The older Orientals and the sentimental Occidentals may not like the fact, but there it is staring every globe-trotter in the face--the civilization of the West is fast becoming the civilization of the world. Go where you will, from the drab vast plains of China to the muddy banks of the falling Nile, you will see this truth exemplified. Indians who represent themselves to be the advance guard of our time are really in the rear of their age. They have no eyes for the winnings which applied science has gathered together; they do not hesitate to denounce the indubitable benefits of modern civilization, though they are always ready to use them. They affect to be pioneers of a simpler age, when they are nothing more than the late camp-followers of the present one. Their attempts to expound a "higher" mode of living are less instructive than amusing.
-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 1 : Meetings of East and West > # 276
