With the Empress - Dowager of China. By Katharine A. Karl. (E.
Nash. 10s. 6d. net.)—Miss Karl received a commission to paint a portrait of the Empress-Dowager of China, accepted the commission with some misgiving, and found that the task which she had undertaken was much more pleasant, though not, perhaps, easier, than she had expected. She was most hospitably treated, had a palace assigned to her, and was altogether made as comfort- able as her hosts knew how. The Erhpress was, or at least appeared to be, very different from common report of her, was gentle and even caressing in her manner, anything, in short, but "the tiger in the shape of a woman" which she has been represented to be. The drawback was that the Chinese conventions could not be as much set at naught as Miss Karl's artistic sense desired. The august lady, in fact, did much as Queen Elizabeth is said to have done, and would have no shadow in her portrait. So Miss Karl, returning home, writes her experiences. She apologises for doing it, feeling sure that it will offend her Chinese hostess, but pleads that so many falsehoods were told about the matter in the American, and even in the English, Press, that she had no choice but to tell the truth. But could not she have given an interview to some one on the staff of a leading New York journal, and made -an 'authoritative statement which would have disposed of the false- hoods without giving the offence which she deplores ? As to her book, it is interesting in a way and up to a certain point. But all that one cares to read might have been put into a smaller compass. There is no sort of scandal in it, but there is too much of it. The author found her long residence at Pekin a little dull, and the reader does not altogether escape the infection.
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