My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard

by Elizabeth Cooper

When the western sky was like a golden curtain, we went to the
canal, where the children set their tiny boats afloat, each with its
lighted lantern. The wind cried softly through the bamboo-trees and
filled the sails of these small barks, whose lights flashed brightly from
the waters as if the Spirits of the River laughed with joy.
We returned home, happy, tired, but with new heart to start the
morrow's work.
Thy daughter,
Kwei-li.
5
My Dear Mother,
We are in the midst of a most perplexing problem, and one that is
hard for us to cope with, as it is so utterly new. My children seem to
have formed an alliance amongst themselves in opposition to the
wishes of their parents on all subjects touching the customs and
traditions of the family. My son, as thou rememberest, was betrothed
in childhood to the daughter of his father's friend, the Governor of
Chili-li. He is a man now, and should fulfill that most solemn obligation
that we, his parents, laid upon him-- and he refuses. I can see thee sit
back aghast at this lack of filial spirit; and I, too, am aghast. I cannot
understand this generation; I'm afraid that I cannot understand these,
my children. My boy insists that he will marry a girl of his own choice,
a girl with a foreign education like unto his own. We have
remonstrated, we have urged, we have commanded, and now at last a
compromise has been effected. We have agreed that when she
comes to us, teachers shall be brought to the house and she shall be
taught the new learning. Along with the duties of wife she shall see
the new life around her and from it take what is best for her to know.
I can understand his desire to have a wife with whom he may talk of
the things or common interest to them both, a wife who can share
with him, at least in part, the life beyond the woman's courtyard. I
remember how I felt when thy son returned from foreign lands, filled
with new sights, new thoughts in which I could not share. I had been
sitting quietly behind closed doors, and I felt that I could not help in
this new vision that had come to him. I could speak to only one side
of his life, when I wished to speak to all; but I studied, I learned, and,
as far as it is possible for a Chinese woman, I have made my steps
agree with those or my husband, and we march close, side by side.
My son would like his wife to be placed in a school, the school from
which my daughter has just now graduated; but I will not allow it. I am
not in favour of such schools for our girls. It has made or Wan-li a
half-trained Western woman, a woman who finds music in the piano
instead of the lute, who quotes from Shelley, and Wordsworth,
instead of from the Chinese classics, who thinks embroidery work for
servants, and the ordering of her household a thing beneath her great
mental status.
I, of course, wish her to marry at once; as to me that is the holiest
desire of woman-- to marry and give men-- children to the world; but it
seems that the word "marry" has opened the door to floods of talk to
which I can only listen in silent amazement. I never before had
realised that I have had the honour of bearing children with such
tongues of eloquence; and I fully understand that I belong to a past, a
very ancient past-- the Mings, from what I hear, are my
contemporaries. And all these words are poured upon me to try to
persuade me to allow Wan-li to become a doctor. Canst thou imagine
it? A daughter of the house of Liu a doctor! From whence has she
received these unseemly ideas except in this foreign school that
teaches the equality of the sexes to such an extent that our
daughters want to compete with men in their professions! I am not so
much of the past as my daughter seems to think; for I believe, within
certain bounds, in the social freedom of our women; but why
commercial freedom? For centuries untold, men have been able to
support their wives; why enter the market-places? Is it not enough
that they take care of the home, that they train the children and fulfill
the duties of the life in which the Gods place women? My daughter is
not ugly, she is most beautiful; yet she says she will not marry. I tell
her that when once her eyes are opened to the loved one, they will be
closed to all the world beside, and this desire to enter the great world
of turmoil and strife will flee like dew-drops before the summer's dawn.
I also quoted her what I told Chih-peh many moons ago, when he
refused to marry the wife thou hadst chosen for him: "Man attains not
by himself, nor woman by herself, but like the one-winged birds of the
ancient legend, they must rise together."
My daughter tossed her head and answered me that those were
doubtless words of great wisdom, but they were written by a man long
dead, and it did not affect her ideas upon the subject of her marriage.
We dare not insist, for we find, to our horror, that she has joined a
band of girls who have made a vow, writing it with their blood, that,
rather than become wives to husbands not of their own choice, they
will cross the River of Death. Fifteen girls, all friends of my daughter,
and all of whom have been studying the new education for women,
have joined this sisterhood; and we, their mothers, are in despair.
What can we do? Shall we insist that they return to the old régime
and learn nothing but embroidery? Why can they not take what is
best for an Eastern woman from the learning of the West, as the bee
selects honey from each flower, and leave the rest? It takes centuries
of training to change the habits and thoughts of a nation. It cannot be
done at once; our girls have not the foundation on which to build. Our
womanhood has been trained by centuries of caressing care to look
as lovely as nature allows, to learn obedience to father as a child, to
husband as a wife, and to children when age comes with his frosty
fingers.
Yet we all know that the last is a theory only to be read in books.
Where is there one so autocratic in her own home as a Chinese
mother? She lives within its four walls, but there she is supreme. Her
sons obey her even when their hair is touched with silver. Did not thy
son have to ask thy leave before he would decide that he could go
with His Highness to the foreign lands? Did he not say frankly that he
must consult his mother, and was he not honoured and given
permission to come to his home to have thy blessing? Dost thou
remember when Yuan was appointed secretary to the embassy in
London, and declined the honour because his mother was old and did
not wish her only son to journey o'er the seas; he gave up willingly
and cheerfully the one great opportunity of his life rather than bring
sorrow to the one who bore him.
A similar case came to our ears but a few days since. Some priests
of a foreign mission came to my husband and wished him to
intercede, as Governor, and command the Taotai of Soochow to sell
to them a piece of land on which to erect a temple of their faith. When
the Taotai was asked why he was so persistent in his refusal to carry
out the promise of the man before him in the office, he told the
Governor that the temple where his mother worshipped was in a direct
line with the proposed new foreign house of worship. His mother
feared that a spire would be placed upon its rooftree that would
intercept the good spirits of the air from bringing directly to her family
rooftree the blessings from the temple. My husband tried to persuade
him that the superstitions of a woman long in years should not stand
in the way of a possible quarrel with men of a foreign power, but the
Taotai only shrugged his shoulders and said, "What can I do? She is
my mother. I cannot go against her expressed commands;" and-- the
temple to the foreign God will not be built.

But it is as foolish to talk to Wan-li as "to ask the loan of a comb from
a Buddhist nun." She will not listen; or, if she does, a smile lies in the
open lily of her face, and she bows her head in mock submission;
then instantly lifts it again with new arguments learned from foreign
books, and arguments that I in my ignorance cannot refute.
I feel that I am alone on a strange sea with this, my household; and I
am in deadly fear that she will do some shocking thing, like those
girls from the school in Foochow who, dressed in their brothers'
clothing, came to Nanking and asked to be allowed to fight on the
side of the Republic. Patriotism is a virtue, but the battle-field is man's
place. Let the women stay at home and make the bandages to bind
the wounded, and keep the braziers lighted to warm returning men.
I will not write thee more of troubles, but I will tell thee that thy box of
clothing came and is most welcome; also the cooking oil, which gave
our food the taste of former days. The oils and sauces bought at
shops are not so pure as those thy servants make within the
compound, nor does the cook here prepare things to my taste. Canst
send me Feng-yi, who understands our customs? Thy son has no
great appetite, and I hope that food prepared in homely ways may
tempt him to linger longer at the table. He is greatly over-worked, and
if he eat not well, with enjoyment of his rice, the summer will quite
likely find him ill.
Thy daughter and thy family who touch thy hand,
Kwei-li
6
My Dear Mother,
Thy letter came, and I thank thee for thy advice. It is most difficult to
act upon. I cannot shut Wan-li within an inner chamber, nor can I
keep her without rice until she sees the wisdom of her ways. The
times are truly different; we mothers of the present have lost our
power to control our children, and cannot as in former days compel
obedience. I can only talk to her; she laughs. I quote to her the words
of the Sage: "Is any blessing better than to give a man a son, man's
prime desire by which he and his name shall live beyond himself; a
foot for him to stand on, a hand to stop his falling, so that in his son's
youth he will be young again, and in his strength be strong." Be the
mother of men; and I hear that, that is China's trouble. She has too
many children, too many thousands of clutching baby fingers, too
many tiny mouths asking for their daily food. I am told, by this learned
daughter of mine, that China has given no new thing to the world for
many tens of centuries. She has no time to write, no time to think of
new inventions; she must work for the morrow's rice. "How have you
eaten?" Is the salutation that one Chinese makes to another when
meeting on a pathway; and in that question is the root of our greatest
need. I am told that we are a nation of rank materialists; that we pray
only for benefits that we may feel or see, instead of asking for the
blessings of the Spirit to be sent us from above; that the women of my
time and kind are the ruin of the country, with our cry of sons, sons!
But if our girls flaunt motherhood, if this thought of each one for
himself prevails, what will become of us, a nation that depends upon
its worship of the ancestors for its only practical religion? The
loosening of the family bonds, the greater liberty of the single person,
means the lessening of the restraining power of this old religion which
depends upon the family life and the unity of that life. To do away with
it is to do away with the greatest influence for good in China to-day.
What will become of the filial piety that has been the backbone of our
country? This family life has always been, from time immemorial, the
foundation-stone of our Empire, and filial piety is the foundation-stone
of the family life.
I read not long since, in the Christian's Sacred Book, the
commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may
be long in the land which the Lord thy God hath given thee," and I
thought that perhaps in the observance of that rule is to be found one
of the chief causes for the long continuance of the Chinese Empire.
What is there to compare in binding power to the family customs of
our people? Their piety, their love one for the other and that to which it
leads, the faithfulness of husband to his wife-- all these, in spite of
what may be said against them by the newer generation, do exist and
must influence the nation for its good. And this one great fact must be
counted amongst the forces, if it is not the greatest force, which bind
the Chinese people in bonds strong as ropes of twisted bamboo.
Our boys and girls will not listen; they are trying to be what they are
not, trying to wear clothes not made for them, trying to be like nations
and people utterly foreign to them; and they will not succeed. But,
"into a sack holding a ri, only a ri will go," and these sacks of our
young people are full to overflowing with this, which seems to me
dearly acquired knowledge, and there is not room for more. Time will
help, and they will learn caution and discretion in life's halls of
experience, and we can only guard their footsteps as best we may.
In the meantime, Mother mine, my days are full and worried, and I, as
in the olden time, can only come to thee with my rice-bowl filled with
troubles and pour them all into thy kindly lap. It is my only comfort, as
thy son is bitter and will not talk with patience, and it would not be
seemly for me to open wide my heart to strangers; but I know thou
lovest me and art full of years and knowledge and will help me find the
way.
Kwei-li.
7
My Dear Mother,
These are most troublous times, and thy son is harassed to the verge
of sickness. Shanghai is filled with Chinese who come seeking foreign
protection. Within the narrow confines of the foreign settlements, it is
said, there are nearly a million Chinese, half of them refugees from
their home provinces, fearing for their money or their lives, or both.
The great red houses on the fashionable streets, built by the English
for their homes, are sold at fabulous prices to these gentlemen, who
have brought their families and their silver to the only place they know
where the foreign hand is strong enough to protect them from their
own people. There are many queer tales; some are simply the breath
of the unkind winds that seem to blow from nowhere but gain in
volume with each thing they touch. Tan Toatai, who paid 300,000
taels for his position as Toatai of Shanghai, and who left for his home
province with 3,000,000 taels, as the gossips say, was asked to
contribute of his plenty for the help of the new government. He
promised; then changed his mind, and carefully gathered all his
treasures together and left secretly one night for Shanghai. Now he is
in fear for his life and dares not leave the compound walls of the
foreigner who has befriended him.
It makes one wonder what is the use of these fortunes that bring
endless sorrow by the misery of winning them, guarding them, and
the fear of losing them. They who work for them are as the water
buffalo who turns the water-wheel and gets but his daily food and the
straw-thatched hut in which he rests. For the sake of this food and
lodging which falls to the lot of all, man wastes his true happiness
which is so hard to win.
These Chinese of the foreign settlements seem alien to me. Yuan
called upon thy son the other day, and had the temerity to ask for
me-- a most unheard-of thing. I watched him as he went away,
dressed in European clothes, as nearly all of our younger men are
clothed these days, and one would never know that he had worn his
hair otherwise than short. There are no more neatly plaited braids
hanging down the back, and the beautiful silks and satins, furs and
peacock feathers are things of the past. These peacock feathers,
emblems of our old officialdom, are now bought by foreign ladies as a
trimming on their hats. Shades of Li Hung-chang and Chang
Chih-tung! What will they say if looking over the barriers they see the
insignia of their rank and office gracing the glowing head-gear of the
tourists who form great parties and come racing from over the seas to
look at us as at queer animals from another world?
It is not only the men who are copying the foreign customs and
clothing. Our women are now seen in public, driving with their
husbands, or walking arm in arm upon the public street. I even saw a
Chinese woman driving that "devil machine," a motor-car, with her own
hands. She did not seem a woman, but an unsexed thing that had as
little of woman-hood as the car that took her along so swiftly. I
promised to send Tah-li the new hair ornaments, but there are no hair
ornaments worn now. The old jewels are laid aside, the jade and
pearls are things of the past. The hair is puffed and knotted in a way
most unbecoming to the face. It is neither of the East nor of the West,
but a half-caste thing, that brands its wearer as a woman of no race.
Dost thou remember the story over which the Chinese in all the
Empire laughed within their sleeves? Her Majesty, the Empress
Dowager, was on most friendly terms with the wife of the Minister of
the United States of America, and on one occasion gave her as a gift
a set of combs enclosed within a box of silver. The foreign lady was
delighted, and did not see the delicate sarcasm hidden within the
present. Combs-- the foreign ladies need them! We Chinese like the
locks most smoothly brushed and made to glisten and shine with the
scented elm, but they, the foreign ladies, allow them to straggle in
rude disorder around their long, grave faces, which are so ugly in our
eyes.
Thou hast asked me for the latest style in dress. It is impossible to
say what is the latest style. Some women wear a jacket far too short
and trousers tight as any coat sleeve. The modest ones still cover
them with skirts; but I have seen women walking along the street who
should certainly stay within the inner courtyard and hide their shame.
For those who wear the skirt, the old, wide-pleated model has gone
by, and a long black skirt that is nearly European is now worn. It is
not graceful, but it is far better than the trousers worn by women who
walk along so stiffly upon their "golden lilies." These tiny feet to me
are beautiful, when covered with gay embroidery they peep from
scarlet skirts; but they too are passing, and we hear no more the
crying of the children in the courtyards. I am told that the small-footed
woman of China is of the past, along with the long finger-nails of our
gentlemen and scholars; and I am asked why I do not unbind my feet.
I say, "I am too old; I have suffered in the binding, why suffer in the
unbinding?" I have conceded to the new order by allowing unbound
feet to all my girls, and everywhere my family is held up as an
example of the new Chinese. They do not know of the many bitter
tears I have shed over the thought that my daughters would look like
women of the servant class and perhaps not make a good marriage;
but I was forced to yield to their father, whose foreign travel had taught
him to see beauty in ugly, natural feet. Even now, when I see Wan-li
striding across the grass, I blush for her and wish she could walk
more gracefully. My feet caused me many moons of pain, but they
are one of the great marks of my lady-hood, and I yet feel proud as I
come into a room with the gentle swaying motions of the bamboo in a
breeze; although my daughter who supports me takes one great step
to five of mine.
The curse of foot binding does not fall so heavily upon women like
myself, who may sit and broider the whole day through, or, if needs
must travel, can be borne upon the shoulders of their chair bearers,
but it is a bane to the poor girl whose parents hope to have one in the
family who may marry above their station, and hoping thus, bind her
feet. If this marriage fails and she is forced to work within her
household, or, even worse, if she is forced to toil within the fields or
add her mite gained by most heavy labour to help fill the many eager
mouths at home, then she should have our pity. We have all seen the
small-footed woman pulling heavy boats along the tow-path, or leaning
on their hoes to rest their tired feet while working in the fields of
cotton. To her each day is a day of pain; and this new law forbidding
the binding of the feet of children will come as Heaven's blessing. But
it will not cease at once, as so many loudly now proclaim. It will take
at least three generations; her children's children will all quite likely
have natural feet. The people far in the country, far from the noise of
change and progress, will not feel immediately that they can wander
so far afield from the old ideas of what is beautiful in their womanhood.
I notice, as I open wide my casement, that the rain has come, and
across the distant fields it is falling upon the new-sown rice and
seems to charm the earth into the thought that spring is here, bringing
forth the faint green buds on magnolia, ash, and willow. Dost thou
remember the verse we used to sing:
"Oh she is good, the little rain, and well she knows our need,
Who cometh in the time of spring to aid the sun-drawn seed.
She wanders with a friendly wind through silent heights unseen,
The furrows feel her happy tears, and lo, the land is green!"
I must send a servant with the rain coverings for the children, that they
may not get wet in returning from their schools.
We greet thee, all.
Kwei-li.
8
My Dear Mother,
Last night I heard a great wailing in the servants' courtyard, and found
there the maid of thy old friend, Tang Tai-tai. She came from Nanking
to us, as she has no one left in all the world. She is a Manchu and
has lived all her life in the Manchu family of Tang within the Tartar city
of Nanking. It seems the soldiers, besieging the city, placed their
guns on Purple Hill, so that they would cause destruction only to the
Tartar city, and it was levelled to the ground. No stone remains upon
another; and the family she had served so faithfully were either killed
in the battle that raged so fiercely, or were afterward taken to the
grounds of Justice to pay with their life for the fact that they belonged
to the Imperial Clan. She is old, this faithful servant, and now claims
my protection. It is another mouth to feed; but there is so much
unhappiness that if it were within my power I would quench with rains
of food and drink the anguish this cruel war has brought upon so
many innocent ones. A mat on which to sleep, a few more bowls of
rice, these are the only seeds that I may sow within the field of love,
and I dare not them withhold.
I am most sorrowful for these poor Manchus. For generations they
have received a pension from the government; to every man-child an
allowance has been made; and now they find themselves with
nothing. Even their poor homes are piles of stone and rubbish. What
will they do to gain their food in this great country which is already full
to over-flowing? They are so pitiful, these old men and women thrown
so suddenly upon the world. Their stories pierce my marrow, and I
would that my sleeve were long and wide enough to cover all the earth
and shelter these poor helpless ones. One old man-- his years must
have been near eighty-- came to our door for help. I talked to him and
found that, until his sons were killed before his eyes, his home torn to
the ground, he had never been without the city's walls. He said, just
like a child, "Why should I go? My wife, my sons, my home, my all,
were within the walls; why go outside?"

Each hour brings us fresh rumours of the actions of the rebels, Poor
Liang Tai-tai was here and in the sorest trouble. Her husband and her
brother were officers in the army of Yuan, and when in Ranking were
shot along with twenty of their brother officers, because they would
not join the Southern forces. To add to China's trouble, the Southern
pirates are attacking boats; and I am glad to say, although it sounds
most cruel, that the government is taking measures both quick and
just. Ten men were captured and were being brought by an English
ship to Canton, and when in neutral waters it is said a Chinese
gunboat steamed alongside with an order for the prisoners. As they
stepped upon the Chinese boat, each man was shot. The English
were most horrified, and have spoken loudly in all the papers of the
acts of barbarism; but they do not understand our people. They must
be frightened; especially at a time like this, when men are watching
for the chance to take advantage of their country's turmoil.
These pirates of Canton have always been a menace. Each village in
that country must be forever on the defensive, for no man is safe who
has an ounce of gold. When father was the prefect of Canton, I
remember seeing a band of pirates brought into the Yamen, a ring of
iron around the collarbone, from which a chain led to the prisoner on
either side. It was brutal, but it allowed no chance of escape for these
men, dead to all humanity, and desperate, knowing there awaited
them long days of prison, and in the end they knew not what.
In those days imprisonment was the greatest of all evils; it was not
made a place of comfort. For forty-eight long hours, the man within
the clutches of the law went hungry; then, if no relative or friend came
forth to feed him, he was allowed one bowl of rice and water for each
day. A prison then meant ruin to a man with money, because the
keepers of the outer gate, the keepers of the inner gate, the guardian
of the prison doors, the runners in the corridor, the jailer at the cell,
each had a hand that ached for silver. A bowl of rice bought at the
tea-shop for ten cash, by the time the waiting hungry man received it,
cost many silver dollars. Yet a prison should not be made a tempting
place of refuge and vacation; if so in times of cold and hunger it will be
filled with those who would rather suffer shame than work.
Another thing the people who cry loudly against our old-time Courts of
Justice do not understand, is the crushing, grinding, naked poverty
that causes the people in this over-crowded province to commit most
brutal deeds. The penalties must match the deeds, and frighten other
evil-doers. If the people do not fear death, what good is there in using
death as a deterrent; and our Southern people despise death,
because of their excessive labour in seeking the means of life. But--
what a subject for a letter! I can see thee send for a cup of thy fragrant
sun-dried tea, mixed with the yellow flower of the jessamine, to take
away the thoughts of death and evil and the wickedness of the world
outside thy walls. It will never touch thee, Mother mine, because the
Gods are holding thee all safe within their loving hands.
Thy daughter,
Kwei-li.
9
My Mother,
I have most joyful news to tell thee. My father has arrived! He came
quite without warning, saying he must know the changing times from
word of mouth instead of reading it in papers. He has upset my
household with his many servants. My father keeps to his old ways
and customs and travels with an army of his people. His pipe man,
his hat man, his cook, his boy-- well, thou rememberest when he
descended upon us in Sezchuan-- yet he could bring ten times the
number, and his welcome would be as warm. The whole town knows
he is our guest, and foreigners and Chinese have vied one with the
other to do him honour. The foreign papers speak of him as "the
greatest Chinese since Li Hung-chang," and many words are written
about his fifty years' service as a high official. The story is retold of his
loyalty to Her Majesty at the time of the Boxer uprising, when he
threatened the foreigners that if Her Majesty was even frightened, he
would turn his troops upon Shanghai and drive the foreigners into the
sea. I wonder if the present government can gain the love the Dowager
Empress drew from all who served her.
My father was the pioneer of the present education, so say the
papers, and it is remembered that his school for girls in the province
where he ruled, nearly caused him the loss of his position, as His
Excellency, Chang Chih-tung, memorialised the throne and said that
women should not have book learning; that books would only give
them a place in which to hide their threads and needles. It is also said
of him that he was always against the coming of the foreigners. They
could obtain no mine, no railway, no concession in a province where
he was representing his Empress. China was closed, so far as lay
within his power, to even men of religion from other lands. It was he
who first said, "The missionary, the merchant, and then the gunboat."
My father will not talk with men about the present trials of China; he
says, most justly, that he who is out of office should not meddle in
the government. When asked if he will give the results of his long life
and great experience to the Republic, he answers that he owes his
love and loyalty to the old régime under which he gained his wealth
and honours; and then he shakes his head and says he is an old
man, nothing but wet ashes. But they do not see the laughter in his
eyes; for my father "is like the pine-tree, ever green, the symbol of
unflinching purpose and vigorous old age."
So many old-time friends have been to see him. Father, now that the
heavy load of officialdom is laid aside, delights to sit within the
courtyards with these friends and play at verse-making. No man of his
time is found lacking in that one great attribute of a Chinese
gentleman. He has treasures of poetry that are from the hands of
friends long since passed within the Vale of Longevity. These poems
are from the pens of men who wrote of the longing for the spiritual life,
or the beauties of the world without their doors, or the pleasure of
association with old and trusted friends. I read some scrolls the other
day, and it was as though "aeolian harps had caught some strayed
wind from an unknown world and brought its messages to me." It is
only by the men of other days that poetry is appreciated, who take
the time to look around them, to whom the quiet life, the life of thought
and meditation is as vital as the air they breathe. To love the beautiful
in life one must have time to sit apart from the worry and the rush of
the present day. He must have time to look deep within his hidden
self and weigh the things that count for happiness; and he must use
most justly all his hours of leisure, a thing which modern life has
taught us to hold lightly.
But with our race verse-making has always been a second nature. In
the very beginning of our history, the Chinese people sang their songs
of kings and princes, of the joys of family life and love and home and
children. It is quite true that they did not delve deep into the mines of
hidden passions, as their songs are what songs should be, telling
joyful tales of happiness and quiet loves. They are not like the songs
of warrior nations, songs of battle, lust and blood, but songs of peace
and quiet and deep contentment. When our women sang, like all
women who try to voice the thoughts within them, they sang their
poems in a sadder key, all filled with care, and cried of love's call to
its mate, of resignation and sometimes of despair.
My father learned to love the poets in younger days, but he still reads
them o'er and o'er. He says they take him back to other years when
life with all its dreams of beauty, love, and romance, lay before him. It
brings remembrance of youth's golden days when thoughts of fame
and mad ambition came to him with each morning's light. This father
of mine, who was stiffly bound with ceremony and acts of statecraft
for ten long months of the year, had the temerity to ask two months'
leave of absence from his duties, when he went to his country place in
the hills, to his "Garden of the Pleasure of Peace." It was always in
the early spring when "that Goddess had spread upon the budding
willow her lovely mesh of silken threads, and the rushes were
renewing for the year." He sat beneath the bamboos swaying in the
wind like dancing girls, and saw the jessamine and magnolia put forth
their buds.
What happy days they were when father came! For me, who lived
within the garden all the year, it was just a plain, great garden; but
when he came it was transformed. It became a place of rare
enchantment, with fairy palaces and lakes of jewelled water, and the
lotus flowers took on a loveliness for which there is no name. We
would sit hand in hand in our gaily painted tea-house, and watch the
growing of the lotus from the first unfurling of the leaf to the fall of the
dying flower. When it rained, we would see the leaves raise their
eager, dark-green cups until filled, then bend down gracefully to empty
their fulness, and rise to catch the drops again.

The sound of the wind in the cane-fields came to us at night-time as
we watched the shimmer of the fireflies. We sat so silently that the
only thing to tell us that the wild duck sought his mate amidst the
grass, was the swaying of the reed stems, or the rising of the teal
with whirring wings.
My father loved the silence, and taught me that it is in silence, in the
quiet places, rather than on the house-tops, that one can hear the
spirit's call, and forget the clanging of the world. It is the great gift
which the God of nature alone can give, and "he has found happiness
who has won through the stillness of the spirit the Perfect Vision, and
this stillness comes through contentment that is regardless of the
world."
He often said to me that we are a caravan of beings, wandering
through life's pathways, hungering to taste of happiness, which comes
to us when we find plain food sweet, rough garments fine, and
contentment in the home. It comes when we are happy in a simple
way, allowing our wounds received in life's battles to be healed by the
moon-beams, which send an ointment more precious than the oil of
sandalwood.
I could go on for pages, Mother mine, of the lessons of my father, this
grand old man, "who steeled his soul and tamed his thoughts and got
his body in control by sitting in the silence and being one with nature,
God, the maker of us all." And when I think of all these things, it is
hard to believe that men who love the leisure, the poetry, the beautiful
things of life, men like my father, must pass away. It seems to me it
will be a day of great peril for China, for our young ones, when these
men of the past lose their hold on the growing mind. As rapidly as this
takes place, the reverence for the old-time gentleman, the quiet lady
of the inner courtyards, will wane, and reverence will be supplanted by
discourtesy, faith by doubt, and love of the Gods by unbelief and
impiety.
Yet they say he does not stand for progress. What is progress? What
is life? The poet truly cries: "How short a time it is that we are here!
Why then not set our hearts at rest, why wear the soul with anxious
thoughts? If we want not wealth, if we want not power, let us stroll the
bright hours as they pass, in gardens midst the flowers, mounting the
hills to sing our songs, or weaving verses by the lily ponds. Thus may
we work out our allotted span, content with life, our spirits free from
care."
My father has a scroll within his room that says:
"For fifty years I plodded through the vale of lust and strife,
Then through my dreams there flashed a ray of the old sweet peaceful
life.
No scarlet tasselled hat of state can vie with soft repose;
Grand mansions do not taste the joys that the poor man's cabin
knows.
I hate the threatening clash of arms when fierce retainers throng,
I loathe the drunkard's revels and the sound of fife and song;
But I love to seek a quiet nook, and some old volume bring,
Where I can see the wild flowers bloom and hear the birds in spring."
Ah, dear one, my heart flows through my pen, which is the
messenger of the distant soul to thee, my Mother.
Kwei-li.
10
My Dear Mother,
My days are passed like a water-wheel awhirl, and I can scarcely find
time to attend to the ordinary duties of my household. I fear I seem
neglectful of thee, and I will try to be more regular with my letters, so
that thou wilt not need reproach me. To-night my house is quiet and
all are sleeping, and I can chat with thee without the many
interruptions that come from children, servants, and friends during the
waking hours.
I have had callers all the day; my last, the wife of the Japanese
Consul, who brought with her two children. They were like little
butterflies, dressed in their gay kimonas and bright red obis, their
straight black hair framing their tiny elfin faces. I was delighted and
could scarcely let them go. Their mother says she will send to me
their photographs, and I will send them to thee, as they seem children
from another world. They are much prettier, in my eyes, than the
foreign children, with their white hair and colourless, blue eyes, who
always seem to be clothed in white. That seems not natural for a
child, as it is our mourning colour, and children should wear gay
colours, as they are symbols of joy and gladness.
My husband watched them go away with looks of hatred and disdain
within his eyes, and when I called them Butterflies of Gay Nippon, he
gave an ejaculation of great disgust, as at this time he is not o'erfond
of the Japanese. He believes, along with others, that they are helping
the rebels with their money, and we know that many Japanese
officers are fighting on the side of the Southern forces. He could not
forget the words I used, "Dainty Butterflies," and he said that these
dainty butterflies are coming far too fast, at the rate of many tens of
thousands each year, and they must be fed and clothed and lodged,
and Japan is far too small. These pretty babies searching for a future
home are China's greatest menace. Japan reels that her destiny lies
here in the Far East, where she is overlord, and will continue as such
until the time, if it ever comes, when new China, with her far greater
wealth and her myriads of people, dispute the power of the little
Island. At present there is no limit to Japan's ambition. Poor China! It
will take years and tens of years to mould her people into a nation;
and Japan comes to her each year, buying her rice, her cotton and
her silk.

These wily merchants travel up her path-ways and traverse her rivers
and canals, selling, buying, and spreading broadcast their influence.
There are eight thousand men of Japan in Shanghai, keen young men,
all looking for the advantage of their country. There is no town of any
size where you cannot find a Japanese. They have driven the traders
of other nationalities from many places; the Americans especially
have been compelled to leave; and now there is a bitter struggle
between the people from the British Isles and the Japanese for the
trade of our country. In the olden time the people from Great Britain
controlled the trade of our Yang-tse Valley, but now it is almost wholly
Japanese.
The British merchant, in this great battle has the disadvantage of
being honest, while the trader from Japan has small thoughts of
honesty to hold him to a business transaction. We say here, "One
can hold a Japanese to a bargain as easily as one can hold a slippery
catfish on a gourd." The Sons of Nippon have another point in their
favour: the British merchant is a Westerner, while the Japanese uses
to the full his advantage of being an Oriental like ourselves. Trade--
trade-- is what Japan craves, and it is according to its need that she
makes friends or enemies. It is her reason for all she does; her
diplomacy, her suavity is based upon it; her army and her vast navy
are to help gain and hold it; it is the end and aim of her ambitions.
We, Chinese, have people-- millions, tens of millions of them. When
they are better educated, when China is more prosperous, when new
demands and higher standards of living are created, when the coolie
will not be satisfied with his bowl of rice a day and his one blue
garment, then possibilities of commerce will be unlimited. Japan sees
this with eyes that look far into the future, and she wants to control
this coming trade-- and I fear she will. She has an ambition that is as
great as her overpowering belief in herself, an ambition to be in the
East what England is in the West; and she is working patiently,
quietly, to that end. We fear her; but we are helpless. I hear the men
talk bitterly; but what can they do. We must not be another Corea; we
must wait until we are strong, and look to other hands to help us in
our struggle.
We hope much from America, that country which has so wonderful an
influence upon us, which appeals to our imagination because it is
great and strong and prosperous. The suave and humorous American,
with his easy ways, is most popular with our people, although he
cannot always be trusted nor is his word a bond. He is different from
the man of England, who is not fond of people not of his own colour
and will not try to disguise the fact. He is cold and shows no
sympathy to those of an alien race, although we must admit he
always acts with a certain amount of justice. America is
contemptuous of China and her people, but it is a kindly contempt,
not tinged with the bitterness of the other Powers, and we hope,
because of that kindliness and also because of trade interests (the
American is noted for finding and holding the place that yields him
dollars), she will play the part of a kindly friend and save China from
her enemies who are now watching each other with such jealous
eyes. There is another reason why we like America: she does not
seem to covet our land. There is no Shang-tung nor Wei-hai-wei for
her. I would that she and England might form a bond of brotherhood
for our protection; because all the world knows that where Germany,
Russia, or Japan has power, all people from other lands are barred by
close-shut doors.
Since hearing my husband talk I see those babies with other eyes,
with eyes of knowledge and dislike. I see them becoming one of the
two great classes in Japan-- merchants with grasping hands to hold
fast all they touch, or men of war. There is no other class. And, too,
they have no religion to restrict them, irreverence already marks their
attitude toward their gods. They will imitate and steal what they want
from other countries, even as their ancestors took their religion, their
art, their code of ethics, even their writing, from other peoples. Their
past is a copy of the East; their present is an attempt to be a copy of
the West. They cannot originate or make a thing from within
them-selves.
Their lives are coarse and sordid when stripped of the elaborate
courtesy and sham politeness that marks their dealings with the
outside world. Their courtesy, what is it? This thin veneer of politeness
is like their polished lacquer that covers the crumbling wood within.
But we have a proverb, "Even a monkey falls"; and some distant day
the Western world that thinks so highly of Japan will see beneath the
surface and will leave her, and the great pagoda she has builded
without foundation will come tumbling down like the houses of sand
which my children build in the garden. It will be seen that they are like
their beautiful kimonas, that hang so gracefully in silken folds. But
take away the kimonas, and the sons and daughters of that Empire
are revealed in all their ugliness-- coarse, heavy, sensual, with no
grace or spirit life to distinguish them from animals.

Do I speak strongly, my Mother? We feel most strongly the action of
the Japanese in this, our time of trouble. We have lost friends; the
husbands, brothers, fathers of our women-folk are lying in long
trenches because of training given to our rebels by members of that
race. I should not speak so frankly, but it is only to thee that I can
say what is within my heart. I must put the bar of silence across my
lips with all save thee; and sitting here within the courtyard I hear all
that goes on in Yamen, shop, and women's quarters. One need not
leave one's doorway to learn of the great world. I hear my sons speak
of new China, and many things I do not understand; my husband and
his friends talk more sedately, for they are watching thoughtful men,
trying hard to steer this, our ship of State, among the rocks that now
beset it close on every side. My daughters bring their friends, my
servants their companions, and the gossip of our busy world is
emptied at my feet.
The clock strikes one, and all the world's asleep except,
Kwei-li.
11
Dear Mother
She is here, my daughter-in-law, and I can realise in a small degree
thy feelings when I first came to thy household. I know thou wert
prepared to give me the same love and care that my heart longs to
give to this, the wife of my eldest son. I also know how she feels in
this strange place, with no loved faces near her, with the thought that
perhaps the new home will mean the closed doors of a prison, and the
husband she never saw until the marriage day the jealous guardian
thereof. I have tried to give her welcome and let her see that she is
heart of our hearts, a part of us.
She is different from the young girls I have seen these latter days,
different from my daughters, and-- I may say it to thee, my Mother-- a
sweeter, dearer maiden in many ways. She has been trained within
the courtyards in the old-fashioned customs that make for simplicity
of heart, grace of manner, that give obedience and respect to older
people; and she has the delicate high-bred ways that our girls seem
to feel unnecessary in the hurry of these days. She takes me back to
years gone by, where everything is like a dream, and I can feel again
the chair beneath me that carried me up the mountain-side with its
shadowing of high woods, and hear the song of water falling gently
from far-off mountain brooks, and the plaintive cry of flutes unseen,
that came to welcome me to my new home.