Six years ago her seventieth birthday was celebrated with great pomp, although she had forbidden her people to be too lavish in their loyalty. At Wuchang, Tuan Fang, who was acting viceroy, gave a banquet at which he asked me to make a speech in the Dowager's honor. The task was a delicate one for a man who had borne the hardships of a siege in 1900; but I accepted it, and excused the Dowager on the principle of British law, that "The king can do no [Page 275] wrong." Throwing the blame on her ministers, I pronounced a eulogy on her talents and her public services. The question arises, did we know her in person and character? Have we not seen her in that splendid portrait executed by Miss Carl, and exhibited at St. Louis? If we suspect the artist of flattery, have we not a gallery of photographs, in which she shows herself in many a majestic pose? Is flattery possible to a sunbeam? We certainly see her as truly as we see ourselves in a mirror! As to character, it is too soon to express an opinion. _Varium et mutabile semper femina_. To pencil and sunbeam add word-pictures by men and women from whose critical eyes she did not conceal herself; and we may confidently affirm that we knew her personal appearance as well as we knew that of any lady who occupies or shares a European throne. A trifle under the average height of European ladies, so perfect were her proportions and so graceful her carriage that she seemed to need nothing to add to her majesty. Her features were vivacious and pleasing rather than beautiful; her complexion, not yellow, but subolive, and her face illuminated by orbs of jet, half-hidden by dark lashes, behind which lurked the smiles of favour or the lightning of anger. No one would take her to be over forty. She carried tablets on which, even during conversation, she jotted down memoranda. Her pencil was the support of her sceptre. With it she sent out her autograph commands; and with it, too, she inscribed those pictured characters which were worn as the proudest decorations [Page 276] of her ministers. I have seen them in gilded frames in the hall of a viceroy. The elegance of her culture excited sincere admiration in a country where women are illiterate; and the breadth of her understanding was such as to take in the details of government. She chose her agents with rare judgment, and shifted them from pillar to post, so that they might not forget their dependence on her will. Without a parallel in her own country, she has been sometimes compared with Catherine II. of Russia. She had the advantage in the decency of her private life; for though she is said to have had favourites they have never dared to boast of her favours, nor was a curious public ever able to identify them.