Astor House. Shanghai Ap 14. Dearest Mother. First I must tell you that I have read, with immense satisfaction, the Minor Moralist. It is excellent. I think perhaps the best of all is the essay on Manners. In my opinion, as the Babu says, it could not be surpassed. It's so deliciously pointed, every sentence tells; and so full of admirable sense. It seems to me to hit the exact point of warning and advice before they become too didactic. But that's true of them all. I delight in the preface - the passage about the Oriental and what we call Late is perfect. I admired it very much when I first read it, I remember. The one I like next best is perhaps Thrift. It's extremely good and wise. One thing that strikes me about the whole book is that the style of it is so admirably suited to the matter. It doesn't remind me of anybody, not even I might almost say, of you in your other works. But it reads like the style of someone who knows the good things well - which is not surprising. It's wonderfully simple and yet it has so sharp an edge. While I read it I purr all the time. It makes me feel just what a cat feels when you stroke his back - not that you ever would stroke his back, of course, but you take my meaning? Do keep us au courant of what the critics say. The Spectator will give you a leader, or I'm the more mistaken. I predict an immense success. It's absurd to compare the two, but it seems to me, except Alan's Wife, the best thing you've done. Thank you so much for Wisdom while you Wait. It is funny! I've laughed a great deal over it. We were delighted to get my photographs in Hong Kong; they are successful on the whole, will Elsa write to the Phot. Ass. and tell them to hurry up with the next batch. I sent a biscuit box full from Calcutta, one from Rangoon [Yangon] and one from Singapore. I did some excellent portraits of Sir Frank in Singapore. It is an amusing art!
Well, here we are and here we're likely to remain as far as we can see, for the boats are so uncertain that it is almost more than mortal can do to catch them. You have to get up at 3 AM and go to bed at 12 PM if you want to be sure not to miss them. As far as we know none has started since we arrived and we have vague hopes that we may get off tomorrow, Wed., at midday. But there's no betting on it. We've been quite amused, however. The hotel is most comfortable and when we arrived we found a note left for us by the kind Russells giving us some introductions to people here. It really was very thoughtful of them. We landed on Easter Sunday and had to do all our own getting ashore. The Chinese nation surrounded us and offered to carry our luggage, to carry us, to carry the ship, I fancy, if we would give them a long enough bamboo pole. I adore Chinamen with a passion that amounts to mania. They are the most delightful people in the world. They do everything to perfection. They'll make you a shirt in 3 hours, a petticoat in 2, wash your clothes before you can wink, forestall your every wish at table, fan you day and night when you have the fever - you should have seen the Chinese boys sitting by Hugo's bedside at Singapore and fanning him all day long. And they wear the most enchanting blue clothes with an underdress of pale mauve, and they smile charmingly upon you when you give an order and they go about it swiftly and silently so that it's done as if by magicians. Now this is the nature of the Chinese. I want to buy one and bring him home. --- "Catchee four piecee coolie" said I with great fluency. Each piece consisted of 2 coolies with a bamboo pole, and between them they carried our immense luggage, at a run, we following in rickshaws. We installed ourselves here in excellent rooms. An influential and imposing Chinaman in two shades of blue, who looks as if he might be an alderman of the Shanghai town council, employs his leisure in waiting on me. In short he is my room boy. He wakes me of a morning with a cheerful "Eight o'clock, missie! baf ready." I have my own bath room all complete with a huge Nanking[?] bowl for a bath and hot and cold water. Then we went off to call on the Bournes - he's Chief Justice here. And it was Spring, for we have at last returned to the proper rotation of the seasons. Wonderful Spring, pink with almond and peach, purple with Judas trees, blue with violets. We had tea with the Bournes who were very agreeable friendly people and then Hugo went to church and I spent a profitable evening drying my clothes in front of my fire. For they were all wringing wet with Singapore damp and creased out of knowledge and I was afraid they might mildew. The brown gloves I happened to have loose are spotted with white, most tasty. Indeed, my wardrobe is a disgrace, skirts in rags, hats faded, petticoats worn out. I ought really to have brought more clothes - but then they would all have been crumpled by this time. I must have it reconstructed by Chinese tailors. Hugo's back is as wrinkled as Sir Alfred Lyall. (By the way, I have Asiatic Studies with me, of course - only I have the 1st vol. which is the Indian vol. I wrote to him about a month ago. Please give my love to Sir Ian when you see him next!) Monday was Easter Monday, but fortunately the Chinese shops were open - it is a comfort the missionaries have had so little effect in China. Mrs Stokes came to fetch me at 10 - she is our charming travelling companion on the Shanghai. I had been very very kind to her. I had lent her the Minor Moralist to read. She loved it. I am going to send my copy to Sir Frank Swettenham when Hugo has done with it. I know he'll delight in it - Sir F. He has a very pretty taste in literature. (In parenthesis, I hope you'll like Mrs Sara Jeannette. I thought her charming and she was so kind to us. She longs to know you. Read A Voyage of Consolation and A Social Departure. The latter is autobiographical.) So we went to a silk shop and the most delightful gentleman in China showed us for 2 hours the loveliest stuffs I have ever seen. Kings will leave their thrones in the hope of catching sight of me when I wear a brocade I bought there and Crown princes will flock after Elsa and Moll when they are clothed in some Chinese crèpe I design for them. When I got back I found that Hugo had retrieved our mail through the kindness of the Manager of the Chartered Bank - which was closed for Easter Holidays. We had had no news of you for 3 weeks except the Bellated mail which found us in Java [Jawa], so that we were doubly pleased to find an enormous and most interesting letter from you, written from London, and another from Father describing his Neapolitan experiences. Without doubt he writes the most amusing travel letters known. Elsa's letter I must answer to her. Moll is a pig, she doesn't write at all. We had no letters in Hong Kong - did you not write there? We lunched with the Bournes; it was very pleasant. Mr Bourne told us, to our great delight, that we are still far and away ahead of anyone else here. The Germans aren't in it, the French don't exist at all (they say the Messagerie is slowly collapsing) and the Russians don't come so far south. The German trade on the Yangtse [Yangtze] - he says - is infinitesimal compared with ours. At the same time, I notice lots of big German shops in the town, together with Chinese, English and Japanese. It's very cosmopolitan, Shanghai. Our other subject of conversation was the Russells. It's most curious to follow in their track. They leave a long line of notes of exclamation behind them - chiefly about their clothes. It does seem a pity so to dress yourself that where you pass all the inhabitants are entirely taken up with considering the wonderful unsuitability of your attire. Sir F. Swettenham could think of nothing but that they came to dinner in sun bonnets. "They said they would bring up dressing things" he remarked "but they only brought a sponge bag." Shanghai also was unwillingly fascinated by Flora and Diana's hats. They are described as having worn woollen caps. If you have the tongue of an angel under a woollen cap, I defy you to give an impression of eloquence. The Far East is much intrigued by Claud. Both at Hong Kong and here they declare that so ungenial a person has never appeared among them. Mr Bourne sent a boy with us to show us the Chinese walled town. It's a wonderful, fascinating place, very smelly and very full of Chinamen, with enchanting curiosity shops down back passages. You go through a door round as an O and a little court with twisty wooden palings and dwarf peach trees in flower and there you are. I was overtaken by certain pots, very little ones, the big ones are so dear. Things in China are monstrous dear and correspondingly exquisite. I shall all my life regret 3 half transparent milk white jade bowls I saw in Hong Kong. They were perhaps the loveliest objects I ever set eyes on - and ú40! They are there still in consequence, but I nearly bought them because the man began by asking ú90. We dined with the person to whom Hugo had introduced himself at church - a dull dog with a nice dull wife. Name of Hodges. It streamed and poured this morning and I shopped necessary matters connected with my clothes and packed up very beautifully with piles of tissue paper provided by my gnome. Hugo addresses all Chinamen as Gnome, but as they don't understand they aren't offended. Mr Watt arrived by the mail, with his fiancÇe and her aunt with whom he is travelling. We also met here the whole Warren family; you remember the enormous family of Americans we met in Burma [(Myanmar)]. We have a large circle of travelling acquaintances against whom we constantly collide. They're not very exciting. This afternoon we drove out 2 miles to the Jesuit observatory and mission. A charming Directeur took us round the former and then handed us over to the Father Superior of the Orphanage, which we saw exhaustively. He wears Chinese dress and is growing a pigtail - he's only been out 2 months. According to him all China is entreating the Jesuits to convert them. But as he has only been out 2 months praps [sic] he didn't know. We then saw the female orphanage under the guidance of a nice old sister - a very nice old sister, for she asked me if I were a French woman! Says I: My Mother is half French. And there were the funniest little Chinese babies of about 2 dressed in wadded clothes which made them much broader than they were long, who performed excited war dances round us till they toppled over, being much overweighted in the rigging. Hugo and I nearly toppled over too with laughter. We had another mail today, in the evening, a fine one from you, Elsa, Father and Moll and George Bowles's book. Please don't send me any more letters from Mr - what's his name? - the tedious old parson. I've written to him. His letters are fit for a Nonsense Book. He seems to have been much impressed by your cramp! We are amused and distressed by your agitation about China. China is not agitated at all, indeed Mr Bourne says he thinks trouble is a long way off. Our plans - this is in answer to Father's letter - have necessarily modified themselves. His advice as regards America was also mine. As we are delayed out here, we shall skip America I fancy - skip over it at least - so as to be home in time for the Summer Meeting, which please make as late as possible. We are very grateful to Father for his generosity and, by the way, much entertained by your edition of his telegram which excluded the word that meant he wd stand expenses! We're glad to see that B.B. prospers so much.

Hoping you are very well off, I remain your affectionate daughter Gertrude

This letter goes via Siberia and we leave tomorrow at 2 PM.

It's not going by Siberia, because it seems it's unknown to send letters that way for the Russian govt. open them all!

I'm so glad to have Father's good account of Aunt Florence.