see thee sit
back aghast at this lack of filial spirit; and I, too, am aghast. I cannot
understand this generation; I'm afraid that I cannot understand these,
my children. My boy insists that he will marry a girl of his own choice,
a girl with a foreign education like unto his own. We have
remonstrated, we have urged, we have commanded, and now at last a
compromise has been effected. We have agreed that when she
comes to us, teachers shall be brought to the house and she shall be
taught the new learning. Along with the duties of wife she shall see
the new life around her and from it take what is best for her to know.

I can understand his desire to have a wife with whom he may talk of
the things or common interest to them both, a wife who can share
with him, at least in part, the life beyond the woman's courtyard. I
remember how I felt when thy son returned from foreign lands, filled
with new sights, new thoughts in which I could not share. I had been
sitting quietly behind closed doors, and I felt that I could not help in
this new vision that had come to him. I could speak to only one side
of his life, when I wished to speak to all; but I studied, I learned, and,
as far as it is possible for a Chinese woman, I have made my steps
agree with those or my husband, and we march close, side by side.

My son would like his wife to be placed in a school, the school from
which my daughter has just now graduated; but I will not allow it. I am
not in favour of such schools for our girls. It has made or Wan-li a
half-trained Western woman, a woman who finds music in the piano
instead of the lute, who quotes from Shelley, and Wordsworth,
instead of from the Chinese classics, who thinks embroidery work for
servants, and the ordering of her household a thing beneath her great
mental status.

I, of course, wish her to marry at once; as to me that is the holiest
desire of woman-- to marry and give men-- children to the world; but it
seems that the word "marry" has opened the door to floods of talk to
which I can only listen in silent amazement. I never before had
realised that I have had the honour of bearing children with such
tongues of eloquence; and I fully understand that I belong to a past, a
very ancient past-- the Mings, from what I hear, are my
contemporaries. And all these words are poured upon me to try to
persuade me to allow Wan-li to become a doctor. Canst thou imagine
it? A daughter of the house of Liu a doctor! From