factory beyond the wall.
It is something that in these two one can breathe.

Wusih

Chinese New Year

Mrs. Sung has a new kitchen-god. The old one—he who has presided over the household this twelvemonth—has returned to the Celestial Regions to make his report. Before she burned him Mrs. Sung smeared his mouth with sugar; so that doubtless the report will be favorable. Now she has a new god. As she paid ten coppers for him he is handsomely painted and should be highly efficacious. So there is rejoicing in the house of Mrs. Sung.

Peking

Echoes

Crepuscule

Like the patter of rain on the crisp leaves of autumn are the tiny footfalls of the fox-maidens.

Festival of the Dragon Boats

On the fifth day of the fifth month the statesman Küh
    Yuen drowned himself in the river Mih-lo.
Since then twenty-three centuries have passed, and the
    mountains wear away.
Yet every year, on the fifth day of the fifth month,
    the great Dragon Boats, gay with flags and gongs,
    search diligently in the streams of the Empire
    for the body of Küh Yuen.

Kang Yi

When Kang Yi had been long dead the Empress decreed upon him posthumous decapitation, so that he walks for ever disgraced among the shades.

Poetics

While two ladies of the Imperial harem held before him a screen of pink silk, and a P'in Concubine knelt with his ink-slab, Li Po, who was very drunk, wrote an impassioned poem to the moon.

A Lament of Scarlet Cloud

O golden night, lit by the flame of seven stars, the years have drunk you too.

The Son of Heaven

Like this frail and melancholy rain is the memory of
    the Emperor Kuang-Hsü, and of his sufferings at
    the hand of Yehonala.
Yet under heaven was there found no one to avenge
    him.
Now he has mounted the Dragon and has visited the
    Nine Springs. His betrayer sits upon the Dragon
    Throne.

Yet among the shades may he not take comfort from
    the presence of his Pearl Concubine?

The Dream

When he had tasted in a dream of the Ten Courts of Purgatory, Doctor Tsêng was humbled in spirit, and passed his life in piety among the foot-hills.

Fêng-Shui

At the Hour of the Horse avoid raising a roof-tree,
    for by the trampling of his hoofs it may
    be beaten down;
And at the Hour of the cunning Rat go not near a
    soothsayer, for by his cunning he may mislead
    the oracle, and the hopes of the enquirer come
    to naught.

China of the Tourists

Reflections in a Ricksha

This ricksha is more comfortable than some.
The springs are not broken, and the seat is covered
    with a white cloth.
Also the runner is young and sturdy, and his legs flash
    pleasantly.
I am not ill at ease.

The runner interests me.
Between the shafts he trots easily and familiarly, lifting
    his knees prettily and holding his shoulders
    steady.
His hips are lean and narrow as a filly's; his calves
    might have posed for Praxiteles.
He is a modern, I perceive, for he wears no queue.
Above a rounded neck rises a shock of hair the shade
    of dusty coal. Each hair is stiff and erect as a
    brush bristle. There are lice in them no doubt—
    but then perhaps we of the West are too squeamish
    in details of this minor sort.
What interests me chiefly is the back of his ears. Not
    that they are extraordinary as ears; it is their
    very normality that touches me. I find them
    smaller than those of a horse, but undoubtedly
    near of kin.

There is no denying the truth of evolution;
Yet as a beast of burden man is distinctly inferior.

It is odd.
At home I am a democrat. A republic, a true republic,
    seems not improbable, a fighting dream.
Yet beholding the back of the ears of a trotting man
    I perceive it to be impossible—the millennium
    another million years away.
I grow insufferably superior and Anglo-Saxon.
I am sorry, but what would you?
One is what one is.

Hankow

The Camels

Whence do you come, and whither make return, you
    silent padding beasts?
Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to
    Kalgan—and beyond, whither?…

Here in the city you are alien, even as I am alien.
Your sidling jaw, your pendulous neck—incredible—and
    that slow smile about your eyes and lip,
    these are not of this land.
About you some far sense of mystery, some tawny
    charm, hangs ever.
Silently, with the dignity of the desert, your caravans
    move among the hurrying hordes, remote and
    slowly smiling.

But whence are you, and whither do you make return?
Over the mountain passes; through the Great Wall; to
    Kalgan—and beyond, whither?…

Peking

The Connoisseur: An American

He is not an old man, but he is lonely.
He who was born in the clash of a western city dwells
    here, in this silent courtyard, alone.
Seven servants he has, seven men-servants. They
    move about quietly and their slippered feet make
    no sound. Behind their almond eyes move green,
    sidelong shadows, and their limber hands are
    never still.
In his house the riches of the Orient are gathered.
Ivory he has, carved in a thousand quaint, enticing
    shapes—pleasant to the hand, smooth with the
    caressing of many fingers.
And jade is there, dark green and milky white, with
    amber from Korea and strange gems—beryl,
    chrysoprase, jasper, sardonyx….
His lacquered shelves hold priceless pottery—peachblow
    and cinnabar and silver grey—pottery
    glazed like the new moon, fired how long ago
    for a moon-pale princess of the East, whose very
    name is dust!

In his vaults are incredible textures and colors that
    vibrate like struck jade.

Stiff with gold brocade they are, or soft as the coat of
    a fawn—these sacred robes of a long dead priest,
    silks of a gold-skinned courtesan, embroideries of
    a lost throne.
When he unfolds them the shimmering heaps are like
    living opals, burning and moving darkly with the
    warm breath of beauty.

And other