It is not my fault, nor shouldst thou blame it to my
teaching if rites and symbols have lost their meaning, and if the Gods
of China are no longer strong enough to hold our young.
Oh, Mother mine, thou knowest I would not cause thee sorrow, and
thou hast hurt me sorely with thy letter of bitterness and reproach. If
thou couldst have seen within my heart these many ears, and known
the longing for this light that came to me in darkness, then thou
wouldst not have burned the book that brought me hope and life again
when all seemed gone.
Thou askest me to promise thee anew that I will not trouble thy last
few years with thoughts that seem to thee a sacrilege and a
desecration of thy Gods. Thou art the mother of my husband, and 'tis
to thee I owe all loyalty and obedience. I promise thee, but-- that
which is deep within my heart-- is mine.
Thy daughter,
Kwei-li.
17
My Dear Mother,
I, thy son's wife, have been guilty of the sin of anger, one of the seven
deadly sins-- and great indeed has been my anger. Ting-fang has
been bringing home with him lately the son of Wong Kai-kia, a young
man who has been educated abroad, I think in Germany. I have never
liked him, have looked upon his aping of the foreign manners, his
half-long hair which looks as if he had started again a queue and then
stopped, his stream of words without beginning and without end, as a
foolish boy's small vanities that would pass as the years and wisdom
came.
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