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. This is one of the most unique and
mysterious features of temple worship I have found anywhere in
China, and no amount of questioning ever brought me any
explanation of its meaning.
Now if you will go with me to the top of Coal Hill I will point
out to you the buildings in which their Majesties have lived.
There are six parallel rows of buildings, facing the south, each
behind the other, in the northwest quarter of this Forbidden
City, protected from the evil spirits of the north by the dagoba
on Prospect Hill.
Perhaps you would like to go with me into these homes of their
Majesties--or, as a woman's home is always more interesting than
the den of a man, let me take you through the private apartments
of the greatest woman of her race--the late Empress Dowager. She
occupied three of these rows of buildings. The first was her
drawing-room and library, the second her dining-room and
sleeping apartments, and the third her kitchen.
One was strangely impressed by what he saw here. There was no
gorgeous display of Oriental colouring, but there was beauty of a
peculiarly penetrating quality--and yet a homelike beauty.
No description that can be written of it will ever do it justice.
Not until one can see and appreciate the paintings of the old
Chinese masters of five hundred years ago hanging upon the walls,
the beautiful pieces of the best porcelain of the time of Kang
Hsi and Chien Lung, made especially for the palace, arranged in
their natural surroundings, on exquisitely carved Chinese tables
and brackets, the gorgeously embroided silk portieres over the
doorways, and the matchless tapestries which only the Chinese
could weave for their greatest rulers, can we appreciate the
beauty, the richness, and the refined elegance of the private
apartments of the great Dowager
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