THE CHARM OF HOME

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 27, 1 February 1913, Page 10

THE CHARM OF HOME

LI HUNG CHANG AND HIS NATIVE LAND. No one can read the temarkablo diary of Li Hung Chang, just concluded in the London Observer, without affection for the old man with the eloquent pen. To those who have looked upon him merely as a wily Oriental, the tenderness, imagination, and keen insight shown in his diary will come as a surprise. Here aie some charming lines written just as he is leaving San Francisco to go home again at the end of his long journey : — "To-day my friends took me far out toward the Golden Gate and gave me my first view of the broad Pacific front this side of tho world. "I could not believe it was so many thousand miles across. For as I stood there upon thobe high cliffs at one side of the narrow entrance to tho great Bay of San Fianci'co I strained my tired eyes across tho waters, and I tliought I could eeo in the beautiful distance- the holy mirage of >\y nathe land Those about me talked and pointed, but I heeded them not, for my very soul was reaching out to the souls of 'China. I saw the Throne, and I bowed my kneo to their illustrious Majesties, 'i saw Tientsin and Canton and. Hankow— all places 1 lo\e and will ever love. " Returning to my apartments, I had nothing* more to say. I have seen the world in these months. Now all 1 ask is the supreme joy of kissing the earth of my native land. " I caro nothing for mere places unless there is borne charm of the mind or heart to draw and hold me And no place because of itself! can have a claim upon my affections. There must be borne human or ancestial association conuecteel with a place if I am to think about it, or dieam about it, or write about it. "Moscow as Mobcow is nothing to me but at, the place where I witnessed such overpowering ceremonials, where 1 saw the Tsaritsa, and where I presented to her the sacred ring sent by the illustrious and ever-virtuous Empress Dowager, it is a place- enshrined deep in my heart. " And to with Essen — I hate its smoke and heat, but I love Essen because of Horr Krupp and admire Es&en beuause of her uunnuns. " And so with Hawardcn. "And .«o with Philadelphia and Washington and Mount Vernon. "And s.o with horne — where our love-d ones are!"