The date of the Empress Dowager’s Birthday (November 16) was approaching, and preparations to celebrate it were beginning. She was determined to keep this celebration very simple. She issued edicts prohibiting the high Officials and Viceroys from sending the extravagant presents which always pour in at the celebration of the birthday of any one of her age in China. She recommended great economy in expenditures for the celebration, saying it would be improper and unworthy at this time of National distress, when the Foreign Indemnity was not yet paid, to make a large outlay for her Birthday. The celebration of a birthday in China is a great event, almost a religious ceremony, and is observed with great rejoicings by all classes. The poorest in the land, if they are not able to keep any other festival, always celebrate with as much pomp as possible the birthdays of their parents. This is one of the duties enjoined by the Book of Rites, and, in spite of Her Majesty’s expressed wishes on the subject, the Emperor could not allow her Birthday to pass without a fitting celebration. The Emperor beseeched Her Majesty “on bended knee” to allow him to have her Birthday celebrated with the same pomp as usual--to permit him to add another honorific title to the sixteen she already possessed--but though she was very proud of her titles, which the Ministers and Emperor had conferred upon her at different times, she was inexorable on this point, for the adding of a new title would necessitate an annual grant of twelve thousand dollars in gold. She also insisted that everything must be on a smaller scale than usual. She was, one could well see, in no happy frame of mind. There was none of the enthusiasm she had shown over the preparations for the Emperor’s Birthday. Then she was in gay good humor. She then evidently fully believed that things were going well for the State, that China would soon obtain her full rights in Manchuria again; then everything seemed brighter for the Nation’s outlook than now. It was her duty, however, to go through these Birthday celebrations, which, curtail as she would, must, nevertheless, be very elaborate, owing to her age as well as to her high rank. The Empress Dowager’s wishes as to the adding of a new title were observed, and it was not conferred, but the preparations for the Birthday went on, on a magnificent scale. Presents came pouring into the Palace, and even more elaborate festive decorations than those used for the Emperor’s Birthday were being put in place.