THE CHINESE EMPRESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13390, 19 January 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE CHINESE EMPRESS.

Tut: Chinese Kmpresx is a trine under the average height of European ladies, vet so perfect are her proportions and so graceful her carriage that she seems to need nothing to add to her majesty. Her features are vivacious and pleasing rather than beautiful. Her complexion is not yellow. bub sub-o'ive, and her face is illuminated bv orbs of jet half hidden by dark la-shets, behind which lurk the smile of favour or the lightning of her anger. No one would take her to be more than forty. She carries a tablet- on which, even during a conversation, she jots memoranda. Her pencil is the support of her sceptre. With it, she sends out her autograph commands, and with it she inscribes those pictured characters which are worn a the proudest decorations of her Ministers. I have seen them in gold frames in the hall of a viceroy. The elegance of her culture excites sincere admiration in a country where women are illiterate, and the breadth of her understanding is such as to take in the details of government. She chooses her agents with wise judgment, and .shifts them from pillar to post so that, they may not forgot their dependence on her will." Without' a parallel in Iter own country she, is sometimes compared with Catharine IJj. of Russia. She has the advantage in. the decency of her private life. Dr. : W.-£. in the World's 3¥ork; - -^