Page:Peking the Beautiful.pdf/74

 A Study in Bronze ONE of the interesting statues so abundant in the fascinating Yi Ho A s Yüan excel in Yüan excel in artistic beauty the pair of bronze cranes which stand in d e solemn majesty before the latticed doors of the empress's bedroom. The These two beautiful birds, so graceful and lifelike in form, stand mounted DAC on highly wrought sculptured pedestals of purest marble. They, together with a pair of handsome bronze deer that stand close by, are symbols of health and long life, and, as such, were no doubt greatly prized by Her Majesty, the Empress Dowager, whose artistic personality dominates the very landscape, and pervades every nook and cranny of the lovely palace gardens. Not every ruler could take a miniature mountain and a little lake and convert them within the space of a few short years into an earthly paradise, but this versatile queen could; and she has done so with the most consummate skill. This woman who could rule so well, and who for Rearly a half century stood as the greatest power behind the throne of China, deserves particular notice. Writing of her during the latter years of her long reign, Dr. V. A. P. Martin, in his fascinating book, A Cycle of Cahay, says: "A Manchu, and born of a noble house, Tză Hsi, was carefully educated an advantage which in China falls to few of her sex, even of the noblest families. Becoming a secondary wife of Emperor Hsien Fêng, she had the happiness to present him with an heir to the throne. To signalize his joy he raised her to the rank of Empress, his sonless consort retaining a nominal precedence and occupying a palace on the east, while to her he assigned, by way of distinction, a palace on the west. "In the regency which on Hsien Féng's death the two ladies exercised in the name of their son, she was the ruling spirit, as also in their second regency during the minority of her nephew, the present emperor. During the great famine in Shansi both ladies won the hearts of their subjects by a touching expression of sympathy, unsurpassed in the annals of any nation Ascertaining that the cost of flesh meats that came on their table was about seventy-five dollars per day, they announced that they would eat no more meat while their people were starving, and ordered the amount saved by their self-denial to be turned over to the relief fund it is not a little to their praise that they reigned together more harmoniously than the joint kings of Sparta or the joint emperors of Rome. "Since the death of the eastern dowager, in 1881, the western has been more conspicuously absolute, though not more really powerful, than she was before. In the conflict with Japan she showed that her patriotism was equal with her humanity by pouring into the war-chest the millions that had been collected for the celebration of her sixtieth anniversary." [See paqes 20, 38, 46, 58, 80, 90, 94, 104, 116, 118, and 130.]