After the ceremony of formal congratulations was over, Her Majesty, the Emperor, and Empress, followed by the Ladies and attendants, went in state to the Theater, with the same ceremonial and pomp with which they had gone into the Hall of Ceremonies. The Empress Dowager, who was always the most gorgeously attired person at Court, was, on His Majesty’s Birthday, dressed with an extreme simplicity that amounted almost to plainness, and she wore no jewels. This plainness of attire was not an accident, but had been arranged with her usual forethought. She wished the Emperor and Empress to be the central figures of this day’s festivities, and did not wish to vie with the Empress even in her attire. The Princes and Nobles, who had come to the Palace for the official congratulations, were invited to the theatrical performance. They occupied the boxes that ran at right angles to the Imperial loge, which I have already described as forming the other two sides of the court of the Theater. A huge screen of painted silk, twelve feet high, was stretched from the last of the boxes occupied by the Princes to the stage--allowing the latter to be perfectly seen by the occupants of the boxes, but cutting off their view of the Imperial loge, whence Their Majesties, the Empress, and Ladies viewed the play. These invited guests are thus neither seen by the Imperial party, nor can they see the latter. When Their Majesties and the Empress were seated in their loge, the principal actors came to the front of the stage, knelt, and “kow-towed” to the Imperial box. Then the play began. There was first a noisy burst of weird music, then the chief actor recited a laudatory, congratulatory poem in honor of the Birthday of the Emperor, wishing His Majesty “ten thousand years” of happiness and all the blessings possible. The poem was intoned like a chant by the actor, dressed in the gorgeous historic costume of an Imperial Herald of the time of Kublai Kahn. This poem was most impressive. One of the verses ran thus: “The vast merits of His Imperial Majesty’s August Ancestors have been handed down to Him from generation to generation. “To the wisdom of His whole Dynasty we owe it, that we have lived in happiness, “Ever ready to comply with the lofty teaching of our Rulers, leading us unto Good....” The poem went on to recite His Majesty’s merits as a son, his respect for his August Mother, his filial piety, and ended with a wish that Great China might flourish and prosper--grow strong outwardly and inwardly, through the blessings of his reign and his desire for Progress.