Excerpt from 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, strong est 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 ad vantage of her feebleness to despoil her. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.