Pearl Buck in China (41 page)

N
OTES

C
HAPTER
1

1
“We looked out over the paddy fields
Ex,
55–56.

1
“These three who came before
My Mother’s House,
by PB, West Virginia, 1965, 8.

2
“I spoke Chinese first
THi, 44.

2
“If America was for dreaming about
MSW,
5.

2
“‘Everything you say is lies
THi 69.

2
“Why must we hide it?
THi, 44.

2
“Here in the green shadows
MSW,
25.

3
“That huge empire
The Gentle Inoffensive Chinese,
by Mark Twain, vol. 2, New York, 1872[1992], 318.

3
“Sometimes Pearl found bones
MSW,
19; THi, 74–5.

4
“Old Chinese novels
MSW,
57.

4
“wonderful daggers
FW, xii; see THi, 33.

4
Wang Amah was wrinkled
THi, 89;
ED,
23.

5
“because you wash yourselves
THi, 34–38; see also
Ex,
135–38; GY in NSC.

6
“a place called Home
ED,
15; EDts.

6
“I grew up misinformed
MSW,
63.

7
“He had to himself an area
FA,
129–30.

7
One of the thrilling stories
Ex,
156–62.

8
first-rate novelist’s training
Ex,
300.

8
her “two selves”
Foreword to
American Triptych: Three “John Sedges” Novels,
by PB, 1945.

9
“people would once have said
VH,
481.

9
“But I cannot
This and the next quote are from “Address to National Education Association,” 1938, cited in
ED,
193.

9
“In China she is admired
“Pearl of the Orient,” by Mike Meyer,
New York Times Book Review,
March 5, 2006.

9
Henri Matisse said
Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse,
vol, 2, by Hilary Spurling, New York, 2005, 342.

9
Jawaharlal Nehru read
MSW,
8.

10
“We had a full cup
OLW
, 25.

10
“the heart-rending bereavements
CR
31, April 1900, 196.

11
“The deaths of these two children
OLW,
25.

11
“I shouldn’t have listened
BP,
21.

11
“He went about Europe
FA,
102.

11
“I never saw so hard a heart
FA,
100.

11
“irrevocable as death
Ex,
130.

11
“Had it taken the death
Ex,
177.

11
“We are by no means overtaking
“The Importance of the Direct Phase of Mission Work,” by AS,
CR
41, June 1910, 389.

12
“Gospel herald
“On the Present Situation,” by AS,
CR
57, August 1926, 603.

12
“His children were merely accidents
FA,
208.

12
“My father set off on a long trip
OLW,
22.

13
prisoners in their own houses
Earthen Vessels and Transcendent Power: American Presbyterian Missionaries in China, 1837–1952,
by G. Thompson Brown, NY, 1997, 138. For PB’s memories of Tsingkiangpu, see
Ex,
180–87;
ED,
13–15.

14
“the other one’s, the white one’s room
Ex,
182.

14
“The masses of feathery
Passage conflated from descriptions of the same autumn landscape in
Ex,
99; and
FA,
63.

15
“My memory of his middle years
“In Memoriam,” PB’s obituary of her father, typescript, 1931, NSC.

15
“a man very tall
GE,
133.

16
“almost as devoid
All quotes in this paragraph are from “Preaching to the Chinese by Similarities and Contrasts,” by AS,
CR
20, July 1889, 330.

17
“The people were afraid of us
OLW,
29. PB’s account of Hsuchien in
Ex,
196–98;
FA
, 129–30.

17
“They were living like beasts
The Townsman,
by PB, 1945, in
American Triptych:
Three “John Sedges” Novels, 1958, 140.

17
“For neither of them was it a struggle
FA,
139. For other versions of this confrontation, see
Ex,
198–99;
Ed,
17. For AS’s escape from and return to Hsuchien, see
OLW,
30–34;
Ex,
197;
FA,
88–89.

19
“My father seemed oblivious
GY in
OLW,
29.

20
“No large cities
“What I Learned in Shantung,” by AS,
CR
18, July 1887.

20
“the great sprawling opulent city”
GE,
116. The nameless fictional city in this book combines features taken from both Zhenjiang and Nanxuzhou.

21
“They did not even know him well enough
FA,
151.

21
godowns that smelled
of hemp THi, 56.

21
three small rooms
. The rooms above a Chinese liquor store rented in Zhenjiang in 1896–97, and the Sydenstrickers’ dramatic departure from them, are clearly described in
ED,
18–19, 22–25, 32; EDts; THi, 56. PB describes her parents living in what seem to be the same lodgings in 1886–87 in
Ex,
142–47.

22
“It robbed her of the tiny margin
Ex,
191.

22
“They snatched at us
THi, 46.

23
“if he took a pair of chopsticks
Sons,
1932, 111–12.

23
“the silk shops flying brilliant banners
This and the following quote are from
GE,
120, 116; sweets, lanterns, and kites from
MSW,
28–29; THi, 85.

24
I learned to know its every mood
THi, 62.

25
the Kuling Mountain Company
—Kuling (now Guling) was founded by Edward Selby Little (1864–1939) whose original plan showing the Sydenstricker plot was in the exhibition
Story of Old Villas
at the Guling Museum in 2007. Kuling was the birthplace in 1911 of the English draughtsman and novelist Mervyn Peake, who re-created the mountain as Gormenghast in his
Titus Groan
trilogy.

25
a lifesaving station—
MSW,
125. See also
MSW
126–31;
Ex,
227–31;
OLW,
41–42;
ED,
32.

25
Clyde contracted diphtheria—Accounts of Clyde’s death in
Ex,
202–4;
MSW,
131;
BP,
67;
ED,
35; EDts.

25
“I have two little brothers
The text of this letter, dated April 5, 1899, is in THi, 86.

26
“But his body is precious
BP,
67.

26
“I was so happy
CWNG,
6.

26
“Bred in this sparkling
Ex,
41.

27
“If it had not been for this other one
…’
Ex,
p. 120. All quotes in this paragraph are from
Ex,
119–22 (the storm at sea turns into a hot still moonlit night in
BP,
21). Maude Sydenstricker died in the arms of Dr. W. A. P. Martin (1827–1916), one of the negotiators of the treaties that opened up China to the West in the 1860s, afterward president of T’ungwen College in Beijing.

27
“remained for Carie to the end of her life
Ex,
93.

28
“She had to plunge her hand
Ex,
131; invasive snakes from
The Townsman,
1945, in
American Triptych: Three “John Sedges” Novels,
1958, 216.

28
“a small, decrepit brick cottage
Ex,
209.

28
“Their segments were covered
SS,
146.

29
“In the year 1900
OLW,
27.

30
“Then he looked at us all strangely
FA,
160.

31
“even Father with his collar off
EDts.

31
“The air that summer’s day
MSW,
39; see also
Ex,
221–22.

31
“I seemed without the body
FA,
164.

31
“The white people in Shanghai
ED,
49.

31
“I had never seen her afraid
MSW,
42.

32
“In October Absalom convened—
Minutes of the North Kiangsu Mission of the Southern Presbyterian Church, 1899 and 1900,
American Presbyterian Mission Press, Shanghai, in PHS.

32
“down through the states
FA,
105.

C
HAPTER
2

33
“thousands of Christians suffered
OLW,
37.

34
“Did I not see sights
MSW,
19.

34
“immensely better
OLW,
42.

34
“for those savage
MSW,
59.

35
“I knew every tree
Grace Stulting Smith interview, NSC; PB’s memories in
Ex,
135–41, 70–72, 175; THi, 82; PB,
My Mother’s House, passim.
35 Throughout her childhood—Stulting family history taken from
The Stulting Family: Dutch Ancestors of Pearl Buck,
by Grace Stulting Smith, Richmond, Virginia, 1974, a privately printed monograph that differs in almost all particulars from PB’s folkloric version in
Ex,
11–25 (the Stultings bought land but never developed it: the original 1848 deed of purchase is on p. 8, and the eventual notice of sale is in the
Greenbrier Independent,
January 18 and May 24, 1883.) Further details from
A Historic and Scenic Tour of Pocahontas County,
by C. A. Curry, West Virginia, 2004, 38–39.

35
“He was a city man
This and the following quotes from Grace Stulting Smith interview, NSC.

37
“a harvest of dark, white-clad heathen
Passage conflated from PB’s fiction and nonfiction accounts in
TN,
171, and
Ex,
88.

37
“Must we have the revolution
MSW,
45.

38
Yankees had horns—
Ex,
54.

38
“That amah, she raised her
—This and the next quote are from Grace Stulting Smith interview, NSC.

39
“Sir, I know
Ex,
89.

39
He was the youngest but one—Sydenstricker family history based on
FA,
12, 15–29;
Ex,
173–74;
OLW,
2; PB’s ts obituary, NSC. Further information from an article by AS’s brother, “The Sydenstricker Family,” by Rev. Christopher Sydenstricker, in
A History of Greenbrier County,
by J. R. Cole, privately published, 1917, 240–42; the Greenbrier County Census for 1830, 1840, and 1850; Pocahontas County Census, 1880;
Greenbrier County, (West) Virginia: Marriages 1782–1900,
by Larry A. Shuck, Athens, Georgia, n.d. [1991];
A Genealogy and History of the Kauffman/Coffman Families of North America, 1584–1937,
by Charles F. Kauffman, privately published, 1940; “A Genealogy of the Isaac and Esther Coffman Family Descendants,” by Daniel Roy Coffman, 1971, both in Greenbrier Historical Society Archives, Lewisburg, West Virginia.