f years and knowledge and will help me find the
way.

Kwei-li.

7
My Dear Mother,
These are most troublous times, and thy son is harassed to the verge
of sickness. Shanghai is filled with Chinese who come seeking foreign
protection. Within the narrow confines of the foreign settlements, it is
said, there are nearly a million Chinese, half of them refugees from
their home provinces, fearing for their money or their lives, or both.
The great red houses on the fashionable streets, built by the English
for their homes, are sold at fabulous prices to these gentlemen, who
have brought their families and their silver to the only place they know
where the foreign hand is strong enough to protect them from their
own people. There are many queer tales; some are simply the breath
of the unkind winds that seem to blow from nowhere but gain in
volume with each thing they touch. Tan Toatai, who paid 300,000
taels for his position as Toatai of Shanghai, and who left for his home
province with 3,000,000 taels, as the gossips say, was asked to
contribute of his plenty for the help of the new government. He
promised; then changed his mind, and carefully gathered all his
treasures together and left secretly one night for Shanghai. Now he is
in fear for his life and dares not leave the compound walls of the
foreigner who has befriended him.

It makes one wonder what is the use of these fortunes that bring
endless sorrow by the misery of winning them, guarding them, and
the fear of losing them. They who work for them are as the water
buffalo who turns the water-wheel and gets but his daily food and the
straw-thatched hut in which he rests. For the sake of this food and
lodging which falls to the lot of all, man wastes his true happiness
which is so hard to win.

These Chinese of the foreign settlements seem alien to me. Yuan
called upon thy son the other day, and had the temerity to ask for
me-- a most unheard-of thing. I watched him as he went away,
dressed in European clothes, as nearly all of our younger men are
clothed these days, and one would never know that he had worn his
hair otherwise than short. There are no more neatly plaited braids
hanging down the back, and the beautiful silks and satins, furs and
peacock feathers are things of the past. These peacock feathers,
emblems of our old officialdom, are now bought by foreign ladies as a
trimming on their hats. Shades of Li Hung-chang and Chang
Chih-tung! What will they say