198 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



very different sentiment of course from that which 

 occasionally agitates the bosom of the European wife. 

 Ziba-Khanoum, the heroine of the Turkish play, has 

 no desire to monopolise her lord's attentions ; she 

 merely resents the fact that Cho' Le-Kanoum has 

 had a prettier dress than herself, and is the recipient 

 of one or two other special favours. 



Chinese sentiment is comparatively liberal. Even 

 to a Chinaman, however, the part assigned to love in 

 European novels and plays appears eminently absurd.^ 

 Filial piety is in China the great dramatic motive, 

 and a secondary one is literary ambition, or the 

 struggle to win a prize in the numerous scholastic 

 competitions established throughout the Empire. 

 The "juvenile lead" or the "walking gentleman" of 

 the Chinese stage is usually, therefore, a dutiful son 

 or a successful student. The philosophy of Confucius 



^ General Tcheng-ki-Tong in his Thedtre des Chinois remarks 

 that the Chinese stage is very far from attaching the same import- 

 ance to love as the French. " L'amour tourmente, tyranise," he 

 observes, "paraitrait a nos yeux une exaggeration. Ces tempetes 

 violentes qui s'elevent dans le cceur et ne laissent aprfes elles que 

 des lendemains sans espoir, sont au-dessus de notre imagination et 

 ne pourraient, dans tous les cas, qu'utre tres-rares dans notre societe 

 ou I'autorite paternelle est absolue. II est done aise de com- 

 prendre que les grands drames de l'amour n'auraient, devant notre 

 public, aucune chance de succfes," 



