Part 4 (1/2)

I have alluded to the craze for joking among young ladies in society. At a dinner a reigning beauty, and daughter of ----, who sat next to me, talked with me on dancing. She told me all about it, and, pointing to a tall, distinguished-looking man near by, said that he had received his degree of D. D. (Doctor of Dancing) from Harvard University, and was extremely proud of it; and, furthermore, it would please him to have me mention it. I did not enlighten the young lady, and allowed her to continue, that I might enjoy her animation and superb ”nerve” (this is the American slang word for her att.i.tude). The gentleman was her uncle, a doctor of divinity, who was const.i.tutionally opposed to dancing; and I learned later that he had a cork leg. Such are some of the pitfalls in Was.h.i.+ngton set for the pagan Oriental by charming Americans.

Dancing parties, in fact, all functions, are seized upon by young men and women who antic.i.p.ate marriage as especially favorable occasions for ”courts.h.i.+p.” The parents apparently have absolutely nothing to do with the affair, this being a free country. The girl ”falls in love” with some one, and the courts.h.i.+p begins. In the lower cla.s.ses the girl is said to be ”keeping company” with so and so, or he is ”her steady company.” In higher circles the admirer is ”devoted to the lady.” This lasts for a year, perhaps longer, the man monopolizing the young lady's time, calling so many times a week, as the case may be, the familiarity between the two increasing until they finally exchange kisses--a popular greeting in America. About now they become affianced or ”engaged,” and the man is supposed to ask the consent of the parents. In France the latter is supposed to give a _dot_; in America it is not thought of. In time the wedding occurs, amid much ceremony, the bride's parents bearing all the expense; the groom is relieving them of a future expense, and is naturally not burdened. The married young people then go upon a ”honeymoon,” the month succeeding the wedding, and this is long or brief, according to the wealth of the parties. When they return they usually live by themselves, the bride resenting any advice or espionage from her husband's mother, who is the mother-in-law, a relation as much joked about in America as revered in China.

Sometimes the ”engaged” couple do not marry. The man perhaps in his long courts.h.i.+p discovers traits that weary him, and he breaks off the match. If he is wealthy the average American girl may sue him for damages, for laceration of the affections. One woman in the State of New York sued for the value of over two thousand kisses her ”steady company”

had taken during a number of years' courts.h.i.+p, and was awarded three thousand dollars. The journal from which I took this made an estimate that the kisses had cost the man one dollar and a half each! Sometimes the girl breaks the engagement, and if presents have been given she returns them, the man rarely suing; but I have seen record of a case where the girl refused to return the presents, and the man sued for them; but no jury could be found to decide in his favor. A distinguished physician has written a book on falling in love. It is recognized as a contagious disease; men and women often die of it, and commit the most extraordinary acts when under its influence. I have observed it, and, all things considered, it has no advantages over the Chinese method of attaining the marriage state. The wisdom of some older person is certainly better than what the American would call the ”snap judgment”

of two young people carried away by pa.s.sion. One might find the chief cause of divorce in America to lie in this strange custom.

I was invited by a famous wag last week to meet a man who could claim that he was the father of fifty-three children and several hundred grandchildren. I fully expected to see the _Gaikwar of Baroda_, or some such celebrity, but found a tall, ministerial, typical American, with long beard, whom ---- introduced to me as a Mormon bishop, who, he said, had a virtual _conge d'elire_ in the Church, at the same time referring to me as a Chinese Mormon with ”fifty wives.” I endeavored to protest, but ---- explained to the bishop that I was merely modest. The Mormons are a sect who believe in polygamy. Each man has as many wives as he can support, and the population increases rapidly where they settle. The ludicrous feature of Mormonism is that the Government has failed to stop it, though it has legislated against it; but it is well known that the Mormon allows nothing to interfere with his ”revelations,” which are on ”tap” in Utah.

I was much amused at the bishop's remarks. He said that if the American politicians who were endeavoring to kill them off would marry their actual concubines, and _all_ Americans would do the same, the United States would have a Mormon majority the next day. The bishop had the frailties and moral lapses of prominent people in all lands at his fingers' ends, and his claim was that the whole civilized world was practising polygamy, but doing it illegally, and the Mormons were the only ones who had the honor to legitimatize it. The joke was on ----, who was literally bottled up by the flow of facts from the bishop, who referred to me to substantiate him, which I pretended to do, in order totally to crush ----, who had tried to make me a party to his joke. The bishop, who invited me to call upon him in Utah, said that he hoped some time to be a United States senator, though he supposed the women of the East could create public sentiment sufficient to defeat him.

I once stopped over in Utah and visited the great Mormon Temple, and I must say that the Mormon women are far below the average in intelligence, that is, if personal appearances count. I understand they are recruited from the lowest and most ignorant cla.s.ses in Europe, where there are thousands of women who would rather have a fifth of a husband than work in the field. In the language of American slang, I imagine the Americans are ”up against it,” as the country avowedly offers an asylum for all seeking religious liberty, and the Mormons claim polygamy as a divine revelation and a part of their doctrine.

The bishop, I believe, was not a bishop, but a proselyting elder, or something of the kind. The man who introduced me to him was a type peculiar to America, a so-called ”good fellow.” People called him by his first name, and he returned the favor. The second time I met him he called me Count, and upon my replying that I was not a count he said, ”Well, you look it, anyway,” and he has always called me Count. He knows every one, and every one knows him--a good-hearted man, a spendthrift, yet a power in politics; a _remarkable_ poker player, a friend worth knowing, the kind of man you like to meet, and there are many such in this country.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] Probably Senator Bruce.

CHAPTER X

THE AMERICAN IN LITERATURE

I have been a guest at the annual dinner of the ----, one of the leading literary a.s.sociations in America, and later at a ”reception” at the house of ----, where I met some of the most charming men and delightful women, possessed of manners that marked the person of culture and the _savoir faire_ that I have seen so little of among other ”sets” of well-known public people. But what think you of an author of note who knew absolutely nothing of the literature of our country? There were Italians, French, and Swedes at the dinner, who were called upon to respond to toasts on the literature of their country; but was I called upon? No, indeed. I doubt if in all that _entourage_ there was more than one or two who were familiar with the splendid literature of China and its antiquity.

But to come to the ”shock.” My immediate companion was a lady with just a _soupcon_ of the masculine, who, I was told, was a distinguished novelist, which means that her book had sold to the limit of 30,000 copies. After a toast and speech in which the literature of Norway and Sweden had been extolled, this charming lady turned to me and said, ”It is too bad, ----, that you have no literature in China; you miss so much that is enjoyed by other nations.” This was too much, and I broke one of the American rules of chivalry--I became disputatious with a lady and slightly cynical; and when I wish to be cynical I always quote Mr.

Harte, which usually ”brings down the house.” To hear a Chinese heathen quote the ”Heathen Chinee” is supposed to be very funny.

I said, ”My dear madam, I am surprised that you do not know that China has the finest and oldest literature known in the history of the world.

I a.s.sure you, my ancestors were writing books when the Anglo-Saxon was living in caves.”[3] She was astonished and somewhat dismayed, but was not cast down--the clever American woman never is. I told her of our cla.s.sics, of our wonderful Book of Changes, written by my ancestor Wan w.a.n.g in 1150 B. C. I told her of his philosophy. I compared his idea of the creation to that in the Bible. I explained the loss of many rare Chinese books by the piratical order of destruction by Emperor Che Hw.a.n.g-ti, calling attention to the fact that the burning of the famous library of Alexandria was a parallel. I asked her if it were possible that she had never heard of the _Odes of Confucius_, or his _Book of History_, which was supposed to have been destroyed, but which was found in the walls of his home one hundred and forty years before Christ, and so saved to become a part of the literature of China.

Finally she said, ”I have studied literature, but that of China was not included.” ”Your history,” I continued, ”begins in 1492; our written history begins in the twenty-third century before Christ, and the years down to 720 B. C. are particularly well covered, while our legends run back for thousands of years.” But my companion had never heard of the _Shoo-King_. It was so with the _Chun Tsew_[4] of Confucius and the _Four Books_--_Ta-h[ue]-[uo]_,[5] _Chung-yung_,[6] _Lun-yu_,[7]

_M[ua]ng-tsze_.[8] She had never heard of them. I told her of the invention of paper by the Marquis Tsae several centuries before Christ, and she laughingly replied that she supposed that I would claim next that the Chinese had libraries like those Mr. Carnegie is founding. I was delighted to a.s.sure her that her a.s.sumption was correct, and drew a little picture of a well-known Chinese library, founded two thousand years ago, the Han Library, with its 3,123 cla.s.sics, its 2,706 works on philosophy, its 2,528 books on mathematics, its 790 works on war, its 868 books on medicine, 1,318 on poetry, not to speak of thousands of essays.

I could not but wonder as I talked, where were the Americans and their literature when our fathers were reading these books two thousand years ago! Even the English people were wild savages, living in caves and huts, when our people were printing books and encyclopedias of knowledge. I dwelt upon our poetry, the National Airs, Greater Eulogies, dating back several thousand years. I told her of the splendors of our great versifier, _Le-Tai-Pih_; and I might have said that many American poets, like Walt Whitman, had doubtless read the translations to their advantage. I had the pleasure at least of commanding this lady's attention, and I believe she was the first American who deigned to take a Chinaman seriously. The facts of our literature are available, but only scholars make a study of it, and so far as I could learn not a word of Chinese literature is ever taught in American schools, though in the great universities there are facilities, and the best educated people are familiar with our history.

The American authors, especially novelists, who const.i.tute the majority of authors, are by no means all well educated. Many appear to have a faculty of ”story-telling,” which enables them to produce something that will sell; but that all American authors, and this will surprise you, are included among the great scholars, is far from true. Some, yes many, are deplorably ignorant in the sense of broad learning, and I believe this is a universal, national fault. If one thing Chinese more than another is ridiculed in America it is our drama. I met a famous ”play-writer” at the ---- dinner, who thought it a huge joke. I heard that his income was $30,000 per annum from plays alone; yet he had never heard of our ”Hundred Plays of the Yuen Dynasty,” which rests in one of his own city libraries not a mile distant, and he laughed good-naturedly when I remarked that the modern stage obtained its initiative in China.

A listener did me the honor to question my statement that Voltaire's ”_L'Orphelin de la Chine_” was taken from the _Orphan of Chaou_ of this collection, which I thought every one knew. All the authors whom I met seemed surprised to learn that I was familiar with their literature and could not compare it synthetically with that of other nations, and even more so when I said that all well-educated Chinamen endeavored to familiarize themselves with the literature of other countries.

I continually gain the impression that the Americans ”size us up,” as they say, and ”lump” us with the ”coolie.” We are ”heathen Chinee,” and it is incomprehensible that we should know anything. I am talking now of the half-educated people as I have met them. Here and there I meet men and women of the highest culture and knowledge, and this cla.s.s has no peer in the world. If I were to live in America I should wish to consort with her real scholars, culled from the best society of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Was.h.i.+ngton, Baltimore, and other cities. In a word, the aristocracy of America is her educated cla.s.s, the education that comes from a.s.sociation year after year with other cultivated people. I understand there is more of it in Boston and Philadelphia than anywhere; but you find it in all towns and cities. This I grant is the real American, who, in time--several thousand years perhaps--as in our own case, will demonstrate the wonderful possibilities of the human race in the West.

I would like to tell you something about the books of the literary men and women I have met, but you will be more interested in the things I have seen and the mannerisms of the people. I was told by a distinguished writer that America had failed to produce any really great authors--I mean to compare with other nations--and I agreed with him, although appreciating what she has done. There is no one to compare with the great minds of England--Scott, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray. There is no American poet to compare with Tennyson, Milton, and a dozen others in England, France, Italy, and Germany; indeed, America is far behind in this respect, yet in the making of books there is nothing to compare with it. Every American, apparently, aspires to become an author, and I really think it would be difficult to find a citizen of the republic who had not been a contributor to some publication at some time, or had not written a book. The output of books is extraordinary, and covers every field; but the cla.s.s is not in all cases such as one might expect. The people are omnivorous readers, and ”stories,” ”novels,” are ground out by the ton; but I doubt if a book has been produced since the time of Hawthorne that will really live as a great cla.s.sic.

The American authors are mainly collected in New York, where the great publis.h.i.+ng houses are located, and are a fine representative cla.s.s of men and women, of whom I have met a number, such as Howells, the author and editor, and Mark Twain, the latter the most brilliant litterateur in the United States. This will be discovered when he dies and is safe beyond receiving all possible benefits from such recognition. Many men in America make reputations as humorists, and find it impossible to divest their more serious writings from this ”taint,” if so it may be called. They are not taken seriously when they seriously desire it; a fact I fully appreciate, as I am taken as a joke, my ”pigtail,” my ”shoes,” my ”clothes,” my way of speaking, all being objects of joking.