The Easy Chair was agreeably surprised the other day by a call from a
yellowish-visaged gentleman in a queue, who announced himself as of
the family of Lien Chi Altangi, a name which the reader will recall as
that of the Chinese philosopher and citizen of the world whose letters
of observation in England were edited by Dr. Goldsmith. After the
natural courtesies of such a meeting, and the Easy Chair's compliments
upon the shrewdness and charm of his distinguished ancestor's
observations, the Chinese gentleman fell into easy conversation, and
was congratulated upon his singular familiarity with our language. He
remarked that it was always an advantage to a traveller to know the
language of the country, and he had no doubt that so travelling a
people as the American were of the same opinion. "And as you travel
over the world more generally than any other people," he said, "I
presume that you are generally familiar with many languages." The Easy
Chair bowed, and cleared its throat, and smiled, and said, "Oh
yes--probably--undoubtedly."
"Yours is a very great country," the visitor politely returned, "and
this city is indeed magnificent. It promises one day to rival Pekin,
at least in extent and population. The pleasure of seeing your great
men--the great men of so great a city, I mean--must be very unusual,
and I should be infinitely your debtor if you would accompany me to
your temple of civic greatness--your City Hall, as I understand you
call it. Your popular institutions, as we are told in China, are
intended to secure worthy governors of the people by the votes of the
people themselves. It is exceedingly interesting, and I am very
anxious to study the working of your institutions in your chief city."
The Easy Chair bowed and cleared its throat again, and answered that
the study of the city was certainly very interesting, but without
proffering to escort the travelling philosopher to the City Hall, it
contented itself with remarking that ours is a very great country, and
that its institutions are unequalled in the world.
"I have met no American who is not of that opinion," courteously
returned the Chinese gentleman, "and I was pleased to see upon a visit
to your Washington and Fulton markets a noble illustration of the
generous and becoming manner in which such important parts of your
municipal institutions are managed."
The Easy Chair answered that it was not that kind of institution which
it had intended by its remark.
"Possibly you allude to another great institution which I have
visited," returned the traveller, with exquisite courtesy. "You justly
pride yourself upon your advances in sanitary science, and I am a
devout pilgrim seeking enlightenment. Judge, then, with what pleasure
I saw your chief temple of the customs. What convenience and economy
of arrangement! How singularly fitted for its purpose! You are indeed
a great people. I passed into the main circular hall, and what purity
of atmosphere, what admirable ventilation, what refreshing coolness
and sweetness; it is, indeed, a sanitarium; nor can I wonder that you
are proud of your progress and achievements in this science. But when
I learned that the officers engaged in the public service in this
temple, in the business of various accounts, and in determining the
value of the products of the whole world, were appointed to the duty
because of their zeal in providing candidates for offices and
procuring votes for them, I was lost in admiration of institutions
under which zealous shouting and running are evidence of skill to
embroider muslin and to calculate interest. Truly you are a great
people, and your institutions overflow with wisdom."
The Easy Chair bowed and smiled, but the precise terms of an
appropriate reply did not suggest themselves, until, remembering what
was due to its native land, it began: "There can, however, illustrious
son of Lien Chi Altangi, be no doubt that we are a very great and
superior people, and that we have a very just pity and contempt for
all the unhappy victims of the effete despotisms and hoary empires of
the older world--not that we believe the other continents to be
actually older, for our own favored continent doubtless emerged first
from chaos, but it is an expression which, with the generosity of our
institutions, we are willing to tolerate."
"I cannot deny your greatness," politely said the yellowish-visaged
gentleman, "and far be it from me to question your superiority. It was
but yesterday evening that I attended a social assembly which was
described to me as a full-undress party, and as I entered and beheld
many of the other sex, I was struck by the accuracy of the
description. As I promenaded through the brilliant throng with one of
the loveliest of your young persons of that sex, she said to me, with
a bewitching smile, 'Dear Mr. Altangi, is it true that Chinese women
squeeze their feet for beauty? How very funny!'
"She panted as she spoke, and I saw that her body was evidently
incased in some kind of rigid and unyielding garment, and that her
waist was surely not the waist of nature. I gazed as intently as
decorum would permit--for I am but a student of cities and of men--and
I was sure that my lovely companion's body was more cruelly compressed
than the feet of my adorable countrywomen, and her panting breath was
but evidence of the justice of my observation. I asked her with
sympathy if I could not call some companion to relieve her, or, if the
case were urgent, whether I could not myself offer succor. But she
gazed at me as if I spoke a strange language, and smilingly asked my
meaning.
"'Dear miss,' I said, 'are you not in great suffering?' 'Not at all,'
she replied, and I paid homage to her heroism. 'I know not, dear miss,
whether to admire more the greatness of your heroism or the generosity
of your sympathy. While you are in torment yourself, your tender
interest goes forth to my countrywomen in what you believe to be
torture. Be comforted, dear miss; the anguish of a squeezed foot is
not comparable to that of a waist so cruelly confined as yours, and
the consequences, also, are not to be compared.' If human bodies in
your great and happy country are made like ours in China, certainly,
Mr. Easy Chair, I must acknowledge that in heroic endurance of the
cruelty of fashion your country is indeed pre-eminent."
There seemed to be such a singular misapprehension upon the part of
the courteous visitor that the Easy Chair was beginning again to
explain--"Yes, but the indisputable superiority of our glorious
country"--when the son of Altangi interrupted, with suavity:
"Certainly. I was about to add that while my fair companion insisted
that I should confess the pinching of the feet to be a heinous folly,
if not, as she was plainly disposed to believe, a crime, my eye was
arrested by another lightly and lowly draped figure of the same sex
advancing towards us with an uncertain, hobbling step so like the gait
of the lovely Chinese maidens of almond eyes that again I watched
intently, and I saw that not only was this sylph drawn out of all
natural form at the waist, but that she was attempting to walk in
little shoes supported upon high pivots called heels under the centre
of the feet. It was an ingenious combination of torture and
helplessness, to which no social circle in my native land offers a
parallel. It is a wonderful achievement, due, I have no doubt, Mr.
Easy Chair, to the manifest superiority of your great country, and
plainly a striking illustration of it. Yet it is interesting and
touching that the maidens of your politer circles, gasping in pinched
waists, and balancing and tottering on pivots under their shoes,
should inquire with so amused an air about the squeezed feet of
Chinese ladies. I pay you my compliments, Mr. Easy Chair, upon your
extraordinary country." The urbanity of the visitor was perfect. The
Easy Chair looked at his eyes to see if they twinkled, but they had
only a bland regard; and as it was beginning again--"Nevertheless,
sir, you will admit that the superiority of our institutions"--there
seemed to be so positive an approach to twinkling in the Chinese eyes
that the Easy Chair paused, smiled, and then said: "Worthy son of Lien
Chi Altangi, thy words enlighten the mind, even as those of thy
ancestor illuminated the minds of our fathers over the sea. By their
light I read the meaning of the saying that in my youth I heard in the
valleys of the Tyrol, 'Beyond the mountains there are men also.'"