| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Our Chinese Acquaintance | | By Eunice Tietjens |
| | From “Profiles from China”
WE met him in the runway called a street, between the warrens known as houses. | |
| He looked still the same, but his French-cut tweeds, his continental hat and small round glasses were alien here. | |
| About him we felt a troubled uncertainty. | |
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| He greeted us gladly. “It is good,” he said in his soft French, “to see my foreign friends again…. | |
| You find our city dirty, I am sure—on every stone dirt grows in China. | 5 |
| How the people crowd! The street is choked. Nong koi chi! Go away, curious ones! The ladies cannot breathe…. | |
| No, my people are not clean. They do not understand, I think. | |
| In Belgium, where I studied— | |
| You did not know? Yes, I was studying in Bruges, studying Christianity, when the great war came. | |
| We, you know, love peace. I could not see……. | 10 |
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| “So I came home. | |
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| “But China is very dirty …. our priests are rascals, and the people ……. I do not know. | |
| Is there, perhaps, a true religion somewhere?” | |
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| Behind his glasses his slant eyes were troubled. | |
| “I do not know,” he said. | 15 |
| We met him in the runway called a street, between the warrens known as houses. | | | | |
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