THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 William P. Wreden 
 
MY LADY OF THE 
 CHINESE COURTYARD 
 
f\NE does not think of it as a thing of brick 
 and mortar, but as a casket whose jewels are 
 the prayers of waiting, hoping women. 
 
 [ Page 69] 
 
My Lady of the 
 Chinese Courtyard 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH COOPER 
 
 Author of "Sayonara," etc. 
 
 WITH THIRTY-ONE ILLUSTRA TIONS IN DUO- 
 TONE FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 New York 
 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 Publishers 
 
Copyright, 1914, by 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 FIFTH PRINTING 
 
 March, 1914 
 
71 S~ 
 
 TO MY HUSBAND 
 
 "What I do 
 
 And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
 Must taste of its own grapes" 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 IN these letters I have drawn quite freely 
 and sometimes literally from the excellent and 
 authoritative translations of Chinese classics 
 by Professor Giles in his " Chinese Literature" 
 and from "The Lute of Jade" and "The 
 Mastersingers of Japan," two books in the 
 "Wisdom of the East" series edited by L. 
 Cranmer-Byng and S. A. Kapadia (E. P. 
 Dutton & Co.). These translators have loved 
 the songs of the ancient poets of China and 
 Japan and caught with sympathetic apprecia- 
 tion, in their translations, the spirit of the 
 East. 
 
 I wish to thank them for their help in mak- 
 ing it possible to render into English the 
 imagery and poetry used by "My Lady of 
 the Chinese Courtyard." 
 
 Acknowledgment is also made to Mr. 
 Donald Mennie of Shanghai, China, who 
 took most of the photographs from which the 
 illustrations have been made. 
 
 ELIZABETH COOPER. 
 vii 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A WRITER on things Chinese was asked why 
 one found so little writing upon the subject 
 of the women of China. He stopped, looked 
 puzzled for a moment, then said, "The 
 women of China! One never hears about 
 them. I believe no one ever thinks about 
 them, except perhaps that they are the 
 mothers of the Chinese men!" 
 
 Such is the usual attitude taken in regard to 
 the woman of the flowery Republic. She is 
 practically unknown, she hides herself behind 
 her husband and her sons, yet, because of that 
 filial piety, that almost religious veneration in 
 which all men of Eastern races hold their 
 parents, she really exerts an untold influence 
 upon the deeds of the men of her race. 
 
 Less is known about Chinese women than 
 about any other women of Oriental lands. 
 Their home life is a sealed book to the average 
 person visiting China. Books about China 
 deal mainly with the lower-class Chinese, as it 
 is chiefly with that class that the average 
 visitor or missionary comes into contact. The 
 
 ix 
 
x Preface 
 
 tourists see only the coolie woman bearing bur- 
 dens in the street, trotting along with a couple 
 of heavy baskets swung from her shoulders, 
 or they stop to stare at the neatly dressed 
 mothers sitting on their low stools in the nar- 
 row alleyways, patching clothing or fondling 
 their children. They see and hear the boat- 
 women, the women who have the most free- 
 dom of any in all China, as they weave their 
 sampans in and out of the crowded traffic on 
 the canals. These same tourists visit the tea- 
 houses and see the gaily dressed "sing-song" 
 girls, or catch a glimpse of a gaudily painted 
 face, as a lady is hurried along in her sedan- 
 chair, carried on the shoulders of her chanting 
 bearers. But the real Chinese woman, with 
 her hopes, her fears, her romances, her chil- 
 dren, and her religion, is still undiscovered. 
 
 I hope that these letters, which were shown 
 me by the writer's husband many years after 
 they were written, will give a faint idea of the 
 life of a Chinese lady. They were written by 
 Kwei-li, the wife of a very high Chinese 
 official, to her husband when he accompanied 
 his master, Prince Chung, on his trip around 
 the world. 
 
 She was the daughter of a viceroy of Chih-li, 
 a man most advanced for his time, who 
 
Preface xi 
 
 was one of the forerunners of the present 
 educational movement in China, a movement 
 which has caused her youth to rise and demand 
 Western methods and Western enterprise in 
 place of the obsolete traditions and customs 
 of their ancestors. To show his belief in the 
 new spirit that was breaking over his country, 
 he educated his daughter along with his sons. 
 She was given as tutor Ling-Wing-pu, a 
 famous poet of his province, who doubtless 
 taught her the imagery and beauty of ex- 
 pression which is so truly Eastern. 
 
 Within the beautiful ancestral home of her 
 husband, high on the mountain-side outside of 
 the city of Su-Chau, she lived the quiet, 
 sequestered life of the high-class Chinese 
 woman, attending to the household duties, 
 which are not light in these patriarchal homes, 
 where an incredible number of people live 
 under the same rooftree. The sons bring 
 their wives to their father's house instead of 
 establishing separate homes for themselves, 
 and they are all under the watchful eye of the 
 mother, who can make a veritable prison or a 
 palace for her daughters-in-law. In China 
 the mother reigns supreme. 
 
 The mother-in-law of Kwei-li was an old- 
 time conservative Chinese lady, the woman 
 
xii Preface 
 
 who cannot adapt herself to the changing 
 conditions, who resents change of methods, 
 new interpretations and fresh expressions of 
 life. She sees in the new ideas that her sons 
 bring from the foreign schools disturbers only 
 of her life's ideals. She instinctively feels 
 that they are gathering about her retreat, 
 beating at her doors, creeping in at her closely 
 shuttered windows, even winning her sons 
 from her arms. She stands an implacable foe 
 of progress and she will not admit that the 
 world is moving on, broadening its outlook 
 and clothing itself in a new expression. She 
 feels that she is being left behind with her 
 dead gods, and she cries out against the change 
 which is surely but slowly coming to China, 
 and especially to Chinese women, with the 
 advent of education and the knowledge of 
 the outside world. 
 
 In a household in China a daughter-in-law 
 is of very little importance until she is the 
 mother of a son. Then, from being prac- 
 tically a servant of her husband's mother, 
 she rises to a place of equality and is looked 
 upon with respect. She has fulfilled her one 
 great duty, the thing for which she was 
 created: she has given her husband a son to 
 worship at his grave and at the graves of his 
 
Preface xiii 
 
 ancestors. The great prayer which rises from 
 the heart of all Chinese women, rich and poor, 
 peasant and princess, is to Kwan-yin, for the 
 inestimable blessing of sons. "Sons! Give 
 me sons!" is heard in every temple. To be 
 childless is the greatest sorrow that can come 
 to a Chinese woman, as she fully realizes that 
 for this cause her husband is justified in put- 
 ting her away for another wife, and she may 
 not complain or cry out, except in secret, to 
 her Goddess of Mercy, who has not answered 
 her prayers. Understanding this, we can 
 dimly realise the joy of Kwei-li upon the birth 
 of her son, and her despair upon his death. 
 
 At this time, when she was in the very 
 depths of despondency, when she had turned 
 from the gods of her people, when it was 
 feared that in her sorrow, near to madness, 
 she would take the little round ball of sleep 
 opium that has brought rest to so "many 
 despairing women in China, her servants 
 brought her the Gospel of St. John, which 
 they bought of an itinerant colporteur in the 
 market-place, hoping that it might interest 
 her. In the long nights when sleep would 
 not come to her, she read it and found the 
 peace she sought. 
 
 I knew her many years afterward her hus- 
 
xiv Preface 
 
 band having been appointed Governor of 
 Kiang-su when she was the happy mother 
 of sons and daughters. She was a blessing 
 to our province in many ways. Homes for 
 the poor were erected, schools for girls were 
 started, and the generous hands of Kwei-li 
 were ever open to help her people. Although 
 in the many charities that were started in the 
 provincial capital her name was never men- 
 tioned, yet we who knew realised that it was 
 the wife of the Governor who was the power 
 behind the throne in every question affecting 
 women or the poor and helpless. 
 
 She did not openly announce herself a 
 Christian or affiliate with any church, I think 
 because of family influence, but her life and 
 deeds showed plainly that on that lone night 
 upon the mountain-side when in her despair 
 she called for help, she did not call in vain. 
 She found the "unknown God." 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "One does not think of it as a thing of brick and mortar, 
 but as a casket whose jewels are the prayers of 
 waiting, hoping women" Frontispiece 
 
 FACINO 
 PAQB 
 
 "The house on the mountain-top" 4 
 
 "Watch them dragging the rich mud from the bottoms 
 
 of the canal for fertilizing" 5 
 
 "Hear the shrill whistle of the duck man" . . .16 
 "The path down the mountain-side is empty, except for 
 the men with the great umbrella hats and capes of 
 straw, bringing the vegetables to the monastery 
 
 below" 17 
 
 "We rarely go within the city gate" 28 
 
 "He came with candle and incense" 29 
 
 "The great unwieldy boats for rice" 34 
 
 "With fierce-eyed fishing cormorants" 35 
 
 "We put our money into the great burner" ... 44 
 "At night I send away the gatekeeper and leave my 
 amah at the outer archway, so thy Mother will not 
 
 know the hour he enters" 45 
 
 "I watch the rice boats pass along the canal" ... 68 
 "The singers and the fortune-tellers all have found the 
 
 path that leads up to our gateway" .... 69 
 "Perhaps it was a bridge on which she crossed to a land 
 
 filled with the memories of the past" . . . .124 
 "The garden of my friend was most beautiful". . .125 
 "She feared the spire would intercept the good spirits 
 of the air from bringing directly to her family roof- 
 tree the blessings from the temple" 144 
 
 xv 
 
xvi Illustrations 
 
 "He had never been without the city's walls" . . . 145 
 "In our gaily painted tea-house, and watch the growing 
 
 of the lotus" 164 
 
 "They are like their beautiful kimonas, that hang so 
 
 gracefully in silken folds" 165 
 
 The pathway up the mountain-side 178 
 
 "The people are fleeing from the inland cities" . . 179 
 "There reigned a heavy silence in her palace with its 
 
 memories" 196 
 
 "We could see the river, a gleaming thread of silver, and 
 
 the hillsides, tree clad, flower wreathed, painted 
 
 with the colours that the Gods give to the spring" 197 
 "He is thinking far beyond the statue, he is seeing God" 206 
 "The tea-house knows him better than his rooftree" . 207 
 "Why didst thou send that priest of thine?" . . .224 
 
 "They are the workers of the world" 225 
 
 "At the temple near Wu-seh" 238 
 
 "We anchored at night by a marshy bank girdled with 
 
 tall yellow reeds" 239 
 
 "Across the river a temple shines faintly" .... 254 
 "When all the hills are white with blossoms" . . . 255 
 
PART I 
 
MY LADY OF THE 
 CHINESE COURTYARD 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 The house on the mountain-top has lost its 
 soul. It is nothing but a palace with empty 
 windows. I go upon the terrace and look over 
 the valley where the sun sinks a golden red 
 ball, casting long purple shadows on the plain. 
 Then I remember that thou art not coming 
 from the city to me, and I say to myself that 
 there can be no dawn that I care to see, and 
 no sunset to gladden my eyes, unless I share it 
 with thee. 
 
 But do not think I am unhappy. I do 
 everything the same as if thou wert here, and 
 in everything I say, "Would this please my 
 master?" Meh-ki wished to put thy long 
 chair away, as she said it was too big; but I 
 did not permit it. It must rest where I can 
 look at it and imagine I see thee lying in it, 
 
 1 
 
smoking thy water pipe; and the small table 
 is always near by, where thou canst reach out 
 thy hand for thy papers and the drink thou 
 lovest. Meh-ki also brought out the dwarf 
 pine-tree and put it on the terrace, but I 
 remembered thou saidst it looked like an old 
 man who had been beaten in his childhood, and 
 I gave it to her for one of the inner court- 
 yards. She thinks it very beautiful, and so I 
 did once; but I have learned to see with thine 
 eyes, and I know now that a tree made straight 
 and beautiful and tall by the Gods is more to 
 be regarded than one that has been bent and 
 twisted by man. 
 
 Such a long letter I am writing thee. I am 
 so glad that thou madest me promise to write 
 thee every seventh day, and to tell thee all 
 that passes within my household and my 
 heart. Thine Honourable Mother says it is 
 not seemly to send communication from mine 
 hand to thine. She says it was a thing 
 unheard of in her girlhood, and that we 
 younger generations have passed the limits of 
 all modesty and womanliness. She wishes me 
 to have the writer or thy brother send thee the 
 news of thine household; but that I will not 
 permit. It must come from me, thy wife. 
 Each one of these strokes will come to thee 
 
Chinese Courtyard 3 
 
 bearing my message. Thou wilt not tear the 
 covering roughly as thou didst those great 
 official letters; nor wilt thou crush the papers 
 quickly in thy hand, because it is the written 
 word of Kwei-li, who sends with each stroke of 
 her brush a part of her heart. 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 II 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 My first letter to thee was full of sadness 
 and longing because thou wert newly gone 
 from me. Now a week has passed, the sad- 
 ness is still in my heart, but it is buried deep 
 for only me to know. I have my duties which 
 must be done, my daily tasks that only I can 
 do since thine Honourable Mother has handed 
 me the keys of the rice-bin. I realise the 
 great honour she does me, and that at last she 
 trusts me and believes me no child as she did 
 when I first entered her household. 
 
 Can I ever forget that day when first I 
 came to my husband's people? I had the one 
 great consolation of a bride, my parents had 
 not sent me away empty-handed. The pro- 
 cession was almost a li in length and I 
 watched with a swelling heart the many tens 
 of coolies carrying my household goods. 
 There were the silken coverlets for the beds, 
 and they were folded to show their richness 
 and carried on red lacquered tables of great 
 value. There were the household utensils of 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 many kinds, the vegetable dishes, the baskets, 
 the camphor-wood baskets containing my 
 clothing, tens upon tens of them; and I said 
 within my heart as they passed me by, "Enter 
 my new home before me. Help me to find a 
 loving welcome." Then at the end of the 
 chanting procession I came in my red chair of 
 marriage, so closely covered I could barely 
 breathe. My trembling feet could scarce 
 support me as they helped me from the chair, 
 and my hand shook with fear as I was being 
 led into my new household. She stood bravely 
 before you, that little girl dressed in red and 
 gold, her hair twined with pearls and jade, her 
 arms heavy with bracelets and with rings on 
 each tiny finger, but with all her bravery she 
 was frightened frightened. She was away 
 from her parents for the first time, away 
 from all who loved her, and she knew if she 
 did not meet with approval in her new home 
 her rice-bowl would be full of bitterness for 
 many moons to come. 
 
 After the obeisance to the ancestral tablet 
 and we had fallen upon our knees before thine 
 Honourable Parent, I then saw for the first 
 time the face of my husband. Dost thou 
 remember when first thou raised my veil and 
 looked long into my eyes? I was thinking. 
 
6 My Lady of the 
 
 "Will he find me beautiful?" and in fear I 
 could look but for a moment, then my eyes 
 fell and I would not raise them to thine again. 
 But in that moment I saw that thou wert tall 
 and beautiful, that thine eyes were truly 
 almond, that thy skin was clear and thy teeth 
 like pearls. I was secretly glad within my 
 heart, because I have known of brides who, 
 when they saw their husbands for the first 
 time, wished to scream in terror, as they 
 were old or ugly. I thought to myself that 
 I could be happy with this tall, strong young 
 man if I found favour in his sight, and I said 
 a little prayer to Kwan-yin. Because she has 
 answered that prayer, each day I place a 
 candle at her feet to show my gratitude. 
 
 I think thine Honourable Mother has 
 passed me the keys of the household to take 
 my mind from my loss. She says a heart 
 that is busy cannot mourn, and my days are 
 full of duties. I arise in the morning early, 
 and after seeing that my hair is tidy, I take 
 a cup of tea to the Aged One and make my 
 obeisance; then I place the rice and water in 
 their dishes before the God of the Kitchen, 
 and light a tiny stick of incense for his altar, 
 so that our day may begin auspiciously. 
 After the morning meal I consult with the 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 cook and steward. The vegetables must be 
 regarded carefully and the fish inspected, and 
 I must ask the price that has been paid, be- 
 cause often a hireling is hurried and forgets 
 that a bargain is not made with a breath. 
 
 I carry the great keys and feel much pride 
 when I open the door of the storeroom. Why, 
 I do not know, unless it is because of the 
 realisation that I am the head of this large 
 household. If the servants or their children 
 are ill, they come to me instead of to thine 
 Honourable Mother, as in former times. I 
 settle all difficulties, unless they be too rare 
 or heavy for one of my mind and experience. 
 
 Then I go with the gardener to the terrace 
 and help him arrange the flowers for the day. 
 I love the stone-flagged terrace, with its low 
 marble balustrade, resting close against the 
 mountain to which it seems to cling. 
 
 I always stop a moment and look over the 
 valley, because it was from here I watched 
 thee when thou went to the city in the morn- 
 i~g, and here I waited thy return. Because 
 of my love for it and the rope of remembrance 
 with which it binds me, I keep it beautiful 
 with rugs and flowers. 
 
 It speaks to me of happiness and brings back 
 memories of summer days spent idling in a 
 
8 My Lady of the 
 
 quiet so still that we could hear the rustle of 
 the bamboo grasses on the hillside down 
 below; or, still more dear, the evenings passed 
 close by thy side, watching the lingering 
 moon's soft touch which brightened into jade 
 each door and archway as it passed. 
 I long for thee, I love thee, I am thine. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 III 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 The hours of one day are as like each other 
 as are twin blossoms from the pear-tree. 
 There is no news to tell thee. The mornings 
 are passed in the duties that come to all women 
 who have the care of a household, and the 
 afternoons I am on the terrace with thy sister. 
 But first of all, thine August Mother must be 
 made comfortable for her sleep, and then the 
 peace indeed is wonderful. 
 
 Mah-li and I take our embroidery and sit 
 upon the terrace, where we pass long hours 
 watching the people in the valley below. The 
 faint blue smoke curls from a thousand 
 dwellings, and we try to imagine the lives of 
 those who dwell beneath the rooftrees. We 
 see the peasants in their rice-fields; watch 
 them dragging the rich mud from the bottoms 
 of the canal for fertilizing; hear the shrill 
 whistle of the duck man as, with long bamboo, 
 he drives the great flock of ducks homeward or 
 sends them over the fields to search for insects. 
 We see the wedding procession far below, and 
 
10 My Lady of the 
 
 can but faintly follow the great covered chair 
 of the bride and the train of servants carrying 
 the possessions to the new home. Often the 
 wailing of the mourners in a funeral comes to 
 our ears, and we lean far over the balcony to 
 watch the coolie scatter the spirit money that 
 will pay the dead man's way to the land of the 
 Gods. But yesterday we saw the procession 
 carrying the merchant Wong to his resting- 
 place of the dead. There were many thou- 
 sands of sycee spent upon his funeral. Thy 
 brother tells me his sons made great boast that 
 no man has been buried with such pomp in all 
 the province. But it only brings more clearly 
 the remembrance that he began this life a 
 sampan coolie and ended it with many mil- 
 lions. But his millions did not bring him 
 happiness. He laboured without ceasing, and 
 then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn 
 out, departed, one knows not whither. 
 
 Yesterday we heard the clang-clang of a 
 gong and saw the Taotai pass by, his men 
 carrying the boards and banners with his offi- 
 cial rank and virtues written upon them, and 
 we counted the red umbrellas and wondered 
 if some poor peasant was in deep trouble. 
 
 It is beautiful here now. The hillside is 
 purple with the autumn bloom and the air is 
 
Chinese Courtyard 11 
 
 filled with a golden haze. The red leaves 
 drift slowly down the canal and tell me that 
 soon the winter winds will come. Outside the 
 walls the insects sing sleepily in the grass, 
 seeming to know that their brief life is nearly 
 spent. The wild geese on their southward 
 flight carry my thoughts to thee. All is sad, 
 and sad as the clouded moon my longing face, 
 and my eyes are filled with tears. Not at 
 twilight nor at grey of dawn can I find happi- 
 ness without thee, my lord, mine own, and 
 "endless are the days as trailing creepers." 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 IV 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 I have much to tell thee. My last letter 
 was unhappy, and these little slips of paper 
 must bring to thee joy, not sorrow, else why 
 the written word? 
 
 First, I must tell thee that thy brother 
 Chih-peh will soon be married. Thou know- 
 est he has long been betrothed to Li-ti, the 
 daughter of the Governor of Chih-li, and soon 
 the bride will be here. We have been arran- 
 ging her apartments. We do not know how 
 many home servants she will bring, and we 
 are praying the Gods to grant her discretion, 
 because with servants from a different prov- 
 ince there are sure to be jealousies and the 
 retailing of small tales that disturb the har- 
 mony of a household. 
 
 Many tales have been brought us of her 
 great beauty, and we hear she has much edu- 
 cation. Thine August Mother is much dis- 
 turbed over the latter, as she says, and justly 
 too, that over-learning is not good for women. 
 It is not meet to give them books in which to 
 
Chinese Courtyard 13 
 
 store their embroidery silks. But I I am 
 secretly delighted, and Mah-li, thy sister, is 
 transported with joy. I think within our 
 hearts, although we would not even whisper it 
 to the night wind, we are glad that there will be 
 three instead of two to bear the burden of the 
 discourses of thine Honourable Mother. Not 
 that she talks too much, thou understandest, 
 nor that her speech is not stored full of wis- 
 dom, but she talks and we must listen. 
 
 We have other news. A new slave-girl has 
 come into our household. As thou knowest, 
 there has been a great famine to the north of 
 us, and the boats, who follow all disaster, have 
 been anchored in our canal. I do not know 
 why the August One desired to add one more 
 to take of rice beneath our roof tree; but she is 
 here. She was brought before me, a little 
 peasant girl, dressed in faded blue trousers and 
 a jacket that had been many times to the 
 washing pool. Her black hair was coiled in 
 the girlhood knot at the side of the head, and 
 in it she had stuck a pumpkin blossom. 
 She was such a pretty little country flower, and 
 looked so helpless, I drew her to me and 
 questioned her. She told me there were many 
 within their compound wall: grandmother, 
 father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles and 
 
14 My Lady of the 
 
 cousins. The rice was gone, the heavy cloth- 
 ing and all of value in the pawn-shop. Death 
 was all around them, and they watched each 
 day as he drew nearer nearer. Then came 
 the buyers of girls. They had money that 
 would buy rice for the winter and mean life to 
 all. But the mother would not listen. She was 
 told over and over that the price of one would 
 save the many. But she would not sell her 
 daughter. Her nights were spent in weeping 
 and her days in fearful watching. At last, 
 worn out, despairing, she went to a far-off 
 temple to ask Kwan-yin, the Mother of 
 Mercies, for help in her great trouble. While 
 she was gone, Ho-tai was taken to the women 
 in the boat at the water-gate, and many pieces 
 of silver were paid the father. When the 
 stomach is empty, pride is not strong, and 
 there were many small bodies crying for rice 
 that could only be bought with the sacrifice of 
 one. That night, as they started down the 
 canal, they saw on the tow-path a peasant 
 woman, her dress open far below her throat, 
 her hair loose and flying, her eyes swollen and 
 dry from over-weeping, moaning pitifully, 
 stumbling on in the darkness, searching for the 
 boat that had been anchored at the water- 
 gate; but it was gone. Poor little Ho-tai! 
 
Chinese Courtyard 15 
 
 She said, "It was my mother! " and as she told 
 me, her face was wet with bitter rain. I 
 soothed her and told her we would make her 
 happy, and I made a little vow in my heart 
 that I would find that mother and bring peace 
 to her heart again. 
 
 The summer wanes and the autumn is upon 
 us with all its mists and shadows of purple and 
 grey. The camphor-trees look from the dis- 
 tance like great balls of fire, and the eucalyp- 
 tus-tree, in its dress of brilliant yellow, is a 
 gaily painted court lady. If one short glimpse 
 of thee my heart could gladden, then all my 
 soul would be filled with the beauty of this 
 time, these days of red and gold. But now 
 I seek thee the long night through, and turn to 
 make my arm thy pillow but thou art gone. 
 
 I am thy wife who longs for thee. 
 
16 My Lady of the 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 We have a daughter-in-law. Not only 
 have we a daughter-in-law, but we have ser- 
 vants and household furnishings and cloth- 
 ing and clothing and clothing. I am sure 
 that if her gowns could be laid side by side, 
 they would reach around the world. She is 
 as fair as the spring blossoms, and of as little 
 use. An army encamped upon us could not 
 have so upset our household as the advent of 
 this one maiden. She brought with her rugs 
 to cover the floors, embroideries and hangings 
 for the walls, scrolls and sayings of Confucius 
 and Mencius to hang over the seats of honour 
 to show us that she is an admirer of the 
 classics screens for the doorways, even a 
 huge bed all carved and gilded and with 
 hangings and tassels of gay silk. 
 
 Thine Honourable Mother, after viewing 
 the goods piled in the courtyards, called her 
 bearers and told us she was taking tea with a 
 friend in the village of Sung-dong. I think 
 she chose this friend because she lives the 
 
Chinese Courtyard 17 
 
 farthest from our compound walls. I alone 
 was left to direct the placing of this furniture. 
 Li-ti was like a butterfly, flitting hither and 
 thither, doing nothing, talking much. The 
 bed must be so placed that the Spirits of Evil 
 passing over it in the night-time could not 
 take the souls of the sleepers away with them. 
 The screens must stand at the proper angle 
 guarding the doorways from the spirits who, in 
 their straight, swift flight through the air, 
 fall against these screens instead of entering 
 the house. She gravely explained to me that 
 the souls who dwell in darkness like to take up 
 their abode in newly organised households, 
 and many precautions must be made against 
 them. She even seriously considered the rcof, 
 to see if all the points curved upward, so 
 that the spirits lighting upon them be carried 
 high above the open courtyards. I do not 
 know what would have happened to thine 
 ancestral rooftree if it had not met with her 
 approval. I was many heartfuls glad that 
 thine August Mother was taking tea in a far- 
 off village, as Li-ti even wanted to install a 
 new God in the kitchen. This I would not 
 permit. Canst thou imagine thy Mother's 
 face if a God from a stranger family was 
 in the niche above the kitchen stove? Hap- 
 
18 My Lady of the 
 
 pily all was over when thine Honourable 
 Mother returned. She is not pleased with 
 this, her newest, daughter-in-law, and she 
 talks and talks and talks. She says the 
 days will pass most slowly until she sees the 
 father of Li-ti. She yearns to tell him that a 
 man knows how to spend a million pieces of 
 money in marrying off his daughter, but knows 
 not how to spend a hundred thousand in 
 bringing up his child. If this great Governor 
 of Chih-li has much wisdom, he will stay long 
 within his province. I have just heard for the 
 hundredth time the saying of Confucius, 
 "Birth is not a beginning, nor is death an 
 end." In my despair I said deep down within 
 my breast, "I am sure it will not be an end for 
 thee, O Mother-in-law. Thou wilt go to the 
 River of Souls talking, talking, always talking 
 but the Gods will be good to me. Thou 
 must pass before me, and I will not hasten so 
 as to overtake thee on the way." I beg thy 
 pardon, dear one. I lack respect to thy 
 Most Honourable Parent, but my soul is sore 
 tried and I can find no quiet. 
 
 I am 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 19 
 
 VI 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 :< The five worst infirmities that afflict the 
 female are indocility, discontent, slander, jeal- 
 ousy, and silliness. The worst of them all, 
 and the parent of the other four, is silliness." 
 Does that not sound familiar to thine ears? 
 Life is serious here in thine ancestral home 
 since we have taken to ourselves a daughter- 
 in-law. The written word for trouble is two 
 women beneath one rooftree, and I greatly 
 fear that the wise man who invented writing 
 had knowledge that cost him dear. Perhaps 
 he, too, had a daughter-in-law. 
 
 Yet, with it all, Li-ti is such a child. Ah, 
 I see thee smile. Thou sayest she is only 
 three years less in age than I; yet, thou seest, 
 I have had the honour of living a year by the 
 side of thy Most August Mother and have 
 acquired much knowledge from the very 
 fountain-head of wisdom. Perchance Li-ti 
 also will become a sage, if she be not gathered 
 to her ancestors before her allotted time, which 
 
depends upon the strength of body and of 
 mind which they may have willed her. 
 
 To me she is the light of this old palace. 
 She is the true spirit of laughter, and, "When 
 the happy laugh, the Gods rejoice." She is 
 continually in disgrace with thine Honourable 
 Mother, and now the Elder One has decided 
 that both she and Mah-li, thy sister, shall 
 learn a text from the sage Confucius each day 
 for penance. They are now in the inner 
 courtyard, studying the six shadows which 
 attend the six virtues. I can hear them saying 
 over and over to each other, "Love of good- 
 ness without the will to learn casts the shadow 
 called foolishness" now a laugh then again 
 they begin, "Love of knowledge without the 
 will to learn casts the shadow called instabil- 
 ity" giggle and much talking. I am afraid 
 they will never arrive at the shadow cast by 
 the love of truth, and after I have written 
 thee I will go in and help them, that they may 
 not be reprimanded. 
 
 Li-ti takes her duties now most seriously, 
 these same duties consisting of dressing for 
 the day. In the morning she seats herself 
 before her mirror, and two maids attend her, 
 one to hold the great brass bowl of water, the 
 other to hand her the implements of her 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 toilet. While the face is warm she covers it 
 with honey mixed with perfume, and applies 
 the rice-powder until her face is as white as 
 the rice itself. Then the cheeks are rouged, 
 the touch of red is placed upon the lower lip, 
 the eyebrows are shaped like the true willow 
 leaf, and the hair is dressed. Her hair is 
 wonderful (but I say within my heart, not so 
 long or so thick as mine), and she adorns 
 it with many jewels of jade and pearls. Over 
 her soft clothing of fine linen she draws the 
 rich embroidered robes of silk and satin. 
 Then her jewels, earrings, beads, bracelets, 
 rings, the tiny mirror in the embroidered case, 
 the bag with its rouge and powder fastened 
 to her side by long red tassels. When all 
 things are in place, she rises a being glorified, 
 a thing of beauty from her glossy hair to the 
 toe of her tiny embroidered shoe. I watch 
 her with a little envy, because when thou 
 wast here I did the same. Now that my 
 husband is away, it is not meet that I make 
 myself too seemly for other eyes. The rouge 
 brush and the powder have not been near my 
 face, and I have searched my clothing chests 
 to find gowns fitting for a woman who is 
 alone. 
 
 Thy Mother says poor Li-ti is o'ervain, and 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 repeats to her the saying, "More precious in 
 a woman is a virtuous heart than a face of 
 beauty." But I say she is our butterfly, she 
 brings the joys of summer. One must not 
 expect a lace kerchief to hold tears, and she 
 fulfills her woman's destiny. Chih-peh, thy 
 brother, is inexpressibly happy. He adores 
 his pretty blossom. He follows her with eyes 
 that worship, and when she is in disgrace 
 with thine August Mother, he is desolate. 
 When needs be she is sent to her apartment, 
 he wanders round and round the courtyards 
 until the Honourable One has retired from 
 sight, then he hurriedly goes to his beloved. 
 Soon I hear them laughing gaily, and know 
 the storm is over. 
 
 The rains have come and we cannot pass 
 long days upon the terrace. The whole 
 valley is shrouded in grey mists and the 
 peasants have gone from the fields. The path 
 down the mountain-side is empty, except for 
 the men with the great umbrella hats and capes 
 of straw, bringing the vegetables to the monas- 
 tery below. The old abbot of the monastery 
 is in great trouble. Some men have come and 
 wish to erect long poles with wires on them. 
 It is feared it will interrupt the feng-shui of 
 the temple. The good spirits of the air can- 
 
Chinese Courtyard 23 
 
 not pass, and will rest upon these ugly poles 
 instead of coming to the temple rooftree. 
 The abbot has wailed and gone to the magis- 
 trate; but he will not interfere, as the men 
 have many tens of thousands of sycee and 
 quite likely will work their will. 
 
 Such foolish letters as I write thee! They 
 are filled with the little life that passes within 
 the women's courtyard. It is all the life I 
 know. My world is bounded by these walls, 
 and I ask no more. 
 
 I am thy loving wife. 
 
24 My Lady of the 
 
 VII 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 All thy women-folk have been shopping! 
 A most unheard-of event for us. We have 
 Li-ti to thank for this great pleasure, because, 
 but for her, the merchants would have brought 
 their goods to the courtyard for us to make our 
 choice. Li-ti would not bear of that; she 
 wanted to see the city, and she wanted to 
 finger the pretty goods within the shops. 
 She knew exactly what she wished, and life 
 was made uncomfortable for us all until thy 
 Mother ordered the chairs and we went into 
 the city. We were a long procession. First, 
 the August One with her four-bearer chair; 
 then your most humble wife, who has only two 
 bearers as yet; then Li-ti; and after her 
 Mah-li, followed by the chairs of the servants 
 who came to carry back our purchases. 
 
 It was most exciting for us all, as we go 
 rarely within the city gate. It was market 
 day and the streets were made more narrow by 
 the baskets of fish and vegetables which lined 
 the way. The flat stones of the pavements 
 
Chinese C ourtyard 25 
 
 were slippery and it seemed our bearers could 
 not find a way amongst the crowd of riders on 
 horses and small donkeys, the coolies with 
 their buckets of hot water swinging from their 
 shoulders, the sweetmeat sellers, the men with 
 bundles, and the women with small baskets. 
 They all stepped to one side at the sound of the 
 Ah-yo of our leader, except a band of coolies 
 carrying the monstrous trunk of a pine-tree, 
 chanting as they swung the mast between 
 them, and keeping step with the chant. It 
 seemed a solemn dirge, as if some great giant 
 were being carried to the resting-place of the 
 dead. 
 
 But sadness could not come to us when 
 shopping, and our eager eyes looked long at the 
 signs above the open shopways. There were 
 long black signs of lacquer with letters of 
 raised gold, or red ones with the characters 
 carved and gilded. Above a shoe-shop was a 
 boot made for the King of the Mountains, 
 and in front of a pipe-shop was a water 
 pipe fit for his mate. From the fan-shop 
 hung delicate, gilded fans; and framing the 
 silk-shop windows gaily coloured silk was 
 draped in rich festoons that nearly swept 
 the pathway. 
 
 We bought silks and satins and gay bro- 
 
26 My Lady of the 
 
 cades, we chatted and we bargained and we 
 shopped. We handled jade and pearls and 
 ornaments of twisted gold, and we priced 
 amulets and incense pots and gods. We filled 
 our eyes with luxury and our amahs 9 chairs 
 with packages, and returned home three 
 happy, tired, hungry women, thinking with 
 longing of the hissing tea-urn upon the char- 
 coal brazier. 
 
 That crowded, bustling, threatening city 
 seems another world from this, our quiet, 
 walled-in dwelling. I feel that here we are 
 protected, cared for, guarded, and life's hurry 
 and distress will only pass us by, not touch us. 
 Yet we like to see it all, and know that we 
 are part of that great wonder-thing, the 
 world. 
 
 I am thy happy, tired 
 
 Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 27 
 
 VIII 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 I am carrying a burden for another that is 
 causing me much sorrow. Dost thou remem- 
 ber Chen-peh, who is from my province and 
 who married Ling Peh-yu about two moons 
 after I came to thy household? She came to 
 me yesterday in dire distress. She is being 
 returned to her home by her husband's 
 people, and, as thou knowest, if a woman is 
 divorced shame covers her until her latest 
 hour. I am inexpressibly saddened, as I do 
 not know what can be done. The trouble is 
 with his mother and, I fear, her own pride of 
 family. She cannot forget that she comes 
 from a great house, and she is filled with pride 
 at the recollection of her home. I have told 
 her that the father and mother of one's hus- 
 band should be honoured beyond her own. I 
 can see that she has failed in respect; and 
 thus she merits condemnation. We have 
 all learned as babes that "respect" is the first 
 word in the book of wisdom. I know it is 
 
28 My Lady of the 
 
 hard at times to still the tongue, but all paths 
 that lead to peace are hard. 
 
 She will remain with me two nights. Last 
 night she lay wide-eyed, staring into the 
 darkness, with I know not what within her 
 soul. I begged her to think wisely, to talk 
 frankly with her husband and his mother, to 
 whom she owes obedience. There should be 
 no pride where love is. She must think upon 
 the winter of her days, when she will be alone, 
 without husband and without children, eating 
 bitter rice of charity, though 'tis given by 
 her people. I put her in remembrance of that 
 saying of the poet : 
 
 " Rudely torn may be a cotton mantle, yet 
 
 a skillful hand may join it; 
 Snapped may be the string where pearls 
 
 are threaded, yet the thread all swiftly 
 
 knotted; 
 But a husband and his wife, once parted, 
 
 never more may meet." 
 
 I must not bring thee the sorrows of another. 
 Oh, dear one, there will never come 'twixt thee 
 and me the least small river of distrust. I 
 will bear to thee no double heart, and thou wilt 
 cherish me and love me alway. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
H 
 
 E came with candle and incense. 
 
 [Page S3] 
 
Chinese Courtyard 29 
 
 IX 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 I cannot wait until the seventh day to write 
 thee again, as my letter to thee yestereve was 
 full of sadness and longing. Now I have slept, 
 and troubles from a distance do not seem so 
 grave. 
 
 Thine Honourable Mother has chided me 
 gravely, but to my mind unjustly, and, as thou 
 knowest, I could not answer her words, though 
 they pierced me "like arrows from the strings 
 of white-winged bows." Poor Li-ti is in 
 trouble again, and this time she has brought 
 it upon herself, yet she cannot be blamed. I, 
 as the head of the household, as thine Hon- 
 ourable Mother has told me, should have pro- 
 tected her. I told thee that she brought 
 servants from her old home, and amongst 
 them her childhood's nurse, who, I am sure, 
 loves Li-ti dearly; but, as many women who 
 have little to occupy their hands, she loves to 
 sit in the women's courtyard and gossip. If 
 it had stopped within the servants' courtyard 
 all would have been well; but at the time of 
 
30 My Lady of the 
 
 Li-ti's dressing all the small goods she had 
 gathered during the day were emptied into the 
 lap of Li-ti, who is too young to know that 
 "as poison that reaches the blood spreads 
 through the body, so does the love of gossip 
 spread through the soul of woman." I do not 
 know how it came about, but comparisons were 
 made between the households, that of her 
 home and that of her husband, and news was 
 carried back to the servants' quarters until at 
 last our household was in a state of unrest that 
 stopped all work and made living quite 
 impossible. 
 
 It seems small, but it is the retailing of 
 little calumnies that disturbs the harmony of 
 kinsmen and ruins the peace of families. 
 Finally I found it necessary to talk to Li-ti's 
 nurse, and I told her many things it were good 
 for her to know. I warned her that if she 
 did not wish to revisit her home province 
 she must still her tongue. Things were better 
 for a time, but they commenced again, and 
 I called her to my courtyard and said to her, 
 "The sheaves of rice have been beaten across 
 the wood for the last time. You must go." 
 Li-ti was inconsolable, but I was firm. Such 
 quarrels are not becoming when we are so 
 many beneath one rooftree. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 31 
 
 The servant went away, but she claimed 
 her servant's right of reviling us within our 
 gate. She lay beneath our outer archway 
 for three long hours and called down curses 
 upon the Liu family. One could not get 
 away from the sound of the enumeration of 
 the faults and vices of thy illustrious ancestors 
 even behind closed doors. I did not know, 
 my husband, that history claimed so many 
 men of action by the name of Liu. It pleased 
 me to think thou mayest claim so long a 
 lineage, as she went back to the dynasty of 
 Ming and brought forth from his grave each 
 poor man and woman and told us of not 
 his virtues. I should have been more in- 
 dignant, perhaps, if I had not heard o'ermuch 
 of the wonders of thy family tree. I was 
 impressed by the amount of knowledge ac- 
 quired by the family of Li-ti. They must 
 have searched the chronicles which evidently 
 recorded only the unworthy acts of thy men- 
 folk in the past. I hope that I will forget 
 what I have heard, as some time when I am 
 trying to escape from thine ancestors the 
 tongue might become unruly. 
 
 At the end of three hours the woman was 
 faint and very ill. I had one of the servants 
 take her down to the boat, and sent a man 
 
32 My Lady of the 
 
 home with her, bearing a letter saying she was 
 sickening for home faces. She is old, and I 
 did not want her to end her days in disgrace 
 and shame. 
 
 But thine Honourable Mother! Thine 
 Honourable Mother! Art thou not glad that 
 thou art in a far-off country ? She went from 
 courtyard to courtyard, and for a time I 
 fully expected she would send to the Yamen 
 for the soldiers; then she realised the woman 
 was within her right, and so restrained her- 
 self. It nearly caused her death, as thou 
 knowest thine Honourable Mother has not 
 long practised the virtue of restraint, espe- 
 cially of the tongue. She was finally overcome 
 and taken to her chamber, and we brought 
 her tea and heated wine, and tried in all our 
 ways to make her forget the great humilia- 
 tion. As she became no better, we sent for 
 the man of medicine from the Eastern Gate, 
 and he wished to burn her shoulders with a 
 heated cash to remove the heat within her. 
 To this she objected so strongly that he hastily 
 gathered his utensils and departed, looking 
 fearfully over his shoulder from time to time 
 as he passed quickly down the hillside. 
 
 Then I thought of her favourite priest from 
 the monastery down below, and sent for him. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 He came with candle and incense and, I think, 
 some rose wine for which the monastery is 
 justly famous; and he chanted prayers, striking 
 from time to time a little gong, until peace was 
 restored and sleep came to her eyelids. 
 
 In the morning she wished to talk to 
 Li-ti; but I feared for her, and I said, "You 
 cannot speak of the ocean to a well-frog, nor 
 sing of ice to a summer insect. She will not 
 understand." She said Li-ti was without 
 brains, a senseless thing of paint and powder. 
 I said, "We will form her, we will make of 
 her a wise woman in good time." She replied 
 with bitterness, "Rotten wood cannot be 
 carved nor walls of dirt be plastered." I 
 could not answer, but I sent Li-ti to pass the 
 day with Chih-peh at the Goldfish Temple, and 
 when she returned the time was not so stormy. 
 
 All this made me unhappy, and the cares 
 of this great household pressed heavily upon 
 my shoulders. Please do not think the cares 
 too heavy, nor that I do not crave the work. 
 I know all labour is done for the sake of happi- 
 ness, whether the happiness comes or no; and 
 if I find not happiness, I find less time to dream 
 and mourn and long for thee, my husband. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
34 My Lady of the 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 We have been to a great festival at the 
 Temple of the Goddess of a Thousand Hands. 
 Thine Honourable Mother decided that we 
 should go by boat part of the way, so the 
 chairs were told to meet us at the Western 
 Village Rest-house. 
 
 We hired from the city one of those great 
 pleasure-boats, but it was not too great for 
 us all. There was the August One, and four 
 of her friends, then Li-ti, Mah-li and myself. 
 We took the cook, the steward and three 
 amahs, and it was indeed a time of feasting. 
 It was the first time I had been upon the 
 canal, and it was different from seeing it from 
 the terrace. As we passed slowly along we 
 could watch the life of the water people. On 
 the banks were the great water-wheels turned 
 by the village buffalo. In the deserted dis- 
 tricts women were gathering reeds to make 
 the sleeping mats and boat covers. The 
 villages with their blue-grey houses and 
 thatched roofs nestling among the groves of 
 
Chinese C ourtyard 
 
 bamboos looked like chicklets sheltering under 
 the outstretched wings of the mother hen. 
 
 We pushed our way through the crowded 
 water-ways of the cities, where we could catch 
 glimpses of the guests in the tea-houses or 
 the keepers of the shops, or could watch the 
 children leaning over the balconies. On the 
 steps between the houses which led to the 
 waterside women were washing clothes, or 
 the dyers were cleansing the extra dye from 
 the blue cotton which clothes all China's 
 poor. We caught small bits of gossip and 
 heard the laughter of all these people, who 
 seemed happy at their work. 
 
 When we could again pass to the open canal 
 we would watch the boats. I did not know 
 there were so many boats in all the world. 
 They floated slowly past us big boats, little 
 boats, those that went by sail, and those that 
 went by oar. There were the boats of man- 
 darins and merchants, those for passengers, 
 and great unwieldy boats for rice. We saw 
 the fishing-boats with their hungry, fierce- 
 eyed cormorants sitting quietly in their places, 
 waiting for the master to send them diving 
 in the water for the fish they may not eat. 
 
 The canal was a great broad highway. 
 Even the tow-paths had their patrons. Trav- 
 
36 My Lady of the 
 
 ellers on wheelbarrows, rich men in sedan- 
 chairs, soldiers, coolies, chanting as they swung 
 along with their burdens swinging from the 
 bamboo on their shoulders, all going to or 
 coming from the great city to which we drew 
 nearer with each stroke. 
 
 At the rest-house the bearers were awaiting 
 us, and we were carried up the long paved 
 roadway to the temple. It seemed as if all 
 the world had turned to praying all the 
 women world, that is. They were here, rich 
 and poor, peasant and official's wife, but in 
 the temple all of a sisterhood. We descended 
 from our chairs in the courtyard and put our 
 spirit money in the great burner, where it 
 ascended in tiny flames side by side with that 
 of the beggar woman, to the great God in the 
 Heavens. We entered the temple, placed our 
 candles, and lighted our incense. We made 
 our obeisance to the Many-handed Goddess 
 and asked her blessing on our household 
 for the year to come. Then I went to the 
 Mother of Mercies, Kwan-yin, and made my 
 deepest reverence, because for her my heart 
 is full of love and gratitude. The other Gods 
 I respect and make them all due worship, but 
 I feel they are far away from me. Kwan-yin 
 is the woman's God, and I feel her love for me. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 37 
 
 She shapes my way, and I know it is to her 
 I owe it that my life flows on as a gentle 
 stream, and I know that she cares for me and 
 guards me now that thou art away and I have 
 no one on whom to lean. When I go before 
 her all fire of passion is extinguished in my 
 heart, and my troubles and cares pass away 
 and become small in the distance, even as the 
 light of the morning stars pales and wanes at 
 the coming of the sun. My heart is full of 
 love for her, of a love that I cannot express. 
 She has heard my prayers and answered 
 them. She is my Kwan-yin, my Mother of 
 Mercy, and each day I do some little deed for 
 her, some little thing to show remembrance, 
 so she will know the hours are not too full 
 nor the days too short for me to place my 
 offering on an altar built of love. 
 
 As we turned to leave the temple I glanced 
 back at the great dark chamber and I saw the 
 God of Light, the Buddha, sitting there so 
 calm upon his throne, with the light of many 
 candles before him and clouds of incense that 
 floated to the roof. I thought, "He is all- 
 powerful. I only prayed to him from out my 
 lips, not with my heart. Perhaps " So I 
 returned. I prayed the mighty God with 
 humble prayer to bring my loved one swiftly 
 
38 My Lady of the 
 
 home to me; and then we left the temple. We 
 walked slowly through the courtyards, looking 
 at the great trees that stood like tall, grim 
 sentinels guarding the place of prayer. Then 
 we .were taken by our bearers to the Goldfish 
 Monastery in the hills. Dost thou remember 
 it ? Thou and I were there once in the spring- 
 time. 
 
 We bought the small round cakes from the 
 priests and fed the greedy fish. They swarmed 
 over the pool, pushing, nudging, fighting one 
 another to get the morsels we threw them. 
 Tiring of that, we had tea and sweetmeats 
 served upon the terrace; then, after chatting 
 for a time, we left for the boat. We drifted 
 slowly homeward. Thy Mother and her 
 friends discussed the earth, the moon, the 
 sun and stars, as well as smaller matters, such 
 as children, husbands, servants, schools and 
 upon the last thy Mother waxed most eloquent; 
 as thou knowest, it is a sore subject with her, 
 this matter of the new education. I heard 
 her say: "All my sons have book knowledge. 
 Of what use is it in the end ? The cock crows 
 and the dog barks. We know that, but the 
 wisest of my sons cannot say why one crows 
 and the other barks, nor why they crow or 
 bark at all." Canst thou hear her, and see 
 
Chinese C ourtyard 39 
 
 her shake her head dolefully over the dismal 
 fact that thou hast left the narrow way of 
 Confucius and the classics ? 
 
 We came to the pathway just at sunset, and 
 as I looked up at the old palace a little hurt 
 came to my heart that thou wert not close by 
 my side. It lay so peaceful there and quiet, 
 the curving roofs like flights of doves who had 
 settled down with their wings not yet quite 
 folded. It brought remembrance that for me 
 it was an empty palace. I will see no one as 
 Li-ti will within the archway. 
 
 Thy Wife Who Loves Thee 
 
40 My Lady of the 
 
 XI 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 Thy letter and the photographs received. 
 Thou sayest it is a "flashlight" of a reception 
 to thy Master, the Prince. I do not know 
 exactly what that means, but there seem to be 
 many people and ladies. I have not shown 
 thine Honourable Mother the picture, as she 
 might ask thee to return at once. I do not 
 criticise thy friends, nor could our Prince go 
 to a place not fitting to his dignity, but the 
 ladies seem in my poor judgment most lightly 
 clad. 
 
 The papers here are full of thy reception in 
 that foreign land and of the honour that is 
 paid the embassy. Thy brother read to all 
 within the courtyard of the feasts that are 
 given in honour of His Highness, and we were 
 full proud, knowing well thou stoodst close by 
 him at the time. Thy letters are a joy to me. 
 We read them many times, and then I read 
 those of Chih-peh, which talk of things I do 
 not understand. Thou must not give the 
 foolish boy ideas, as he prates most glibly of 
 
Chinese Courtyard 41 
 
 "republics" and "government of the people 
 by the people," after he has received thy let- 
 ters. That is for men of wisdom like thee, 
 but not for foolish boys to carry with them to 
 the tea-house. 
 
 Kwei-li. 
 
42 My Lady of the 
 
 XII 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 Thou askest me if I still care for thee, if 
 the remembrance of thy face has grown less 
 dear with the passing of the days. Dear one, 
 thou knowest we Chinese women are not 
 supposed to know of love, much less to speak 
 of it. We read of it, we know it is the song 
 of all the world, but it comes not to us unless 
 by chance. We go to you as strangers, we 
 have no choice, and if the Gods withhold their 
 greatest gift, the gift of love, then life is grey 
 and wan as the twilight of a hopeless day. 
 Few women have the joy I feel when I look 
 into my loved one's face and know that I am 
 his and he is mine, and that our lives are 
 twined together for all the days to come. 
 
 Do I love thee? I cannot tell. I think of 
 thee by day and I dream of thee by night. I 
 never want to hurt thee nor cause thee a 
 moment's sorrow. I would fill my hands with 
 happiness to lay down at thy feet. Thou art 
 my life, my love, my all, and I am thine to 
 hold through all the years. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 43 
 
 XIII 
 
 M y Dear One, 
 
 It is the time of school, and now all the day 
 from the servants' courtyard I hear their 
 droning voices chanting the sayings of Con- 
 fucius. I did not know we had so many 
 young lives within our compound until I saw 
 them seated at their tables. I go at times 
 and tell them tales which they much prefer to 
 lessons, but of which thine Honourable Mother 
 does not approve. I told them the other 
 day of Pwan-ku. Dost thou remember him ? 
 How at the beginning of Time the great God 
 Pwan-ku with hammer and chisel formed the 
 earth. He toiled and he worked for eighteen 
 thousand years, and each day increased in 
 stature six feet, and, to give him room, the 
 Heavens rose and the earth became larger and 
 larger. When the Heavens were round and 
 the earth all smooth, he died. His head be- 
 came mountains, his breath the wind and the 
 clouds, his voice the thunder. His arms and 
 legs were the four poles, his veins the rivers, 
 his muscles the hills and his flesh the fields. 
 
44 My Lady of the 
 
 His eyes became the stars, his skin and hair 
 the herbs and the trees, and the insects which 
 touched him became people. Does not that 
 make thee think of thy childhood's days? 
 
 They crowd around me and say, "Tell us 
 more," just as I did with my old amah when 
 she stilled me with the tales of the Gods. 
 Yesterday, one small boy, the son of the chief 
 steward, begged for a story of the sun. I had 
 to tell him that my wisdom did not touch the 
 sun, although I, in my foolish heart, think it 
 a great God because it gives us warmth and 
 we can feel its kindly rays. I said, "Thou 
 hast seen the coolies tracking on the tow-path 
 with their heavy wadded clothing wet with 
 rain. If it were not for the kindly sun 
 which dries them, how could they toil and work 
 and drag the great rice-boats up to the water- 
 gate? Is he not a God to them ?" 
 
 I told them also of Chang-ngo, the great, 
 great beauty who drank the cup of life eternal. 
 She went to the moon, where the jealous Gods 
 turned her into a great black toad. She is 
 there, forever thinking, mourning over her lost 
 beauty, and when we see the soft haze come 
 over the face of the moon, we know that she is 
 weeping and filling the space with her tears. 
 
 I perhaps am wrong to tell the foolish tales 
 
[Page 36] 
 
 TJ7"E put our money into the great burner. 
 
A T night I send away the gatekeeper and 
 leave my amah at the outer archway, so thy 
 Mother will not know the hour he enters 
 
 I Page M] 
 
Chinese Courtyard 45 
 
 to the children, but they grow so tired of the 
 hard benches and Chang-tai, the teacher, 
 who glares at them so fiercely when they 
 speak not quickly enough to please him. 
 
 There has been much gossip from the valley 
 over the mountain-side. It seems an iron 
 bridge is being put across the river, and strange 
 men come and peer at the countryside through 
 witch glasses. It has made the good spirits 
 of the air to draw apart from the valley, and 
 the cattle have died and the rice not ripened, 
 and much sorrow has gone broadcast. The 
 river overflowed, because they desecrated the 
 Dragon's back by digging down into the 
 earth that was sacred. I know nothing ex- 
 cept what is brought from the market-place, 
 and, as it does not concern us here on the 
 mountain-side, I listen only with my ears, 
 not with my mind. 
 
 The nights are long and cold. The moon 
 casts silver shimmering lights over the valley 
 below. We cannot stand long on the terrace 
 but must stay close within our rooms near to 
 the charcoal braziers. The wind sweeps o'er 
 the roof tree with the wailing voice of a woman. 
 
 Oh, Soul of Mine, with weary heart the 
 creeping days I'm counting. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
46 My Lady of the 
 
 XIV 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 We have had a serious sickness come to all 
 the countryside; rich and poor, peasant and 
 merchant have suffered from a fever that will not 
 abate. It raged for more than a moon before 
 it was known the cause thereof. Dost thou 
 remember the Kwan-lin Pagoda? Its ruin 
 has long been a standing shame to the people 
 of the province, and finally the Gods have 
 resented their neglect and sent them this great 
 illness. Over all the city the yellow edicts of 
 the priests have been placed so as to meet the 
 eye of all who travel. They are in the market- 
 places, at the entrance of the tea-houses, stand- 
 ing on great boards at the doorways of the tem- 
 ples, in front of the water-gates, and at each 
 city postern. They state that the Gods are 
 angry and send to each man or household 
 that will not give three days' work upon the 
 Pagoda the fever that leaves him weak and 
 ailing. They demand the labour of the city; 
 and if it is not given freely, toil is sent 
 the people in their sleep and they waken 
 
Chinese Courtyard 47 
 
 weary, and must so remain until the work is 
 finished 
 
 We did not hearken to the summons until 
 Chih-peh, thy brother, fell ill with the sickness. 
 He grew worse each day, until Li-ti and thine 
 Honourable Mother were panic-stricken. At 
 last the chairs were ordered, and thy Mother 
 and I went to the monastery on the hillside to 
 consult with the old abbot, who is most full of 
 wisdom. Thine Honourable Mother told him 
 of the illness which had assailed her son, and 
 begged him to tell her if it were the illness of 
 the Pagoda. He meditated long and seri- 
 ously, then he said, "My daughter, the Gods 
 are no respecter of persons; they wish the ser- 
 vice of your son." "But," thine Honourable 
 Mother objected, "he is no workman. He 
 cannot labour upon the Pagoda." The abbot 
 said, "There are more ways of giving service 
 than the labour of the hands. The Gods will 
 allow him to contribute of his wealth and buy 
 the toil of other men, and thus he may cancel 
 his obligation." The August One satisfied 
 the greedy heart of the priest, and then he told 
 her to go and make her obeisance to the God 
 of Light, the great Buddha, and see what mes- 
 sage he had for her. 
 
 She took the hollow bamboo filled with 
 
48 My Lady of the 
 
 the numbered slices of wood and, prostrating 
 herself three times before the Great One, shook 
 it slowly until one detached itself from its 
 brothers and fell to the floor. The abbot then 
 handed her a slip of paper which read : 
 
 "Wisdom sits by the Western Gate 
 And gives health and happiness to those 
 who wait." 
 
 These words meant nothing to thine Honour- 
 able Mother; and after giving the abbot more 
 silver, he said, "Beside the Western Gate sits 
 the owl of wisdom, the great doctor Chow- 
 fong. His father and his father's father were 
 wise; their study was mankind, and to him 
 has come all their stores of knowledge. He 
 has books of wonderful age, that tell him the 
 secret of the world. Go to him; he will give 
 you the plan of healing." 
 
 We started for the Western Gate, and I, in 
 my wicked heart, spoke thoughts that should 
 have been closely locked within my breast. 
 I said, "Perhaps the doctor and the priest 
 have formed a combination most profitable 
 to the two. If we had gone to the doctor first, 
 we might have been sent to the abbot." It 
 was a great mistake to mention such a dreadful 
 thing, and I realised it instantly; as thou 
 
Chinese Courtyard 49 
 
 knowest, the Elder One has a tongue of 
 eloquence, and I was indeed glad that her 
 bearers carried her at least ten paces from my 
 bearers and the way was long. 
 
 Even thine Honourable Mother was awed 
 at the solemn looks of this great man of 
 medicine who, in his dim room with dried bats 
 hanging from the ceiling beams and a dragon's 
 egg close by his hand, glared at her through his 
 great goggles like a wise old owl. She apolo- 
 gised for disturbing so great a man at his 
 studies, but she was the bearer of a message 
 from the abbot. He read it carefully, then 
 took down a monstrous book entitled "The 
 Golden Mirror of Medical Practice," and 
 solemnly pored over its pages. At last he 
 wrote upon a paper, then chanted : 
 
 " In a building tall, by the city wall, 
 
 In the street of the Tower of Gold, 
 Is the plant of health, long life and wealth, 
 In the claws of the Dragon bold." 
 
 The August One took the paper, laid some 
 silver upon the table, and we hurried from his 
 doorway, glad to be free from his fearful 
 presence. When we entered the chairs and 
 looked to the paper for directions to give the 
 bearers, the characters were meaningless to us. 
 
50 My Lady of the 
 
 I repeated his chant, and the head bearer 
 said, "There is a shop of drugs in the street 
 of the Tower of Gold, and the sign of the place 
 is a Golden Dragon's Claw." 
 
 We soon were there, and waited in our chairs 
 while the bearer took the paper into the maker 
 of medicines. We waited long, and thine 
 Honourable Mother would have been impa- 
 tient if sleep had not kindly made her forget 
 the waiting hours. I, sitting in my chair, 
 could look through the archways into the big 
 covered courtyards where blind men were 
 grinding herbs. They were harnessed to 
 great stones, and went round and round all 
 day, like buffalo at the water-wheel. I won- 
 dered why the Gods had put them at this 
 service. What sins they had committed in 
 their other life, to be compelled to work like 
 beasts, grinding the herbs that would bring 
 health and life to others, while they lived on 
 in darkness. Often I would hear the soft 
 call of the deer as they moved restlessly in 
 their tiny cells. I know their horns, when 
 powdered fine with beetles' wings, is the cure 
 for fevers and all ailments of the blood, but 
 why could not the wise ones of the earth have 
 found some herb or weed to take their place 
 and give these wild ones of the woods their 
 
Chinese Courtyard 51 
 
 freedom? Finally, the bearer came with a 
 tiny jar, too small, it seemed, to take such 
 time in mixing, and we returned to the waiting 
 Li-ti. 
 
 The medicine was black and nasty and 
 smelled not sweetly, which proved its strength. 
 Chih-peh got slowly better, and the world 
 again looked fair to Li-ti, and the song came 
 to her lips. The flowers were put in the hair, 
 the gay dresses were brought out of their 
 boxes, and she was, as of old, our butterfly. 
 
 We laughed at her for her fright, but I 
 thought, if it had been thou who wast ill, and 
 I did not know the cure! Oh, dear one, dost 
 thou understand that, to a woman who loves, 
 her husband is more than Heaven, more than 
 herself? All that she is not, all that she 
 lacks, all that she desires to be, is her beloved. 
 His breath alone can bring peace to her heart, 
 and it is he alone who teaches her the depth 
 of passionate joy there is in love and life and 
 all things beautiful. 
 
 I am thy wife 
 
52 My Lady of the 
 
 XV 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 Thine Honourable Mother is beset by the 
 desire of marrying. No, do not start; it is not 
 of herself she is thinking. She will go to the 
 River of Souls mourning thine Honourable 
 Father, and a pailo will be erected in her 
 honour. It is of her household she is thinking. 
 She says our rooftree is too small to shelter 
 four women, three of whom have little brains 
 and that includes thy humble, loving wife 
 but why she should wish to exchange Mah-li, 
 whom she knows, for a strange woman whom 
 she does not know, passes my understanding. 
 She seems not overfond of daughters-in-law, 
 if one judge from chance remarks. 
 
 First, before I speak of Mah-li, I must tell 
 thee of thy brother. Thine Honourable 
 Mother is right it were better that he marry 
 and have a heel rope that leads him home wards. 
 He is unruly and passes overmuch time at the 
 Golden Lotus Tea-house. He is not bad or 
 wicked. He lives but for the moment, and 
 the moment is often wine-flushed. He will 
 
Chinese Courtyard 53 
 
 not work or study, and many times at night 
 I send away the gatekeeper and leave my 
 amah at the outer archway, so thy Mother 
 will not know the hour he enters. He is 
 young, and has chosen friends not equal to 
 himself, and they have set his feet in the path- 
 way that slopes downward. 
 
 He does not wish to marry. We have told 
 him that marriage is a will of the Gods and 
 must be obeyed. "Man does not attain by 
 himself, nor Woman by herself, but like the 
 one-winged birds of our childhood's tale, they 
 must rise together." It is useless to talk to 
 him. A spark of fire will not kindle wood that 
 is still too green, and I fear he is in love with 
 life, and youth, and freedom. 
 
 I do not wish to doubt the wisdom of the 
 August One, but I think she made a mistake 
 in her choice of a bride for Chih-mo. She 
 chose Tai-lo, the daughter of the Prefect of 
 Chih-li. The arrangements were nearly made, 
 the dowry even was discussed, but when the 
 astrologer cast their horoscopes to see if they 
 could pass their life in peace together, it was 
 found that the ruler of Chih-mo's life was a 
 lion, and that of the bride's, a swallow, so it was 
 clearly seen they could not share one rooftree. 
 I fear (I would not have this come to the ears 
 
54 My Lady of the 
 
 of thine Honourable Mother) that some silver 
 was left upon the doorstep of the astrologer. 
 Chih-mo asked of me the loan of an hundred 
 taels, and I saw the wife of the reader of the 
 stars pass by with a new gown of red and gold 
 brocade. 
 
 I think Chih-mo had seen Tai-lo. Report 
 gives her small beauty. Yet, as the Elder 
 One says, "Musk is known by its perfume, and 
 not by the druggist's label." Quite likely she 
 would have made a good wife; and we have 
 one beauty in the household it is enough. 
 
 There is much wailing in the courtyards. 
 The gardener and the bearer and the watchman 
 are having bound the feet of their small daugh- 
 ters. The saying, "For every pair of golden 
 lillies there is a kang of tears," is true. I am 
 so sorry for them. Just when they want to 
 run and play, they must sit all day with ach- 
 ing feet. My amah wished to put on the 
 heavy bindings, but I would not permit it. 
 I said, "Do you want little eyes to fill with 
 tears each time they see you coming across the 
 courtyard? If their grandmothers do not 
 come, let some old women from the village do 
 the cruel thing." 
 
 The happy rains of the spring are here. It 
 is not the cold, drear rain of autumn, but 
 
Chinese Courtyard 55 
 
 dancing, laughing rain that comes sweeping 
 across the valley, touching the rice-fields 
 lovingly, and bringing forth the young green 
 leaves of the mulberry. I hear it patter upon 
 the roof at night-time, and in the morning all 
 the earth seems cleansed and new; fresh 
 colours greet mine eye when I throw back my 
 casement. 
 
 When wilt thou come to me, thou keeper of 
 my heart? 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
56 My Lady of the 
 
 XVI 
 
 Dear One, 
 
 "He whose faults are never told him 
 Doubtless deems the angels mould him." 
 
 That cannot be said of three women of thy 
 household. 
 
 It is Mah-li this time on whom the wrath 
 descends. She and Li-ti were broidering in 
 the western room, where they could get the 
 last rays of the sun. Perhaps they were 
 speaking on forbidden subjects I do not 
 know; but thine Honourable Mother entered 
 quietly and reproved them, and (even when I 
 write it I blush for her) Mah-li said to her 
 Honourable Mother, "Only cats and cranes 
 and thieves walk silently." Thy Mother was 
 speechless with anger, and justly so, and now 
 it is decided that Mah-li must be married. 
 She needs a stronger hand than a woman's. 
 Is it not ridiculous, little Mah-li needing a 
 strong hand? 
 
 At first the August One considered Meng- 
 wheh, the prefect at Sung-dong. He is old 
 and cross, but when I remonstrated, I was 
 
Chinese Courtyard 57 
 
 told that he was rich. His many tens of 
 thousands of sycee are supposed to weigh more 
 than youth and love. I said, "Though he 
 bar with gold his silver door," a man cannot 
 keep the wife who loves him not. Thine 
 Honourable Mother thought more wisely, and 
 after many days of consideration entered into 
 consultation with the family of Sheng Ta-jen 
 in regard to his son. It seems Mah-li is 
 doomed to marriage soon, and she does not 
 know whether she is happy or sorrowful. She 
 is turned this way and that, as the seed of the 
 cotton-tree is swayed by the coming and going 
 of the wind. To-day she laughs, to-morrow 
 she weeps. Thy Mother has lost all patience 
 with her, and, as she always does when her own 
 words fail her, I heard her quoting the Sage: 
 "Just as ducks' legs though short cannot be 
 lengthened without pain, nor cranes' legs 
 though long be shortened without misery to 
 the crane, neither can sense be added to a 
 silly woman's head." 
 
 I feel that thine Honourable Mother is 
 unkind to Mah-li. She is a flower, a flower 
 that has her place in life the same as the 
 morning-glory, which is loved just as fondly by 
 the Gods as the pine-tree which stands so 
 stately upon the hillside. She is light and 
 
58 My Lady of the 
 
 pure and dainty as the fragrance of perfumed 
 air, and I do not want to see her go to a family 
 who will not understand her youth and love 
 of play. 
 
 Mah-li has asked of me money, and with it 
 bought a great candle for each day, which she 
 sends down the mountain-side to be placed 
 before Kwan-yin. I asked her to tell me her 
 prayer, that needed so large an offering. The 
 unfilial girl said she prayed, "Kwan-yin, send 
 me a husband with no family." 
 
 Such a lot of petty gossip I pour into thine 
 ears, yet thou wouldst know the happenings 
 of thine household. Of the world outside, 
 thy brother writes thee. My world is here 
 within these walls. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 59 
 
 XVII 
 
 Thine house is a house of intrigue. Deep, 
 dark intrigue and plotting. Thy wife has 
 lent herself to a most unwomanly thing, and 
 doubtless thou wilt tell her so, but Mah-li 
 begged so prettily, I could refuse her nothing. 
 I told thee in my last letter that thine Honour- 
 able Mother had been regarding the family of 
 Sheng Ta-jen with a view to his son as husband 
 of Mah-li. It is settled, and Mah-li leaves 
 us in the autumn. None of us except Chih- 
 peh has seen the young man, and Mah-li did 
 a most immodest thing the other day. She 
 came to me and asked me to find out from 
 Chih-peh if he were handsome, if he were 
 young all the questions that burn the tongue 
 of a young girl, but which she must keep within 
 tightly closed lips if she would not be thought 
 unmaidenly. I asked thy brother; but his 
 answer was not in regard to the questions 
 Mah-li wished so much to know. So we 
 arranged a plan a plan that caused me 
 many nights of sleeplessness. It was carried 
 
60 My Lady of the 
 
 out and still the sky is blue, the stars are 
 bright at night, and the moon shines just as 
 softly on the valley. 
 
 The first part of the plan was for Li-ti. She 
 must persuade Chih-peh to ask Shen-go to 
 spend the day with him at the Fir-tree 
 Monastery. When he knew the meaning of 
 the invitation he refused. He was shocked, 
 and properly; as it was a thing unheard-of. 
 He could not understand why Mah-li would 
 not be content with her mother's choice. 
 Li-ti brought all her little ways to bear and 
 Chih-peh can refuse her nothing. At the 
 Feast of the Moon thy brother asked three 
 friends to join him at the monastery and stroll 
 amongst its groves. 
 
 The rest of the plan was for me to carry 
 out; and I, thy wife, displayed a talent for 
 diplomacy. I noticed that the cheeks of our 
 Honourable Mother were pale, that she seemed 
 listless, that her step was wearied. I said 
 doubtless she was tired of being shut within 
 the compound walls with three aimless, 
 foolish women, and proposed a feast or 
 pilgrimage. I mentioned the Goldfish Pond, 
 knowing she was tired of it; spoke of the 
 Pagoda on the Hills, knowing full well that 
 she did not like the priests therein; then, by 
 
Chinese Courtyard 61 
 
 chance, read from a book the story of the 
 two kings. It is the tale of the King of 
 Hangchow and the King of Soochow who, in 
 the olden time, divided our great valley 
 between them. The King of Hangchow was 
 an old man, and the cares of state fell heavily 
 upon his shoulders. The King of Soochow 
 was a young man, eaten up with mad ambi- 
 tions. He began to tread upon the lands of 
 the old King, taking now a farmhouse, now 
 a village, and at last a city, until the poor old 
 King was threatened at his very gateway by 
 the army of the young man. The young 
 King had strength, but the old King had 
 guile, so he made a peace with his enemy for 
 one year. He sent him presents, costly silks 
 and teas, and pearls and jade and ginseng, 
 and, last and best, a beautiful slave-girl, the 
 most beautiful in the province. The young 
 King was delighted, and forgot his warring, 
 passing all his days within the women's 
 quarters. 
 
 As the winter waned and the spring came, 
 the slave-girl sickened, said she panted for 
 the hillsides, and she pointed to the mountain 
 outside his city walls. He was a foolish King, 
 and he builded for her a palace, and she moved 
 there with her women. The King was lonely 
 
62 My Lady of the 
 
 in the city, and he passed his days with the 
 women in the palace on the mountain. While 
 living there in pleasure, and his army in the 
 city, the old King of Hangchow sent his 
 soldiers; and soon there was no King of Soo- 
 chow, only a slave-girl decked with many 
 jewels was taken back with honour to the old 
 King's city. 
 
 I read all this to thine Honourable Mother, 
 and told her we could see the ruins of the 
 fish-pond, of the palace, see the fallen marbles 
 from the tea-house, and the chairs were 
 ordered, and we went. We wandered over 
 deserted pathways, saw the lotus pools once 
 filled with goldfish, picked our way through 
 lonely courtyards, climbed the sunken steps 
 of terraces that had once been gay with flow- 
 ers. It all was melancholy, this palace built 
 for pleasure, now a mass of crumbling ruins, 
 and it saddened us. We sat upon the King's 
 bench that overlooked the plain, and from it 
 I pointed out the Fir-tree Monastery in the 
 distance. I spoke of their famous tea, sun- 
 dried with the flowers of jessamine, and said 
 it might bring cheer and take away the gloom 
 caused by the sight of death and vanished 
 grandeurs now around us. 
 
 We were carried swiftly along the pathways 
 
Chinese Courtyard 63 
 
 that wound in and out past farm villages and 
 rest-houses until we came to the monastery, 
 which is like a yellow jewel in its setting of 
 green fir-trees. The priests made us most 
 welcome, and we drank of their tea, which has 
 not been overpraised, sitting at a great open 
 window looking down upon the valley. Stroll- 
 ing in the courtyard was Chih-peh with his 
 three friends. Mah-li never raised her eyes; 
 she sat as maidens sit in public, but she 
 saw. 
 
 We came home another pathway, to pass 
 the resting-place of Sheng-dong, the man who 
 at the time of famine fed the poor and gave his 
 all to help the needy. The Gods so loved him 
 that when his body was carried along the road- 
 way to the Resting-place of his Ancestors, all 
 the stones stood up to pay him reverence. 
 One can see them now, standing straight and 
 stiff, as if waiting for his command to lie down 
 again. 
 
 Art thou dissatisfied with me? Have I 
 done wrong? Dear One, it means so much to 
 Mah-li. Let her dream these months of wait- 
 ing. It is hard to keep wondering, doubting, 
 fearing one knows not what, hoping as young 
 girls hope. But now she has seen him. To 
 me he was just a straight-limbed, bright- 
 
64 My Lady of the 
 
 faced boy; to her he is a God. There are no 
 teeth so white, no hair so black, and man were 
 not born who walked with such a noble stride. 
 It will make the summer pass more quickly, 
 and the thought of the marriage-chair will not 
 be to her the gateway of a prison. 
 
 Art thou not tired of that far-off country? 
 Each time I break the seal of thy dear letter I 
 say, "Perhaps this time it holds for me my 
 happiness. It will say, 'I am coming home to 
 thee'." I am longing for that message. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 65 
 
 XVIII 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 It will soon be the Feast of the Springtime. 
 Even now the roads are covered with the 
 women coming to the temple carrying their 
 baskets of spirit money and candles to lay 
 before the Buddha. 
 
 Spring will soon be truly here; the buds are 
 everywhere. Everything laughs from the sheer 
 joy of laughter. The sun looks down upon the 
 water in the canal and it breaks into a thou- 
 sand little ripples from pure gladness. I too 
 am happy, and I want to give of my happiness. 
 I have put a great kang of tea down by the 
 rest-house on the tow-path, so that they who 
 thirst may drink. Each morning I send 
 Chang-tai, the gate-keeper, down to the man 
 who lives in the little reed hut he has builded 
 by the grave of his father. For three years 
 he will live there, to show to the world his 
 sorrow. I think it very worthy and filial of 
 him, so I send him rice each morning. I have 
 also done another thing to express the joy that 
 is deep within my heart. The old abbot, out 
 
66 My Lady of the 
 
 of thankfulness that the tall poles were not 
 erected before the monastery gateway, has 
 turned the fields back of the temple into a 
 freeing-place for animals. There one may 
 acquire merit by buying a sheep, a horse, a 
 dog, a bird, or a snake that is to be killed, and 
 turning it loose where it may live and die a 
 natural death, as the Gods intended from the 
 beginning. I have given him a sum of money, 
 large in his eyes but small when compared to 
 my happiness, to aid him in this worthy work. 
 I go over in the morning and look at the poor 
 horses and the dogs, and wonder whose soul is 
 regarding me from out of their tired eyes. 
 
 Let me hear that thou art coming, man of 
 mine, and I will gather dewdrops from the 
 cherry-trees and bathe me in their perfume 
 to give me beauty that will hold thee close to 
 me. 
 
 I am 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 67 
 
 XIX 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 I have received thy letter telling me thou 
 wilt not be here until the summer comes. 
 Then, I must tell thee my news, as the spring- 
 time is here, the flowers are budding, the grass 
 is green, soon the plum-tree in the courtyard 
 will be white. I am jealous of this paper that 
 will see the delight and joy in thine eyes. In 
 the evening I watch the rice boats pass along 
 the canal, where the water is green and silvery 
 like the new leaves of the willow, and I say, 
 "Perhaps when you return, I shall be the 
 mother of a child." Ah! I have told thee. 
 Does it bring thee happiness, my lord ? Does 
 it make a quick little catch in thy breath ? 
 Does thy pulse quicken at the thought that 
 soon thou wilt be a father? 
 
 Thou wilt never know what this has meant 
 to me. It has made the creature live that was 
 within my soul, and my whole being is bathed 
 with its glory. Thou wilt never know how 
 many times I have gone down the pathway to 
 the temple and asked this great boon of our 
 
68 My Lady of the 
 
 Lady of Mercy. She granted it, and my life 
 is made perfect. I am indeed a woman, ful- 
 filling a woman's destiny. If a woman bear 
 not sons for her lord, what worth her life? 
 Do we not know that the first of the seven 
 causes for putting away a wife is that she 
 brings no sons into the world to worship at the 
 graves of her husband's ancestors? But I, 
 Kwei-li, that will not be said of me. 
 
 Sometimes I think, "If something should 
 happen; if the Gods should be jealous of my 
 happiness and I should not see thee more?" 
 Then the heart of the woman throbs with fear, 
 and I throw myself at the feet of Kwan-yin 
 and beg for strength. She gives me peace and 
 brings to my remembrance that the bond of 
 fate is sealed within the moon. There is no 
 place for fear, for aught but love; my heart is 
 filled so with its happiness. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
I Page 67] 
 
 T WA TCH the rice boats pans along the canal. 
 
fTlHE singers and the fortune-tellers all have 
 found the path that leads up to our gateway. 
 
 [ Page 71 J 
 
Chinese Courtyard 69 
 
 XX 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 The spring has come, and with it some new 
 pulse of life beats through my quiet veins. I 
 spend long hours upon the terrace, breathing in 
 the perfume of the many flowers. The cherry- 
 blossoms are a glory. The whole steep hill- 
 side is covered with a fairy lace, as if some 
 God knew how we hungered after beauty and 
 gave us these pink blossoms to help us to 
 forget the bare cold earth of winter. 
 
 It is the time of praying, and all the women 
 with their candles and their incense are 
 bending knees and chanting prayers to Kwan- 
 yin for the blessing of a son. There is a 
 pilgrimage to the Kwem-li Pagoda. I can see 
 it in the distance, with its lotus bells that 
 sway and ring with each light breath of wind. 
 One does not think of it as a thing of brick and 
 mortar, or as a many-storied temple, but as 
 a casket whose jewels are the prayers of wait- 
 ing, hoping women. 
 
 You ask me how I pass my days? I can- 
 not tell. At dawn, I wake with hope and listen 
 
70 My Lady of the 
 
 to the song of the meadow-lark. At noon, I 
 dream of my great happiness to come. At 
 sunset, I am swept away into the land of my 
 golden dreams, into the heart of my golden 
 world that is peopled with but three Thou, 
 Him, and Me. I am drifting happily, sleepily, 
 forgetting care, waiting for the Gods to bring 
 my joy. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 71 
 
 XXI 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 My courtyard is filled with the sounds of 
 chatting women. I have sent for the sewing- 
 women and those who do embroidery, and the 
 days are passed in making little garments. 
 We are all so busy; Li-ti, Mah-li, even thine 
 Honourable Mother takes again the needle 
 and shows us how she broidered jackets for 
 thee when thou wert young. The piles of 
 clothing grow each day, and I touch them 
 and caress them and imagine I can see them 
 folding close a tiny form. There are jackets, 
 trousers, shoes, tiny caps and thick warm 
 blankets. 
 
 I send for Blind Chun, the story-teller, and 
 he makes the hours pass quickly with his tales 
 of by-gone days. The singers and the fortune- 
 tellers all have found the path that leads up 
 to our gateway, knowing they will find a 
 welcome. 
 
 I am 
 
 Thy Happy Wife 
 
72 My Lady of the 
 
 XXII 
 
 I send thee cherry-blossoms. They grew 
 within thy courtyard, and each tiny petal will 
 bring to thee remembrance of thy wife who 
 loves thee well. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 73 
 
 XXIII 
 
 If thou couldst see my courtyard ! It seems 
 carpeted with snow, so many are the cherry- 
 blossoms on its pavement. They say I am 
 untidy that I permit it to be untouched by 
 broom or brush. It is cleaned and spot- 
 less all the year, save at this the time of 
 cherry-blossoms, when 'tis untrodden and 
 unswept. 
 
 I cannot write thee merely household cares 
 and gossip. I am so filled with happiness, I 
 can only dream and wonder. Joy is beating 
 with his wings just outside my open window, 
 and soon all the gates of Heaven will be opened 
 wide to me. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
74 My Lady of the 
 
 XXIV 
 
 He is here, beloved, thy son! I put out 
 my hand and touch him, and the breath of the 
 wind through the pine-trees brings the music 
 of the Gods to me. He is big and strong and 
 beautiful. I see in his eyes as in a mirror the 
 reflection of thy dear face, and I know he is 
 thine and mine, and we three are one. He is 
 my joy, my son, my first-born. I am tired, 
 my lord, the brush is heavy, but it is such a 
 happy, happy tired. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese C ourtyard 75 
 
 XXV 
 
 Is there anything so wonderful as being the 
 mother of a son? I simply sing, and laugh, 
 and live oh, how Hive the long days through. 
 I have happiness enough for all the world, and 
 I want to give and give and give. Thy mother 
 says that all the beggers within the province 
 know there is rice outside our gateway; but 
 when I look into my son's eyes, and feel his 
 tiny fingers groping in my neck, I feel I must 
 give of my plenty to those who have no joy. 
 
 Oh, husband mine, come back and see thy 
 son! 
 
76 My Lady of the 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Dost thou know what love is ? Thou canst 
 not till thou boldest Love itself within thy 
 very arms. I thought I loved thee. I smile 
 now at the remembrance of that feeble flicker- 
 ing flame that was as like unto the real love 
 as the faint, cold beam of the candle is to the 
 rays of the glorious sun. Now now thou 
 art the father of my son. Thou hast a new 
 place in my heart. The tie that binds our 
 hearts together is stronger than a rope of 
 twisted bamboo, it is a bond, a love bond, 
 that never can be severed. I am the mother 
 of thy first-born thou hast given me my 
 man-child. Love thee love thee! now I 
 know! 
 
 I am Thine Own 
 
Chinese Courtyard 77 
 
 XXVII 
 
 I am wroth with thy brother Chih-peh. 
 He is a man of very small discernment. He 
 does not see the wonders of thy son. He says 
 he cannot see that he is a child of more than 
 mortal beauty. I sorrow for him. The Gods 
 have surely drawn a film before his eyes. 
 
 But I cannot bear resentment, there is no 
 room in me for aught but love and the days 
 are far too short to hold my happiness. I 
 pass them near my baby. I croon to him 
 sweet lullabies at which the others laugh. I 
 say, "Thou dost not understand? Of course 
 not, 'tis the language of the Gods," and as he 
 sleeps I watch his small face grow each day 
 more like to thine. I give long hours to think- 
 ing of his future. He must be a man like thee, 
 strong, noble, kindly, bearing thy great name 
 with honour, so that in years to come it will 
 be said, "The first-born son of Kwei-li was a 
 great and worthy man." 
 
 At night I lie beside him and am jealous of 
 the sleep that takes him from my sight. The 
 morning comes and sets my heart to beating 
 
78 
 
 at the thought that one more long, sweet day 
 has come to me in which to guard, and love, 
 and cherish him. 
 
 Thy Happy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 79 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 It has been a wonderful day. Thy son has 
 had his first reception. It is just one moon 
 ago since I found him lying by my side, and 
 now we have had the feast of the shaving of 
 the head. All our friends came, and they 
 brought him beautiful presents. Chih-lo gave 
 a cap with all the Gods upon the front and 
 long red tassels to hang down by each ear. 
 Li-ti gave him shoes that she herself had 
 broidered, with a cat's face on the toes and 
 the ears and whiskers outstanding. They will 
 make him careful of his steps and sure-footed 
 as the cat. Mah-li gave him a most wonder- 
 ful silver box to hang around his neck and in 
 which I will keep his amulets. There were 
 many things which I will not take the time to 
 tell thee. I am sorry to say that thy son 
 behaved himself unseemly. He screamed and 
 kicked as the barber shaved his tiny head. I 
 was much distressed, but they tell me it is a 
 sign that he will grow T to be a valiant man. 
 
 I gave a feast, and such a feast! It will be 
 remembered for many moons. Even thine 
 
80 My Lady of the 
 
 Honourable Mother said I showed the knowl- 
 edge of what was due my guests upon so great 
 an occasion. We also gave to him his milk 
 name. It is Ten Thousand Springtimes, as he 
 came at blossom-time; but I call him that only 
 within my heart, as I do not wish the jealous 
 Gods to hear. When I speak of him, I say 
 "The Stupid One," "The Late-Born," so 
 they will think I do not care for him and will 
 not covet me my treasure. 
 
 I am tired; it has been a happy day. The 
 Gods are good to 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 81 
 
 XXIX 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 Another marriage within our compound. 
 Dost thou remember the servant Cho-to, who 
 came to us soon after I became thy bride? 
 She will soon marry a man in the village of 
 Soong-tong, and she is very happy. She has 
 not seen him, of course, but her mother says 
 he is good and honest and will make for her a 
 suitable husband. I talked to her quite seri- 
 ously, as my age and many moons of marriage 
 allow me. I told her that only by practising 
 modesty, humility and gentleness could she 
 walk safely on the path that leads to being the 
 mother of sons. 
 
 To be the mother of sons is not always a 
 happiness. Ling-ti, the shoemaker, was here 
 this morning, and he was in great distress. 
 His baby, three months old, died with a fever 
 and he had no money to pay for burial. This 
 morning he arose early, before the mother 
 awakened, and took it to the baby tower out- 
 side the city. It is lying in there now, with 
 all the other little children whose parents were 
 
82 My Lady of the 
 
 too poor to give them proper burial. It made 
 a quick, sad hurt within me, and I went 
 quickly to find my baby. Thou wilt not 
 laugh, but I have pierced his right ear and put 
 a ring therein, so the Gods will think he is a 
 girl and not desire him. 
 I hear thy son. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 83 
 
 XXX 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 There has been great talk of evil eyes. 
 Not that I believe the servants' tales; but 
 thine Honourable Mother, Li-ti, and thy wife 
 have been to the Holy Man who dwells under- 
 neath the Great Magnolia-tree near the street 
 of the Leaning Willow. He lives alone within 
 a little house of matting, and has acquired 
 great merit by his virtuous acts. He wears 
 around his unbound hair a band of metal that 
 is the outward sign of his great holiness. He 
 lives alone in peace and with untroubled mind. 
 In his great wisdom he has learned that peace 
 is the end and aim of life; not triumph, suc- 
 cess, nor riches, but that the greatest gift from 
 all the Gods is peace. I purchased from him 
 an amulet for my "Stupid One," my treasure, 
 as some one might come within our courtyard 
 and cast his eye upon our child with bad intent. 
 
 Come to me, my husband. Tell me thou 
 art coming. Thou wilt find me standing in 
 the outer archway with thy son within mine 
 arms. I long for thee. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
84 My Lady of the 
 
 XXXI 
 
 My days are filled with happiness. I 
 go out on the terrace and look far down 
 the hillside that is covered with azaleas, pink 
 and orange and mauve. I hold my son and 
 say, "Look, thy father will come to us from 
 the city yonder. Our eyes of love will see 
 him from far away, there by the willow- 
 pattern tea-house. He will come nearer 
 nearer and we will not hear the beat of his 
 bearers' feet upon the pathway because of 
 the beating of our hearts." He smiles at me, 
 he understands. He is so wonderful, thy son. 
 I would "string the sunbeams for his necklace 
 or draw down the moon with cords to canopy 
 his bed." 
 
 Come back and see thy son. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 85 
 
 XXXII 
 
 My Dear One, 
 
 Thy letter has come saying thou wilt be 
 here soon. It came on the day I went to the 
 temple to make my offering of thanks for the 
 gift of our son. 
 
 I put on my richest gown, the blue one with 
 the broidery of gold. I dressed my hair with 
 jessamine flowers, and wore all the jewels thou 
 hast given me. My boy was in his jacket 
 of red, his trousers of mauve, his shoes of 
 purple, and his cap with the many Gods. 
 When I was seated in the chair he was placed 
 in my lap, and a man was sent ahead with 
 cash to give the beggars, because I wished all 
 the world to be happy on this my day of 
 rejoicing. 
 
 My bearers carried me to the very steps of 
 the throne on which Kwan-yin was seated. 
 I made my obeisance, I lighted the large red 
 candles and placed them before the Goddess 
 of Heaven. Then I took our son before the 
 Buddha, the Name, the Lord of Light, the Ail- 
 Powerful, and touched his head three times to 
 
86 My Lady of the 
 
 the mat, to show that he would be a faithful 
 follower and learn to keep the law. 
 
 We went home by the valley road, and my 
 heart kept beating in tune to the pat-pat of 
 the bearers' feet on the pathway. It was all 
 so beautiful. The trailing vines on the moun- 
 tain-side, the ferns in the cool dark places, the 
 rich green leaves of the mulberry-trees, the 
 farmers in the paddy fields, all seemed filled 
 with the joy of life. And I, Kwei-li, going 
 along in my chair with my son on my knee, 
 was the happiest of them all. The Gods have 
 given me everything; they have nothing more 
 to bestow. I am glad I have gone to the 
 mountain-side each day to thank them for 
 their gifts. 
 
 The Gods are good, my loved one, they are 
 good to thy 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
 I 
 
Chinese Courtyard 87 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 I am alone on the mountain-top. I have 
 gone the pathway the last time to lay my 
 offering at the feet of Kwan-yin. She does 
 not hear my voice. There is no Goddess of 
 Mercy. She is a thing of gold and wood, and 
 she has mocked my despair, has laughed at 
 the heart that is within me, that is alive and 
 full of an anguish such as she has never 
 known. 
 
 My son, my man-child is dead. The life 
 has gone from his body, the breath from his 
 lips. I have held him all the night close to 
 my heart and it does not give him warmth. 
 They have taken him from me and told me he 
 has gone to the Gods. There are no Gods. 
 There are no Gods. I am alone. 
 
88 My Lady of the 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 He had thine eyes he was like to thee. 
 Thou wilt never know thy son and mine, my 
 Springtime. Why could they not have left 
 thy son for thee to see ? He was so strong and 
 beautiful, my first-born. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 89 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Do not chide me. I cannot write. What 
 do I do ? I do not know. I lie long hours and 
 watch the tiny mites that live within the sun's 
 bright golden rays, and say, "Why could I 
 not exchange my womanhood, that hopes and 
 loves and sorrows, for one of those small 
 dancing spots within the sunbeams ? At least 
 they do not feel." 
 
 At night sleep does not touch my eyelids. 
 I lie upon the terrace. I will not go within 
 my chamber, where 'tis gloom and darkness. 
 I watch the stars, a silver, mocking throng, 
 that twinkle at me coldly, and then I see the 
 moon mount slowly her pathway of the skies. 
 The noises of the night come to me softly, as 
 if they knew my sorrow, and the croaking 
 frogs and the crickets that find lodging by the 
 lotus pool seem to feel with me my loneliness, 
 so plaintive is their cry. 
 
 I feel the dawn will never come, as if 'twere 
 dead or slumbered ; but when at last he comes, 
 I watch him touch the hillside, trees, and 
 temples with soft grey fingers, and bring to me 
 
90 My Lady of the 
 
 a beauty one does not see by day. The night 
 winds pass with sighs among the pine-trees, 
 and in passing give a loving touch to bells 
 upon pagodas that bring their music faint to 
 me. The dawn is not the golden door of 
 happiness. It only means another day has 
 come and I must smile and talk and live as 
 if my heart were here. 
 
 Oh, man of mine, if but thy dream touch 
 would come and bid me slumber, I would 
 obey. 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
Chinese Courtyard 91 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 They have put a baby in my arms, a child 
 found on the tow-path, a beggar child. I felt 
 I could not place another head where our dear 
 boy had lain, and I sat stiff and still, and tried 
 to push away the little body pressing close 
 against me; but at touch of baby mouth and 
 fingers, springs that were dead seemed stirring 
 in my heart again. At last I could not bear 
 it, and I leaned my face against her head and 
 crooned His lullaby: 
 
 "The Gods on the roof tree guard pigeons from 
 
 harm 
 And my little pigeon is safe in my arms." 
 
 I cannot tell thee more. My heart is 
 breaking. 
 
92 My Lady of the 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 I have given to this stranger-child, this child 
 left to die upon the tow-path, the clothes that 
 were our son's. She was cold, and thy Mother 
 came to me so gently and said, "Kwei-li, 
 hast thou no clothing for the child that was 
 found by thy servants? " I saw her meaning, 
 and I said, "Would'st thou have me put the 
 clothing over which I have wept, and that 
 is now carefully laid away in the camphor- 
 wood box, upon this child?" She said and 
 thou would'st not know thy Mother's voice, 
 her bitter words are only as the rough shell of 
 the lichee nut that covers the sweet meat 
 hidden within she said, "Why not, dear one? 
 This one needs them, and the hours thou 
 passest with them are only filled with saddened 
 memories." I said to her, "This is a girl, a 
 beggar child. I will not give to her the cloth- 
 ing of my son. Each time I looked upon 
 her it would be a knife plunged in my heart." 
 She said to me, "Kwei-li, thou art not a child, 
 thou art a woman. Of what worth that cloth- 
 ing lying in that box of camphor-wood? 
 
Chinese Courtyard 93 
 
 Does it bring back thy son? Some day 
 thou wilt open it, and there will be nothing 
 but dust which will reproach thee. Get them 
 and give them to this child which has come 
 to us out of the night." 
 
 I went to the box and opened it, and they 
 lay there, the little things that had touched 
 his tiny body. I gave them, the trousers of 
 purple, the jackets of red, the embroidered 
 shoes, the caps with the many Buddhas. I 
 gave them all to the begger child. 
 
 I am 
 
 Thy Wife 
 
94 My Lady of the 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 I am reproached because I will not go to 
 the temple. It is filled with the sounds of 
 chanting which comes to me faintly as I lie 
 upon the terrace. There are women there, 
 happy women, with their babies in their arms, 
 while mine are empty. There are others 
 there in p sorrow, laying their offerings at the 
 feet of Kwan-yin. They do not know that 
 she does not feel, nor care, for womankind. 
 She sits upon her lotus throne and laughs at 
 mothers in despair. How can she feel, how 
 can she know, that thing of gilded wood and 
 plaster ? 
 
 I stay upon my terrace, I live alone 
 within my court of silent dreams. For me 
 there are no Gods. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 95 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 They have brought to me from the market- 
 place a book of a new God. I would not read 
 it. I said, "There are too many Gods why 
 add a new one ? I have no candles or incense 
 to lay before an image." But I read and 
 saw within its pages that He gave rest and 
 love and peace. Peace what the holy man 
 desired, the end of all things peace. And I, 
 I do not want to lose the gift of memory; I 
 want remembrance, but I want it without 
 pain. 
 
 The cherry-blossoms have bloomed and 
 passed away. They lingered but a moment's 
 space, and, like my dream of spring, they died. 
 But, passing, they have left behind the knowl- 
 edge that we'll see them once again. There 
 must be something, somewhere, to speak to 
 despairing mothers and say, "Weep not! 
 You will see your own again." 
 
 I do not want a God of temples. I have 
 cried my prayers to Kwan-yin, and they have 
 come back to me like echoes from a deadened 
 wall. I want a God to come to me at night- 
 
96 My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard 
 
 time, when I am lying lonely, wide-eyed, 
 staring into darkness, with all my body aching 
 for the touch of tiny hands. I want that God 
 who says, "I give thee Peace," to stand close 
 by my pillow and touch my wearied eyelids 
 and bring me rest. 
 
 I have been dead enclosed within a tomb 
 of sorrow and despair; but now, at words but 
 dimly understood, a faint new life seems stir- 
 ring deep within me. A Voice speaks to me 
 from out these pages, a Voice that says, 
 "Come unto Me all ye weary and heavy- 
 laden, and I will give thee rest." My long- 
 ing soul cries out, "Oh, great and unknown 
 God, give me this rest!" I am alone, a 
 woman, helpless, stretching out my arms in 
 darkness, but into my world of gloom has come 
 a faint dim star, a star of hope that says to 
 me, "There is a God." 
 
PART II 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THESE letters were written by Kwei-li 
 twenty-five years after those written to her 
 husband when she was a young girl of 
 eighteen. They are, therefore, the letters of 
 the present-day Chinese woman of the old 
 school, a woman who had by education 
 and environment exceptional opportunities to 
 learn of the modern world, but who, like every 
 Eastern woman, clings with almost desperate 
 tenacity to the traditions and customs of her 
 race. Indeed, however the youth of Oriental 
 countries may be changing, their mothers 
 always exhibit that characteristic of woman- 
 hood, conservatism, which is to them the safe- 
 guard of their homes. Unlike the Western 
 woman, accustomed to a broader horizon, the 
 woman of China, secluded for generations 
 within her narrow courtyards, prefers the ways 
 and manners which she knows, rather than 
 flying to ills she knows not of. It is this 
 self -protective instinct that makes the Eastern 
 woman the foe to those innovations which are 
 slowly but surely changing the face of the 
 entire Eastern world. 
 
 99 
 
100 Preface 
 
 The former letters were written out of the 
 quiet, domestic scenes of the primitive, old 
 China, while the present letters come out of 
 the confused revolutionary atmosphere of the 
 new China. Kwei-li's patriotism and hatred 
 of the foreigner grows out of the fact that, as 
 wife of the governor of one of the chief prov- 
 inces, she had been from the beginning en 
 rapport with the intrigues, the gossip, and the 
 rumours of a revolution which, for intricacy 
 of plot and hidden motive, is incomparable 
 with any previous national change on record. 
 Her attitude toward education as seen in her 
 relationship with her son educated in England 
 and America reveals the attitude of the average 
 Chinese father and mother if they would allow 
 their inner feelings to speak. 
 
 Kwei-li's religion likewise exhibits the tend- 
 ency of religious attitude on the part of the 
 real Chinese, especially those of the older 
 generation. It is touched here and there by 
 the vital spark of Christianity, but at the cen- 
 tre continues to be Chinese and inseparably 
 associated with the worship of ancestors and 
 the reverence for those gods whose influence 
 has been woven into the early years of im- 
 pressionable life. 
 
 That the hope of the educational, social, 
 
Preface 101 
 
 and religious change in China rests with the 
 new generation is evident to all. The Chinese 
 father and mother will sail in the wooden 
 ships which their sons and daughters are 
 beginning to leave for barks of steel. 
 
 There is little doubt that new China will 
 be Westernised in every department of her 
 being. No friend of China hopes for such 
 sudden changes, however, as will prevent the 
 Chinese themselves from permeating the new 
 with their own distinctive individuality. 
 There is a charm about old China that only 
 those who have lived there can understand, 
 and there is a charm about these dainty 
 ladies, secluded within their walls, which the 
 modern woman may lose in a too sudden 
 transition into the air of the Western day. 
 
 Let Europe, let America, let the West come 
 to China, but let the day be far distant when 
 we shall find no longer in the women's court- 
 yards such mothers as Kwei-li. 
 
102 My Lady of the 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 Thy son has received his appointment as 
 governor of this province, and we are at last 
 settled in this new and strange abode. We are 
 most proud of the words pronounced by His 
 Excellency Yuan when giving him his power 
 of office. He said: 
 
 "You, Liu, are an example of that higher patriotism 
 rarely met with in .official life, which recognises its 
 duty to its Government, a duty too often forgotten 
 by the members of a great family such as that of 
 which you are the honoured head, in the obligation to 
 the Clan and the desire to use power for personal 
 advantage. Your official record has been without 
 stain; and especially your work among the foreigners 
 dwelling in our land has been accomplished with tact 
 and discretion. I am sending you to Shanghai, which 
 is the most difficult post in the Republic because of 
 its involved affairs with the foreign nations, knowing 
 that the interests of the Republic will be always safe 
 in your hands." 
 
 I write thee this because I know thy mother- 
 heart will rejoice that our President shows 
 such confidence in thy son, and that his many 
 
Chinese Courtyard 103 
 
 years of service to his country have been ap- 
 preciated. 
 
 Shanghai truly is a difficult place at present. 
 There are fifteen nationalities here represented 
 by their consuls, and they are all watching 
 China and each other with jealous eyes, each 
 nation fearing that another will obtain some 
 slight advantage in the present unsettled state 
 of our country. The town is filled with 
 adventurers, both European and Chinese, 
 who are waiting anxiously to see what attitude 
 the new Governor takes in regard to the many 
 projects in which they are interested. My 
 husband says nothing and allows them to 
 wonder. It is better for them, because, like 
 all schemers, if they had nothing to give them 
 anxious nights and troubled dreams, they 
 would not be happy. 
 
 We found the Yamen not suitable for our 
 large household, as it did not lend itself 
 readily to the reception of foreigners and the 
 innovations and new customs that seem to be 
 necessary for the fulfillment of the duties of 
 a Chinese official under this new order. As 
 thy son was selected governor of this province 
 because of his knowledge of foreign lands and 
 customs, it is necessary for him to live, partly 
 at least, the life of a European; but let me 
 
104 My Lady of the 
 
 assure thee that, so far as I am concerned, and 
 so far as I can influence it, our life behind 
 the screens will always be purely Chinese, and 
 the old, unchanged customs that I love will 
 rule my household. I will surrender no more 
 than is necessary to this new tide of West- 
 ernism that seems to be sweeping our China 
 from its moorings; but I must not dwell 
 o'ermuch upon that theme, though it is a 
 subject on which I can wax most eloquent, 
 and I know thou desirest to hear of this house 
 which would seem so ugly in thine eyes. 
 
 There are no quiet courtyards, no curving 
 roofs, no softly shaded windows of shell, no 
 rounded archways; but all is square and glar- 
 ing and imposing, seeming to look coldly 
 from its staring windows of glass at the 
 stranger within its gates. It says loudly, 
 "I am rich; it costs many thousands of taels 
 to make my ugliness." For me, it is indeed a 
 "foreign" house. Yet I will have justice 
 within my heart and tell thee that there is 
 much that we might copy with advantage. In 
 place of floors of wide plain boards, and walls 
 of wood with great wide cracks covered with 
 embroideries and rugs, as in the Chinese 
 homes, the floors are made of tiny boards 
 polished until they glisten like unto the sides 
 
Chinese Courtyard 105 
 
 of the boats of the tea-house girls, and the 
 walls are of plaster covered, as in our rooms of 
 reception, with silk and satin, and the chairs 
 and couches have silken tapestry to match 
 then* colour. This furniture, strange to me, 
 is a great care, as I do not understand its 
 usages, and it seems most stiff and formal. I 
 hope some day to know a foreign woman on 
 terms of friendship, and I will ask her to touch 
 the room with her hands of knowledge, and 
 bring each piece into more friendly compan- 
 ionship with its neighbour. Now chairs look 
 coldly at tables, as if to say, "You are an 
 intruder!" and it chills me. 
 
 This house is much more simple than our 
 homes, because of the many modern instru- 
 ments that make the work less heavy and 
 allow it to be done by few instead of many, 
 as is our way. It is not necessary to have a 
 man attend solely to the lighting of the lamps. 
 Upon the wall is placed a magic button which, 
 touched even by the hand of ignorance, 
 floods the room with the light of many suns. 
 We see no more the water-carrier with his two 
 great wooden buckets swinging from the bam- 
 boo as he comes from river or canal to pour 
 the water into the great kangs standing by the 
 kitchen door. Nor do we need to put the 
 
106 My Lady of the 
 
 powder in it to make it clear and wholesome. 
 That is all done by men we do not see, and 
 they call it "sanitation." The cook needs 
 only to turn a small brass handle, and the 
 water comes forth as from a distant spring. 
 It reminds me of the man who came to my 
 father, when he was governor of Wuseh, and 
 wished to install a most unheard-of machine 
 to bring water to the city from the lake upon 
 the hillside. My father listened most respect- 
 fully to the long and stupid explanation, and 
 looked at the clear water which the foreign 
 man produced to show what could be done, 
 then, shaking his head, said, "Perhaps that 
 water is more healthful, as you say, but it is 
 to me too clear and white. It has no body, 
 and I fear has not the strength of the water 
 from our canals." 
 
 Another thing we do not hear is the rattle 
 of the watchman as he makes his rounds at 
 night, and I miss it. In far Sezchuan, on many 
 nights when sleep was distant, I would lie 
 and listen as he struck upon his piece of hollow 
 bamboo telling me that all was well within 
 our compound. Now the city has police that 
 stand outside the gateway. Many are men 
 from India big black men, with fierce black 
 beards and burning eyes. Our people hate 
 
Chinese Courtyard 107 
 
 them, and they have good cause. They are 
 most cruel, and ill-treat all who come within 
 their power. But we must tread with cat- 
 like steps, as they are employed by the 
 English, who protect them at all times. They 
 are the private army of that nation here within 
 our city, and at every chance their numbers 
 are constantly increased. I do not under- 
 stand this question of police. There are in 
 thousands of our cities and villages no police, 
 no soldiers, yet there is less lawlessness and 
 vice in a dozen purely Chinese cities than in 
 this great mongrel town that spends many 
 tens of thousands of taels each year upon these 
 guardians of the people's peace. It seems to 
 me that this should tell the world that the 
 force of China is not a physical force, but the 
 force of the law-abiding instinct of a happy 
 common people, who, although living on the 
 verge of misery and great hunger, live upright 
 lives and do not try to break their country's 
 laws. 
 
 There is a garden within our walls, but not 
 a garden of winding pathways and tiny 
 bridges leading over lotus ponds, nor are 
 there hillocks of rockery with here and there 
 a tiny god or temple peeping from some 
 hidden grotto. All is flat, with long bare 
 
108 My Lady of the 
 
 stretches of green grass over which are nets, 
 by which my children play a game called 
 tennis. This game is foolish, in my eyes, and 
 consists of much jumping and useless waste 
 of strength, but the English play it, and of 
 course the modern Chinese boy must imitate 
 them. I have made one rule: my daughters 
 shall not play the game. It seems to me most 
 shameful to see a woman run madly, with 
 great boorish strides, in front of men and boys. 
 My daughters pout and say it is played by all 
 the girls in school, and that it makes them 
 strong and well; but I am firm. I have con- 
 ceded many things, but this to me is vulgar 
 and unseemly. 
 
 Need I tell thee, Mother mine, that I am 
 a stranger in this great city, that my heart 
 calls for the hills and the mountain-side with 
 its ferns and blossoms? Yesterday at the 
 hour of twilight I drove to the country in the 
 motor (a new form of carrying chair that 
 thou wouldst not understand or like) and I 
 stopped by a field of flowering mustard. The 
 scent brought remembrance to my heart, and 
 tears flowed from beneath my eyelids. The 
 delicate yellow blossoms seemed to speak to 
 me from out their golden throats, and I 
 yearned to hold within my arms all this 
 
Chinese Courtyard 109 
 
 beauty of the earth flowering beneath my feet. 
 We stayed until the darkness came, and up 
 to the blue night rose from all the fields "that 
 great soft, bubbling chorus which seems the 
 very voice of the earth itself the chant of 
 the frogs." When we turned back and saw 
 the vulgar houses, with straight red tops and 
 piercing chimneys, I shut my eyes and in a 
 vision saw the blue-grey houses with their 
 curved-up, tilted roofs nestling among the 
 groves of bamboo, and I felt that if it were 
 my misfortune to spend many moons in this 
 great alien city, my heart would break with 
 longing for the beautiful home I love. 
 
 I felt sympathy with Kang Tang-li, of my 
 father's province, who heard of a new God in 
 Anhui. He had eaten bitter sorrow and he 
 felt that the old Gods had forgotten him and 
 did not hear his call, so he walked two long 
 days' journey to find this new God who gave 
 joy and peace to those who came to him. He 
 arrived at eventime, the sun was setting in 
 a lake of gold, but even with its glory it could 
 not change the ugly square-built temple, with 
 no curves or grace to mark it as a dwelling- 
 place of Gods. Kang walked slowly around 
 this temple, looked long at its staring windows 
 and its tall and ugly spire upon the rooftree 
 
110 My Lady of the 
 
 which seemed to force its way into the kindly 
 dark blue sky; then, saddened, sick at heart, 
 he turned homeward, saying deep within him 
 that no God whom he could reverence would 
 choose for a dwelling-place a house so lacking 
 in all beauty. 
 
 Is this a long and tiresome letter, my 
 Honourable Mother? But thou art far away, 
 and in thy sheltered walls yearn to know what 
 has come to us, thy children, in this new and 
 foreign life. It is indeed a new life for me, 
 and I can hardly grasp its meaning. They 
 are trying hard to force us to change our old 
 quietude and peace for the rush and worry of 
 the Western world, and I fear I am too old 
 and settled for such sudden changes. 
 
 Tell Mah-li's daughter that I will send her 
 news of the latest fashions, and tell Li-ti that 
 the hair is dressed quite differently here. I 
 will write her more about it and send her the 
 new ornaments. They are not so pretty, in 
 my eyes, nor are the gowns so graceful, but I 
 will send her patterns that she may choose. 
 
 We all give thee our greetings and touch thy 
 hand with love. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 111 
 
 II 
 
 My Dear Mother., 
 
 I have not written thee for long, as my 
 days have been filled with duties new and 
 strange to me. The wives of the foreign 
 officials have called upon me, as that ap- 
 pears to be their custom. It seems to [me 
 quite useless and a waste of time; but they 
 come, and I must return the calls. I do not 
 understand why the consuls cannot transact 
 their business with the Governor without 
 trying to peer into his inner life. To us a 
 man's official life and that which lies within 
 his women's courtyard are as separate as two 
 pathways which never meet. 
 
 The foreign woman comes and sits upon the 
 edge of her chair in great discomfort, vainly 
 searching for a subject upon which we may 
 have a common bond. I sit upon the edge of 
 the chair from necessity, as these chairs are 
 far too high for me, and my tiny feet hang 
 helplessly in the air. Although the chairs are 
 not so high or so straight and stiff as are our 
 seats of honour, they have no footstools, and 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 no small tables on which to lean the arm. Thou 
 wouldst laugh at our poor feeble efforts to be 
 agreeable one to the other. Our conversa- 
 tion is as foolish and as useless as would be the 
 using of a paper lantern for the rice-mill. 
 With all desire to be courteous and to put 
 her at her ease, I ask about her children, the 
 health of her honourable mother, and the 
 state of her household. I do not ask her age, 
 as I have learned that, contrary to our usage, 
 it is a question not considered quite auspi- 
 cious, and often causes the flush of great 
 embarrassment to rise to the cheek of a guest. 
 Often she answers me in "pidgin" English, a 
 kind of baby-talk that is used when address- 
 ing servants. These foreign women have 
 rarely seen a Chinese lady, and they are 
 surprised that I speak English; often I have 
 been obliged to explain that when I found that 
 my husband's office brought him close to 
 foreigners, and that my sons and daughters 
 were learning the new education in which it 
 is necessary to know other than their mother 
 tongue, I would not be left behind within 
 closed doors, so I too learned of English and 
 of French enough to read and speak. I am 
 to them a curiosity. It has not been cor- 
 rect in former times to know a Chinese lady 
 
Chinese Courtyard 113 
 
 socially; and to these ladies, with their society, 
 their calls, their dinners, and their games of 
 cards, we within the courtyards are people 
 from another world. They think that Chinese 
 women are and always have been the closely 
 prisoned slaves of their husbands, idle and 
 ignorant and soulless, with no thoughts above 
 their petty household cares and the strange 
 heathen gods they worship. 
 
 Of course, these foreign women do not say 
 these things in words, but their looks are 
 most expressive, and I understand. I serve 
 them tea and cake, of which they take most 
 sparingly, and when the proper time has come 
 they rise, trying not to look relief that their 
 martyrdom is over. I conduct them to the 
 doorway, or, if the woman is the wife of a 
 great official, to the outer entrance. Then I 
 return to my own rooms midst the things I 
 understand ; and I fear, I fear, Mother mine, 
 that I gossip with my household upon the 
 ways and dress and manners of these queer 
 people from distant lands. 
 
 I have been asked to join a society of 
 European and Chinese ladies for the purpose 
 of becoming acquainted one with the other, 
 but I do not think that I will do so. I believe 
 it impossible for the woman of the West to 
 
114 My Lady of the 
 
 form an alliance with the woman of the East 
 that will be deep-rooted. The thoughts 
 within our hearts are different, as are our 
 points of view. We do not see the world 
 through the same eyes. The foreign woman 
 has children like myself, but her ambitions 
 and her ideals for them are different. She has 
 a home and a husband, but my training and 
 my instincts give my home and my husband a 
 different place in life than that which she gives 
 to those of her household. To me the words 
 marriage, friendship, home, have a deeper 
 meaning than is attached to them by a people 
 who live in hotels and public eating-places, 
 and who are continually in the homes of 
 others. They have no sanctity of the life 
 within; there are no shrines set apart for the 
 family union, and the worship of the spirits of 
 their ancestors. I cannot well explain to thee, 
 the something intangible, the thick grey mist 
 that is always there to put its bar across the 
 open door of friendship between the woman of 
 the Occident and those of Oriental blood. 
 
 I would ask of thee a favour. I wish that 
 thou wouldst search my rooms and find the 
 clothing that is not needed by thy women. 
 My house is full to overflowing. I had no 
 idea we had so many poor relations. The poor 
 
Chinese Courtyard 115 
 
 relation of our poor relation and the cousin 
 of our cousin's cousin have come to claim 
 their kinship. Thy son will give no one 
 official position nor allow them money from 
 the public funds; but they must have clothing 
 and rice, and I provide it. I sometimes feel, 
 when looking into the empty rice-bin, that I 
 sympathize with His Excellency Li Hung- 
 chang who built a great house here, far from 
 his home province. When asked why, unlike 
 the Chinese custom, he builded so far from 
 kith and kin, he answered, "You have placed 
 the finger upon the pulse-beat the first in- 
 stant. I built it far away, hoping that all the 
 relatives of my relatives who find themselves 
 in need, might not find the money where- 
 with to buy a ticket in order to come and live 
 beneath my rooftree." (With us, they do 
 not wait for tickets; they have strong and will- 
 ing feet.) I am afraid that His Excellency, 
 although of the old China that I love, was 
 touched with this new spirit of each member 
 for himself that has come upon this country. 
 
 It is the good of the one instead of the whole, 
 as in the former times, and there is much that 
 can be said upon both sides. The family 
 should always stand for the members of the 
 clan in the great crises of their lives, and help 
 
116 My Lady of the 
 
 to care for them in days of poverty and old age. 
 It is not just that one should prosper while 
 others of the same blood starve; yet it is not 
 just that one should provide for those unwill- 
 ing to help themselves. I can look back with 
 eyes of greater knowledge to our home, and 
 I fear that there are many eating from the 
 bowl of charity who might be working and 
 self-respecting if they w r ere not members of 
 the great family Liu, and so entitled to thy 
 help. 
 
 It is the hour for driving with the children. 
 We all are thine and think of thee each day. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 117 
 
 III 
 
 My Mother, 
 
 I have such great news to tell thee that 
 I hardly know where to begin. But, first, 
 I will astonish thee Ting-fang is home! 
 Yes, I can hear thee say, "Hi yah!" and I 
 said it many times when, the evening before 
 last, after thy son and the men of the house- 
 hold had finished the evening meal, and I 
 and the women were preparing to eat our 
 rice, we saw a darkness in the archway, and 
 standing there was my son. Not one of us 
 spoke a word; we were as if turned to stone; 
 as we thought of him as in far-off America, 
 studying at the college of Yale. But here he 
 stood in real life, smiling at our astonishment. 
 He slowly looked at us all, then went to his 
 father and saluted him respectfully, came and 
 bowed before me, then took me in his arms in 
 a most disrespectful manner and squeezed 
 me together so hard he nearly broke my bones. 
 I was so frightened and so pleased that of 
 course I could only cry and cling to this great 
 boy of mine whom I had not seen for six long 
 
118 My Lady of the 
 
 years. I held him away from me and looked 
 long into his face. He is a man now, twenty- 
 one years old, a big, strong man, taller than 
 his father. I can hardly reach his shoulder. 
 He is straight and slender, and looks an alien 
 in his foreign dress, yet when I looked into 
 his eyes I knew it was mine own come to me 
 again. 
 
 No one knows how all my dreams followed 
 this bird that left the nest. No one knows 
 how long seemed the nights when sleep would 
 not come to my eyes and I wondered what 
 would come to my boy in that far-off land, a 
 strange land with strange, unloving people, 
 who would not care to put him on the pathway 
 when he strayed. Thou rememberest how I 
 battled with his father in regard to sending 
 him to England to commence his foreign 
 education. I said, "Is not four years of 
 college in America enough? Why four years' 
 separation to prepare to go to that college? 
 He will go from me a boy and return a man. 
 I will lose my son." But his father firmly 
 said that the English public schools gave the 
 ground-work for a useful life. He must form 
 his code of honour and his character upon the 
 rules laid down for centuries by the English, 
 and then go to America for the education of 
 
Chinese Courtyard 119 
 
 the intellect, to learn to apply the lessons 
 learned in England. He did not want his 
 son to be all for present success, as is the 
 American, or to be all for tradition, as is the 
 Englishman, but he thought the two might 
 find a happy meeting-place in a mind not yet 
 well formed. 
 
 But thoughts of learning did not assuage 
 the pain in my mother-heart. I had heard 
 of dreadful things happening to our Chinese 
 boys who are sent abroad to get the Western 
 knowledge. Often they marry strange women 
 who have no place in our life if they return 
 to China, and who lose their birthright with 
 the women of their race by marrying a 
 Chinese. Neither side can be blamed, cer- 
 tainly not our boys. They go there alone, 
 often with little money. They live in houses 
 where they are offered food and lodging at 
 the cheapest price. They are not in a posi- 
 tion to meet women of their own class, and 
 being boys they crave the society of girls. 
 Perhaps the daughter of the woman who keeps 
 the lodging-house speaks to them kindly, 
 talks to them in the evening when they have 
 no place to go except to a lonely, ugly room; 
 or the girl in the shop where they buy their 
 clothing smiles as she wraps for them their 
 
120 
 
 packages. Such attentions would be passed 
 by without a thought at ordinary times, but 
 now notice means much to a heart that is 
 trying hard to stifle its loneliness and sorrow, 
 struggling to learn in an unknown tongue the 
 knowledge of the West; in lieu of mother, 
 sister, or sweetheart of his own land, the boy 
 is insensibly drawn into a net that tightens 
 about him, until he takes the fatal step and 
 brings back to his mother a woman of an 
 alien race. 
 
 One sorrows for the girl, whatever may be 
 her station, as she does not realize that there 
 is no place for her in all the old land of China. 
 She will be scorned by those of foreign birth, 
 and she can never become one of us. Dost 
 thou remember the wife of Wang, the secre- 
 tary of the embassy at London? He was 
 most successful and was given swift promo- 
 tion until he married the English lady, whose 
 father was a tutor at one of the great colleges. 
 It angered Her Majesty and he was recalled 
 and given the small post of secretary to the 
 Taotai of our city. The poor foreign wife 
 died alone within her Chinese home, into 
 which no friend had entered to bid her wel- 
 come. Some say that after many moons of 
 solitude and loneliness she drank the strong 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 drink of her country to drown her sorrow. 
 Perhaps it was a bridge on which she crossed 
 to a land filled with the memories of the past 
 which brought her solace in her time of 
 desolation. 
 
 But I have wandered, Mother mine; my 
 mind has taken me to England, America, to 
 Chinese men with foreign wives, and now I 
 will return and tell thee of thine own again, 
 and of my son who has returned to me. When 
 at last the Gods gave us our breath, we 
 asked the many questions which came to us 
 like a river that has broken all its bounds. 
 Thy son, the father of Ting-fang, was more 
 than angry he was white with wrath, and 
 demanded what Ting-fang did here when he 
 should have been at school. My son said, 
 and I admired the way he spoke up boldly 
 to his father, "Father, I read each day of the 
 progress of the Revolution, of the new China 
 that was being formed, and I could not stay 
 on and study books while I might be helping 
 here." His father said, "Thy duty was to 
 stay where I, thy father, put thee!" Ting- 
 fang answered, "Thou couldst not have sat still 
 and studied of ancient Greece and Rome while 
 thy country was fighting for its life;" and 
 then he added, most unfilially, "I notice thou 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 art not staying in Sezchuan, but art here in 
 Shanghai, in the centre of things. I am thy 
 son; I do not like to sit quietly by the road 
 and watch the world pass by; I want to help 
 make that world, the same as thou." 
 
 His father talked long and bitterly, and the 
 boy was saddened, and I crept silently to 
 him and placed my hand in his. It was all 
 I could do, for the moment, as it would not 
 be seemly for me to take his part against his 
 father, but I talked to thy son, my husband, 
 when we were alone within our chamber. 
 
 The storm has passed. His father refused 
 to make Ting-fang a secretary, as he says the 
 time is past when officials fill their Yamens 
 with their relatives and friends. I think that 
 as the days go on, he will relent, as in these 
 troublous times a high official cannot be sure 
 of the loyalty of the men who eat his rice, and 
 he can rely upon his son. A Liu was never 
 known to be disloyal. 
 
 There is too much agitation here. The 
 officials try to ignore it as much as possible, 
 believing that muddy water is often made 
 clear if allowed to stand still. Yet they must 
 be ready to act quickly, as speedily as one 
 springs up when a serpent is creeping into the 
 lap, because now the serpent of treachery and 
 
Chinese Courtyard 123 
 
 ingratitude is in every household. These 
 secret plottings, like the weeds that thrust 
 their roots deep into the rice-fields, cannot 
 be taken out without bringing with them 
 some grain, and many an innocent family is 
 now suffering for the hot-headedness of its 
 youth. 
 
 I sometimes think that I agree with the 
 wise governor of the olden time whose motto 
 was to empty the minds of the people and fill 
 their stomachs, weaken their wills and 
 strengthen their bones. When times were 
 troublous he opened the government granaries 
 and the crowds were satisfied. 
 
 But the people are different now; they have 
 too much knowledge. New ambitions have 
 been stirred; new wants created; a new spirit 
 is abroad and, with mighty power, is over- 
 turning and recasting the old forms and 
 deeply rooted customs. China is moving, 
 and, we of the old school think, too quickly. 
 She is going at a bound from the dim light of 
 the bean-oil brazier to the dazzling brilliance 
 of the electric light; from the leisured slow- 
 ness of the wheelbarrow pushed by the patient 
 coolie to the speed of the modern motor-car; 
 from the practice of the seller of herbs to the 
 science of the modern doctor. We all feel 
 
124 My Lady of the 
 
 that new China is at a great turning-point 
 because she is just starting out on her journey 
 that may last many centuries, and may see 
 its final struggle to-morrow. It is of great 
 importance that the right direction shall be 
 taken at first. A wrong turn at the begin- 
 ning, and the true pathway may never be 
 found. So much depends upon her leaders, 
 on men like Yuan, Wu, and thy son, my 
 husband; the men who point out the road to 
 those who will follow as wild fowl follow 
 their leader. The Chinese people are keen to 
 note disinterestedness, and if these men who 
 have risen up show that they have the good of 
 the people at heart much may be done. If 
 they have the corrupt heart of many of the 
 old-time officials, China will remain as before, 
 so far as the great mass of her men are 
 concerned. 
 
 I hear the children coming from their school, 
 so I will say good-by for a time. Ting-fang 
 sends his most respectful love, and all my 
 household join in sending thee good wishes. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
[Page HI] 
 
 ~DERHAPS it was a bridge on which she 
 crossed to a land filled with the memories 
 of the past. 
 
fJlHE garden of my friend was most beautiful. 
 
 (Page 129] 
 
Chinese Courtyard 125 
 
 IV 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 Dost thou remember Liang Tai-tai, the 
 daughter of the Princess Tseng, thine old 
 friend of Pau-chau? Thou rememberest we 
 used to laugh at the pride of Liang in regard 
 to her mother's clan, and her care in speaking 
 of her father who was only a small official in 
 the governor's Yamen. Thou wert wont to 
 say that she reminded thee of the mule that, 
 when asked who was his father, answered, "The 
 horse is my maternal uncle." She comes to 
 see me often, and she worries me with her piety; 
 she is quite mad upon the subject of the Gods. 
 I often feel that I am wrong to be so lacking 
 in sympathy with her religious longings; but I 
 hate extremes. "Extreme straightness is as 
 bad as crookedness, and extreme cleverness 
 as bad as folly." She is ever asking me if I 
 do not desire, above all things, the life of the 
 higher road whatever that may mean. I 
 tell her that I do not know. I would not be 
 rare, like jade, or common, like stone; just 
 medium. Anyway, my days are far too full 
 
126 My Lady of the 
 
 to think about any other road than the one I 
 must tread each day in the fulfillment of the 
 duties the Gods have given me. 
 
 Some people seem to be irreverently familiar 
 with the Gods, and to be forever praying. If 
 they would only be a little more human and 
 perform the daily work that lies before them 
 (Liang's son is the main support of the Golden 
 Lotus Tea-house) they might let prayer alone 
 a while without ceasing to enjoy the protec- 
 tion of the Gods. It is dangerous to over- 
 load oneself with piety, as the sword that is 
 polished to excess is sometimes polished away. 
 And there is another side that Liang should 
 remember, her husband not having riches in 
 abundance: that the rays of the Gods love 
 well the rays of Gold. 
 
 But to-day she came to me with her rice- 
 bowl overflowing with her sorrows. Her son 
 has returned from the foreign lands with the 
 new education from which she hoped so much, 
 but it seems he has acquired knowledge of 
 the vices of the foreigner to add to those of the 
 Chinese. He did not stay long enough to 
 become Westernised, but he stayed long 
 enough to lose touch with the people and the 
 customs of his country. He forgets that he is 
 not an American even with his foreign educa- 
 
Chinese Courtyard 127 
 
 tion; lie is still an Oriental and he comes back 
 to an Oriental land, a land tied down by 
 tradition and custom, and he can not adapt 
 himself. He tries instead, to adapt China 
 to his half -European ised way of thought, and 
 he has failed. He has become what my 
 husband calls an agitator, a tea-house orator, 
 and he sees nothing but wrong in his people. 
 There is no place in life for him, and he sits 
 at night in public places, stirring foolish boys 
 to deeds of treason and violence. Another 
 thing, he has learned to drink the foreign 
 wines, and the mixture is not good. They 
 will not blend with Chinese wine, any more 
 than the two civilisations will come together 
 as one. 
 
 Why did the Gods make the first draught 
 of wine to curse the race of men, to make 
 blind the reason, to make angels into devils 
 and to leave a lasting curse on all who touch 
 it ? "It is a cataract that carries havoc with 
 it in a road of mire where he who falls may 
 never rise again." It seems to me that he 
 who drinks the wine of both lands allows it to 
 become a ring that leads him to the Land of 
 Nothing, and ends as did my friend's son, with 
 the small round ball of sleep that grows within 
 the poppy. One morning's light, when he 
 
128 My Lady of the 
 
 looked long into his own face and saw the 
 marks that life was leaving, he saw no way 
 except the Bridge of Death; but he was not 
 successful. 
 
 His mother brought him to me, sus he has 
 always liked me, and is a friend (for which I 
 sorrow) of my son. I talked to him alone 
 within an inner chamber, and tried to show to 
 him the error of his way. I quoted to him 
 the words spoken to another foolish youth 
 who tried to force the gates of Heaven: "My 
 son, thou art enmeshed within these world's 
 ways, and have not cared to wonder where 
 the stream would carry thee in coming days. 
 If thou mere human duties scorn, as a worn 
 sandal cast aside, thou art no man but 
 stock-stone born, lost in a selfish senseless 
 pride. If thou couldst mount to Heaven's 
 high plain, then thine own will might be thy 
 guide, but here on earth thou needs must 
 dwell. Thou canst well see that thou art not 
 wanted in the Halls of Heaven; so turn to 
 things yet near; turn to thy earthly home and 
 try to do thy duty here. Thou must control 
 thyself, there is no escape through the Eastern 
 Gateway for the necessity of self -conquest." 
 
 He wept and gave me many promises; and 
 I showed him that I believed in him, and saw 
 
Chinese Courtyard 129 
 
 his worth. But we think it wiser to send 
 him far away from his companions, who only 
 seek to drag him down. Thy son will give to 
 him a letter and ask the Prefect of Canton to 
 give him*work at our expense. 
 
 I felt it better that Liang Tai-tai should not 
 be alone with her son for several hours, as her 
 tongue is bitter and reproaches come easily 
 to angry lips, so I took her with me to the 
 garden of a friend outside the city. It was 
 the Dragon Boat Festival, when all the world 
 goes riverward to send their lighted boats 
 upon the waters searching for the soul of the 
 great poet who drowned himself in the olden 
 time, and whose body the jealous Water 
 God took to himself and it nevermore was 
 found. Dost thou remember how we told the 
 story to the children when the family all were 
 with thee oh, it seems many moons ago. 
 
 The garden of my friend was most beauti- 
 ful, and we seemed within a world apart. The 
 way was through high woods and over long 
 green plots of grass and around queer rocks; 
 there were flowers with stories in their hearts, 
 and trees who held the spirits of the air close 
 'neath their ragged covering. Pigeons called 
 softly to their mates, and doves cooed and 
 sobbed as they nestled one to the other. We 
 
130 My Lady of the 
 
 showed the children the filial young crow who, 
 when his parents are old and helpless, feeds 
 them in return for their care when he was 
 young; and we pointed out the young dove 
 sitting three branches lower on the^ree than 
 do his parents, so deep is his respect. 
 
 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 131 
 
 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 Chih-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 genera- 
 tion; 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 
 
132 My Lady of the 
 
 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 of 
 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 of 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 of Wan-li a half-trained 
 Western woman, a woman who finds music 
 in the piano instead of the lute, who quotes 
 
Chinese Courtyard 133 
 
 from Shelley, and Wordsworth, instead of 
 from the Chinese classics, who thinks em- 
 broidery work for servants, and the order- 
 ing of her household a thing beneath her 
 great mental status. 
 
 I, of course, wish ner 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 contempo- 
 raries. 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 
 
134 
 
 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 135 
 
 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 study- 
 ing 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 regime 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 foun- 
 dation 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. W T here 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 High- 
 
 41 
 
136 My Lady of the 
 
 ness 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 ap- 
 pointed 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 prom- 
 ise 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 137 
 
 temple. My husband tried to persuade him 
 that the superstitions of a woman long in 
 years should not stand in the way of a pos- 
 sible 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-Ii 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. 
 
138 My Lady of the 
 
 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 pre- 
 pare 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 139 
 
 VI 
 
 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 be- 
 yond 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 clutch- 
 ing 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 
 
140 My Lady of the 
 
 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 prac- 
 tical 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 141 
 
 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 com- 
 pare 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 faith- 
 fulness of husband to his wife all these, in 
 spite of what may be said against them by 
 the newer generation, do exist and must in- 
 fluence 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 overflow- 
 
142 My Lady of the 
 
 ing 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 experi- 
 ence, 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 143 
 
 VII 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 These are most troublous times, and thy son 
 is harassed to the verge of sickness. Shang- 
 hai is filled with Chinese who come seeking 
 foreign protection. Within the narrow con- 
 fines 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 
 
144 My Lady of the 
 
 of his plenty for the help of the new govern- 
 ment. He promised; then changed his mind, 
 and carefully gathered all his treasures to- 
 gether 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 hang- 
 ing down the back, and the beautiful silks and 
 satins, furs and peacock feathers are things of 
 
1 
 
 '* 
 
 . s ^ 
 
 " * 
 
"3 
 - 
 
Chinese Courtyard 145 
 
 the past. These peacock feathers, emblems 
 of our old officialdom, are now bought by for- 
 eign 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 hus- 
 bands, 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 tmsexed 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 orna- 
 ments, 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 
 
146 My Lady of the 
 
 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 \vomen 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 147 
 
 "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 
 
148 My Lady of the 
 
 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 149 
 
 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 
 
 heighths unseen, 
 
 The furrows feel her happy tears, and lo, the 
 land is green!" 
 
 I must send a servant with the rain cover- 
 ings for the children, that they may not get 
 wet in returning from their schools. 
 
 We greet thee, all. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
150 My Lady of the 
 
 VIII 
 
 My Dear Mother 9 
 
 Last night I heard a great wailing in the 
 servants' courtyard, and found there the maid 
 of thy old f riend<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 unhappi- 
 ness that if it were within my power I would 
 quench with rains of food and drink the an- 
 guish this cruel war has brought upon so many 
 
Chinese Courtyard 151 
 
 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 Man- 
 chus. 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 
 
152 My Lady of the 
 
 here and in the sorest trouble. Her husband 
 and her brother were officers in the army of 
 Yuan, and when in Hanking 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 gov- 
 ernment 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 barbar- 
 ism; 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 153 
 
 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 des- 
 perate, 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 guar- 
 dian 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 wait- 
 ing 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 6f 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 
 
154 My Lady of the 
 
 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. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 155 
 
 IX 
 
 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 remem- 
 berest 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 for- 
 eigners 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 
 
156 My Lady of the 
 
 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 remem- 
 bered 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 prov- 
 ince 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 157 
 
 he owes his love and loyalty to the old regime 
 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 medita- 
 
158 My Lady of the 
 
 tion 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 fam- 
 ily 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 159 
 
 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 be- 
 came 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 
 
160 My Lady of 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 still- 
 ness 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. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 161 
 
 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 discour- 
 tesy, 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? 
 
162 My Lady of the 
 
 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 163 
 
 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 
 
164 My Lady of the 
 
 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 feels 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 
 
"3 - 
 * 
 
Chinese Courtyard 165 
 
 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 
 
166 My Lady of the 
 
 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 com- 
 merce 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. W T e must not be another Corea; we 
 
Chinese Courtyard 167 
 
 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 kindli- 
 ness 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 
 
168 My Lady of the 
 
 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 169 
 
 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 grace- 
 fully 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 mem- 
 bers 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 
 
170 My Lady of the 
 
 speak of new China, and many things I do not 
 understand; my husband and his friends talk 
 more sedately, for they are watching thought- 
 ful 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 
 
Chinese Courtyard 171 
 
 XI 
 
 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 court- 
 yards in the old-fashioned customs that make 
 for simplicity of heart, grace of manner, that 
 
172 My Lady of the 
 
 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 car- 
 ried me up the mountain-side with its shadow- 
 ing 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. 
 
 With her dainty gowns, her tiny shoes, her 
 smooth black hair, she is a breath from another 
 world, and my sons and daughters regard her 
 as if she were a stray butterfly, blown hither 
 by some wind too strong for her slight wings. 
 She is as graceful as the slender willow, her 
 youthful charm is like the cherry-tree in 
 bloom, and the sweet thoughts natural to 
 youth and the springtime of life, flow from 
 her heart as pure as the snow-white blossoms 
 of the plum-tree. She does not belong to 
 this, our modern world; she should be bend- 
 ing with iris grace above goldfish in the 
 ponds, or straying in gardens where there 
 are lakes of shimmering water murmuring 
 beneath great lotus flowers that would speak 
 to her of love. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 173 
 
 We are all more than charmed, and gather 
 to the sunshine she has brought. As they 
 knelt before us for our blessing, I thought 
 what a happy thing is youth and love. 
 "Kings in their palaces grow old, but youth 
 dwells forever at contentment's side." 
 
 But I must tell thee of the marriage. 
 Instead of the red chair of marriage, my new 
 daughter-in-law was brought from the house 
 of her uncle in that most modern thing, a 
 motor-car. I insisted that it should be cov- 
 ered with red satin, the colour of rejoicing; 
 and great rosettes trailed from the corners to 
 the ground. The feasting was elaborate and 
 caused me much care in its preparation, as 
 not only had been provided the many different 
 kinds of food for our Chinese friends, but for- 
 eigners, who came also, were served with dishes 
 made expressly for them, and with foreign 
 wines, of which they took most liberally. 
 The Europeans, men and women, ate and drank 
 together with a freedom that to me is most 
 unseemly, and I cannot understand the men 
 who have no pride in their women's modesty 
 but allow them to sit at table with strange 
 men close by their side. Behind the archway, 
 we Chinese women "of the old school," as 
 my daughter calls us, feasted and laughed our 
 
174 My Lady of the 
 
 fill, just as happy as if parading our new gowns 
 before the eyes of stranger-men. 
 
 Li-ti is delighted with thy gift, the chain of 
 pearls. It is a most appropriate present, for 
 "pearls belong of right to her whose soul 
 reflects the colour of youth's purity"; and I, 
 I am so happy in this new life that has come 
 to dwell beneath our rooftree. I had many 
 fears that she would not be to my liking, that 
 she would be a modern Chinese woman; and 
 another one, oh, Mother mine, would fill to 
 overflowing my bowl of small vexations; 
 but the place is perfumed by her scent, the 
 scent of sandalwood, which represents the 
 China that I love, and flowers of jessamine 
 and purple hyacinths and lilies-of-the-valley, 
 which speak to us of youth and spring and 
 love and hope. 
 
 Thy daughter, who gives the messages from 
 all thy family, who touch thy hand with deep 
 respect. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 175 
 
 XII 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I am sorry that thou hast been troubled by 
 news of the fighting within the province. All 
 is well with us, as we sent thee word by 
 telegraph. If anything happens that touches 
 any of thy household, we will send thee word 
 at once. 
 
 This town is a hotbed of rebellion, and it is 
 all because the rebels have been enabled to 
 perfect their plans through the existence of 
 the foreign settlements. How I dislike these 
 foreigner adventurers! I wish they would 
 take their gilded dust, their yellow gold, and 
 leave us to our peace; but they walk our 
 streets as lords and masters, and allow the 
 plotting traitors to make their plans, and we 
 are helpless. If I were China's ruler and for 
 one day had power, there would not be one 
 white man left within the borders of my 
 country. We hear each day of friends who 
 give their lives on the field of battle, these bat- 
 tles and this conflict which would not be 
 present with us were it not for the foreign 
 
176 My lady of the 
 
 powers, who within these settlements, protect 
 the low-browed ruffians who are plotting 
 China's ruin. 
 
 Did I say I disliked these foreigners ? How 
 mild a word ! Thou, in Sezchuan, far from the 
 touch of the alien life, hast never seen these 
 people who cause us so much trouble. How 
 can I describe them to thee so that thou wilt 
 understand ? They are like unto the dragons 
 of the earth, for ugliness. Men have enor- 
 mous stature and mighty strength, and stride 
 with fierce and lordly steps. Their faces have 
 great noses between deep-set eyes, and pro- 
 truding brows, and ponderous jaws like 
 animals symbols of brute force which needs 
 but to be seen to frighten children in the dark. 
 We are the gentler race, and we feel instinc- 
 tively the dominating power of these men from 
 over the seas, who all, American, Russian, 
 German, English, seem to be cast in the same 
 brutal mould. Their women have long, horse- 
 like faces, showing the marks of passion and 
 discontent, which they try to cover with the 
 contents of the powder- jar and with rouge; 
 they are utterly unlike the women of our race, 
 who are taught to express no hate, no love, 
 nor anything save perfect repose and gentle- 
 ness, as befits true ladyhood. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 177 
 
 One has but to see a Chinese gentleman, 
 with his easy manners, composed, self-con- 
 tained, with a natural dignity, to know that we 
 are better trained than the people from the 
 West. It is because we are true idealists. 
 We show it in our grading of society. With us 
 the scholar is honoured and put first, the 
 farmer second, the artisan third, and the mer- 
 chant and the soldier last. With them, these 
 worshippers of the dollar, the merchant is put 
 first, and the man to guard that dollar is made 
 his equal! That is a standard for a nation! 
 The barterer and the murderer; let others 
 follow where they lead. 
 
 These foreigners rate China low, who have 
 never met a Chinese gentleman, never read a 
 line of Chinese literature, and who look at you 
 in ignorance if you mention the names of our 
 sages. They see no Chinese except their 
 servants, and they judge the world about them 
 from that low point of view. I know a lady 
 here who is a leader in their society, a woman 
 who has lived within our land for many tens 
 of years; when asked to meet a prince of our 
 house Imperial, she declined, saying she never 
 associated with Chinese. A prince to her 
 was no more than any other yellow man; 
 she said she would as soon think of meeting 
 
178 My Lady of the 
 
 her gate coolie at a social tea. How can there 
 be a common meeting-ground between our 
 people and the average European, of whom 
 this woman is a representative and who is not 
 alone in her estimation of the people amongst 
 whom she lives but whom she never sees. 
 They get their knowledge of China from ser- 
 vants, from missionaries who work among the 
 lower classes, and from newspaper reports 
 that are always to the disadvantage of our 
 people. 
 
 More and more the West must see that the 
 East and West may meet but never can they 
 mingle. Foreigners can never enter our inner 
 chamber; the door is never wholly opened, 
 the curtain never drawn aside between Chinese 
 and European. The foreign man is a materi- 
 alist, a mere worshipper of things seen. With 
 us "the taste of the tea is not so important as 
 the aroma." When Chinese gentlemen meet 
 for pleasure, they talk of poetry and the wis- 
 dom of the sages, of rare jade and porcelains 
 and brass. They show each other treasures, 
 they handle with loving fingers the contents of 
 their cherished boxes, and search for stores of 
 beauty that are brought to light only for 
 those who understand. But when with for- 
 eigners, the talk must be of tea, its prices, the 
 
[Page 172] 
 
 
 pathway up the mountain-side. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 179 
 
 weight of cotton piece goods, the local gossip of 
 the town in which they live. Their private 
 lives are passed within a world apart, and there 
 is between these men from different lands a 
 greater bar than that of language the bar of 
 mutual misunderstanding and lack of sympa- 
 thy with the other race. 
 
 Poor China! She is first clubbed on the 
 head and then stroked on the back by these 
 foreigners, her dear friends. Friends! It is 
 only when the cold season comes that we know 
 the pine-tree and the cypress to be evergreens, 
 and friends are known in adversity. The 
 foreigners who profess to be our friends are 
 waiting and hoping for adversity to come upon 
 us, that they may profit by it. They want 
 our untouched wealth, our mines of coal and 
 iron and gold, and it is upon them they have 
 cast their eyes of greed. 
 
 The foreigners have brought dishonesty in 
 business dealings to our merchants. At first, 
 the trader from the foreign land found that he 
 could rely on old-time customs and the word 
 of the merchant to bind a bargain; but what 
 did the Chinese find? There are no old-time 
 customs to bind a foreigner, except those of 
 bond and written document. He has no 
 traditions of honour, he can be held by nothing 
 
180 My Lady of the 
 
 except a court of law. For years the word 
 "China" has meant to the adventurers of 
 other lands a place for exploitation, a place 
 where silver was to be obtained by the man 
 with fluent tongue and winning ways. Even 
 foreign officials did not scruple to use their 
 influence to enter trade. 
 
 An old case has recently come before the 
 Governor. It has been brought many times 
 to the ears of the officials, but they have said 
 nothing, for fear of offending the Great Gov- 
 ernment whose representative is involved in 
 the not too pleasant transaction. One of our 
 great inland cities had no water nearer than 
 the river, several miles away. A foreign 
 official with a machine of foreign invention 
 digged deep into the earth and found pure, 
 clear water. Then he thought, "If there is 
 water here for me, why not for all this great 
 city of many tens of thousands?" which was 
 a worthy thought, and he saw for himself 
 great gains in bringing to the doors of rich and 
 poor alike the water from the wells. He told 
 the Taotai that he would go to his country 
 and bring back machines that would make the 
 water come forth as from living springs. The 
 official met his friends and the plan was dis- 
 cussed and many thousands of taels were 
 
Chinese Courtyard 181 
 
 provided and given into the hands of the 
 official from over the seas. The friends of the 
 Taotai felt no fear for their money, as the offi- 
 cial signed a contract to produce water from 
 the earth, and he signed, not as a simple citizen 
 but as the representative of his government, 
 with the great seal of that government 
 attached to the paper. Of course our simple 
 people thought that the great nation was 
 behind the project; and they were amazed and 
 startled when, after a trip to his home land 
 and a return with only one machine, a few 
 holes were made but no water found, and the 
 official announced that he was sorry but there 
 was nothing more that he could do. He did 
 not offer to return the money, and in his 
 position he could not be haled into a court 
 of law; there was nothing for his dupes to do 
 but to gaze sadly into the great holes that 
 had taken so much money, and remember that 
 wisdom comes with experience. 
 
 "When a man has been burned once with 
 hot soup he forever after blows upon cold 
 rice"; so these same men of China will think 
 o'erlong before trusting again a foreigner with 
 their silver. 
 
 Thy son has been trying to settle another 
 case. Some men from America went to 
 
182 My ,Lady of the 
 
 Ningpo, and talked long and loud of the dark- 
 ness of the city, its streets dangerous in the 
 night-time, its continual fires caused by the 
 flickering lamps of oil that are being so con- 
 stantly overturned by the many children. 
 They told the officials that the times were 
 changing, that to walk the streets with a 
 lighted lantern in the hand is to lose step 
 with the march of progress. They showed the 
 benefits of the large lights of electricity blazing 
 like a sun on each corner of the great city, 
 making it impossible for robbers and evil- 
 doers to carry on their work in darkness. 
 They promised to turn night-time into day, to 
 put white lights in Yamen, office, and house- 
 hold. There should be a light beneath each 
 rooftree, at no greater expense than the bean- 
 oil lamp. They were most plausible, and 
 many thousands of silver dollars were brought 
 forth and given to the men as contract 
 money. They left us to buy machinery; the 
 years have passed; they never have returned. 
 Ningpo still has streets of darkness, men still 
 walk abroad with lighted lanterns, the bean-oil 
 lamp is seen within the cottage and will be 
 until the hills shall fade, so far as the officials 
 are concerned, who once dreamed dreams of a 
 city lit by the light as of myriad suns. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 183 
 
 How can the missionaries have the face to 
 come here with their religion, when the dis- 
 solute white man is in every port manifesting 
 a lust and greed and brutality which Chinese 
 are accustomed to associate with the citizen- 
 ship and religion attributed to Christianity. 
 No wonder it is hard for them to make 
 converts among the people who have busi- 
 ness dealings with these men from Christian 
 nations. 
 
 But China will not forever bear the ill- 
 treatment of men from Western lands. She 
 is awake to all the insults; she has learned in 
 the bitter halls of experience. She sleeps no 
 longer; she will rise in self-defense and fight 
 aggression; and the nations who have misused 
 her must remember that when she moves it 
 will be the movement of a mighty people 
 aroused by the thought of their great wrongs. 
 She is peaceful and long-suffering, but she is 
 different from the old-time China. She has 
 now a national spirit that has been brought 
 about by better means of communication 
 between provinces. In the olden time it 
 was difficult for one part of the Empire to 
 know the conditions in another. But now the 
 telegraph and the daily newspaper come to 
 all the smallest villages. I am sure that the 
 
184 My Lady of the 
 
 watchman by thy outer gate reads as he 
 guards thy household, and learns in far 
 Sezchuan what has happened to-day in Peking, 
 or the Southern city of Canton, and the 
 news is discussed in the tea-shops and on 
 corners by men from farm and shop and office. 
 
 The foreigners are mistaken in their belief 
 that China can never be united. She has 
 been one for centuries, in beliefs, in morals, in 
 education, and in religion, and now she will 
 be more united in her stand against the 
 hated white man who covets her treasures. 
 She may quarrel with her brothers within her 
 borders; but that is nothing but a family 
 feud, and in time of danger from outside, like 
 all families, she will unite to fight for her 
 own until the last red lantern fades and the 
 morning star is shining. 
 
 Enough of politics and bitterness! I hear 
 thy son, who is coming for his evening cup of 
 tea. 
 
 Thy daughter 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 185 
 
 XIII 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 The times here are very bad; people are 
 fleeing from the inland cities and coming to 
 Shanghai by the thousands. The place is 
 crowded to suffocation. 
 
 Wu Ting-fang was here and talked long into 
 the night with my husband. My son, who, 
 I am afraid, does not think too highly of this 
 great man, says that he is with the party that 
 is "on top,'* that he spends most of his time 
 sitting on the fence whatever that may 
 mean. I drove past his house the other day 
 and did not see him sitting on the fence, but 
 on his veranda, calmly drinking tea. 
 
 Sun Yat-sen has violated his word of honour 
 and has joined the Southern forces. We feel 
 he has acted most dishonourably and (my son 
 again) should have "staid bought." Gossips 
 say he received many millions of taels, pre- 
 sumably for the railroads, but that was only 
 an excuse to slip the money into his wide and 
 hungry pockets. 
 
 It is decided to send my son to Canton, into 
 
186 My Lady of the 
 
 the office of the governor of that province. 
 We are glad to get him away from Shanghai, 
 which is a nest of adders and vipers, conspiring 
 and raising their poisonous heads in the dark. 
 One does not know whom to trust, or who 
 may prove to be a traitor. 
 
 Li-ti, his wife, wishes to go with him, and 
 weeps the whole day through because we will 
 not permit it. She is not well, and we tell her 
 she will not be really separated from her hus- 
 band, because, as the poets tell us, people who 
 love, though at a distance from each other, are 
 like two lutes tuned in harmony and placed in 
 adjoining rooms. When you strike the kung 
 note on one, the kung note on the other will 
 answer, and when you strike the cho note 
 on the one the cho note on the other will give 
 the same sound. They are both tuned to the 
 same pitch, when the influence of the key- 
 note, love, is present. 
 
 I took my son apart the other night and 
 said, "I am thy mother and I want to speak 
 words to thee straight from the heart. Thou 
 art to have the joy of work, and remember 
 the pride of work lies in the thought, Tor 
 me alone is the task.' ' I tried to make him 
 understand that praise, glory, and honours 
 are good, but they do not make for long life, 
 
Chinese Courtyard 187 
 
 and especially in these times it is better to 
 work quietly without attracting too much at- 
 tention. It is more safe, for "he who raises 
 himself on tiptoe cannot stand, and he who 
 stretches his legs wide apart cannot walk." 
 
 His father was especially anxious that he be 
 not pierced with the arrow of treachery that 
 poisons the blood and finds the weak spot in 
 the armour of so many of our young men. He 
 told him to keep himself above suspicion, to 
 avoid those entangled in the nets of double 
 dealing of whom one is uncertain, because 
 "the red glow of the morning sun seems to 
 stain even the pure whiteness of the new- 
 fallen snow." 
 
 Why, Mother mine, didst thou send the old 
 priest from the temple down here? He abides 
 in the courtyard, squatting on his heels, serv- 
 ing the spirits neither of Heaven nor of earth, 
 but he sits and talks and talks and talks 
 with the women of the courtyards. There 
 are some of them I would fain send to a far- 
 off province, especially Fang Tai, the mother 
 of our gateman. 
 
 "A woman with a long tongue is a flight of 
 teps leading to calamity." ^/- 
 
 This priest of thine has been quarrelling with 
 her now over the question of the son of Wong 
 
188 My Lady of the 
 
 Tai, who is accused of being on too friendly 
 terms with some of the leaders of the rebellion. 
 He made the unfortunate remark that per- 
 haps the man was innocent but "one does not 
 arrange his head-dress under an apricot-tree, 
 nor his foot-gear in a melon patch, if he wishes 
 to be above suspicion,'* and this simple remark 
 has called down upon his priestly head the 
 wrath of all the women. I think he will go 
 to the monastery within the city to pass the 
 night at least if he has wisdom equal to his 
 years. 
 
 Yesterday I thought that I might make some 
 use of him, and I felt when he was working he 
 would not be stirring up the courtyards. I 
 bade him write the Sage's words upon a scroll 
 of satin for my boy to take with him to his new 
 home, He did it very beautifully, as he is a 
 real artist with the brush. This is the reading 
 of the scroll: 
 
 "There are three things for a man to guard 
 
 against: 
 
 The lusts of the flesh in early years, 
 The spirit of combativeness in middle-age, 
 And ambition as the years go on. 
 
 "There are three things to command your 
 
 reverence : 
 
 The ordinances of Heaven, 
 Great men, and the words of the sages. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 189 
 
 "There are three times three things to be 
 
 remembered : 
 To be clear in vision, 
 Quick in hearing, 
 Kindly in expression, 
 Respectful in demeanour, 
 True in word, 
 Serious in duty, 
 Inquiring in doubt, 
 Self -controlled in anger, 
 And just and fair when the chair of success 
 
 is before your door." 
 
 I made a roll of it and placed it upon his 
 desk, and when he opened it he found within 
 another scroll of silk, the same in colour, size, 
 and finish, written by his most unfilial sisters, 
 which read: 
 
 "Remember that thou art young. 
 What thou dost know is not to be compared 
 With what thou dost not know." 
 
 It made him angry at first, but I do not 
 know but that the shorter scroll contains the 
 greater wisdom. 
 
 I am anxious for this boy of mine, who is 
 starting to sail his ship of manhood across 
 the Broad River of Life in these most perilous 
 times. I think he is strong enough to con- 
 
190 My JLady of the 
 
 quer all, but I have lighted candles and bought 
 fine incense to persuade the Gods to temper 
 winds to untried hands. 
 
 Thy daughter 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 191 
 
 XIV 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I have not written thee for several days. 
 We are in Nanking, where my husband is 
 presiding at a meeting of the officials in order 
 to discuss the question of a compromise, or to 
 try in some way to settle the questions that are 
 causing this dreadful rebellion, without more 
 loss of life. He is also acting as judge in the 
 case of some of the men who have been caught 
 pillaging and destroying the homes of the inno- 
 cent people. It is hard for him to act with 
 strict justice, remembering the many friends 
 he has lost, and it is necessary to see things 
 without their individuality in order to be wise 
 in all judgments. I came, ostensibly to see the 
 friends of my childhood, but really to take 
 care of thy son and see that he eats with regu- 
 larity and takes his rest. He is working far 
 too hard. He gives himself to whatever task 
 arrives, greedy for the work, like one who lusts 
 in the delight of seeing tasks accomplished. 
 But he is trusted by all, both sides agreeing to 
 rest on his decisions, all realising that personal 
 
192 My Lady of the 
 
 feeling is put far into the background of his 
 mind when the interests of new China are at 
 stake. 
 
 We are in the Yamen where I lived as a 
 young girl, but now all is changed. Instead 
 of the old guard of honour, with their great 
 flapping hats, their gaily decorated jackets, 
 baggy trousers tucked into velvet boots, pen- 
 nants flying from their spear-points as their 
 small ponies dashed madly in front of the 
 official carriage, we were met by a body of 
 foreign-dressed soldiers who conducted us with 
 military precision quite different from the old- 
 time dash and lack of discipline. 
 
 Inside the Yamen., also, things are different. 
 Everything is orderly and moves with a ma- 
 chine-like regularity that seems totally foreign 
 to an Eastern official's residence. There is not 
 the democracy of other days; the man from 
 the street, the merchant or the coolie with his 
 burden on his shoulders, did not follow us into 
 the courtyards to see what was being done, nor 
 were there crowds of idle men gazing with mild 
 curiosity at the visitors to their city. 
 
 We hear much of the old-time power of the 
 officials; but things are not nearly so demo- 
 cratic under this new government as in for- 
 mer times, when, it is true, the governor had 
 
Chinese Courtyard 193 
 
 power of life and death, but still was obliged 
 to deal leniently with his people. A little 
 larger demand for tribute, a case of rank 
 injustice, and he became the object of the 
 people's wrath and would quite likely see his 
 Yamen in a blaze, or pay with his life for his 
 greed. The masses held real power within 
 their hands. If their officials did not deal 
 justly with them, they caused a riot, and if the 
 frightened official could not still it within a 
 certain time, he was told that he evidently 
 could not control his people and so was 
 removed. 
 
 My husband inspected the regiments sta- 
 tioned here. I saw them from a veranda in 
 the Yamen where we women were unseen. 
 Fifteen thousand men marched past him; 
 and they were a sight for one who loves his 
 country. They were all young men, no one 
 seeming to be over twenty-five, and as they 
 marched my heart was filled with pride and 
 hope in them. I thought, it is of just such 
 men, such sons of peasants and working peo- 
 ple, that Japan made her army that gained a 
 victory over one of the greatest nations in the 
 Western world. Why cannot we, with our 
 unlimited numbers, make an army that will 
 cause our country to be respected and take its 
 
194 My Lady of the 
 
 place among the powers of the world? We 
 have the men, myriads and myriads of them; 
 men who are used to hardship and privation 
 in their daily life, who, on a bowl of rice, a 
 morsel of dried fish, can fight the whole day 
 through. Our men are not accustomed to the 
 luxuries of the foreigners, who, even in times of 
 war, carry great stores of what seems to East- 
 ern nations, unnecessary baggage. With them 
 their endless string of wagons is their greatest 
 pitfall, and with us these latter could be re- 
 duced to the smallest count. 
 
 Yet we hear on every hand that the courage 
 of the Chinese soldier is held at low value. 
 But why ? When sent unarmed, or with guns 
 for which there were no bullets, into the Jap- 
 anese war, against troops with the latest 
 inventions in weapons to kill, the only thing 
 to be done was to retreat. But when they are 
 paid, fed, and armed, and have leaders who 
 will go to the front with them, instead of 
 saying, "There is the enemy. Charge! I will 
 go back to the hills and await your hour of 
 glory," they are found to be courageous to the 
 verge of fanaticism. Under trusted leaders 
 there is no forlorn hope or desperate service 
 for which they would not volunteer. Let 
 them have confidence in their new generals, 
 
Chinese Courtyard 195 
 
 and, even though not understanding the 
 cause, they will make the best soldiers in the 
 world. 
 
 But I must not talk to thee of war; we 
 want not more bloodshed and the fatherless 
 homes and lean years that follow in the track 
 of great armies. Yet, if we cannot be without 
 it, let it serve war's ends the ultimate safety 
 of our people, and bring them peace and tran- 
 quillity, their heart's desire. 
 
 I visited the ruined homes of friends of mine, 
 who are no more. It made me feel that life 
 is nothing but a mirage, a phantom, or as 
 foam, and "even as all earthly vessels made on 
 the potter's wheel must end by being broken, 
 so end the lives of men." I went out to the 
 home of YuanTai-tai, who, to my childish mind 
 was the great lady of my dreams. I can close 
 my eyes and see her still, like a brilliant butter- 
 fly, dressed in her gay brocades, her hair 
 twined with jewels of pearl and jade; with 
 hand in mine she wandered o'er her garden, 
 bending over goldfish ponds, or clipping 
 fading flowers from off their stems. There 
 reigned a heavy silence in her palace, with its 
 memories, that seemed full of sadness and a 
 vague regret, reminding me of an old blue 
 China bowl which a hand of other days had 
 
196 
 
 filled with roses. The flowers trying to strug- 
 gle from beneath the thorns and brambles that 
 always come where troops are quartered, 
 seemed to say, "Behold, they are not here who 
 once have cared for us and cherished us, but 
 the gardens breathe of them and we are 
 fragrant for their sakes." I picked a branch 
 of cherry-blossoms, and swiftly fell the per- 
 fumed petals to the ground symbols of the 
 dainty lives that bloomed so short a time in 
 this fair garden of my lady. Liu Che, the 
 poet of the olden time, seems to have been 
 speaking of this, my friend, when he says: 
 
 "The sound of rustling silk is stilled, 
 With dust the marble courtyard filled; 
 No footfalls echo on the floor, 
 
 Fallen leaves in heaps block up the door 
 
 For she, my pride, my lovely one is lost." 
 
 We went from Yuan's palace to the Tem- 
 ple of Kwan-yin, which I often visited as a 
 child. It also was a ruin, but it spoke to me 
 of the dead thousands of weary feet that had 
 climbed the steps leading to its shrines; of 
 the buried mothers who touched the floor 
 before its altars with reverent heads and asked 
 blessings on their children's lives; of their 
 children, taught to murmur prayers to the 
 Mother of all Mercies, who held close within 
 
I s 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 as ? 
 
 E^ 
 
~f/f/ r E could see the river, a gleaming thread of silver, 
 
 and the hillsides, tree clad, flower wreathed, 
 
 painted with the colours that the Gods give to the spring. 
 
 [ Page 197 ] 
 
Chinese Courtyard 197 
 
 her loving heart the sorrows, hopes, and fears 
 of woman's world. Ghosts of these spirits 
 seemed to follow as we wandered through 
 deserted courtyards, and an odour as of old 
 incense perfumed the air. I went out and 
 stood upon the tortoise that is left to guard 
 the ruined temple; the great stone tortoise 
 that is the symbol of longevity of our coun- 
 try, that even armies in their wrath cannot 
 destroy. 
 
 From the gateway we could see the river, 
 a gleaming thread of silver, and the hillsides, 
 tree clad, flower wreathed, painted with the 
 colours that the Gods give to the spring the 
 spring that "thrills the warm blood into 
 wine." But I miss the natural songs that 
 should float upward from the valley, and 
 down the reed-strewn banks of the canals, 
 where labourers in olden days were happy in 
 their toil. 
 
 Even as we left the place the pattering rain- 
 drops came as rice grains falling upon the 
 threshing-floor, and the hills seemed "folding 
 veils of sorrow round their brows." It was 
 brought to our remembrance that we must 
 return to a city where war and famine may 
 come thundering at her gates, and we must 
 stand with helpless hands. 
 
198 My Lady of the 
 
 Dear Mother mine, stay upon thy flower- 
 scented balustrade, and drink great draughts 
 of that wine of spring, the vintage of the wise, 
 that the Gods give to thee freely in thy moun- 
 tain home, and leave to younger hands the 
 battles with the world. Thou must not come; 
 write no more that thou wouldst be amongst 
 us. We love thee dearly, but we would cher- 
 ish thee and keep thee from all care. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 199 
 
 XV 
 
 My Dear Mother 9 
 
 I have had a most interesting day, and I 
 hasten to tell thee all about it. I have just 
 returned from opening a home for motherless 
 children, given by a mission of a foreign land. 
 It is a beautiful thought, and a kindly one, to 
 give a home to these poor waifs of an alien 
 land, all in the name of their Saviour of the 
 World. I saw for the first .time a picture of 
 this Christ, with little children around Him. 
 The message I read within His eyes seemed 
 to be: "I will be father and mother, father 
 and mother and playmate to all little child- 
 ren." The words of the Japanese poet de- 
 scribe Him: "He was caressing them kindly, 
 folding His shining robes round them; lifting 
 the smallest and frailest into His bosom, 
 and holding His staff for the tumblers to 
 clutch. To His long gown clung the infants, 
 smiling in response to His smile, glad in His 
 beauteous compassion." 
 
 I looked at the picture and at the people 
 around me on the platform, and wondered why 
 
200 My lady of the 
 
 in all the Christian world that claims this lov- 
 ing Master there should be such exceeding bit- 
 terness between His followers. How can they 
 expect us to believe in this great Teacher when 
 they themselves are doubtful of his message, 
 and criticise quite openly their Holy Book? If 
 it is true, should education and science make 
 its teaching less authentic ? We do not want a 
 religion that is uncertain to its own people, 
 yet we take with many thanks what it can 
 give us, the things we understand, such as 
 their schools and hospitals. Where there is 
 pain or ignorance, there is no distinction in 
 the God that brings relief. We may not 
 believe in the doctrines that we are taught in 
 the waiting-rooms of their hospitals, but we 
 do believe in the healing power of the medi- 
 cines that are brought by religious zeal from 
 over the seas. 
 
 If their teaching has not as yet made many 
 converts, the effect has been great in the 
 spread of higher ideals of education, and 
 much of the credit for the progress of our 
 modern life must be given to the mission 
 schools, which, directly or indirectly, have 
 opened new pathways in the field of education 
 for our country, and caused the youth of 
 China to demand a higher learning throughout 
 
Chinese Courtyard 201 
 
 the land. This aggressive religion from the 
 West, coupled with the education that seems 
 to go hand in hand with it, is bound to raise 
 the religious plane of China by forcing our 
 dying faiths to reassume higher and higher 
 forms in order to survive. 
 
 But I believe that these teachers from the 
 foreign lands should understand better the 
 religions they are so anxious to displace, and 
 instead of always looking for the point of 
 difference or weakness in our faith, should 
 search more anxiously for the common ground, 
 the spark of the true light that may still be 
 blown to flame, finding the altar that may be 
 dedicated afresh to the true God. 
 
 Every religion, however imperfect, has 
 something that ought to be held sacred, for 
 there is in all religions a secret yearning after 
 the unknown God. This thought of God 
 "is an elixir made to destroy death in the 
 world, an unfailing treasure to relieve the 
 poverty of mankind, a balm to allay his sick- 
 ness, a tree under which may rest all crea- 
 tures wearied with wanderings over life's 
 pathways. It is a bridge for passing over 
 hard ways, open to all wayfarers, a moon 
 of thought -arising to cool the fever of the 
 world's sin, and whatever name His followers 
 
202 My Lady of the 
 
 may call Him, lie is the one True God of all 
 mankind." 
 
 Whether we see the coolie bowing his head 
 before the image of the Lord of Light, the 
 Buddha, or the peasant woman with her paper 
 money alight in the brazier at the feet of 
 Kwan-yin, we ought to feel that the place 
 where he who worships stands, is holy ground. 
 We hear it said that he is worshipping an 
 image, an idol, a thing of stone or wood or 
 clay. It is not so; he is thinking far beyond 
 the statue, he is seeing God. He looks 
 upwards towards the sky and asks what 
 supports that cup of blue. He hears the winds 
 and asks them whence they come and where 
 they go. He rises for his toil at break of day 
 and sees the morning sun start on his golden 
 journey. And Him who is the cause of all 
 these wonders, he calls his Life, his Breath, 
 his Lord of All. He does not believe that the 
 idol is his God. "Tis to the light which 
 Thy splendour lends to the idol's face, that the 
 worshipper bends." 
 
 The difference between us all lies not in 
 the real teaching of our Holy Men, Con- 
 fucius, Buddha, Lao Tze, or Christ, but in 
 the narrowness of the structure which their 
 followers have built upon their words. Those 
 
Chinese C ourtyard 203 
 
 sages reared a broad foundation on which 
 might have been built, stone by stone, a 
 mighty pagoda reaching to the skies. There 
 could have been separate rooms, but no 
 closed doors, and from out the pointed roofs 
 might have pealed the deep-toned bells caught 
 by every wandering breeze to tell the world 
 that here spoke the Truth of the One Great 
 God. But, instead, what have they done? 
 The followers have each built separately over 
 that portion w r hich was the work of their own 
 Master. The stories have grown narrower 
 and narrower with the years; each bell rings 
 out with its own peculiar tone, and there is 
 no accord or harmony. 
 
 I do not dispute with those who have found 
 a healing for themselves. To us our religion 
 is something quite inseparable from, ourselves, 
 something that cannot be compared with any- 
 thing else, or replaced with anything else. It 
 is like our bodies. In its form it may be like 
 other bodies, but in its relation to ourselves it 
 stands alone and admits of no rival; yet the 
 remedy that has cured us should not be forced 
 upon a people, irrespective of their place, their 
 environment or their temperament. 
 
 We of the East "have sounded depth on 
 depth only to find still deeper depths un- 
 
204 My Lady of the 
 
 fathomed and profound," and we have learned 
 to say that no sect or religion can claim to be 
 in possession of all the Truth. Let the teach- 
 ers from other countries learn of our doc- 
 trines. Let them learn of Buddha. To one 
 who reads his pure teaching, nothing so beau- 
 tiful, nothing so high, has been heard in all the 
 world. We admit that, little by little, changes 
 have come, simplicity has been lost, and with 
 every addition something departed from its 
 purity and it became stained. Yet I believe 
 that much of the kindliness, much of the gen- 
 tleness now so marked in Chinese nature, may 
 be traced to the teaching of this great apostle 
 of peace and quietude. 
 
 That other great religion, the religion of the 
 Way, has become steeped in superstition 
 and has been made a reproach in all our land. 
 Yet Lao Tze had noble sentiments and lofty 
 thoughts that have helped generations of 
 mankind in many struggles. 
 
 Confucius, it is said, presented high ideals 
 without the breath of spirit; his system was 
 for the head and did not feed the .heart; yet 
 he taught that, from the highest imthe land to 
 the lowest worker in the field, personal virtue, 
 cleanness of heart and hands, is to be held the 
 thing of greatest value. Men are urged to 
 
Chinese Courtyard 205 
 
 cherish all that is of good in them, to avoid evil 
 living, to cultivate right feeling, and to be 
 true and faithful to their tasks. 
 
 We should not value the teaching of our 
 religion "as a miser values his pearls and jade, 
 thinking their value lessened if pearls and 
 jade are found in other parts of the world." 
 But the searcher after Truth will welcome any 
 true doctrine, and believe it no less precious 
 because it was spoken by Buddha, Lao Tze, 
 Confucius or Christ. We should not peer too 
 closely to learn what the temple may enshrine, 
 but "feel the influence of things Divine and 
 pray, because by winding paths we all may 
 reach the same great Ocean's shore." We all 
 are searchers for the Way. Whence do I 
 come; where do I go? In this passage from 
 the unknown to the unknown, this pilgrimage 
 of life, which is the straight path, which the 
 true road if indeed there be a Way? Such 
 are the questions that all the world is asking. 
 What is the true answer; where may we 
 find it? Whose holy book holds the key that 
 will open wide the door? 
 
 All have a hunger of the soul for something 
 beside life's meat and drink ; all want a remedy 
 for the sorrows of the world. The Buddhists 
 believe that it can be found in the destruction 
 
206 My Lady of the 
 
 of desire, by renouncing the world and follow- 
 ing the noble path of peace until death shall 
 open the portals of the unknowable, everlast- 
 ing stillness from which there is no return. 
 The Confucianists say the remedy is found 
 within the world by fulfilling all its duties and 
 leaving to a greater Justice the future and its 
 rewards. The Christians give a whispered 
 message of hope to the lonely soul beating 
 against the bars of the world about him, and 
 say that a life of love and joy and peace is the 
 gift of their great Messenger, and when the 
 years have passed that He stands within an 
 archway to welcome those, His chosen, to a 
 land of bliss where we shall meet all who 
 have loved us and whom we have loved in 
 life, and gaze upon His face. 
 
 Which is the Way, which path to God is 
 broad enough for all the world ? 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
(Page 202) 
 
 is thinking far beyond the statue, he is 
 seeing God. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 207 
 
 XVI 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I received thy letter which was full of 
 reproaches most unjust. I have not broken 
 my word, given to thee so long ago. I opened 
 the home for friendless children, not because it 
 belonged to a mission of a foreign religion, 
 but because I think it a most worthy cause. 
 
 There are many homeless little ones in this 
 great city, and these people give them food and 
 clothing and loving care, and because it is 
 given in the name of a God not found within 
 our temples, is that a reason for withholding 
 our encouragement? 
 
 Thou hast made my heart most heavy. 
 Twenty-five years ago, when my first-born son 
 was taken from me, I turned from Gods who 
 gave no comfort in my time of need: all alone 
 with hungry winds of bitterness gnawing the 
 lute strings of my desolate mother-heart, I 
 stood upon my terrace and fought despair. 
 My days were without hope and my nights 
 were long hours filled with sorrow, when sleep 
 went trailing softly by and left me to the old 
 
208 My Lady of the 
 
 dull pain of memory. I called in anguish upon 
 Kwan-yin, and she did not hear my prayer. 
 The painted smile upon her lips but mocked 
 me, and in despair I said, "There are no 
 Gods," and in my lonely court of silent dreams 
 I lost the thread of worldly care until my tiny 
 bark of life was nearly drifting out upon the 
 unknown sea. 
 
 Thou rememberest that the servants brought 
 to me from out the market-place the book of 
 the foreign God, and in its pages I woke to life 
 again. I looked once more from out my 
 curtained window, and saw the rosy glow of 
 dawn instead of grey, wan twilights of the 
 hopeless days before me; and, as on a bridge 
 half seen in shadows dim, I returned to the 
 living world about me. Thou saidst nothing 
 until it had brought its healing, then thou 
 tookest the book and kept it from me. Thou 
 toldst me with tears that it would bring 
 thine head in sorrow to thy resting-place upon 
 the hillside if I left the Gods of my ancestors 
 and took unto my heart the words and teach- 
 ings of the God of an alien race. I promised 
 thee that I would not cause thee grief, and I 
 have kept my word. 
 
 In my ignorance I have longed for knowl- 
 edge, for some one to explain the teaching that 
 
Chinese Courtyard 209 
 
 rolled away for me the rush of troubled waters 
 that flooded all my soul; but as I looked 
 about me and saw the many warring factions 
 that follow the great Teacher of love and 
 peace, I did not know which way to turn, 
 which had the truth to give me; and I wanted 
 all, not part. I have this book, and have not 
 sought for wisdom from outside, but only 
 search its pages to find its messages to me. 
 
 Thou must not say I have deserted China's 
 Gods, nor is it just to write that my children 
 are wandering from the Way. I have ob- 
 served the feasts and fastings; each morn the 
 Household God has rice and tea before him; 
 the Kitchen God has gone with celebrations 
 at springtime to the spirit up above. The 
 candles have been lighted and the smoke of 
 incense has ascended to propitiate the God of 
 Light, Lord Buddha, and Kwan-yin, and my 
 children have been taught their prayers and 
 holy precepts. It is not my fault, nor shouldst 
 thou blame it to my teaching if rites and sym- 
 bols have lost their meaning, and if the Gods 
 of China are no longer strong enough to hold 
 our young. 
 
 Oh, Mother mine, thou knowest I would not 
 cause thee sorrow, and thou hast hurt me 
 sorely with thy letter of bitterness and 
 
210 My Lady of the 
 
 reproach. If thou couldst have seen within 
 my heart these many years, and known the 
 longing for this light that came to me in dark- 
 ness, then thou wouldst not have burned the 
 book that brought me hope and life again 
 when all seemed gone. 
 
 Thou askest me to promise thee anew that 
 I will not trouble thy last few years with 
 thoughts that seem to thee a sacrilege and a 
 desecration of thy Gods. Thou art the 
 mother of my husband, and 'tis to thee I owe 
 all loyalty and obedience. I promise thee, 
 but that which is deep within my heart 
 is mine. 
 
 Thy daughter 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 XVII 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I, thy son's wife, have been guilty of the sin 
 of anger, one of the seven deadly sins and 
 great indeed has been my anger. Ting-fang 
 has been bringing home with him lately the 
 son of Wong Kai-kia, a young man who has 
 been educated abroad, I think in Germany. I 
 have never liked him, have looked upon his 
 aping of the foreign manners, his half-long 
 hair which looks as if he had started again a 
 queue and then stopped, his stream of words 
 without beginning and without end, as a 
 foolish boy's small vanities that would pass as 
 the years and wisdom came. But now how 
 can I tell thee he asks to have my daughter 
 as his wife, my Luh-meh, my flower. If he 
 had asked for Man-li, who wishes to become 
 a doctor, I might have restrained my anger; 
 but, no, he wants the beauty of our house- 
 hold, and for full a space of ten breaths' 
 breathing-time, I withheld my indignation, 
 for I was speechless. Then I fear I talked, 
 and only stopped for lack of words. My son 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 is most indignant, and says I have insulted 
 his dear friend. His dear friend indeed ! He 
 is so veiled in self-conceit that he can be 
 insulted by no one; and as for being a 
 friend, he does not know the word unless he 
 sees in it something to further his own 
 particular interests. 
 
 I told my son that he is a man who leads a 
 life of idleness and worse. The tea-house 
 knows him better than his rooftree. He is 
 most learned and has passed safely many 
 examinations, and writes letters at the end of 
 his name, and has made an especial study of 
 the philosophers of the present time; and 
 because of this vast amount of book learning 
 and his supposedly great intelligence he is 
 entitled to indulgence, says my son, and should 
 not be judged by the standards that rule 
 ordinary people, who live upon a lower plane. 
 I say that his knowledge and greater intelli- 
 gence (which latter I very much doubt) in- 
 crease his responsibilities and should make of 
 him an example for the better living of men. 
 
 A clever bad man is like vile characters 
 scrawled in ink of gold, and should be thrown 
 aside as fit only for the braziers. 
 
 He is handsome in my daughter's eyes; but 
 I say virtue is within the man, not upon his 
 
Chinese Courtyard 213 
 
 skin. He fascinates my younger sons with his 
 philosophy and his tea-house oratory. I do 
 not like philosophy, it is all marked with 
 the stamp of infidelity and irreligion. It is 
 rarely that a man devotes himself to it with- 
 out robbing himself of his faith, and casting 
 off the restraints of his religion; or, if they do 
 not lose it utterly, they so adulterate it with 
 their philosophy that it is impossible to sepa- 
 rate the false from the true. The reading 
 of philosophic writings, so full of vain and 
 delusive reasonings, should be forbidden to 
 our young folk, just as the slippery banks 
 of a river are forbidden to one who knows 
 not how to swim. I will have none of 
 them in our library, nor will I allow their 
 father to read them where his sons can see 
 him. The snake-charmer should not touch 
 the serpents before his child's eyes, know- 
 ing that the child will try to imitate him in 
 all things. 
 
 It is "as pouring water in a frog's face" 
 to talk to these, my children, who think a 
 man, with words upon his lips, a sage. I say 
 a dog is not a good dog because he is a good 
 barker, nor should a man be considered a good 
 man because he is a good talker; but I see 
 only pity in their faces that their mother is so 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 far behind the times. These boys of ours are 
 so much attracted by the glimpses they have 
 had of European civilisation, that they look 
 down upon their own nationality. They have 
 been abroad only long enough to take on the 
 veneer of Western education; it is a half-and- 
 half knowledge; and it is these young men who 
 become the discontented ones of China. 
 When they return they do not find employ- 
 ment immediately, since they have grown out 
 of touch with their country and their country's 
 customs. They feel that they should begin at 
 the top of the ladder, instead of working up 
 slowly, rung by rung, as their fathers did 
 before them. They must be masters all at 
 once, not realising that, even with their tiny 
 grains of foreign knowledge, they have not yet 
 experience to make them leaders of great 
 enterprises or of men; yet they know too 
 much to think of going back into their father's 
 shop. 
 
 I realise that the students who go abroad 
 from China have many difficulties to overcome. 
 It is hard to receive their information and 
 instruction in a language not their mother 
 tongue. They have small chance to finish 
 their education by practical work in bank or 
 shop or factory. They get a mass of book 
 
Chinese Courtyard 215 
 
 knowledge and little opportunity to practise 
 the theories which they learn, and they do not 
 understand that the text-book knowledge is 
 nearly all foreign to their country and to the 
 temperament of their race. I often ask, when 
 looking at my son, what is his gain? I pre- 
 sume it is in securing a newer, broader point of 
 view, an ability to adjust himself to modern 
 conditions, and a wider sympathy with the 
 movements of the world. 
 
 China has for centuries been lost to the 
 world by reason of her great exclusion, her self- 
 satisfaction and blind reliance upon the ways 
 marked out for her by sages of other days. 
 These young men, with the West in their eyes, 
 are coming back to shock their fathers' land 
 into new channels. The process may not be 
 pleasant for us of the old school, but quite 
 likely it is necessary. Yet, I feel deep within 
 me, as I look at them, that these new Western- 
 ised Easterners with their foreign ways and 
 clever English are not to be the final saviours 
 of China. They are but the clarion voices 
 that are helping to awake the slumbering 
 power. China must depend upon the firmer 
 qualities of the common people, touched with 
 the breath of the West. 
 
 It is with great sorrow that we mothers and 
 
216 My lady of the 
 
 fathers see our boys and girls, especially those 
 who return from abroad, neglecting and scoff- 
 ing at our modes of education that have 
 endured and done such noble work for cen- 
 turies past. I know it is necessary to study 
 things modern to keep up with the demands 
 of the times; but they can do this and still 
 reserve some hours for the reading of the 
 classics. Instead of always quoting Byron, 
 Burns, or Shelley, as do my son and daughter, 
 let them repeat the beautiful words of Tu 
 Fu, Li Po, Po Chii-i, our poets of the golden 
 age. 
 
 In no country is real learning held in higher 
 esteem than in China. It is the greatest char- 
 acteristic of the nation that, in every grade of 
 society, education is considered above all else. 
 Why, then, should our young people be 
 ashamed of their country's learning? The 
 Chinese have devoted themselves to the cul- 
 tivation of literature for a longer period by 
 some thousands of years than any existing 
 nation. The people who lived at the time of 
 our ancestors, the peoples of Egypt, the 
 Greeks, the Romans, have disappeared ages 
 ago and have left only their histories writ in 
 book or stone. The Chinese alone have 
 continued to give to the world their treasures 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 of thought these five thousand years. To 
 literature and to it alone they look for the 
 rule to guide them in their conduct. To them 
 all writing is most sacred. The very pens and 
 papers used in the making of their books have 
 become objects of veneration. Even our 
 smallest village is provided with a scrap-box 
 into which every bit of paper containing words 
 or printed matter is carefully placed, to await 
 a suitable occasion when it may be reverently 
 burned. 
 
 Change is now the order of the day, edu- 
 cationally as well as politically. We do not 
 hear the children shouting their tasks at the 
 top of their voices, nor do they learn by heart 
 the thirteen classics, sitting on their hard 
 benches within the simple rooms with earthen 
 floor, where the faint light comes straggling 
 through the unglazed windows on the boy who 
 hopes to gain the prize that will lead him to the 
 great Halls of Examination at Peking. If, 
 while there, he is favoured by the God of Learn- 
 ing and passes the examination, he will come 
 back to his village an honour to his province, 
 and all his world will come and do him rever- 
 ence, from the viceroy in his official chair to 
 the meanest worker in the fields. These old- 
 time examinations are gone, the degrees 
 
218 My Lady of the 
 
 which were our pride have been abolished, the 
 subjects of study in the schools have been 
 completely changed. The privileges which 
 were once given our scholars, the social and 
 political offices which were once open to the 
 winner of the highest prize, have been thrown 
 upon the altar of modernity. They say it is 
 a most wise move and leads to the greater 
 individualism, which is now the battle-cry of 
 China. The fault of the old examination, we 
 are told, is the lack of original ideas which 
 might be expressed by a student. He must 
 give the usual interpretations of the classics. 
 Now the introduction of free thought and pri- 
 vate opinion has produced in China an 
 upheaval in men's minds. The new scholars 
 may say what they think wisest, and they 
 even try to show that Confucius was at 
 heart a staunch republican, and that Mencius 
 only thinly veiled his sentiments of modern 
 philosophy. 
 
 Perhaps the memory work of the Chinese 
 education was wrong; but it served its purpose 
 once, if tales are true. 
 
 It is said that many hundreds of years ago, 
 the founder of the Chinese dynasty, the man 
 of pride who styled himself Emperor the First, 
 conceived the idea of destroying all literature 
 
Chinese Courtyard 219 
 
 which was before his reign, so that he might 
 be regarded by posterity as the founder of 
 the Chinese Empire. It is believed by many 
 Chinese scholars that this wicked thing was 
 done, and that not a single perfect copy of 
 any book escaped destruction. He even went 
 so far 'as to bury alive above five hundred of 
 the best scholars of the land, that none might 
 remain to write of his cruel deed. But the 
 classics had been too well learned by the 
 scholars, and were reproduced from memory 
 to help form the minds of China for many tens 
 of years. This could be done to-day if a 
 similar tragedy were enacted. Thousands of 
 boys have committed the great books to 
 heart, and this storing in the mind of enormous 
 books has developed in our race a marvellous 
 memory, if, as others say, it has taken away 
 their power of thinking for themselves. 
 
 Which is the best? Only time will tell. 
 But we are told that the literati of China, the 
 aristocracy of our land, must go. Yet, as of 
 old, it is the educated men who will move 
 China. Without them, nothing can be done, 
 for the masses will respect education and the 
 myriads will blindly follow a leader whom they 
 feel to be a true scholar; and it will be hard 
 to change the habits of a people who have been 
 
220 My Lady of the 
 
 taught for centuries that education is another 
 word for officialdom. 
 
 This new education, in my mind, must not 
 be made so general; it must be made more per- 
 sonal. Three things should be taken into 
 account: who the boy is, where he is, and 
 where he is going. It is not meet to educate 
 the son of my gate-keeper the same as my son. 
 He should be made a good workman, the best 
 of his kind, better to fill the place to which the 
 Gods have called him. Give our boys the mod- 
 ern education, if we must, but remember and 
 respect the life work each may have to follow. 
 Another thing we should remember : the prog- 
 ress in the boy's worldly knowledge should 
 not make him hard in his revolt against his 
 Gods, nor should his intelligence be freed 
 without teaching him self-control. That is 
 fatal for our Eastern race. Let him learn, 
 in his books and in his laboratories, that he 
 moulds his destiny by his acts in later life, and 
 thus gain true education, the education of 
 the soul as well as of the mind. 
 
 I have written thee a sermon, but it is a 
 subject on which we mothers are thinking 
 much. It is before us daily, brought to our 
 courtyards by our sons and daughters, and we 
 see the good and the evil of trying to reach at a 
 
Chinese Courtyard 221 
 
 single bound the place at which other nations 
 have at last arrived after centuries of weary 
 climbing. 
 
 I must go to the women's quarters and stop 
 their chattering. Oh, Mother mine, why 
 didst thou send to me that priest of thine? 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
222 My Lady of the 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Dear Mother, 
 
 I must introduce thee to thy new daughter- 
 in-law. Yes, I can see thee start. I will tell 
 thee quickly. Thy son hath not taken to 
 himself another wife, but it is I, Kwei-li, 
 who should be made known to thee anew. 
 Kwei-li, the wife of the Governor of Kiang-si, 
 who has become so foreignised that the mother 
 of her husband would never know her. If 
 things keep on the path they have gone for 
 these last few moons, I fully expect thou wilt 
 see me with that band of women who are mak- 
 ing such a great outcry for their rights and 
 freedom. I cannot even explain them to 
 thee, as thou wouldst not understand. 
 
 My last adventure in the ways of the 
 modern woman is in relation to the courtship 
 of my son. Tang-si, my second son, is in 
 love; and I, his mother, am aiding and abet- 
 ting him, and allowing him to see his sweet- 
 heart in the foreign way. I know thou wilt 
 blush when thou readest this; but I have been 
 in the hands of the Gods and allowed not to 
 
Chinese Courtyard 223 
 
 speak of "custom," or propriety, and when I 
 have tried to reason with my son and talk to 
 him in regard to what is seemly, he laughs at 
 me and calls me pet names, and rubs my hair 
 the wrong way and says I am his little mother. 
 I knew that astounding fact long years ago, 
 and still I say that is no reason why I should go 
 against all customs and traditions of my race. 
 
 I told him I was taught that men and women 
 should not sit together in the same room, nor 
 keep their wearing apparel in the same place, 
 nor even cleanse them in the same utensils. 
 They should not look upon each other, or 
 hand a thing directly from man to woman 
 hand. I was taught that it was seemly and 
 showed a maidenly reserve to observe a cer- 
 tain distance in my relations even with my 
 husband or my brothers, but I have found that 
 the influence of reason upon love is like that of 
 a raindrop upon the ocean, "one little mark 
 upon the water's face and then it disappears." 
 
 Now I will tell thee all about it. Tang-si 
 came to me one day, and after speaking of 
 many things of no importance, he finally said, 
 "Mother, wilt thou ask Kah-li, Wu Tai-tai's 
 daughter, here to tea?" I said, "Why, is 
 she a friend of thy sister's?" He said, while 
 looking down upon the floor, "I do not know, 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 but but she is a special friend of mine." 
 I looked at him in amazement. "Thou hast 
 seen her?" ;< Yes, many times. I want thee 
 to ask her to the house, where we may have a 
 chance to talk." I sat back in my chair and 
 looked at him, and said within myself, "Was 
 ever mother blessed with such children; 
 what may I next expect?" He gave me a 
 quick look, and came over and took my hand 
 in his, and said, "Now, Mother, do not get 
 excited, and don't look as if the Heavens were 
 going to fall. I well thou makest it hard to 
 tell thee, but I want to marry Kah-li, and I 
 would like a chance of seeing her as the 
 foreign men see their wives before they marry 
 them." I said, quite calmly for me, "Thou 
 meanest thou art choosing thy wife instead of 
 allowing thy father and mother to choose 
 her?" He said, "Why, yes; I have to live 
 with her and I ought to choose her." I 
 said nothing what is the use? I have 
 learned that my men-folk have strong minds, 
 which they certainly must have inherited from 
 thine honourable family. I said that first 
 I would speak to her mother, and if she 
 approved of her daughter's seeing my son in 
 this most unbecoming manner, I would do 
 whatsoever he wished in the matter. I could 
 
[Page 221] 
 
 HY didst thou send that priest of thine? 
 
Chinese Courtyard 225 
 
 not wait, but went at once to the house of 
 Wu Tai-tai. We discussed the matter over 
 many cups of tea, and we saw that we are 
 but clouds driven by the winds and we must 
 obey. 
 
 She has been here for tea, and I am charmed 
 with her. She is as pretty as a jewel of pure 
 jade; I do not blame my son. She has laugh- 
 ter in her dancing eyes and seems as if she 
 would sing her life away from year to year and 
 see life alway through the golden gleam of 
 happy days. She is respectful and modest, 
 and now I feel she is one of the family and I 
 ask her to join us in all our f eastings. She 
 came to the feast when we burned the Kitchen 
 God, and joined with us in prayers as he 
 ascended to the great Spirit to tell him of our 
 actions in the past year. I am afraid our 
 young people do not believe o'ermuch in this 
 small God of the Household, who sits so quietly 
 upon his shelf above the kitchen stove for 
 twelve long months, watching all that goes on 
 within the home, then gives his message for 
 good or ill to Him above; but they are too 
 respectful to say ought against it in my 
 hearing. They must respect the old Gods 
 until they find something better to take their 
 place. 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 I do not know but that my son is right in 
 this question of his courtship. It is pretty 
 to see them as they wander through the gar- 
 dens, while we mothers sit upon the balconies 
 and gossip. Their love seems to be as pure as 
 spotless rice and "so long as colour is colour 
 and life is life will the youth with his sublime 
 folly wait for the meeting of his loved one." 
 What matter if the winter days will come to 
 them or if "the snow is always sure to blot 
 out the garden" -to-day is spring, and love is 
 love and youth is happy. 
 
 Thy shameless daughter 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 
 
 XIX 
 
 M y Dear Mother, 
 
 Thy gifts which came by the hand of Tuang- 
 fang are most welcome. We have already 
 drunk of the sun-dried tea, and it brings to 
 thought the sight of the long, laden trays of 
 the fragrant leaves as they lie in the sun on 
 the mountain-side. The rose wine we will 
 use on occasions of special rejoicing; and I 
 thank thee again for the garments which will 
 bring comfort to so many in the coming days 
 of cold. I was glad to see Tuang-fang, and 
 sorry to hear that he, with his brother, are 
 going so far away from home in search of 
 labour. Is there not work enough for our men 
 in the province without going to that land of 
 heat and sickness? 
 
 Our people go far in their passion for labour; 
 in search of it they cross land and sea. They 
 are the workers of the world, who sell their 
 labour for a price; and it is only strong men 
 with great self-dependence who are capable of 
 taking a road that is likely never to join 
 
228 My Lady of the 
 
 again those who speak their language and wor- 
 ship their Gods. What is it that has given 
 these men this marvellous adaptability to all 
 conditions, however hard they may seem? 
 They can live and work in any climate, they 
 are at home in the sandy wastes of our great 
 deserts or in the swamps of the southern 
 countries. They bear the biting cold of 
 northern lands as readily as they labour 
 under the burning sun of Singapore and Java. 
 The more I come out from the courtyard 
 and see our people, the more I admire them; 
 I see the things that are so often lost sight 
 of by those of other lands who seek to study 
 them. They are a philosophical race and bear 
 the most dreadful losses and calamities with 
 wonderful bravery. Nothing daunts them. 
 Behold the family of Tuang-fang: they 
 saw their home ruined at time of flood and 
 began again on the morrow to build on the 
 remaining foundations. They saw their fields 
 burned up by drouth, and took their winter 
 clothing to the pawn-shop to get money to 
 buy seed for the coming spring. They did 
 not complain so long as they could get suffi- 
 cient food to feed their bodies and the coarse 
 blue cloth with which to clothe them, and 
 when these failed they sent their three strong 
 
Chinese Courtyard 229 
 
 sons, the best of the family, to the rubber 
 plantations of the South. 
 
 We hear so much in the papers here of the 
 "Yellow Peril." If there is a Yellow Peril, it 
 lies in the fact that our men are ready to 
 labour unceasingly for a wage on which most 
 Europeans would starve, and on that pittance 
 they manage to save and become rich and 
 prosperous. They have gone into other lands 
 wherever they have found an opening, and 
 some of the southern countries, like Singapore 
 and the Philippines, owe much of their com- 
 mercial progress to our people. They are 
 honest and industrious, and until the foreigner 
 began to feel the pinch of competition, until 
 he found that he must work all day and not 
 sleep the hours away if he would be in the 
 race with the man from the Eastern land, he 
 had nothing to say about the character of the 
 man from China. But so soon as he felt the 
 pressure of want because of his sloth, he began 
 to find that the "yellow man" was vicious, 
 and soon his depravity became a by-word. 
 The Chinese were abused because of their 
 virtues rather than their vices, for things for 
 which all other nations are applauded love 
 of work and economy. It is the industry of 
 our people that offends, because it competes 
 
230 My JLady of the 
 
 with the half-done work of the white man, 
 who dissipates his time and money. 
 
 The men from this land have learned their 
 ways of work at home, where the struggle 
 for existence is hard. Sunrise sees the car- 
 penter and the smith, the shoemaker and the 
 beater of cotton at their labour, and the mid- 
 night cry of the watchman often finds them 
 patiently earning the rice for the morrow's 
 meal. And they have not learned to disobey 
 when told to go to work. There are no strikes 
 as in the foreign countries. Our workmen 
 are obedient, although it is said that they 
 lack in leadership, that nothing is originated 
 within themselves; but they can be taught, 
 and all who employ Chinese labour testify 
 to their ability to follow a good master. 
 
 I think, from hearing the gossip from thy 
 son's courtyard, that when China is again 
 peaceful, there will be more chance for the men 
 within her borders, who can then stay beside 
 their fires and earn their food. Our land is a 
 land of fertile soil, of rich minerals, and great 
 rivers. It is said that there are millions and 
 millons of acres on which food or other products 
 can be grown, and that a great part of China 
 may be made one vast garden. The German 
 scientist who is trying to get a coal mine con- 
 
Chinese Courtyard 231 
 
 cession from the government told my husband 
 that there were tens of millions of tons of coal 
 of the best quality in China, and that the single 
 province of Shansi could supply the entire 
 world for a thousand years. No wonder the 
 Germans are looking with longing eyes on 
 China! But we want these riches and this 
 labour for our people. If it is worth the 
 time of men of other countries to come to this 
 far-off land in search of what lies beneath our 
 soil, it is worth our while to guard it and keep 
 it for our own. 
 
 We hear news of battles and of secret 
 plottings, and I am worried about my son, 
 who is in Canton, the province that seems to 
 be the centre of rebellion and the breeding- 
 place of plots and treachery. I wonder what 
 will be the outcome of it all; if after all this 
 turmoil and bloodshed China will really 
 become a different nation? It is hard to 
 change the habits of a nation, and I think 
 that China will not be changed by this convul- 
 sion. The real Chinese will be the same 
 passive, quiet, slow-thinking and slow-moving 
 toiler, not knowing or caring whether his 
 country is a republic or whether he is ruled 
 by the Son of Heaven. He will be a stable, 
 peaceable, law-abiding citizen or subject, 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 with respect for his officials so long as they are 
 not too oppressive; not asking whether the 
 man who rules him is called a governor or a 
 futai, so long as work is plentiful and rice is 
 cheap. These patient, plodding men of China 
 have held together for countless thousands of 
 years, and I am sure that their strength is 
 derived from qualities capable of bearing 
 great strain; and our government, even the 
 government which we are trying so hard to 
 overturn and mould on Western lines, must 
 have suited the country and the people, be- 
 cause nothing ever persists generation after 
 generation, century after century, without 
 being suited to its environment and more or 
 less adapted to the changes which time always 
 brings. 
 
 Confucius said, "When I was on a mission to 
 Ch'u State, I saw a litter of young pigs 
 nestling close to their dead mother. After a 
 while they looked at her, then all left the 
 dead body and went off. For their mother 
 did not look at them any more, nor did she 
 seem any more to be of their kind. What 
 they loved was their mother: not the body 
 which contained her, but that which made 
 the body what it was." 
 
 That is the way with our country. She 
 
Chinese Courtyard 233 
 
 may leave the dead forms of her old govern- 
 ment, perhaps it will be her misfortune to 
 leave her religion, but the spirit of her 
 government and the spirit of her religion 
 she will always love. 
 
 But I must not gossip more with thee over 
 my dearly loved country and her people. I 
 know I talk to thee o'ermuch of politics 
 and the greedy eyes of foreigners which are 
 fixed upon our land, but one cannot live in 
 Shanghai, even behind the women's archway, 
 without hearing, night and day, the things 
 that move this, our world, so strongly. Even 
 my small children play at war, shoot their 
 rebels, build their fortresses and drive the 
 foreigners from off their piles of sand. 
 
 I cry to thee, my Mother, because a heart 
 must speak its bitterness, and here our lips 
 are sealed to all. I dare not even tell thy 
 son, my husband, all that passes in my mind 
 as I look from out my window at this fighting, 
 struggling, maddened world that surges round 
 me. 
 
 We are more than troubled about our son. 
 
 Thy daughter 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
234 My Lady of the 
 
 XX 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I send to thee some silken wadding for the 
 lining of thy coat, also a piece of sable to make 
 a scarf for Su-su, and a box of clothing for 
 her new-born son. The children each have 
 written her a letter, and the candles have 
 been lighted before Kwan-yin, to show our 
 
 joy. 
 
 We have a guest, old General Wang, who 
 is on his way to visit with my father. He 
 is of the old, old China, and wags his head 
 most dolefully over the troubles of his country, 
 and says a republic never will succeed. My 
 husband was bewailing the fact of the empty 
 strong-box, and Wang said, "Why don't you 
 do what I did when I was in command of the 
 troops? When money was scarce, I simply 
 stopped a dollar a month from each man's 
 pay, and, lo, there was the money." He was 
 quite shameless in regard to the old-time 
 " squeeze " and said it was necessary. When 
 he was general he received the salary of an 
 ill-paid servant and was expected to keep up 
 
Chinese C ourtyard 235 
 
 the state of a small king. But there were 
 many ways to fill the empty pockets. When a 
 high official was sent to inspect his troops, 
 men were compelled to come from the fields, 
 the coolies to lay down their burdens, the 
 beggar to leave his begging-bowl, and all to 
 stand straight as soldiers with guns within 
 their hands. But when the officer was gone 
 each went his way with a small present in 
 his hand and did not appear again until the 
 frightened official was compelled to sweep the 
 highways and byways to find men enough to 
 agree with lists paid by the government. 
 
 But those times are past, and these old-time 
 officials find it safer to retire to homes within 
 their provinces. 
 
 He told us of Chung-tai, who was Taotai of 
 our city at one time. Dost thou remember 
 him ? He made many millions in the exporta- 
 tion of rice at time of famine. He was asked 
 to go to Peking, and promised a high position. 
 He sent as answer the story of Chung Tzu 
 the philosopher, who was fishing in the Piu 
 when the Prince of Ch'u sent high officials to 
 ask him to take charge of the State. Chung 
 went on fishing and without turning his head 
 said: "I have heard that in Ch'u there is a 
 sacred tortoise which has been dead now some 
 
236 My Lady of the 
 
 three thousand years, and that the Prince 
 keeps this tortoise carefully enclosed in a 
 chest on the altar of the sacred temple. Now 
 would this tortoise rather be dead and have its 
 remains venerated, or be alive and wagging 
 its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be 
 alive and wagging its tail in the mud," said 
 the officials. "Begone" said Chung. "The 
 tortoise is a symbol of longevity and great 
 wisdom. It would not befit me to aspire to 
 greater wisdom than the tortoise. I, too, 
 prefer the mud." 
 
 Chung spoke bravely in sending this reply 
 to Peking; but no sooner was it sent than he 
 gathered his family and his sycee and departed 
 for Shanghai, where he feels more sure of the 
 protection of the foreign settlements than he 
 does of the kindly intentions of His Excellency 
 Yuan toward his dollars. 
 
 The children have come home and are 
 clamouring for their supper. They are growing 
 rougher and noisier each day, and, I fear, are 
 spending far too many hours in the servants' 
 courtyard, where they hear of things not 
 seemly for young ears. Canst thou send me 
 Wong-si for a few months? She might be 
 able to keep some order in my household, al- 
 though I doubt a person of a nature not divine 
 
Chinese Courtyard 237 
 
 being able to still the many tongues I have now 
 about me. 
 
 We send thee love, and greetings to thy 
 new-born great-grandson. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
238 My Lady of the 
 
 XXI 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I have been in the country with my friend 
 Ang Ti-ti. It was the time of pilgrimage to 
 the graves of her family at the temple near 
 Wu-seh. My household gave me many 
 worries, and my husband said it was a time of 
 rest for me, so we took a boat, with only a few 
 servants, as I am tired of chattering women, 
 and spent three long happy days amongst the 
 hills. We sat upon the deck as the boat was 
 slowly drawn along the canal, and watched 
 the valley that autumn now is covering with 
 her colours rare. All the green of the fields 
 is changed. All the gay foliage of the trees 
 upon the hillsides will soon be dead and crum- 
 bling. These withered leaves that once waved 
 gaily in the air are lying now in clustered 
 heaps, or fluttering softly to the ground like 
 dull, brown butterflies who "are tired with 
 flight. The only touch of colour is on the 
 maple-trees, which still cling with jealous 
 hands to coverings of red and gold. The 
 autumn winds wailed sadly around our cabin 
 
anchored at night by a marshj bank 
 girdled with tall yellow reeds. 
 
 ! Page 239 ] 
 
Chinese Courtyard 239 
 
 windows, and every gust brought desolation 
 to tree and shrub and waving grass. Far 
 away the setting sun turned golden trees to 
 flame, and now and then on the sluggish waters 
 of the canal would drift in lonely splendour 
 a shining leaf that autumn winds had touched 
 and made into a thing of more than beauty. 
 
 We anchored the first night by a marshy 
 bank girdled with tall yellow reeds and dwarf 
 bamboo, and from our quiet cabin listened to 
 the rainy gusts that swept the valley. Out 
 of the inky clouds the lightning flashed and 
 lighted up each branch and stem and swaying 
 leaf, revealing to our half-blinded eyes the 
 rain-swept valley; then darkness came with 
 her thick mantle and covered all again. 
 
 We discussed the past, the present, and the 
 future; and then, as always when mothers 
 meet, the talk would turn to children. How 
 we are moved by our children! We are like 
 unto the Goddess of the Pine-tree. She came 
 out from her rugged covering and bore a man- 
 child for her husband's house, and then one 
 day the overlord of all that land sent to cut 
 down the pine-tree, that its great trunk might 
 form the rooftree of his temple. At the first 
 blow of the axe the soul glided back into its 
 hiding-place, and the woman was no more. 
 
240 My Lady of the 
 
 And when it fell, three hundred men could not 
 move it from its place of falling; but her 
 baby came and, putting out his hand, said, 
 "Come," and it followed him quite quietly, 
 gliding to the very doorway of the temple. 
 So do our children lead us with their hands of 
 love. 
 
 On the second day we went to the temple to 
 offer incense at the family shrine of Ang Ti-ti. 
 We Chinese ladies love these pilgrimages to 
 these shrines of our ancestors, and it is we who 
 keep up the family worship. We believe that 
 it is from the past that we must learn, and "the 
 past is a pathway which spirits have trodden 
 and made luminous." It is true, as Lafcadio 
 Hearn has written, "We should be haunted 
 by the dead men and women of our race, 
 the ancestors that count in the making of 
 our souls and have their silent say in every 
 action, thought and impulse of our life. Are 
 not our ancestors in very truth our souls? 
 Is not every action the work of the dead 
 who dwell within us? Have not our im- 
 pulses and our tendencies, our capacities and 
 our weaknesses, our heroisms and our fears, 
 been created by those vanished myriads from 
 whom we received that all-mysterious gift of 
 life? Should we think of that thing which 
 
 
Chinese Courtyard 241 
 
 is in each of us and which we call 'I,' should 
 it be 'I* or 'they'? What is our pride or 
 shame but the pride or shame of the unseen 
 in that which they have made? And what 
 is our conscience but the inherited sum of 
 countless dead experiences with all things 
 good and evil? 
 
 "In this worship that we give the dead they 
 are made divine. And the thought of this 
 tender reverence will temper with consolation 
 the melancholy that comes with age to all of 
 us. Never in our China are the dead too 
 quickly forgotten; by simple faith they are 
 still thought to dwell among their beloved, 
 and their place within the home remains holy. 
 When we pass to the land of shadows we know 
 that loving lips will nightly murmur our 
 names before the family shrine, that our 
 faithful ones will beseech us in their pain and 
 bless us in their joy. We will not be left alone 
 upon the hillsides, but loving hands will place 
 before our tablet the fruits and flowers and 
 dainty food that we were wont to like, and 
 will pour for us the fragrant cups of tea or 
 amber rice-wine. 
 
 "Strange changes are coming upon this 
 land, old customs are vanishing, old beliefs are 
 weakening, the thoughts of to-day will not be 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 the thoughts of to-morrow; but of all this we 
 will know nothing. We dream that for us as 
 for our mothers the little lamp will burn on 
 through the generations; we see in fancy the 
 yet unborn, the children of our children's 
 children, bowing their tiny heads and making 
 the filial obeisance before the tablets that bear 
 our family name." 
 
 This is our comfort, we who feel that 
 "this world is not a place of rest, but where 
 we may now take our little ease, until the 
 landlord whom we never see, gives our 
 apartment to another guest.'* 
 
 As I said to thee, it is the women who 
 are the preservers of the family worship and 
 who are trying hard to cling to old loved 
 customs. Perhaps it is because we suffer 
 from lack of facility in adapting ourselves to 
 new conditions. We are as fixed as the star 
 in its orbit. Not so much the men of China 
 but we women of the inner courtyards seem 
 to our younger generation to stand an im- 
 movable mountain in the pathway of their 
 freedom from the old traditions. 
 
 In this course we are only following woman 
 nature. An instinct more powerful than 
 reason seems to tell us that we must preserve 
 the thing we know. Change we fear. We 
 
Chinese C ourtyard 243 
 
 see in the new ideas that our daughters bring 
 from school, disturbers only of our life's ideals. 
 Yet the new thoughts are gathering about 
 our retreats, beating at our doorways, creep- 
 ing in at the closely shuttered windows, even 
 winning our husbands and our children from 
 our arms. The enclosing walls and the jeal- 
 ously guarded doors of our courtyards are 
 impotent. While we stand a foe of this so- 
 called progress, a guardian of what to us 
 seems womanhood and modesty, the world 
 around us is moving, feeling the impulse of 
 a larger life, broadening its outlook and 
 clothing itself in new expression that we 
 hardly understand. We feel that we cannot 
 keep up with this generation; and, seeing 
 ourselves left behind with our dead Gods, we 
 cry out against the change which is coming 
 to our daughters with the advent of this new 
 education and the knowledge of the outside 
 world. But 
 
 All happy days must end, and we floated 
 slowly back to the busy life again. As we 
 came down the canal in the soft moonlight 
 it recalled those other nights to me upon the 
 mountain-side, and as I saw the lights of the 
 city before us I remembered the old poem 
 of Chang Chih Lo : 
 
244 My Lady of the 
 
 "The Lady Moon is my lover, 
 
 My friends are the Oceans four, 
 The Heavens have roofed me over, 
 
 And the Dawn is my golden door. 
 I would liefer follow a condor, 
 
 Or the sea-gull soaring from ken, 
 Than bury my Godhead yonder 
 
 In the dust and whirl of men." 
 
 Thy daughter 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 245 
 
 XXII 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I have not written thee for many days. I 
 came back from my happy country trip to 
 find clouds of sorrow wrapping our home in 
 close embrace. We hear Ting-fang is in deep 
 trouble, and we cannot understand it. He is 
 accused of being in league with the Southern 
 forces. Of course we do not believe it, my 
 son is not a traitor; but black forebodings rise 
 from deeps unknown and the cold trail of 
 fear creeps round my heart. 
 
 But I cannot brood upon my fears alone; 
 this world seems full of sorrow. Just now I 
 have stopped my letter to see a woman who 
 was brought to the Yamen for trying to kill 
 her baby daughter. She is alone, has no one 
 to help her in her time of desolation, no rice 
 for crying children, and nothing before her 
 except to sell her daughter to the tea-house. 
 She gave her sleep; and who can blame 
 her? 
 
 Mother, send me all that thou canst spare 
 from out thy plenty. I would I could give 
 
246 My Lady of the 
 
 more. I would be a lamp for those who need 
 a lamp, a bed for those who need a bed; but 
 I am helpless. O, He who hears the wretched 
 when they cry, deign to hear these mothers 
 in their sorrow! 
 
 Thy daughter 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 247 
 
 XXIII 
 
 I know that thou hast heard the news, as it 
 is in all the papers. Ting-fang is accused of 
 throwing the bomb that killed General Chang. 
 I write to reassure thee that it cannot be true. 
 I know my son. Thou knowest thy family. 
 No Liu could do so foul a deed. 
 
 Do not worry; we will send thee all the news. 
 The morrow's tidings will be well, so rest in 
 peace. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
248 My Lady of the 
 
 XXIV 
 
 I thank thee from my heart for the ten 
 thousand taels telegraphed for the use of our 
 son. Father has sent fifty thousand taels to 
 be used in obtaining his freedom. I am sure 
 it will not be needed, as my son is not the cul- 
 prit. And if he were, it is not the olden time 
 when a life could be bought for a few thousand 
 ounces of silver, no matter how great the crime. 
 We will not bribe the Courts of Law, even for 
 our son. 
 
 But I am sure it will pass with the night's 
 darkness, and we will wake to find it all a 
 dream. I know, my mother's heart assures 
 me, that my boy is innocent. 
 
 Do not speak or think of coming down. 
 We will let thee know at once all news. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 249 
 
 [TELEGRAM] 
 We are leaving to-night for Canton. 
 
250 My Lady of the 
 
 XXV 
 
 We are entering Canton. The night denies 
 me sleep, and my brain seems beating like 
 the tireless shuttles upon a weaving-loom. I 
 cannot rest, but walk the deck till the moon 
 fades from the dawn's pale sky, and the sun 
 shows rose-coloured against the morning's 
 grey. Across the river a temple shines faintly 
 through its ring of swaying bamboo, and the 
 faint light glistens on the water dripping from 
 the oars that bring the black-sailed junks with 
 stores of vegetables for all that greedy city of 
 living people. The mists cling lovingly to 
 the hill-tops, while leaves from giant banyan- 
 trees sway idly in the morning wind, and bil- 
 lows of smoke, like dull, grey spirits, roll up- 
 ward and fade into a mist of clouded jade, 
 touched with the golden fingers of the rising 
 sun. 
 
 I see it all with eyes that do not see, because 
 the creeping hours I count until I find my son. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 251 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Ting-fang has been tried and found guilty. 
 The runners have brought me hour by hour 
 the news; and even his father can see nothing 
 that speaks in favour of his innocence. It is 
 known and he confesses to having been 
 with the men who are the plotters in this 
 uprising. He was with the disloyal officers 
 only a few hours before the bomb was thrown, 
 but of the actual deed he insists that he knows 
 nothing. All evidence points to his guilt. 
 Even the official who sentenced him, a life- 
 long friend of ours, said in the open court that 
 it hurt him sorely to condemn a man bearing 
 the great name of Liu, because of what his 
 father and his father's father had been to 
 China, but in times such as these an example 
 must be made; and all the world is now looking 
 on to see what will be done. 
 
 I will write thee and telegraph thee further 
 news; I can say no more at present; my heart 
 is breaking. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
My Lady of the 
 
 XXVII 
 
 A man came to us secretly last night and 
 offered to effect my son's escape for fifty 
 thousand taels. He said that arrangements 
 could be made to get him out of the country 
 and we have refused! We told him we could 
 give no answer until the morning, and I 
 walked the floor the long night through, trying 
 to find the pathway just. 
 
 We cannot do it. China is at the parting 
 of the ways; and if we, her first officials, 
 who are taking the stand upon the side of 
 justice and new ideas of honour, do not remain 
 firm in hours of great temptation, what lesson 
 have we to give to them who follow where we 
 lead? It must not be said that our first 
 acts were those of bribery and corruption. 
 If my son is a traitor, we let him pay. He 
 must give his life upon the altar of new China. 
 We cannot buy his life. We are of the house 
 of Liu, and our name must stand, so that, 
 through the years to come, it will inspire 
 those who follow us to live and die for China, 
 the country that we love. 
 
Chinese Courtyard 253 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 My Mother, 
 
 From the red dawn until the dense night 
 fell, and all the hours of darkness through, 
 have my weary feet stumbled on in hopeless 
 misery, waiting, listening for the guns that 
 will tell to me my son is gone. At sunset a 
 whispered message of hope was brought, then 
 vanished quite again, and I have walked the 
 lengthened reach of the great courtyard, 
 watching as, one by one, the lanterns die and 
 the world is turning into grey. Far away 
 toward the rice-fields the circling gulls rise, 
 flight on flight, and hover in the blue, then fly 
 away to life and happiness in the great beyond. 
 In the distance, faint blue smoke curls from a 
 thousand dwellings of people who are rising 
 and will greet their sons, while mine lies dead. 
 Oh, I thought that tears were human only, 
 yet I see each blade of shining grass weighed 
 down with dewdrop tears that glimmer in 
 the air. Even the grass would seem all 
 sorrow filled as is my heart. 
 
 The whole night through the only sound has 
 
254 My Lady of the 
 
 been the long-drawn note of the bamboo flute, 
 as the seller passes by, and the wind that 
 wailed and whistled and seemed to bring with 
 it spirits of the other world who came and 
 taunted me that I did not save my son. 
 Why, why did I not save him! What is 
 honour, what is this country, this fighting, 
 quarrelling, maddened country, what is our 
 fame, in comparison to his dear life? Why 
 did we not accept the offer of escape! It 
 was ours to give or take; we gave, and I 
 repent O God, how I repent! My boy, my 
 boy! I will be looking for his face in all my 
 dreams and find despair. 
 
 Dost thou remember how he came to me in 
 answer to the Towers of Prayer I raised when 
 my first-born slept so deep a sleep he could 
 not be wakened even by the voice of his 
 mother? But that sorrow passed and I 
 rose to meet a face whose name is memory. 
 At last I knew it was not kindness to mourn 
 so for my dead. Over the River of Tears their 
 silent road is, and when mothers weep too long, 
 the flood of that river rises, and their souls 
 cannot pass but must wander to and fro. 
 But to those whom they leave with empty arms 
 they are never utterly gone. They sleep in the 
 
w 
 
 HEN all the hills are white with blossoms. 
 
 [Page 261] 
 
Chinese Courtyard 255 
 
 darkest cells of tired hearts and busy brains, 
 to come at echo of a voice that recalls the 
 past. 
 
 * 
 
 My sleeve is wet with bitter rain; but tears 
 cannot blot out the dream visions that memory 
 wakes, and the dead years answer to my call. 
 I see my boy, my baby, who was the gift of 
 kindly Gods. When I first opened my eyes 
 upon him, I closed them to all the world 
 besides, and my soul rested in peace beside 
 the jewel within its cradle. The one sole 
 wish of my heart was to be near him, to sit 
 close by his side, to have him day by day 
 within my happy sight, and to lay my cheek 
 upon his rose-tipped feet at night. The sun's 
 light seemed more beautiful where it touched 
 him, and the moon that lit my Heaven was his 
 eyes. 
 
 As he grew older he was fond of asking ques- 
 tions to which none but the Gods could give 
 reply, and I answered as only mothers will. 
 When he wished to play I laid aside my work 
 to play with him, and when he tired and 
 wished to rest, I told him stories of the past. 
 At evening when the lamps were lighted I 
 taught him the words of the evening prayer, 
 and when he slept I brought my work close by 
 
256 My Lady of the 
 
 his cradle and watched the still sweetness of 
 his face. Sometimes he would smile in his 
 dreams, and I knew that Kwan-yin the Divine 
 was playing shadow-play with him, and I 
 would murmur a silent prayer to the Mother 
 of all Mercies to protect my treasure and keep 
 him from all harm. 
 
 
 
 I can see my courtyard in far Sezchuan; 
 and in the wooden box within my bedroom 
 are all his baby-clothes. There are the shoes 
 with worn-out toes and heels that tried so hard 
 to confine restless, eager feet; the cap with 
 Buddha and his saints, all broken and tarnished 
 where tiny, baby teeth have left their marks; 
 and, Mother, dost thou remember when we 
 made him clothing like the soldier at the 
 Yamen? And the bamboo that the gateman 
 polished he carried for a gun 
 
 O my son, my son ! How can I rise to begin 
 the bitter work of life through the twilights 
 yet to come! 
 
Chinese Courtyard 257 
 
 XXIX 
 
 How can I tell thee, Mother mine, of the 
 happiness within my heart! It is passed; it 
 was but a dream, a mirage. He is here, my 
 boy, his hand in mine, his cheek against my 
 cheek; he is mine own again, my boy, my man- 
 child, my son. 
 
 It was not he; the culprit has been found; 
 and in the golden morning light my son stood 
 free before me. I cannot write thee more 
 at present, I am so filled with joy. What 
 matter if the sun shines on wrinkles and white 
 hair, the symbol of the fulness of my sorrow 
 I have mine own again! 
 
258 My Lady of the 
 
 XXX 
 
 My Dear Mother, 
 
 I can talk to thee more calmly, and I know 
 thou hungerest for full news. Dost thou re- 
 member Liang Tai-tai, she whom I wrote thee 
 was so anxious for the mercy of the Gods 
 that she spent her time in praying instead of 
 looking after household duties and her son? 
 He was the one who tried to pass the Dark 
 Water and I talked to him and we sent him to 
 the prefect at Canton. It was he who found 
 the man for whom my son was accused. It 
 seemed he felt he owed us much for helping 
 him in his time of trouble, and now he has 
 repaid. 
 
 I feel that I have laughed too oft at Liang 
 Tai-tai and her Gods, but now I will go with 
 her from temple shrine to temple shrine. I will 
 buy for her candles, incense, spirit money, until 
 the Gods look down in wonder from their 
 thrones. I am so filled with gratitude that 
 when I see my friend, I will fall before her feet 
 and bathe them with my happy tears for 
 
Chinese Courtyard 259 
 
 having trod the path of motherhood and given 
 to the world a man-child, who has saved for 
 me my son. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
260 My Lady of the 
 
 XXXI 
 
 My Mother, 
 
 We are home, and have not written thee for 
 long, but have telegraphed thee twice daily, 
 so that thou hast been assured that all is 
 well. 
 
 We found our dear one, our Li-ti, bending 
 o'er her babe, holding it safely, nestling it, 
 murmuring, softly, whispers of mother love. 
 This son, born in the hour of trouble and 
 despair, is a token of the happiness to come, of 
 the new life that will come forth from grief 
 and sorrow. 
 
 He has learned a lesson, this boy of mine, 
 and he will walk more carefully, guard more 
 surely his footsteps, now he is the father of a 
 son. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
Chinese Courtyard 261 
 
 XXXII 
 
 O Mother of graciousness, we are coming 
 to thee! When all the hills are white with 
 blossoms, we shall set forth, our eager hearts 
 and souls one great, glad longing for the sight 
 of thee standing in the archway, searching with 
 earnest gaze the road, listening for the bearers' 
 footsteps as we mount the hillside. 
 
 We leave this place of trial and turmoil. I 
 want my children to come within the shelter 
 of thy compound walls, where safety lies; and 
 with the "shell of f orgetf ulness " clasped 
 tightly in our hands, we will forget these days 
 of anguish and despair. Then only, when my 
 dear ones are far from here, shall my soul 
 obtain the peace it craves, forgetful of the 
 hostile, striving, plotting treachery of this 
 foreign world I fear. 
 
 We are coming home to thee, Mother of my 
 husband, and I have learned in life's great, bit- 
 ter school that the joy of my Chinese woman- 
 
262 My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard 
 
 hood is to stand within the sheltered courtyard, 
 with my family close about me, and my son's 
 son in my arms. 
 
 Kwei-li 
 
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