“And you? Are you so sure of that? If a white woman with long blonde hair should suddenly appear in your country, among your black women, would she not be taken for an angel?”
“Oh, no. She would be taken for a devil. Angels are black in our Paradise.”
This, I must confess, opened new vistas in the domain of religion. It had never before appeared so clear to me that men make their gods in their own image, rather than that the gods make men after theirs.
How the Empress of China Degraded a Mandarin on my Account.
I was dancing in New York when several of Li Hung Chang’s followers came to the theatre. Some friends presented me to the American military attaché, Mr. Church, who accompanied the Viceroy.
Thanks to Mr. Church I was able to satisfy my curiosity and become acquainted with these high Chinese dignitaries. When they left for their own country my manager went with them, in the hope that, through their good offices, I might dance at the Chinese court in the presence of the dowager Empress and her son.
As soon as my representative was in China, he cabled me that everything had been arranged and that I was to take the first steamer leaving Vancouver.
After crossing the continent I was on the point of embarking with my mother, when the state of her health caused me the keenest anxiety. Her prostration was so complete that I was obliged to send a message to China, indicating the impossibility of keeping my engagement.
My manager rejoined us utterly dejected.