Wednesday, 1 February

Twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, Yiwei year

Quite cold

Letter to Margery Morgan

My dear Margery,

Nothing can express my feeling when your beautiful card of this season came. It is a treasure to me not only as a work of art, but as a memory, of the few happy occasions we had had together in the rosy days of gay Paris. Alas, those days are gone, gone like the water of her Seine to the great wide ocean never to return……

……My wife and my son took charge (of the restaurant) and he is still running it. As for me, like Lao Zi, I am learning “how to be lazy and enjoy it.”

I received a letter from Mrs. George R. Farnum, with regard to residence in United States for Huiming. I really appreciate the warm assistance of the Farnum couple. They wrote in French, but I replied in English.

To Mrs. George R. Farnum

Dear Mrs. Farnum,

Many thanks for your kind letter. We are glad to learn of the news about our people in the USA. Huiming and Zhuohui write us very often and have mentioned all the kindnesses you show them. I understand from her that she may have to take a short trip to Canada in order to fulfill certain conditions of the US regulations. Sometimes I cannot help laughing at the childishness of legislators—though I had been one myself for the better part of my life—to say to a person that he cannot stay in a country but if he goes out and returns in a few days, even a few hours, he can do so. If he does that to his friend at his own house, he deserves a hard kick for his silliness, but when he introduces such provisions in the dignified, almighty Congress, he is applauded for his superior intellect and patriotism. Such is life, and how full of jokes!