CHINESE POETRY AND ITS CONNOTATIONS 



121 



ing of the eye-brows, making up of the face, etc., all com- 

 prised in the word "chuang" is very frequent. In writing to 

 her absent husband a lady repeatedly mourns that she has 

 no heart to make the "cloud" head-dress, and that "looking 

 down upon my mirror" (the mirror being of course a round 

 metal disc set upon a stand upon her toilet table) "in 

 order to apply the powder and paint, I desire to keep back 

 the tears ! I fear that the people in the home will know my 

 grief — I am ashamed ! Again I use the puff, which lies in 

 the powder, to press back the tears which I cannot permit 

 to fall ! ' ' Often, too, will the pining wife declare that ' 'because 

 my waist is so shrunken my girdle falls," indeed these lonely 

 women shut in a great house among people strange to- them 

 seem to have depended upon the compainship of their hus- 

 bands in a most devoted manner. Although the occupations 

 of the day were of course pursued in the women's apartments 

 or in one of the side houses, the evenings were spent by wife 

 and husband together in reading and in intellectual enjoy- 

 ment which is beautifully expressed in the phrase "The red 

 sleeve replenishes the incense — at night, studying books" 





: / ]> " ■■■Wf", 



The Red Sleeve Replenishes the Incense, etc. 



Eed was the colour worn by very young women, married 

 or not, who as the years advanced chose dresses of soft blues 

 and lavenders, and later still those of dark grey or black. 

 Therefore a line that reads "my tears soak my dress of 

 coarse, red silk," instantly suggests a young creature grieving 

 at her loneliness. 



The children, both boys and girls, studied daily under 

 the direction of teachers and the children of servants who 



