,

was a capacity to thrill to short, Saxon words; back and deep down



on the tie-ribs of consciousness of the Chinese mind was a capacity

to thrill to its own hieroglyphics; but the Chinese mind could not



thrill to short, Saxon words; nor could the English-speaking mind

thrill to hieroglyphics. The fabrics of their minds were woven



from totally different stuffs. They were mental aliens. And so it

was that Western material achievement and progress made no dent on



the rounded sleep of China.

Came Japan and her victory over Russia in 1904. Now the Japanese



race was the freak and paradox among Eastern peoples. In some

strange way Japan was receptive to all the West had to offer.



Japan swiftly assimilated the Western ideas, and digested them, and

so capably applied them that she suddenly burst forth, full-



panoplied, a world-power. There is no explaining this peculiar

openness of Japan to the alien culture of the West. As well might



be explained any biological sport in the animal kingdom.

Having decisively thrashed the great Russian Empire, Japan promptly



set about dreaming a colossal dream of empire for herself. Korea

she had made into a granary and a colony; treaty privileges and



vulpine diplomacy gave her the monopoly of Manchuria. But Japan

was not satisfied. She turned her eyes upon China. There lay a



vast territory, and in that territory were the hugest deposits in

the world of iron and coal - the backbone of industrial



civilization. Given natural resources, the other great factor in




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