The emperor Kien-Long having fallen in love with a beautiful young girl at Sanchou-Fou, his empress hung herself. One of her sons was very much embarrassed to know what course to pursue. To go into mourning might seem like an insult to his father; and to omit it would be disrespectful to the memory of his mother. By the advice of his tutor, he appeared with a full dress over a suit of mourning. This enraged the emperor so much, that he gave his son a violent kick, which occasioned his death a few days after. Every morning, at daybreak, a Chinese son is required to present his father and mother with water to wash their hands, and stand ready to perform any trifling services they may require. Filial obedience is carried to such an extreme, that a son is bound to divorce his wife if she be displeasing to his parents. Even the emperor himself is not exonerated from these obligations. When the mother of Kien-Long died, all the mandarins were ordered to go into mourning for seventeen days, and to abstain from all amusements. No person of any rank was allowed to shave for the space of one hundred days, or to partake of any entertainment. For one month, people were not permitted to marry; and in the most crowded streets all classes refrained from speaking, except in whispers. The will of that princess is a curious document: “Though unworthy, high Heaven has bestowed upon me its choicest favors. I received from the blessed ancestors of my husband the most valuable of all gifts, when I brought into the world a son destined to succeed him. The emperor, always full of tenderness and respect for his mother, has omitted nothing that lay in his power to render my life happy. He never failed to come every morning and evening either to salute me, or to see me eat. He was constantly contriving means to gratify my heart. He danced in my presence, recited the poems he composed, showed me paintings which no hand but his own had touched, and decorated my apartments with them himself. All these attentions penetrated to the bottom of my soul. I forgot my age, and my old frame was filled with new vigor.” At the close of the long and magnificent procession which followed this empress to her grave, were pages bearing her mirrors, boxes, jewels, fans, &c.; and last of all the walking stick on which she had leaned in her old age, was carried along with peculiar veneration. The Chinese books are full of anecdotes of filial piety. “The mother of Ouang-Ouei-Yuen had ever expressed great apprehensions of thunder, and when she saw it approaching always requested her son not to leave her. After her death, whenever he heard a storm coming on, he hastened to his mother’s grave, and said softly, ‘I am here, mother.’” Another story is told of a young woman whose mother-in-law, being without teeth, could not take food without great exertion. Her dutiful step-daughter nursed her several years from her own breast often rising in the night to afford her nourishment.