er people blame.
--"The Primer for Girls," Translated by I. T. H.

XV

THE CHINESE LADIES OF RANK[2]

[2] Taken from Mrs. Headland's note-book.

The Manchu lady's ideal of beauty is dignity, and to this both her
deportment and her costume contribute in a well-nigh equal degree. Her
hair, put up on silver or jade jewelled hairpins, decorated with many
flowers, is very heavy, and easily tilted to one side or the other if
not carried with the utmost sedateness. Her long garments, reaching
from her shoulders to the floor, give to her tall figure an added
height, and the central elevation of from four to six inches to the
soles of her daintily embroidered slippers, compel her to stand erect
and walk slowly and majestically. She laughs but little, seldom jests,
but preserves a serious air in whatever she does.

The Chinese lady, on the contrary, aspires to be petite, winsome,
affable and helpless. She laughs much, enjoys a joke, and is always
good-natured and chatty.

One of their poets thus describes a noted beauty:

"At one moment with tears her bright eyes would be swimming,
The next with mischief and fun they'd be brimming.
Thousands of sonnets were written in praise of them,
Li Po wrote a song for each separate phase of them.

"Bashfully, swimmingly, pleadingly, scoffingly,
Temptingly, languidly, lovingly, laughingly,
Witchingly, roguishly, playfully, naughtily,
Willfully, waywardly, meltingly, haughtily,
Gleamed the eyes of Yang Kuei Fei.

"Her ruby lips and peach-bloom cheeks,
Would match the rose in hue,
If one were kissed the other speaks,
With blushes, kiss me too."

She combs her hair in a neat coil on the back of her head, uses few
flowers, but instead prefers profuse decorations of pearls. Her upper
garment extends but little below her knees, and her lower garment is an
accordion-plaited skirt, from beneath which the pointed toes of her
small bound feet appear as she walks or sways on her "golden lilies,"
as if she were a flower blown by the wind, to which the Chinese love to
compare her. Her waist is a "willow waist" in poetry, and her "golden
lilies," as her tiny feet are often called, are not more than two or
three inches long--so small that it not infrequently requires the
assistance of a servant or two to help her to walk at all. And though
she may not need them she affects to be so helpless as to require their
aid.

Until very recently education was