Elizabeth Cooper

“ 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.
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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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is hard to
change the habits of a nation, and I think that China will not be
changed by this convulsion. 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, 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have observed 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 symbols have lost their meaning, and if the Gods
of China are no longer strong enough to hold our young. ”

“ It is pretty to see them as they wander through the gardens, 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are others there in 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.
39 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." ”

“ We bought silks and satins and gay brocades, 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' chairs with
packages, and returned home three happy, tired, hungry women,
thinking with longing of the hissing tea-urn upon the charcoal brazier.
That crowded, bustling, threatening city seems another world from
this, our quiet, walled-in dwelling. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ We hear each day of
friends who give their lives on the field of battle, these battles and this
conflict which would not be present with us were it not for the foreign
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. ”