cannot, therefore, help admiring that young girl, who formerly
ran errands for her mother who, being made the concubine of an emperor,
became the mother of an emperor, the wife of an emperor, the maker of
an emperor, the dethroner of an emperor, and the ruler of China for
nearly half a century--all this in a land where woman has no standing
or power. Is it too much to say that she was the greatest woman of the
last half century?

VII

Kuang Hsu--His Self-Development

The Emperor Kuang Hsu is slight and delicate, almost childish in
appearance, of pale olive complexion, and with great, melancholy eyes.
There is a gentleness in his expression that speaks rather of dreaming
than of the power to turn dreams into acts. It is strange to find a
personality so etherial among the descendants of the Mongol hordes; yet
the Emperor Kuaug Hsu might sit as a model for some Oriental saint on
the threshold of the highest beatitude.--Charles Johnston in "The
Crisis in China."

VIII

KUANG HSU--HIS SELF-DEVELOPMENT

On the night that the son of the Empress Dowager "ascended upon the
dragon to be a guest on high," two sedan chairs were borne out of the
west gate of the Forbidden City, through the Imperial City, and into
the western part of the Tartar City, in one of which sat the senior
Empress and in the other the Empress-mother. The streets were dimly
lighted, but the chairs, each carried by four bearers, were preceded
and followed by outriders bearing large silk lanterns in which were
tallow-candles, while a heavy cart with relays of bearers brought up
the rear. The errand upon which they were bent was an important
one--the making of an emperor--for by the death of Tung Chih, the
throne, for the first time in the history of the dynasty, was left
without an heir. Their destination was the home of the Seventh Prince,
the younger brother of their husband, to whom as we have already said
the Empress Dowager had succeeded in marrying her younger sister, who
was at that time the happy mother of two sons.

She took the elder of these, a not very sturdy boy of three years and
more, from his comfortable bed to make him emperor, and one can imagine
they hear him whining with a half-sleepy yawn: "I don't want to be
emperor. I want to sleep." But she bundled little Tsai Tien up in
comfortable wraps, took him out of a happy home, from a loving father
and mother, and a jolly little baby brother,--out of a big beautiful
world, where