Page:The Spirit of the Chinese People.djvu/145

 pressed by the Chinese word yu (幽), loses this bashfulness, this pudeur, she then loses altogether her womanliness, her femininity, and with that, her perfume, her fragrance and becomes a mere piece of human meat or flesh. Thus, it is this pudeur, this quality expressed by the Chinese word yu (幽) in the Chinese feminine ideal which makes or ought to make evereyevery [sic] true Chinese woman instinctively feel and know that it is wrong to show herself in public; that it is indecent, according to the Chinese idea, to go on a platform and sing before a crowd in the hall even of the Confucian Association. In fine, it is this yu hsien (幽閒), this love of seclusion, this sensitiveness against the "garish eye of day;" this pudeur in the Chinese feminine ideal, which gives to the true Chinese woman in China as to no other woman in the world,—a perfume, a perfume sweeter than the perfume of violets, the ineffable fragrance of orchids.

In the oldest Love song, I believe, of the world, which I translated for the Peking Daily News two years ago—the first piece in the Shih Ching or Book of Poetry, the Chinese feminine ideal is thus described,

The words yao t'iao (窈窕) have the same signification as the words yu hsien (幽閒) meaning literally yao (窈) secluded, meek, shy, and t'iao (窕) attractive, debonair, and the words shu nu (淑女) mean a pure,