Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather;
For you, my boon companions dear,
Come only when the sky is clear."
Translated by W. A. P. M.
The fancy if not the sentiment of this song is so pretty, that it is hard to see how the nation that produced it can be rebuked for want of sentiment by the nation that to this day sings, "Drink, puppies, drink." Indeed, I think this Chinese drinking-song dating from the eighth century A.D. the very prettiest I have ever met with in any literature. It has three if not four of such graceful conceits as would alone make the success of a modern bard. But they are old, very old. And China, too, is old; and is said to produce nothing of the kind now.
To turn to comparatively more modern days, Lu-pe-Ya's Lute, Englished and reduced into poetry by Mrs. Augusta Webster, shows a sentiment for friendship and for music deep in the Chinese breast. It is, I suppose, because I am so very unmusical that I rather enjoy Chinese music. It seems to me very merry, especially its funereal chants.
People often wonder if the Chinese enjoy European music. Two Englishmen were invited not long ago to a military mandarin's house to hear one of his sons, a great musician, play. The latter could only perform if perfect silence were observed by the audience and a vase of flowers and lighted incense before him to help his inspiration. Unfortunately, after all these preparations, it appeared his was a stringed instrument, to be laid upon the table and played with the nails—the most difficult instrument to play upon that the Chinese possess; and the melody, if it were a melody, was so low, the Englishmen came away quite unable to judge of its beauty. "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard——" However, some other young military mandarins had played a duet on flutes, and another performed on a flageolet, both very agreeably.
It may interest those interested—and who of us in China are not?—in the great opium question to hear that a young lad of sixteen went away from the dinner-table to smoke opium. "How dreadful!" said one of the Europeans. "A lad of sixteen to smoke opium! He will never live!" "Why, look at my five sons, all born since I smoked," said the host; "I began when I was twenty. But, indeed, his family are rather glad he smokes. You see, my guest is a very rich young fellow from up the river, who has no father; and if he did not smoke opium, he would be sure to be getting into mischief with women or gambling. Now, smoking opium, they think, will keep him at home." Is not this rather a novel view of the question?
The old legend of the Fairy Foxes, which I Englished some years ago, and brought out in Mr. Hasegawa's very pretty crêpe paper series, shows a sentiment of kindness for animals with which some people are unwilling to credit a nation that emphatically does not say, "What a beautiful day! Let us go out and kill something." Both that and The Rat's Plaint, translated from the original Chinese and rendered into verse by my husband, and very beautifully illustrated as well as reproduced on crêpe paper by Mr. Hasegawa, might be circulated by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The latter's quaintness—it is a very old Chinese legend—alone makes the reader pass over the very nice sentiment for poor pussy, as well as the homely Chinese sense of justice, stating the rat's case in the first instance so very plainly as almost to make the reader incline to his side.