The Savannah morning news., 1901-04-28


possessed of an original idea? Perhaps
the design is considered to be of divine
origin, the last word in architecture,
which mortals can only slavishly initiate.
Certainly there is nothing in existence
so monstrously monotohus. Those appal-
ling Bloomsbury red brick boxes, which,
cheek by jowl, make an eighteenth
century London Street, or those dreary
rows of brownstone houses to the right
and left of Fifth Avenue, below the
Plaza in New York, are minor artistic
crimes. They were admittedly built for
utility. But here we have the alpha and
omega of Chinese architectural express
sion. Through changing dynasties and
succeeding centuries the Chinese archi-
tectural ideal seems to have remained
as fixed the stars, as unaltered as
heaven. There is no evidence of growth.
1t seems to have arrived in its fulness,
to have been accepted as inality, and
ever afterwards to have been slavishly
initiated
POsthumous Pearls of Thought.
To describe each throne-room would be
as monotonus as to visit them One is
more gorgeous, another is less. The clock
room is interesting above the others,
not for any novel architectural features.
but simply because it is the outcome of
flavor of Orientalism in its solemn adap-
tation to half-rehgious idea. At the
back and on each side of the throne
surrounding the dais and forming three
sides of square, are rows of locked
cabinets each on its own stand. During
his lifetime, when the Emperor conceives
a wish or is seized with some Inspiration,
he writes 1t and, saying never word,
locks 1t away in cabinet. Not until his
death are these pearls of thought re-
voaled 10 the amazed court They are
treated as sacred the wishes of the
dead. The reason for the enormous clocks,
out of all proportion to the room. is not
apparent. Perhaps the imperial mind
could better consider mundane matters
with this solemn reminder of mans NOR
tally Ginning out the ever-fieeting mo-
ments.
To the west from the great enclosure
of the imperial audience chambers, across
a walled alleyway. are the separate
buildings in which the Emperor and the
Empress Dowager lived for part of the
year. In the rooms where Kwang Su is
said to have spent his hours are certain
evidence of his taste for matters foreign.
There is the usual plethora of clocks;
clocks plain and clocks ornamental, gid
ed and bestudded with cheap imita-
ton diamonds, clocks with professions of
allegorical figures, clocks as lighthouses
or monumental buildings; clocks on
wheels like toy trains, which suggest an
absurd picture of the heir, apparent
trnndling them about the floor for his
Celestial Highness's amusement, while
court attendants play bad Chinese music
on the several European pianos which
stand in adjoining rooms. There are
great shelves of Chinese yellow-covered
paper volumns in one of the rooms. Not
far off is a tiny chamber with a window
seat, where but one person could sit
cross-legged, and in this the great man
is said to have studied and developed
those tendencies to reform which have
shaken the complacent kingdom to it's
core.
Where the Imperial Head in Laid.
The rooms are similar to those in the
houses of many princes-the floors of
square bricks, papered walls, handsome
carved doorways of twining boughs. The
lower windows are glass, while the upper
parts are Opaque paper. The bed is not a
separate piece of furniture standing alone
in the room, but is built against the outer
wall and enclosed by an inner wall which,
but for the open space over the bed, is
really the wall of the room 1t Is exactly
like the beds in Scotch cottages and SINH
lar to the built-in beds of Holland The
Dutch beds, however, were built very
high, as high as the breast of a man
standing. but the Chinese beds are barely
as high as the modern brass bedsteads
of to-day.
Across a beautiful courtyard with ever
green trees, finely carved grifhns, and
handsome bronzes are the apartments of
the Empress Dowager. The woodwork is
superb. Enormous cupboards of almost
black hardwood stand about the rooms.
They are exquisitely proportioned, mas
sive, rich, and imposing. / have seen
nothing finer in Chinese art than these
pieces of furniture, covered as they are
with the most perfect carving The de-
signs are chaste and powerful. There is
no cheap, discordant colorng or tawdry
brasswork; nothing but the strong rich
color of the dark wood and the perfectly
|oalanoed whole. The portals between
rooms, which have no doors, are richly
enclosed, with heavy wood carving in the
same dark tone. Out of the bulk of
heavy tree-trunk the cunning artist has
made bower of twining stems, of bios
SONS and dropping fruit. Standing on
tables and sills is a strange medley of
the finest porcelain and poorest rubbish.
Excellent pieces of Aling ware stood
side by side with cheap japanese vases
which one might buy in New York
ten-cenL store. II was " StTlhlHb pIoOl
that outside of things Chinese. this
strange people have little understanding
and less judgment.
In the Sacred City there are endless
side buildings, inner compounds store
houses, and secret chambers -that few,
perhaps none, have yet seen. 1t is city
in reality as well as In name, and after
years residence one would yet find
corners to explore and fresh secrets to
discover The old eunuchs who followed
us jealousy from room to room, and
watched our straying fingers with angry
eyes, could lead us TO rooms where Jade
and treasures are stored. For the loss of
the imperial possessions the price may
be their heads, and who can blame a man
for watching fingers which in looting
might steal his very life2