This is the first time I have seen the birth of a new year in any but my native land, and my mind goes back to the celebration on a similar occasion in China. It is a solemn event there. For weeks the people are preparing for it; houses are cleaned, and debts are paid, for a Chinaman, if he has any self-respect, will be sure to pay his debts before the new year.
I told this to Uncle Theodore a few days ago, and he said, "I wish that Americans would rise to that state of grace."
Nobody goes to bed that night, but all sit up waiting for the first hour of the new year, when the father of the home, his wife and children all worship before the spirit tablets of their ancestors, and then at the shrine of the household gods.
Then the door is opened, and the whole family with the servants go outside and bow down to a certain part of the heavens, and so worship heaven and earth, and receive the spirit of gladness and good fortune, which they say comes from that quarter.
At the same hour, when the old year is dying, China's Emperor, as High Priest of his people, goes in state to worship. Kneeling alone under the silent stars he renders homage to the Superior Powers. He on his imperial throne makes the third in the great Trinity, Heaven, Earth, and Man. Should there come a famine or pestilence, upon him rests the blame, and he must by sacrifice and prayer atone for the imperfections of which heaven has seen him guilty.
Oh, China! I would prefer kneeling with you under the silent stars on New Year's eve, to feasting at the groaning tables, or ringing the bells and blowing the horns of this great, civilised, noisy America!
January 7th, 1——
Oh, glorious! Grandmother says I need not go back to boarding school for the winter term; she says the family always go South during the cold weather, and she wants me to go with them. Wants me, think of it, wants me. Isn't it nice to have somebody want one along with her! I believe grandmother really loves me. Aunt Gwendolin doesn't; she wanted me sent back to school. She said I would never be fit to be brought out with that kind of carrying on. I love those that love me, but as for loving those that hate me, as grandmother had been teaching me from the Bible, I haven't come to that yet.
That reminds me, I wish Aunt Gwendolin would stop snapping at Yick; I am afraid some day he will kill himself on the doorstep, so his ghost may haunt her the rest of her life. But I think he likes grandmother and the other members of the family sufficiently well to cause him to refrain from that act of Chinese revenge.