Chapter 4

Grant And The Chinese(Dictated in 1885)

Early in 1884, or late in 1883, if my memory serves me, I called on General Grant with Yung Wing, late Chinese minister at Washington, to introduce Wing and let him lay before General Grant a proposition. Li Hung-Chang, one of the greatest and most progressive men in China since the death of Prince Kung, had been trying to persuade the imperial government to build a system of military railroads in China, and had so far succeeded in his persuasions¹ that a majority of the government were willing to consider the matter--provided that money could be obtained for that purpose outside of China, this money to be raised upon the customs of the country and by bonding the railway, or in some such manner. Yung Wing believed that if General Grant would take charge of the matter here and create the syndicate, the money would be easily forthcoming. He also knew that General Grant was better and more favorably known in China than any other foreigner in the world, and was aware that if his name were associated with the enterprise--the syndicate--it would inspire the Chinese government and people and give them the greatest possible sense of security. We found the general cooped up in his room with a severe rheumatism³, resulting from a fall on the ice which he had got some months before. He would not undertake a syndicate, because times were so hard here that people would be loath⁴ to invest money so far away; of course Yung Wing's proposal included a liberal compensation for General Grant for his trouble, but that was a thing that the general would not listen to for a moment. He said that easier times would come by and by, and that the money could then be raised, no doubt, and that he would enter into it cheerfully and with zeal⁵ and carry it through to the very best of his ability, but he must do it without compensation. In no case would he consent to take any money for it. Here, again, he manifested the very strongest interest in China, an interest which I had seen him evince on previous occasions. He said he had urged a system of railways on Li Hung-Chang when he was in China, and he now felt so sure that such a system would be a great salvation⁷ for the country, and also the beginning of the country's liberation from the Tartar rule and thralldom, that he would be quite willing at a favorable time to do everything he could toward carrying out that project, without other compensation than the pleasure he would derive⁸ from being useful to China.
This reminds me of one other circumstance.
About 1879 or 1880 the Chinese pupils in Hartford and other New England towns had been ordered home by the Chinese government. There were two parties in the Chinese government--one headed by Li Hung-Chang, the progressive party, which was striving to introduce Western arts and education into China; the other was opposed to all progressive measures. Li Hung-Chang and the progressive party kept the upper hand for some time, and during this period the government had sent one hundred or more of the country's choicest youth over here to be educated. But now the other party had got the upper hand and had ordered these young people home. At this time an old Chinaman named Quong, non-progressionist, was the chief China minister at Washington, and Yung Wing was his assistant. The order disbanding the schools was a great blow to Yung Wing, who had spent many years in working for their establishment. This order came upon him with the suddenness of a thunderclap. He did not know which way to turn.
First, he got a petition signed by the presidents of various American colleges, setting forth² the great progress that the Chinese pupils had made and offering arguments to show why the pupils should be allowed to remain to finish their education. This paper was to be conveyed to the Chinese government through the minister at Peking. But Yung Wing felt the need of a more powerful voice in the matter, and General Grant occurred to him. He thought that if he could get General Grant's great name added to that petition, that alone would outweigh⁹ the signatures of a thousand college professors. So the Rev⁶. Mr. Twichell and I went down to New York to see the general. I introduced Mr. Twichell, who had come with a careful speech for the occasion, in which he intended to load the general with information concerning the Chinese pupils and the Chinese question generally. But he never got the chance to deliver it. The general took the word out of his mouth and talked straight ahead, and easily revealed to Twichell the fact that the general was master of the whole matter and needed no information from anybody, and also the fact that he was brimful of interest in the matter. Now, as always, the general was not only ready to do what we asked of him, but a hundred times more. He said, yes, he would sign that paper, if desired, but he would do better than that: he would write a personal letter to Li Hung-Chang, and do it immediately. So Twichell and I went downstairs into the lobby of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a crowd of waiting and anxious visitors sitting in the anteroom, and in the course of half an hour he sent for us again and put into our hands his letter to Li Hung-Chang, to be sent directly and without the intervention¹⁰ of the American minister, or anyone else. It was a clear, compact, and admirably written statement of the case of the Chinese pupils, with some equally clear arguments to show that the breaking up of the schools would be a mistake. We shipped the letter and prepared to wait a couple of months to see what the result would be.
But we had not to wait so long. The moment the general's letter reached China a telegram came back from the Chinese government, which was almost a copy, in detail, of General Grant's letter, and the cablegram ended with the peremptory¹¹ command to old Minister Wong to continue the Chinese schools.
It was a marvelous exhibition of the influence of a private citizen of one country over the counsels of an Empire situated¹² on the other side of the globe.
Such an influence could have been wielded¹³ by no other citizen in the world outside of that Empire; in fact, the policy of the imperial government had been reversed from Room 45, Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, by a private citizen of the United States.

1 persuasions   

n.劝说，说服（力）( persuasion的名词复数 )；信仰

参考例句：

• To obtain more advertisting it needed readers of all political persuasions. 为获得更多的广告，它需要迎合各种政治见解的读者。 来自辞典例句
• She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while. 她踌躇不去，我好说歹说地劝她走，她就是不听。 来自辞典例句

2 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

3 rheumatism   

n.风湿病

参考例句：

• The damp weather plays the very devil with my rheumatism.潮湿的天气加重了我的风湿病。
• The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。

4 loath   

adj.不愿意的；勉强的

参考例句：

• The little girl was loath to leave her mother.那小女孩不愿离开她的母亲。
• They react on this one problem very slow and very loath.他们在这一问题上反应很慢，很不情愿。

5 zeal   

n.热心，热情，热忱

参考例句：

• Revolutionary zeal caught them up,and they joined the army.革命热情激励他们，于是他们从军了。
• They worked with great zeal to finish the project.他们热情高涨地工作，以期完成这个项目。

6 rev   

v.发动机旋转，加快速度

参考例句：

• It's his job to rev up the audience before the show starts.他要负责在表演开始前鼓动观众的热情。
• Don't rev the engine so hard.别让发动机转得太快。

7 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。

8 derive   

v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自

参考例句：

• We derive our sustenance from the land.我们从土地获取食物。
• We shall derive much benefit from reading good novels.我们将从优秀小说中获得很大好处。

9 outweigh   

vt.比...更重，...更重要

参考例句：

• The merits of your plan outweigh the defects.你制定的计划其优点胜过缺点。
• One's merits outweigh one's short-comings.功大于过。

10 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

11 peremptory   

adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的

参考例句：

• The officer issued peremptory commands.军官发出了不容许辩驳的命令。
• There was a peremptory note in his voice.他说话的声音里有一种不容置辩的口气。

12 situated   

adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的

参考例句：

• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。
• She is awkwardly situated.她的处境困难。

13 wielded   

手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响）

参考例句：

• The bad eggs wielded power, while the good people were oppressed. 坏人当道，好人受气
• He was nominally the leader, but others actually wielded the power. 名义上他是领导者，但实际上是别人掌握实权。