Her Majesty advanced with animation and asked me where the Double Dragon Throne was to be placed. After the eunuchs had put it where I said, she took her seat. Although not more than five feet tall, as she wears the Manchu shoes with six-inch-high, stilt-like soles, to avoid throwing the knees up higher than the lap she must sit upon cushions, and when she is seated she looks a much larger woman than when standing. She took a conventional pose and told me I might make any suggestion I wished; but I had made up my mind that the pose and surroundings must be as typical and characteristic as possible, and as I had had no time to study my August Sitter I thought she would know best as to her position and accessories. It was nearing eleven! Beginning anything is momentous. Every artist knows how the wonderful possibilities of the bare canvas in its virgin purity standing before him inspires him with almost a feeling of awe; how he hesitates about beginning, so great is the responsibility. This bare canvas may become a masterpiece, the full expression of his thought, or it may come forth a maimed and distorted effort. To-day in these strange surroundings, with these unusual and unfavorable conditions, my hesitancy was greater than usual; for upon this beginning depended my being able to go on with the portrait. My hands trembled! The inscrutable eyes of the wonderful woman I was to paint, fixed piercingly upon me, were also disconcerting; but just then the eighty-five clocks in this particular Throne-room began to chime, play airs, and strike the hour in eighty-five different ways. The auspicious moment had come! I raised my charcoal and put the first stroke upon the canvas of the first portrait that had ever been painted of the Empress Dowager of Great China, the powerful “Tze-Shi.” The Princesses, Ladies-in-waiting, the high eunuchs and attendants, stood in breathless silence around, intently watching my every movement, for everything touching Her Majesty is a solemnity. For a few moments I heard the faintest ticking of the eighty-five clocks as if they were great Cathedral bells clanging in my ears, and my charcoal on the canvas sounded like some mighty saw drawn back and forth. Then, happily, I became interested, and absolutely unconscious of anything but my sitter and my work. I worked steadily on for what seemed to be a very short time, when Her Majesty turned to the interpreter and said “enough work had been done for that day”; the conditions had been fulfilled and the picture begun at the auspicious moment. She added that she knew I must be tired from our long drive out from Peking, as well as from my work. She said I must rest and we must partake of some refreshments. She then descended from the throne and came over to look at the sketch.