losed within a tomb of sorrow and despair; but
now, at words but dimly understood, a faint new life seems stirring
deep within me. A Voice speaks to me from out these pages, a Voice
that says, "Come unto Me all ye weary and heavy-laden, and I will
give thee rest." My longing soul cries out, "Oh, great and unknown
God, give me this rest!" I am alone, a woman, helpless, stretching out
my arms in darkness, but into my world of gloom has come a faint
dim star, a star of hope that says to me, "There is a God."

Part 2.

-Preface_.

These letters were written by Kwei-li twenty-five years after those
written to her husband when she was a young girl of eighteen. They
are, therefore, the letters of the present-day Chinese woman of the old
school, a woman who had by education and environment exceptional
opportunities to learn of the modern world, but who, like every Eastern
woman, clings with almost desperate tenacity to the traditions and
customs of her race. Indeed, however the youth of Oriental countries
may be changing, their mothers always exhibit that characteristic of
woman-hood, conservatism, which is to them the safe-guard of their
homes. Unlike the Western woman, accustomed to a broader
horizon, the woman of China, secluded for generations within her
narrow courtyards, prefers the ways and manners which she knows,
rather than flying to ills she knows not of. It is this self-protective
instinct that makes the Eastern woman the foe to those innovations
which are slowly but surely changing the face of the entire Eastern,
yard.

The former letters were written out of the quiet, domestic scenes of
the primitive, old China, while the present letters come out of the
confused revolutionary atmosphere of the new China. Kwei-li's
patriotism and hatred of the foreigner grows out of the fact that, as
wife of the governor of one of the chief provinces, she had been from
the beginning en rapport with the intrigues, the gossip, and the
rumours of a revolution which, for intricacy of plot and hidden motive,
is incomparable with any previous national change on record. Her
attitude toward education as seen in her relationship with her son
educated in England and America reveals the attitude of the average
Chinese father and mother if they would allow their inner feelings to
speak.

Kwei-li's religion likewise exhibits the tendency of religious attitude on
the part of the real Chinese, especially those of the older generation