Towards democracy

The bits of rock and wild wood left here and there, with the angles of Buddhist temples projecting from among the trees 5

The azalea and rhododendron bushes, and the wild deer and pheasants unharmed ;

The sounds of music and the gong—the Sin-fa sung at eventide—and the air of contentment and peace pervading ;

A garden you might call the land, for its wealth of crops and flowers,

A town almost for its population.

A population denser, on a large scale, than anywhere else on the earth—

Five or six acre holdings, elbowing each other, with lesser and larger, continuously over immense tracts, and running to plentiful market-centres ;

A country of few roads, but of innumerable footpaths and walerways.

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Here, rooted in the land, rooted in the family,

Each family clinging to its. portion of ancestral earth, each offshoot of the family desiring nothing so much as to secure its Own patrimonial field,

Each member of the family answerable primarily to the family-assembly for his misdeeds or defalcations,

All bound together in the common worship of ancestors, and in reverence for the past and its sanctioned beliefs and accumulated prejudices and superstitions ;

With many ancient wise simple customs and ordinances,