I felt I could not go on forever painting portraits, according to Chinese traditions, of the Empress Dowager. I could not spend my life in this dalliance with Oriental splendor. The world beyond the Palace gates called me. I hurried to finish my task. The last portrait was nearing completion. My sojourn at the Palace was drawing to a close. Though I longed to be where I might paint in a freer way, I looked forward with real regret to leaving the Palace, and especially to leaving the Empress Dowager and the young Empress, for I had come to really love them. I found Her Majesty by far the most fascinating personality it had ever been my good fortune to study at such close range. The young Empress was a sweet, kind nature, full of dignity and pathos, for whom I prayed there might be greater happiness in store than had yet fallen to her lot. My sojourn at the Palaces of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Dowager of China, my association with herself and the Ladies of her Court, I shall always remember as one of the most charming experiences of my life. TRANSCRIBERS’ NOTES The following changes have been applied to the text: Page 30: “transcience” changed to “transience”: _It was a plaint on the transience of worldly glory_ Page 94: a period was added to the end of: _reaches a high state of cultivation with them._ Page 95: “pendative” changed to “pendentive”: _The carved wood ceilings were in pendentive designs_ Page 125: “Macchiavellian” changed to “Machiavellian”: _no Machiavellian schemes would be forwarded_ Page 204: “pendatives” changed to “pendentives”: _dome, with elaborately carved pendentives, was painted in_ Page 238: “ge” changed to “get”: _it was impossible to get any atmosphere in the background_ Page 247: “Hierachy” changed to “Hierarchy”: _the Priestly Hierarchy of the whole_ The following markings were added to the plain text to indicate the original text styles: “=” for bold and “_” for italics. In addition, all small-caps have been replaced with capital letters. All inconsistencies in the hyphenation of words and the spelling of names have been standardized.