Elizabeth Cooper

“ The summer wanes and autumn is upon us with all its mists and
shadows of purple and grey. The camphor-trees look from the
distance like great balls of fire, and the eucalyptus-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. ”

“ The hands of a Chinese lady are beautiful—long, slender, and delicate, looking as helpless as a flower. In the olden time long fingernails were worn as a mark of ladyhood, and were often covered with jade or gold, telling plainly that the wearer belonged to the leisured class and did not need to toil. In fact, the whole expression of a Chinese lady is helplessness. From her exquisitely coiffured head, with its mass of pearl and jade, to her tiny feet, on which she sways instead of walks, she impresses one as a dainty piece of jewellery, too fragile for real life. ”

“ 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 waiting, hoping women. ”

“ I don't feel that all the world is against me and that I have to fight my way through it, cause I know I am loved and trusted and there is always some one waiting for me at the gate. Why, Kate, it changes your whole life to know there is some one caring for you who won't try to do you the first chance they get, and if it makes such a difference in your feelings, it is bound to make a difference in your actions, and that is the reason when I dance, I sway and bend and turn as light as if I was a fairy one reads about in story books. ”

“ I have come in contact with people from all over the world in my capacity as educator, but I believe there are no men of any country who can compare with the Indian in quickness of thought and in capacity to learn. Within the small round head of the Bengali is a dynamo of resistless energy, that is for ever working, either for good or bad, but which ever way it turns, we of England must recognize its power.
The crying need of India is the great teacher, both man and woman; the teacher who will really take an interest in his pupils and not feel the bar of race. ”

“ It takes centuries
of training to change the habits and thoughts of a nation. It cannot be
done at once; our girls have not the foundation on which to build. Our
womanhood has been trained by centuries of caressing care to look
as lovely as nature allows, to learn obedience to father as a child, to
husband as a wife, and to children when age comes with his frosty
fingers.
Yet we all know that the last is a theory only to be read in books.
Where is there one so autocratic in her own home as a Chinese
mother? She lives within its four walls, but there she is supreme. ”

“ It looked like a pink silk dancing petticoat under a gray chiffon skirt. Did you ever eat at a table under a great big tree looking out on the water? You know you eat different. You eat slow, and you think of the things you love, the things you have read about, and of what you would like to be. The toast seems crisper, and the coffee tastes better, and you forget the rotten crowd and old New York and the hot, dry streets and the Childs restaurants and the dance halls and the whole bum world. Then our evenings are so happy! We row around the lake and afterwards come home and water the flowers. ”

“ HYDERABAD AND THE MOHAMMEDAN WOMAN The city of Hyderabad seems to have been dropped to the earth from an Oriental dream. It is the most Eastern city in this most Eastern land, and you are filled with a sense that it is not at all real, but especially staged and set for your amusement, and when you leave, it will all disappear. The gaily painted shops will be pulled down and put in the property-room, the goldsmiths who make the bracelets, nose-rings, and necklaces for the pretty, dark-eyed women within the zenanas is only waiting for his cue to leave the stage. ”

“ I wish when you are quiet there, Kate, you would think things over and decide to do different. You and me and Billy could go away somewhere. You must see by this time, Kate, that thieving don't pay. Why you are only thirty-three years old, and you have had five years in the pen and you are getting bitter and sour and you will have a grouch against life, and you know you are awfully clever, if you could only turn your brain to something honest, I don't see why you couldn't get along. ”

“ I thought many times in my long residence in the East that I had really entered into the life and understood the thoughts, hopes, and ambitions of the Eastern woman, when at some thoughtless word or action on my part a wall of fog would come between us, with a thick, impenetrable, blanket-like mist, made up of custom, tradition, and the results of environment, and when it would lift we would find our little boats far from each other on a sea of mutual misunderstanding. ”

“ When Chinese gentlemen
meet for pleasure, they talk of poetry and the wisdom 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 foreigners, the talk must be of tea, its
prices, the weight of cotton piece goods, the local gossip of the town
in which they live. ”

“ It is the desert which he loves, where he was born, under the brown tents of his tribe where he hopes to pass his life, and in the sands where he wishes to be buried. He loves each one of its many phases, from the sand burnt to powder by the white fire of the noonday sun, to the cool breeze of the dying day, that causes the smoke from the many fires to rise in blue-grey wreaths to the evening sky, which changes from violet to greyer blue, and then to the intense dark blue of the precious sapphire. ”

“ Behind the archway, we
Chinese women "of the old school," as my daughter calls us, feasted
and laughed our 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. ”

“ The wailing of the women tells the story of a death, as they abandon themselves completely to their sorrow, tearing their hair, striking their foreheads, and uttering shrill cries to show their desolation. As soon as the breath leaves the body preparations are made at once for its disposal, as a corpse is never kept longer than twenty-four hours in this hot climate. The eldest son, if there is one of suitable age, or the father or eldest brother in order of nearest relationship, or the husband if the deceased is a woman, must conduct the funeral ceremonies. ”

“ Thou wilt never know how many times I have gone down
the pathway to the temple and asked this great boon of our Lady of
Mercy. She granted it, and my life is made perfect. I am indeed a
woman, fulfilling 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. ”

“ When the train stopped for any length of time at a station, the people came in crowds and knelt, touching their heads to the ground, and one old lady kept bowing and holding up her hands, with the tears streaming down her face at the joy of beholding so great a divinity. He looked at them without seeing them at all, never showing by any motion or sign that there was anything to be seen except the distant hills. I do not see how it was possible for any human being to look so thoroughly impersonal at a crowd of bowing, worshipping people, when he knew he was the object of all the adoration. ”

“ These pretty babies searching for a future
home are China's greatest menace. Japan reels that her destiny lies
here in the Far East, where she is overlord, and will continue as such
until the time, if it ever comes, when new China, with her far greater
wealth and her myriads of people, dispute the power of the little
Island. At present there is no limit to Japan's ambition. Poor China! It
will take years and tens of years to mould her people into a nation;
and Japan comes to her each year, buying her rice, her cotton and
her silk. ”

“ The real woman of India is bound to grow in knowledge brought by education and experience, but deep down in her heart she will be essentially the same for years to come. She will not try to exchange her personality for another’s, even in outward appearance.
The dawn of consciousness that has been preceded by long twilight is now awakening in the soul of the Eastern woman, and she will see by its light that she has a strength and individuality of her own and that she need not mortgage her birthright to borrow alien charms from the women of other lands. ”

“ They see and
hear the boat-women, the women who have the most freedom 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 children, and her
religion, is still undiscovered. ”

“ 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!
26
Dost thou know what love is? Thou canst not till thou holdest Love
itself within thy very arms. I thought I loved thee. I smile now at the
remembrance of that feeble flickering 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. ”

“ The young girl fresh from her school in Cairo or Calcutta, where she has caught glimpses of a new world, and where her brain has been slightly awakened, marries and goes into the traditional home, where her faith in herself is gradually diminished by living constantly in the atmosphere of ignorance and superstition which still rules so largely in her woman’s world. Finally, she gives up trying, resigning herself to the standard of the man-made world in which she finds herself, and her husband becomes her keeper in every sense of the word. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The rush and worry of the Western world seem to have penetrated even to the women’s courtyard, and there is no doubt that the new China will be Westernized in every department of her being. But we who love China hope that she will not change too rapidly, that she will take what is necessary for her happiness from the knowledge and the mode of life of the Occident, but that she will touch it with her own individuality, making it a real part of her and not simply becoming an imitation of the alien people by whom she is surrounded. ”

“ What is there to compare in binding power to the family customs of
our people? Their piety, their love one for the other and that to which it
leads, the faithfulness of husband to his wife-- all these, in spite of
what may be said against them by the newer generation, do exist and
must influence the nation for its good. And this one great fact must be
counted amongst the forces, if it is not the greatest force, which bind
the Chinese people in bonds strong as ropes of twisted bamboo. ”