[12] The Chinese woman must as a child obey her father, as a wife her husband, and as a widow her son. The four wifely virtues are: (1) to honor and serve her mother-in-law; (2) to respect her husband; (3) to live in peace with her sisters-in-law; and (4) to have pity on the poor. [13] See Bibliography. [14] The Chinese name for the instrument is _chin_. Chinese writers on music have set down seven conditions under which one should not play the instrument: when one has just heard the news of a death; when some one is playing the flute in the vicinity; when one is oppressed by business cares; when one has not purified his body; when one is not wearing the ceremonial cap and gown; when one has not lighted sweet-smelling incense; and when there is not present a friend who understands music. Chancellor Tsai Yuan-pei, until 1923 the head of the National University in Peking, was a believer in training in æsthetics, and considered a proper appreciation of the music of the chin a most desirable element in the _mental equipment_ of a cultured man. [15] Giles, “Chinese Literature”, page 155. “A poet should not dot his i’s. The Chinese reader likes to do that for himself, each according to his own fancy. Hence such a poem as the following, often quoted as a model in its own particular line: “A tortoise I see on a lotus-flower resting: A bird mid the reeds and the rushes is nesting; A light skiff propelled by some boatman’s fair daughter, Whose song dies away o’er the fast-flowing water.” [16] A most readable biography in English has just been published by the Commercial Press, Shanghai: “Yang Kuei-fei”, by Mrs. Wu Lien-teh.—In the _Mercure de France_, beginning August, 1922, there appeared a fascinating series of articles: “La Passion de Yang Kuei-fei”, by Soulie, translations of songs by blind Chinese singers woven into the story of the greatest Chinese tale of love. [17] “The Jade Chaplet, A Collection of Songs, Ballads, etc., from the Chinese.” Trübner and Company, London, 1874. [18] The Chinese actually say that the birds imitated her voice in their notes. [19] One of the many complaints against Yang Kuei-fei was her fancy for fresh _Li-chihs_. She was so fond of these, that she had them, when in season, brought from the South to Ch’ang An daily, a distance of three thousand _li_. This apparently simple fancy was the cause of immense suffering, distress, and injustice; the messengers carrying the luxury, presuming on the protection of their mistress, committed all manner of depredation and violence.