Golden Lilies Page 9

  Oh she is good, the little rain, and well she knows our need,

  Who cometh in the time of spring to aid the sun drawn seed.

  She wanders with a friendly wind through silent heights unseen,

  The furrows feel her happy tears, and lo, the land is green!

  I must send a servant with the rain coverings for the children, that they may not get wet in returning from their schools. We greet you, all.

  Kwei-li

  8

  My Dear Mother,

  Last night I heard a great wailing in the servants’ courtyard, and found there the maid of your old friend Tang Tai-tai. She came from Nanking to us, as she has no one left in all the world. She is a Manchu and has lived all her life in the Manchu family of Tang within the Tartar city of Nanking. It seems the soldiers, besieging the city, placed their guns on Purple Hill, so that they would cause destruction only to the Tartar city, and it was leveled 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 lives for the fact that they belonged to the Imperial Clan. She is old, this faithful servant, and now claims my protection. It is another mouth to feed; but there is so much unhappiness that if it were within my power I would quench with rains of food and drink the anguish this cruel war has brought upon so many innocent ones. A mat on which to sleep, a few more bowls of rice, these are the only seeds that I may sow within the fields of love, and I dare not withhold them.

  I am most sorrowful for these poor Manchus. For generations they have received a pension from the government; to every man-child an allowance has been made; and now they find themselves with nothing. Even their poor homes are piles of stone and rubbish. What will they do to gain their food in this great country, which is already full to overflowing? 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 nearly 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 outside 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 rumors of the actions of the rebels. Poor Liang Tai-tai was here and in the sorest trouble. Her husband and her brother were officers in the army of Yuan, and when in 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 government is taking measures both quick and just. Ten men were captured and were being brought by an English ship to Canton, and when in neutral waters it is said a Chinese gunboat steamed alongside with an order for the prisoners. As they stepped upon the Chinese boat, each man was shot. The English were most horrified, and have spoken loudly in all the papers of the acts of barbarism; but they do not understand our people. They must be frightened; especially at a time like this, when men are watching for the chance to take advantage of their country’s turmoil.

  These pirates of Canton have always been a menace. Each village in that country must forever be 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 to the Yamen, a ring of iron around the collarbone, from which a chain led to the prisoner on either side. It was brutal, but it allowed no chance of escape for these men, dead to all humanity, and desperate, knowing there awaited them long days of prison, and in the end they knew not what.

  In those days imprisonment was the greatest of all evils; it was not made a place of comfort. For forty-eight long hours, the man within the clutches of the law went hungry; then, if no relative or friend came forth to feed him, he was allowed one bowl of rice and water for each day. A prison then meant ruin to a man with money, because the keepers of the inner gate, the guardian of the prison doors, the runners in the corridor, the jailer at the cell, each had a hand that arched for silver. A bowl of rice bought at the tea shop for ten cash, by the time the waiting hungry man received it, cost many silver dollars. Yet a prison should not be made a tempting place of refuge and vacation; if so, in times of cold and hunger it will be filled with those who would rather suffer shame than work.

  Another thing the people who cry loudly against our old-time courts of justice do not understand is the crushing, grinding, naked poverty that causes the people in the overcrowded province to commit most brutal deeds. The penalties must match the deeds, and frighten other evil-doers. But—

  What a subject for a letter! I can see you send for a cup of your 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 your walls. It will never touch you, Mother of mine, because the gods are holding you all safe within their loving hands.

  Your daughter,

  Kwei-li

  9

  My Mother,

  I have most joyful news to tell you. 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 the 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, you remember when he descended upon us in Szechwan—yet he could bring ten times the number, and his welcome would be as warm. The whole town knows he is our guest, and foreigners and Chinese have vied with one another to do him honor. 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 Rebellion, when he threatened the foreigners that if Her Majesty was even frightened, he would turn his troops upon Shanghai and drive the foreigners into the sea. I wonder if the present government can gain the love the Dowager Empress drew from all who served her.

  My father was the pioneer of the present education, so say the papers, and it is remembered that his school for girls in the province where he ruled nearly caused him the loss of his position, as His Excellency, Chang Chih-tung, 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 Father that he was against the coming of the foreigners. They could obtain no mine, no railway, no concession in a province where he was representing his empress. China was closed, so far as lay within his power, even to 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 about the present trials of China; he says, most justly, that he who is out of office should not meddle in the government. When asked if he will give the results of his long life and great experience to the republic, he answers that he owes his love and loyalty to the old regime under which he gained his wealth and honors; 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 pens of men who wrote of the longing for the spiritual life, or the beauties of the world outside 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 b
rought its messages to me.” It is only by the men of other days that poetry is appreciated, who take the time to look around them, to whom the quiet life, the life of thought and meditation is as vital as the air they breathe. To love the beautiful in life one must have time to sit apart from the worry and the rush of the present day. He must have time to look deep within his hidden self and weigh the things that count for happiness; and he must use most justly all his hours of leisure, a thing that modern life has taught us to hold lightly. ...

  My father learned to love the poets in younger days, but he still reads them over and over. 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 became a place of rare enchantment, with fairy palaces and lakes of jeweled 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 teahouse, and watch the growing of the lotus from the first unfurling of the leaf to the fall of the dying flower. When it rained, we would see the leaves raise their eager, dark green cups until filled, then bend down gracefully to empty their fullness, and rise to catch the drops again.

  The sound of the wind in the cane fields came to us at nighttime 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 housetops, that one can hear the spirit’s call, and forget the clanging of the world. It is the great gift that the god of nature alone can give, and “he has found happiness who has won through the stillness of the spirit the Perfect Vision, and this stillness comes through contentment that is regardless of the world.”

  He often said to me that we are a caravan of beings, wandering through life’s pathways, hungering to taste of happiness, which comes to us when we find plain food sweet, rough garments fine, and contentment in the home. It comes when we are happy in a simple way, allowing our wounds received in life’s battles to be healed by the moonbeams, which send ointment more precious than the oil of sandalwood.

  I could go on for pages, Mother of 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 will be supplanted by discourtesy, faith by doubt, and love of the gods by unbelief and impiety.

  Yet they say he does not stand for progress. What is progress? What is life? The poet truly cries: “How short a time it is that we are here! Why then not set our hearts at rest, why wear the soul with anxious thoughts? If we want not wealth, if we want not power, let us stroll the bright hours as they pass, in gardens amidst 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-tasseled 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 wildflowers 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 you, my Mother.

  Kwei-li

  10

  My Dear Mother,

  My days are passed like a waterwheel awhirl, and I can scarcely find time to attend to the ordinary duties of my household. I fear I seem neglectful to you, and I will try to be more regular with my letters, so that you will not need to reproach me. Tonight my house is quiet and all are sleeping, and I can chat with you 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 her two children. They were like little butterflies, dressed in their kimonos 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 me their photographs, and I will send them to you, as they seem children from another world. They are much prettier, in my eyes, than the foreign children, with their white hair and colorless blue eyes, who always seem to be clothed in white. That seems unnatural for a child, as it is our mourning color, and children should wear gay colors, 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 fond 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; 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, disputes the power of the little island. At present there is no limit to Japan’s ambition. Poor China! It will take years and tens of years to mold 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 pathways and traverse her rivers and canals, selling, buying, and spreading their influence abroad. 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 of 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 thought of honesty to hold him to a business transaction. We say here, “One can hold a Japanese to a bargain as easily as one can hold a slippery catfish on a gourd.” The Sons of Nippon have another point in their favor: The Br
itish 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 does; her diplomacy, her suavity is based upon it; her army and her vast navy are to help gain and hold it; it is the end and aim of her ambitions.

  We Chinese have people—millions, tens of millions of them. When they are better educated, when China is more prosperous, when new demands and higher standards of living are created, when the coolie will not be satisfied with his bowl of rice a day and his one blue garment, then possibilities of commerce will be unlimited. Japan sees this with eyes that look far into the future, and she wants to control this coming trade—and I fear she will. She has an ambition that is as great as her overpowering belief in herself, an ambition to be in the East what England is in the West; and she is working patiently, quietly, to that end. We fear her; but we are helpless. I hear the men talk bitterly; but what can they do? We must not be another Korea; we must wait until we are strong, and look to other hands to help us in our struggle.

  We hope much from America, that country which has so wonderful an influence upon us, which appeals to our imagination because it is great and strong and prosperous. The suave and humorous American, with his easy ways, is most popular with our people, although he cannot always be trusted nor is his word bond. He is different from the man of England, who is not fond of people not of his own color 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 trade interest (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. I would that she and England might form a bond of brotherhood for our protection; because all the world knows that where Germany, Russia, or Japan has power, all the people from other lands are barred by close-shut doors.