[In the following review, Lovett offers a positive assessment of Lin's My Country and My People, which reveals much about the Chinese character, mind, and way of life.]

My Country and My People is a book in which charm is touched with pathos. Mr. Lin sees the Chinese as an old people come to the autumn of its natural life, “in which green is mixed with gold and sadness is mixed with joy, and hope is mixed with reminiscence.” The tragedy is that this ancient people, repository of the richest experience, culture and art in the world, has become the prey of new forces and younger races, in the face of which its old philosophy of good nature, moderation and sweet reasonableness in the use of life becomes futile. The Chinese civilization was realistically humanistic, yet it never subscribed to the Greek and Renaissance ideal of the development of the full powers of the individual, preferring rather “the enjoyment of a simple rural life, together with the harmony of social relationships.” At the same time the effect of “the spirit of reasonableness and its consequent hatred of logical extremes has been that the Chinese as a race are unable to have any faith in a system.” Accordingly the Chinese have failed to develop the national strength that comes from hero worship on one side, or popular governmental institutions on the other. One exception to the former may be found in the career of Sun Yat-sen, and to the latter in the success of the Communists in organizing the several provinces they have controlled. Indeed, Mr. Lin notes that in spite of the essential conservatism of the people, “China may yet be driven to communism, if the champions of conservatism cannot prove themselves worthy to find a way out for China.”

Mr. Lin was educated in missionary schools and thus understands the Western point of view, to which he subjects the culture, art and literature of his own people for explanation. He brings out with admirable clearness the religious values of Confucianism, of the Taoism of Lao-tse, and of Buddhism, the first supplying the practical ethics of a classical decorum, the second, the spiritual release into a world of human meanings, and the third, the element of ecclesiastical organization and ceremonies with supernatural sanctions. He indicates courteously but clearly his opinion that Christianity has no message for China. His discussion of Chinese poetry, painting and architecture is remarkably illuminating in its reference of their peculiar charm to the reflection of the forms and rhythms of nature. In his study of the Chinese character, mind and way of life he is most revealing.

Writing for a Western audience, Mr. Lin naturally falls into comparisons and contrasts. Especially in his account of the social and political life of China there are parallels which he enforces with an irony that seems quite without guile. He finds the social forces that rule China are face, fate and favor. The American defies fate, but to face and favor he yields, though with a less cynically conscious acceptance of them than the Oriental. Mr. Lin writes of the Chinese official who drives at the rate of sixty miles an hour, against the traffic regulation of thirty-five, gaining face thereby; who hits a passerby and merely hands the policeman his card, gaining more face; who, if the policeman is recalcitrant, bawls him out, and if taken to the station has the policeman dismissed, when his face “becomes truly beatific.” All this has a strangely familiar ring. The managing editor of a great New York newspaper, entertaining friends before a prize fight, let them linger too long at the table and had Fifth Avenue cleared for his car by a motorcycle guard, thereby gaining vast face with guests and populace. Mr. Lin notes the case of two college professors who were arrested “for the ludicrously insignificant offense of some incautious remarks, and their relatives had no better way than to go to their provincial capital and plead with the military chief of the province for ‘favor.’” This too has a very reminiscent sound to the American reader. Favor is the “personal relationship between the man in power and the man in need of protection.” In this country we call it “the fix.” And who will deny the applicability to America of the Confucian maxim from the Book of Rites: “Courtesy is not extended to commoners, and punishment is not served up to lords.”

Mr. Lin is equally ironical in his parallel between the Confucian idea of “government by gentlemen” and the political idealism which takes the form of Ruskin's “government by the wise and kind” or the benevolent fascism of Carlyle. He argues for the substitution of a government by laws for the rule in which disinterestedness so regularly gives place to face and favor. But he is obviously aware that laws and constitutions may become empty forms in China as in the West. When he writes of the danger to democracy in the rule of words instead of meanings he is surely not unaware of his implications. When he cites a statement by an important political party: “Whoever violates our national sovereignty and invades our territory, we will drive them out! Whoever endangers the peace of this world, we will stop them! We are determined … we are resolved … we must unite!” he seems to be quoting from any one of our own party platforms. When he writes that “Anything is permissible so long as you call it by the wrong name,” he may well be thinking of Liberty Bonds, Liberty Halls or Liberty Leagues. Perhaps his stern remedy for the political and social ills of China has a remote application to ourselves. “What China needs, then, is not more morals but more prisons for politicians. … What China needs is neither benevolence, nor righteousness, nor honor, but simple justice, or the courage to shoot those officials who are neither benevolent, nor righteous, nor honorable.” As this, however, would be to destroy the government by force and violence, the suggestion must not be seriously entertained.