She could be most sarcastic, sometimes cruelly so, but I generally found there was some reason for her sarcasm. She was very impulsive and had her share of temper, but there was never any unladylike display of it. When she was angry her voice was never raised; it simply lost its silvery sweetness and took the quality of some ordinary metal, and she was always quiet and well-bred. From what I saw of the Empress Dowager, it seemed to me she would not brook interference in the accomplishment of a design she had set her heart upon--that she would not hesitate even at crushing an individual who stood in the way of the realization of some plan she had fixed upon. But her judgment was so good, she did not decide upon a thing unless she felt it was absolutely imperative to carry it out. As for tact and social savoir, she is remarkable. I never knew any one to possess these qualities to a greater degree. At her first Audience to foreigners, Sir Claude MacDonald, in reporting it, spoke of the Empress Dowager as “a kind and courteous hostess, who displayed both the tact and softness of a womanly disposition.” Lady Susan Townley says of her: “Where has she learned the ease and dignity with which she receives her European guests?” These opinions of her social tact, so far as I could learn, are held by all the members of the Foreign Legations in Peking. When the young Prince Adalbert of Prussia was received in special Audience by Their Majesties, on his visit to Peking, he was accompanied not only by the German Minister and his staff, but by a number of officers as his personal escort. This made an unusually large number of presentations necessary. I have been told that at the Audiences of the Diplomatic Corps, where only gentlemen were present, the Empress Dowager had a sort of shyness and did not show the same ease of manner as when she received the ladies. But at this Audience of the young Prince she became interested in talking with him, and I heard one of the gentlemen who was present say it was the first time he had seen Her Majesty thoroughly at ease at one of the Audiences to the Diplomatic Corps, and that on that day she was perfectly charming, seeming to take the liveliest interest in questioning the young Prince and conversing with him in a motherly way, and that he then realized to its full extent her wonderful charm and her great social instinct.