20世纪初一个外国女作家对中国人的评价
每个中国人一出生便置身于绝美的环境中—形式之美，色彩之美，组合精妙之美----天然之美和人工之美。这种良好趣味和内在慈善的环境乃是未经玷污的。
每个中国人，有意无意地，都是爱美和喜爱可爱之人。没有哪个民族有如此坚定的正义感，如此显而易见的幽默感，如此注重平衡，注重忠诚，如此谦恭。这个民族有自豪而无虚荣之心。她自立，自强，毫无残暴之性， 礼貌而不做作，庄重而不自负，无荒唐可笑之处，勤劳，安乐，工作努力而怀有梦想，同时也富有心计讲求实际，诚实甚于其他民族，热爱家庭，善于理家，喜爱儿童，对待妇女富有骑士态度和公平精神。
Louise Jordan Miln （1864-1933 ） "The Feast of Laterns"
这个女人写过不少讲中国的小说，但是却没有受到过什么注意。 不知道中国有没有人研究？
我看可以拿她跟赛珍珠比较一下。
查到时代杂志1924年一篇书评：
Monday, Aug. 04, 1924
Chinese Junk*
Mrs. Miln Plays Yankee Doodle on a Lute of Jade
The Story. Tom Drew was the son of rich but honest parents who told him about the stork and sent him to Harvard to complete his education. Later he served the U. S. in France. But at the age of 28, when the story opens, he manages to combine the cultured urbanity of Little Rollo with the moral steadfastness of Pollyanna. When a Chinese dowager was about to present him to one of her husband's con- cubines, "his soul blushed—good sterling thing of New York that it was—to think what his mother would feel could she know of it." But this is getting ahead of Mrs. Miln.
Drew senior does not want his son to marry Nettie, daughter of William Walker, his enemy. So, lighting a long black cigar, he says to Tom: "Go to China and look it over. Draw on me." That was just a clever stratagem, but Tom goes. On the boat he thinks about Yo Ki, a Chinese boy whom he befriended at Harvard. He hopes he will not meet Yo—it would be embarrassing to be seen on the street with a 'Chink—but feels that the chances are slight. The reader, aware that the arm of coincidence could thrice encircle China's Wall, is not so sure.
In Shantung, Tom meets various members of the American colony who entertain him when he is not indulging in butterfly-hunting, his hobby. One day he chases a cherry-winged insect who leads him into an old walled garden. There is a Chinese girl in the garden who calls him by name. Who can she be? She is Yo Ling, sister of Yo Ki, and she has recognized him from his photograph, for Tom has been a household hero to the Yos since his kindness to the boy, who has since died. He is introduced to the whole family —grandma, mother, young sister, father and concubine. It is here that the soul-blushing takes place. The Yos pay Tom homage and vow eternal friendship.
Then a gold mine is injected into the story. Father Yo controls it, but he is being outwitted for its possession by Osuro, wily Jap. Osuro has taken up with Yo Ling's little sister. He is going to say to Mr. Yo: "Your gold mine, or—your daughter," and then cheat him out of both. Meanwhile Tom is getting fond of Yo Ling, but no one can claim it comes as a surprise. One day they pay a visit to the tomb of Confucius and Tom hears a bomb ticking underneath it. He digs it out and, holding it in his bosom, races several miles looking for a place to put it down. This clever race is perhaps the climax of the book. Tom follows it up by helping to undo the machinations of the villain Jap. He is now thoroughly in love with Yo Ling, but knowing that a Chinese lullaby would breed family discord, he bids her a sad but manly farewell, and is last seen on a home-going liner. Thus, as the story ends, we are at sea.
Significance. It must not be supposed from the above account that anything happens in this book. The plot is merely a preposterous papier-mache skeleton in the black cupboard of China's mystery. Mrs. Miln uses it as an excuse to let some light into the cupboard. She describes at great length the flora, fauna, customs and history of the Yellow Continent, and if these things fail to impress, it is not because she does not know about them. The only really objectionable thing in the book is Mrs. Miln's lofty American patriotism. In every chapter, almost on every page, the Eagle emits a scream. The volume is replete with the blatant and fortunately rare sort of National feeling that has made so many Americans ludicrous abroad. Yet behind all this, one senses the thing that is responsible for the book, though not for its absurdities—the glamour and the mystery of China, that strange Empire, whose people go about the grave business of life with a ceremonial as delicate as that of a fashionable tea, and about the trivial business of death with a proud and rigorous grandeur befitting heroes. In so much, Mrs. Miln is successful.
The Author. Mrs. George Crichton Miln (Louise Jordan Miln) has been a life-long admirer of China. Writing about it is her favorite amusement. Among her books are Mr. Wu, The Feast of the Lanterns, The Green Goddess.
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