The professor insisted on my taking a certain kind of lozenge to hold in my mouth while I was in the infected house, and ordered quantities and quantities of disinfectants carried there, giving me instruction as to how they should be used.
When we were walking back to the house of Mrs. Yet, the professor remarked that the Chinese were a people worth studying.
"Have you heard any of their poetry, Miss Pearl?" he questioned. And before I had time to reply--perhaps he thought he had no right to make me give an answer to that question, he is a "great philologist"--he continued: "Could anything be more exquisite than those lines to a plum blossom?
"'One flower hath in itself the charms of two; Draw nearer! and she breaks to wonders new; And you would call her beauty of the rose-- She, too, is folded in a fleece of snows; And you might call her pale--she doth display The blush of dawn beneath the eye of day, The lips of her the wine cup hath caressed, The form of her that from some vision blest Starts with the rose of sleep still glowing bright Through limbs that ranged the dreamlands of the night; The pencil falters and the song is naught, Her beauty, like the sun, dispels my thought.'
"A certain collection of Chinese lyrics," he continued, "'A Lute of Jade,' moved a London journal to observe that, the more we look into Chinese nature as revealed by this book of songs, the more we are convinced that our fathers were right in speaking of man's brotherhood. Here's another to a calycanthus flower:
"'Robed in pale yellow gown, she leans apart, Guarding her secret trust inviolate; With mouth that, scarce unclosed, but faintly breathes. Its fragrance, like a tender grief, remains Half-told, half-treasured still. See how she drops From delicate stem; while her close petals keep Their shy demeanour. Think not that the fear Of great cold winds can hinder her from bloom, Who hides the rarest wonders of the spring To vie with all the flowers of Kiang Nan.'
"This is Wang Seng-Ju's tiny poem," he added, "I presume a great many people in this greatly enlightened America never ascribe any sentiment to the Chinaman:
"'High o'er the hill the moon barque steers, The lantern lights depart, Dead springs are stirring in my heart, And there are tears; But that which makes my grief more deep Is that you know not that I weep.'"