CHAPTER XVIII. 156

FESTIVAL OF THE HARVEST MOON The Chinese Love of Festivals--The Fruit of Immortality--The Little Handmaiden and her White Rabbit--The Play at the Palace Theater on the Mid-Autumn Festival--Dinner in the Imperial Loge--Procession to the Moonlit Terrace--Floral Pai-lou to the Moon--“Bowing” to the Moon--The Poem to the Moon--The Burnt-Offering--Return to the Palace on the Moonlit Lake--Continuation of the Portrait--Some Disadvantages of Too Much Pleasure--Hospitality of the Empress Dowager--Chinese Conventions and Traditions--Wonderful Opportunities for Picturesqueness in Painting the Empress Dowager--Restrictions Imposed by Chinese Tradition--First Exhibition of the “Sacred Picture”--Description of First Portrait of the Empress Dowager--How I Should Have Liked to Paint Her.