Many of us have experienced the mellow, even-flowing poetry of ancestral China and have sensed something of its conspiracy with peace and understanding—the traditions of a culture older and more profound than our own.

But although the centuries move slowly In China, never daring to tread on one another's heels, the old imperturbable days have gone for ever.

The modern Chinese writer was faced with the most contorted of situations-age-old feudal traditions disrupted by half-a-down aggressive imperialisms.

The immediate, motives that impelled different writers were varied. Some were impelled to satirise the old ideas and institutions that hampered them individually. Others were roused to action by a hatred of the foreign imperialists that were seeking 10 dismember their country.