Pearl Buck in China (44 page)

113
“By that time so many people
This and the next quote are from MGC interview, NSC.

114
“We both… have the best
JLB, letter to Clifford Buck, July 27, 1922, NSC.

114
“They just hit the ceiling
MGC interview, NSC; JLB, letter to Bucks, January 12, 1919, NSC.

114
“To my horror
PB letter to Bucks, March 15, 1919, NSC.

115
“He did not, as she did
Ex,
152.

115
“I felt the Calvinism
This and the next two quotes are from MGC, letter to Nora Stirling, February 14, 1976, NSC.

116
“‘Everywhere I went
FA,
155.

117
“You can’t imagine
MGC interview, NSC.

117
The Bucks had barely settled
in—JLB, letters to Bucks, June 29, 1919, and January 27, 1921, NSC;
MSW,
152–53.

117
“Imagine two, four
FA,
53.

118
“her unusual beauty
CWNG,
8.

118
“like a magnificat
ED,
141. For the return to the United States in summer 1920, see
ED,
142,
MSW,
213.

118
“I hear chewing gum
This and the next quote are from
ED,
146.

119
“she said with a quiet
Ex,
307; for CS on America, and her rejection of AS, see
Ex,
310.

119
“Something blinded her
TN,
117.

119
“When I think of her dying
MSW,
160.

119
“Any Chinese who reads this
John C. H. Wu in
T’ien Hsia Monthly,
Shanghai, vol. 2, no. 4, April 1936, 394.

120
“Fiction is a painting
THi, 204.

120
“I drew the curtain at last
EWWW,
246.

120
“I had to get rid of
SS,
191.

120
“death sat
TN,
110. The next two quotes are
TN,
96, 129.

121
“Young in spirit to the end
Ex,
314–15. On the writing of
The Exile
, see
MSW,
161–62;
ED,
149; THi, 203.

122
“She was beginning already
Ex
, 78. The next four quotes are from
Ex,
72, 278, 281, 279–82.

C
HAPTER 5

All quotes not otherwise attributed in this chapter come from interviews with Nora Stirling, NSC.

125
“too large and somewhat graceless
MSW,
176.

125
“The living room, large as it was
ED,
144. My account of the house and garden is based on
MSW,
157, 176, 189, 204; PB, letter to Bucks, November 18, 1920; Margaret Bear’s letters home: October 22, 1923, April 13, 1923, May 25, 1924, all in NSC.

126
“I admired her
This and the next quote come from interviews with Margaret Bear and Lillieth Bates, NSC.

126
“not books lining the wall
Review of
The Good Earth,
by Alice Tisdale Hobart;
Saturday Review,
July 20, 1931. The encounter described here took place in 1926.

127
“I remember quite clearly
MSW,
162.

127
In the early morning
MSW,
163, from
“In China Too,”
(reprinted in
MSW,
162–67).

128
“I saw such things
MSW,
154.

128
The other day I stood
MSW,
171, from “Beauty in China,” by PB,
Forum,
March 1924 (reprinted in
MSW,
167–175).

129
“It was natural to me
MSW,
17.

129
“I am very proud of her
JLB, letter to Bucks, February 18, 1923, NSC.

129
a work space of her own
GY interview, NSC; “Pearl S. Buck,” by EW, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College Alumni Bulletin, February 1939, 7.

130
“His place is in the street.”
From PB’s 1938 Nobel lecture, “The Chinese Novel,” in THi, 238.

130
“She made things so much easier
This and the next quote are from Margaret Bear interview, NSC.

131
“We depended on her for solutions
This and the next two quotes are from interviews with Lillieth Bates and James Bear respectively, NSC.

131
“That part of the household
This and the next quote are from
ED,
157. For the gardener, see
MSW,
157–58.

132
“‘I came to you,’
the woman said
MSW,
194. For the child’s birth and subsequent misfortunes, see
MSW
195–96.

132
“She declared that her life
MSW,
222. See also pp. 221, 223, and 232–33. Mrs. Lu was apparently the same person as Li Sao-tse (Sao-tse, Sadze, or—in current Pinyin transliteration—Saozi means wife), who later married as her second husband the cook Li Hua (alternatively known as Chu) and went to work for the Thomson family, who called her Tsu Sadze or Ch’u Sao-tse (James Thomson and Nancy Thomson Waller interviews, NSC). She was forty-four in 1927, according to a letter from PB to JLB’s mother, 23.8.28, NSC.

133
“This illiterate woman
“Pearl S. Buck and the American Quest for China,” by James C. Thomson, in
The Several Worlds of Pearl S. Buck: Essays Produced at a Symposium, Randolph Macon Woman’s College, March 26–28, 1992,
ed. Elizabeth
Johnston Lipscomb, Frances E. Webb, and Peter Conn, Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1994, 11.

133
“It is the Chinese
THi, 218; the next quote is from THi, 236.

133
“notoriously filthy
Rev. James Graham, Zhenjiang, letter to Presbyterian Mission Board, February 4, 1933, PHS.

134
“not so often from
THi, 226.
All Men Are Brothers
was the title PB gave to her translation of
Shui Hu Chuan,
or
The Water Margins
.

134
“Only a person
Alice Hobart,
Saturday Review,
July 26, 1931, 13.

134
“I could buy a basketful
MSW,
179.

134
“they alone knew
THi, 218.

135
“they provided for me
MSW,
179.

135
“I learned far more
MSW,
177.

136
“Yuan, wrapped in his greatcoat
HD,
300.

136
“
Wen-li
is a dead language
Review by AS of the bishop of Shanghai’s
Wen-li
Bible, CR 31, June 1900; the next quote is from his review of the Revised Mandarin New Testament, CR 39, 1908, 268.

137
“a beautifully clear and graceful
MSW,
178. See also
MSW,
152. Opposition came from the
Critical Review,
founded in 1922 by conservatives at Nanjing’s Higher Normal College.

137
spoke and thought in
pei-hua
MSW,
275.

137
“The beautiful cadences
SS,
138,

137
Nanjing Agricultural College
“Blueprint for Nanjing Agricultural College” by Joseph Bailie and J. E. Williams, University of Nanking, October 16, 1912, PHS; for JLB, see
Development of Agricultural Economics at the University of Nanking, 1922–46,
by JLB, Ithaca, New York, 1973; “John Lossing Buck and Agricultural Economics at Nanjing University,” chapter 9 in
Jingji Xue: The History of the Introduction of Western Economic Ideas to China, 1850–1950,
by Paul B. Trescott, Hong Kong, 2007.

138
“They not only knew nothing
MSW,
188.

138
“If you want to improve it
This and the next two quotes are from “In Memory of Professor Buck,” typescript, by R. H. Tsui (Cui Yujun in current transliteration), kindly translated for me by Ye Gongping, Nanjing University, 1991.

138
“They are feeling
JLB, letter to Bucks, January 4, 1922, NSC.

139
A young Chinese colleague
Liang Shih-chiu, letter to Nora Stirling, January 12, 1978, NSC; EW interview, NSC.

140
“she wore a long cotton gown
EWWW
104; the following quotes from
EWWW,
151, 38, 32, 51, 94.

141
Dr. Sydenstricker
AS had an honorary doctorate from Washington and Lee.

141
“It did not occur to him
MSW,
187.

142
“The North Kiangsu Mission
Half Our Burden: Report of North Kiangsu Mission,
Shanghai, 1915, 25, PHS.

142
“He went his way
FA,
53–54.

143
“His lips were moving
TN, 201.

143
“In a sort of stupor
FA,
252; the next quote is from
FA,
254. PB’s reconstruction of this affair in
FA,
162–68, 170–71, is powerful but biased and full of inaccuracies corrected by James Bear’s eyewitness account in “The Mission Work of the Presbyterian Church in China, 1567–1952,” unpublished ms., vol. 5, 156, 167, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, and James Bear interview, NSC. For the retirement rule, see
Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the North Kiangsu Mission,
Shanghai, 1922, 13, PHS.

143
“It was only by much contriving
ED,
147. For the seminary correspondence course, see
FA,
256–59, 263–64;
OLW,
53;
History of Nanjing Theological Seminary, 1911–61,
by Frank Wilson Price, New York, 1961, 10.

144
“All his life
MSW,
54–56.

144
“He spoke Chinese as few
FA,
51–52.

144
“He had a remarkable mind
Typescript obituary by PB, 1931, NSC.

144
“He talked more
FA,
43; preface by GY to
OLW
.

145
“I put relentlessly aside
FA,
47. The next quote is from
FA,
10.

145
“He espoused early a cause
FA,
56.

145
“Kill Sydenstricker!”
Review of
The Exile
by Nettie du Bose, The
Presbyterian,
November 4, 1936.

146
Carol Buck
See
CWNG,
31
et passim;
interviews with James and Margaret Bear, Lillieth Bates, Helen Daniels, John Reisner Jr., Nancy Thomson, and Emma White, NSC.

146
“I was to have nearly four years
MSW,
158.

147
“She was three years old
CWNG, 8–9; the next quote is from CWNG, 10.

147
“In spite of my terror
CWNG,
12.

147
“A Chinese Woman Speaks,”
See preface to
FW
;
MSW,
201 (where this story is confused with its sequel).

148
“You will wear out your life
CWNG,
19. The next two quotes are from
CWNG,
19, 18.

148
“as though she were laying
TN,
296. For Ithaca, see
MSW,
201–2; the next quote is from
MSW,
201. On adopting a baby, see
MSW,
203; THi 125.

150
“Quite coldbloodedly I asked
MSW,
202. For “China and the West,” see
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
vol. 168, July 1933, Philadelphia, 1933, 119–31. The original prize-winning essay was submitted under the pseudonym “David Barnes.”

150
“I got back my faith
MSW,
203.

150
“Endurance is only
CWNG,
1. The next quote is from
CWNG,
28.

151
“None of it meant anything
CWNG,
27.

151
“She was frantic
IW,
141.

151
“Books, I remember
CWNG,
29.

151
“Agony has become static
Note dated April 1940 in THi, 279.

151
“It is not shame
PB, letter to EW, July 29, 1931, NSC.

151
“She would sleep a little
TN,
296.

152
“My own sympathies
MSW,
198–99. The next three quotes from
MSW,
186, 192, 196.

153
“You take Washington
DC—A. B. Lewis interview, NSC.

153
“all about the country
HD,
122.

154
“Lao Wang, the Farmer,”
CR, 57, April 1926, 237–44. For the novel, see THi, 128.

154
“we are living… in fear
JLB, letter to Mission Board, March 6, 1927, NSC. Texts of telegrams sent to the U.S. government and the Church Council by JLB’s Fellowship of Reconciliation, organized with J. Reisner, Claude Thomson, and Searle Bates, in JLB, letter to Bucks, February 12, 1927; see also B. Reisner interview, NSC.

155
Grace and her husband
JLB, letter to Bucks, February 12, 1927, NSC.

155
his students were afraid
JLB, letter to Mission Board, March 6, 1927, NSC.