You know so well how our silk-worms are cultivated that I need not relate the details of the method. In principle there is not much difference between our method and yours; possibly yours is only a copy of ours, without pretending to possess any novel features. But our system goes back to twenty-seven hundred years before Christ. The queen of the Emperor Hoang-Ti at that time first conceived the idea of raising silk-worms and of making from their production garments with which to clothe the people over whom her august husband ruled.[1]
The invention had such a following that it is still spreading through the whole world on a growing scale. Notwithstanding we have the wool and fur of animals, silk still is and always will be an article of luxury that no one who has the means of getting it will do without.[2] We, who are always grateful to our benefactors, honor the inventor of the art of silk-culture with a real perpetual cult. Besides the temples which we have erected in all the corners of the empire, her Majesty the Empress goes every year at the hatching season, in person, with all her suite, and in great pomp, to the field of the mulberry, to sacrifice to the goddess who was the queen of the Emperor Hoang-Ti.[3] After the cere-
- ↑ This celebrated woman, whose name was Loui Tseu, is adored as the goddess of silk. She was born, according to the Chinese historians, 2697 b. c. in the city of Si-Ling. Her husband was the first Chinese legislator, and reigned a hundred years—from 2737 b. c. to 2637 b. c.—and died at the age of one hundred and twenty-one years. One of his ministers composed the famous Chinese cycle; another constructed the celestial sphere; and a third regulated the notes of the gamut, with which he associated a metrical system. The Chinese refer the invention of wagons, bows, spun goods, and bells—in short, the origin of civilization—to that period.
- ↑ Mencius, the Chinese philosopher next in esteem after Confucius, said that after fifty years of age one could not keep warm without wearing silk clothing. It is likely that even before the time of Hoang-Ti the Chinese could make cloth of the silk of the wild worms, those that lived on the oak, for example. Another use of silk, which the author does not mention, was in the fabrication of the cords by means of which grand dignitaries received orders to strangle themselves. The messengers, who communicated the sentences to them, besides bearing the order written with the terrible vermilion, were usually instructed to proceed with the execution in case the victim had not courage to perform it himself. On the other hand, the emperor often expressed his satisfaction through gifts of balls of silk; whence originated the expression to "present the silk"; and this, being confounded with the sentence-bearing cords, has given rise to some curious mistakes.
- ↑ The calculation of the days for the performance of the traditional sacrifices by the Emperor is one of the principal duties of the astronomers of the observatory at Pekin. Since the ancient formulas no longer suffice for the determination of the dates, the astronomical bureau includes several Europeans, who are called assistant astronomers, and are
are used, two of which are placed in the east and two in the west. Music was regarded by the ancient Chinese as an affair of state and religion, as a science revealed from heaven, a ray of the universal harmony emanating from divinity. Celestial forces and virtue were attributed to it. It was to them the science of sciences, the one by which all others were explained, to which they were related and from which they were descended. The modern Chinese have not abandoned their notions, although the sound of their music does not suggest them to Europeans.
