VENERATED SIRE,--You are omniscient, but I cannot regard the fear
which you express in your beautifully-written letter, bearing the sign
of the eleventh day of the seventh moon, as anything more than the
imaginings prompted by a too-lavish supper of your favourite shark's
fin and peanut oil. Unless the dexterously-elusive attributes of the
genial-spoken persons high in office at Pekin have deteriorated
contemptibly since this one's departure, it is quite impossible for
our great and enlightened Empire to be drawn into a conflict with the
northern barbarians whom you indicate, against our will. When the
matter becomes urgent, doubtless a prince of the Imperial line will
loyally suffer himself to Pass Above, and during the period of
ceremonial mourning for so pure and exalted an official it would
indeed be an unseemly desecration to engage in any public business. If
this failed, and an ultimatum were pressed with truly savage contempt
for all that is sacred and refined, it might be well next to consider
the health even of the sublime Emperor himself (or, perhaps better,
that of the select and ever-present Dowager Empress); but should the
barbarians still advance, and, setting the usages of civilised warfare
at defiance, threaten an engagement in the midst of this unparalleled
calamity, there will be no alternative but to have a formidable
rebellion in the Capital. All the barbarian powers will then assemble
as usual, and in the general involvement none dare move alone, and
everything will have to be regarded as being put back to where it was
before.
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