Was this his impulsive boy's own thought, he wondered, or had his sister suggested it to him.
Quite his own; but no doubt the quiet, gentle influence which Sybil exerted over her younger brother was very good for him.
"Do you think, Sybil, that the heathen Chinese could teach the Christian English anything?" Mr. Graham asked his daughter, as they sat and talked together the very last evening.
"I am sure they could," she answered quickly; "many things. Filial love and obedience for one, respect and reverence for old age for another; and then, though they do believe such silly, superstitious things, there seems to be such a reality, so much earnestness, about the way some of them carry out their religion. They do not mind how early they get up and go out to keep a religious festival, and they seem to ask a sort of blessing, from their gods, on everything they do, and keep their fasts and feasts so very regularly; but I think their love for their parents beats everything. 'Boy' asked for a holiday yesterday, because it was his mother's birthday, and got up very early to do his work before he went." "Boy" was a kind of footman.
"Yes; parents' birthdays are kept up much more than are those of children. Sometimes on their birthdays they will sit under a crimson canopy, whilst their children kneel and perform the 'kow-tow' to them. The fifty-first birthday, and every ten years afterwards, is celebrated with great pomp, when religious ceremonies are often performed at the Temple of Longevity. I believe thirty Buddhist priests will then sometimes return thanks for three days.
"When a man is eighty-one, the fact is occasionally communicated to the Emperor, who may then allow money to be given for a monumental arch to be erected to the old man's honour.
"After parents are dead their birthdays are still celebrated in the ancestral hall, where their portraits hang."
"I suppose children give their parents beautiful presents on their birthdays?"
"When they begin to get old the best present that a child can, and does, make a parent, and one which he values more than anything else, is a coffin, because, you know, a Chinaman thinks that unless his body be buried properly his spirit cannot rest.
"The Chinese are strange contradictions," Mr. Graham went on. "Although they are very courageous in bearing torture, they are dreadful liars, and a great liar is generally a great coward. Then they are sober and industrious, but slaves to the opium drug; meek and gentle, but, at the same time, treacherous and cruel; most dutiful to their parents, but often very jealous of their neighbours; and then, perhaps strangest of all, is their love towards their children, but yet their readiness to put their girls to death."