CHAPTER XV. 130

LITERARY TASTES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE EMPRESS DOWAGER The Empress of the Eastern Palace--Co-Regency--Her Majesty’s Literary Tastes--Her Love of Heroic Poems--Her Memory--The Chinese Joan of Arc--The Empress, Widow of Tung-Chih--The Empress Dowager’s Reader and her Favorite Authors--Her Love of the Theater--Her Humor--A Great Stickler for Purity of Language--Li-Hung-Chang’s Chinese--How the Empress Dowager Speaks It--Her Writing of the Great Characters--The Chinese Written Character--Painting--Embroidery--Her Designs for Floral Decorations--Cultivation of her Person--The Empress Dowager an Epicure--Her Soaps and Perfumes--Her Personal Magnetism as a Power over Animals--The Escaped Bird--The Katydid.