China and the West

Cather, Willa. Works.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/search?amode=start&author=Cather%2c%20Willa%2c%201873-1947.
1900
Cather, Willa. Frank Norris. Blix. In : The courier ; Jan. 13 (1900).
If you want to read a story that is all wheat and no chaff, read "Blix."...
So it happened that their real love affair never began until one morning when "Landy" had to go down to the wharf to write up a whaleback, and "Blix" went along, and an old sailor told them a story and "Blix" recognized the literary possibilities of it, and they had lunch in a Chinese restaurant, and "Landy" because he was a newspaper man and it was the end of the week, didn't have any change about his clothes, and "Blix" had to pay the bill. And it was in that green old tea house that "Landy" read "Blix" one of his favorite yarns by Kipling, and she in a calm, off-handed way, recognized one of the fine, technical points in it, and "Landy" almost went to pieces for joy of her doing it. That scene in the Chinese restaurant is one of the prettiest bits of color you'll find to rest your eyes upon, and mighty good writing it is…

1905
Cather, Willa. The garden lodge. In : Cather, Willa. The troll garden. (New York, N.Y. : McClure, Phillips & Co., 1905).
Shuddering, she thought of the Arabian fairy tale in which the genie brought the princess of China to the sleeping prince of Damascus and carried her through the air back to her palace at dawn…

1905
Cather, Willa. The sculptor's funeral. In : McClure's magazine (1905).
He looked painfully about over the clover-green Brussels, the fat plush upholstery, among the hand-painted china plaques and panels, and vases, for some mark of identification, for something that might once conceivably have belonged to Harvey Merrick…

1912
Cather, Willa. Alexander's bridge. (Boston : H. Mifflin, 1912).
It was a tiny room, hung all round with French prints, above which ran a shelf full of china…

1913
Cather, Willa. O pioneers! (Boston : H. Mifflin, 1913.
There he was, turning over a portfolio of chromo "studies" which the druggist sold to the Hanover women who did china-painting…
He disliked the litter of human dwellings: the broken food, the bits of broken china, the old wash-boilers and tea-kettles thrown into the sunflower patch…
The table was set for company in the dining-room, where highly varnished wood and colored glass and useless pieces of china were conspicuous enough to satisfy the standards of the new prosperity…

1915
Cather, Willa. The song of the lark. (Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915).
He was a blissfully lazy child, and had a number of long, dull plays, such as making nests for his china duck and waiting for her to lay him an egg…
At this moment Giddy, freshly shaved and shampooed, his shirt shining with the highest polish known to Chinese laundrymen, his straw hat tipped over his right eye, thrust his head in at the door…
There was no one in the parlor but the medical student, who was playing one of Sousa's marches so vigorously that the china ornaments on the top of the piano rattled…
At first Landry bought books; then rugs, drawings, china…

1916
Cather, Willa. The bookkeeper's wife. In : Century ; May (1916).
Mrs. Brown was ever and again dropping a word before Percy about how the girl that took Charley would have her flat furnished by the best furniture people, and her china-closet stocked with the best ware, and would have nothing to worry about but nicks and scratches…

1918
Cather, Willa. My Antonia. (Boston : H. Mifflin, 1918).
The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, and living in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be sat upon, and hand-painted china that must not be used…
Mrs. Cutter painted china so assiduously that even her wash-bowls and pitchers, and her husband's shaving-mug, were covered with violets and lilies. Once, when Cutter was exhibiting some of his wife's china to a caller, he dropped a piece…
Once when they had quarrelled about household expenses, Mrs. Cutter put on her brocade and went among their friends soliciting orders for painted china, saying that Mr. Cutter had compelled her 'to live by her brush.' Cutter wasn't shamed as she had expected; he was delighted!...
'But I thought Lapland women were fat and ugly, and had squint eyes, like Chinese?' I objected…
Her hands were so uncertain that she could no longer disfigure china, poor woman!...

1919
Cather, Willa. Her boss. In : Smart set ; Oct. (1919).
Wanning leaned against the china closet and talked to Sam for nearly half an hour…

1920
Cather, Willa. Youth and the bright Medusa. (New York, N.Y. : A.A. Knopf, 1920).
Her tiny Chinese slippers were embroidered so richly that they resembled the painted porcelain of old vases…
"After he began to make headway with misses' and juniors' cloaks, he became a collector--etchings, china, old musical instruments…
He looked at the clover-green Brussels, the fat plush upholstery, among the hand-painted china placques and panels and vases, for some mark of identification,--for something that might once conceivably have belonged to Harvey Merrick…

1922
Cather, Willa. One of ours. (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1922).
On a table in the middle of the room were pipes and boxes of tobacco, cigars in a glass jar, and a big Chinese bowl full of cigarettes…
Carrie Royce, Enid's older sister, was a missionary in China…
Gladys Farmer was the only Frankfort girl who had ever gone much to the mill house. Nobody was surprised when Caroline Royce, the older daughter, went out to China to be a missionary, or that her mother let her go without a protest…
"Not to do what I want to. The only thing I really want to do is to go out to China and help Carrie in her work. Mother thinks I'm not strong enough. But Carrie was never very strong here. She is better in China, and I think I might be."…
She was too much with her mother, and with her own thoughts. Flowers and foreign missions--her garden and the great kingdom of China; there was something unusual and touching about her preoccupations…
If Gladys Farmer went to China, everybody would miss her…
"Father says I play passably well. When you are better you must let me bring up my ivory chessmen that Carrie sent me from China…
"My God, Claude, what do you want of a cellar as deep as that? When your wife takes a notion to go to China, you can open a trap-door and drop her through!"…
It always looked to me like Enid had her face set for China, but I haven't seen her for a good while,--not since before she went off to Michigan with the old lady."…
After a long pause he broke out suddenly, "China has been drummed into my ears. It seems like a long way to go to hunt for trouble, don't it? A man hasn't got much control over his own life, Claude. If it ain't poverty or disease that torments him, it's a name on the map. I could have made out pretty well, if it hadn't been for China, and some other things…
Mr. Royce shook his head. "I don't know. It don't seem fair that China should hang over you, too."…
You may find a tenant in here when you get back from China."…
And if he had a wife at all, it was like him to have a wife in China!...
Enid had packed her best linen in her cedar chest and had put the kitchen and china closets in scrupulous order before she went away…
Besides collecting war pictures, Mahailey now hunted through the old magazines in the attic for pictures of China. She had marked on her big kitchen calendar the day when Enid would arrive in Hong-Kong…
From time to time, when they were working together, Mrs. Wheeler told Mahailey what she knew about the customs of the Chinese…
In a place like Frankfort, a boy whose wife was in China could hardly go to see Gladys without causing gossip…
"No, I'm not going to China. I'm going over to help fight the Germans."…
Two years ago he had seemed a fellow for whom life was over; driven into the ground like a post, or like those Chinese criminals who are planted upright in the earth, with only their heads left out for birds to peck at and insects to sting…
"Even the old ones do not often complain about their dear things--their linen, and their china, and their beds…

1923
Cather, Willa. A lost lady. (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1923).
"I haven't seen her lately. She was striking,--china blue eyes and heaps of yellow hair, not exactly yellow,--what they call an ashen blond, I believe."…
Her eyes were, as Mrs. Forrester had said, a china blue, rather prominent and inexpressive…
He looked like a wise old Chinese mandarin as he lay listening to the young man's fantastic story with perfect composure, merely blinking and saying, "Thank you, Niel, thank you."…

1925
Cather, Willa. The Professor's house. (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1925.
"There's altogether too much of that, Professor. So many of my customers are using it now--ladies you wouldn't expect would. They say most of it was cut off the heads of dead Chinamen…
Introductions over, it was the Professor's son-in-law, Louie Marsellus, who took Sir Edgar in hand. He remembered having met in China a Walter Spilling, who was, it turned out, a brother of Sir Edgar. Marsellus had also a brother there, engaged in the silk trade. They exchanged opinions on conditions of the Orient, while young McGregor put on his horn-rimmed spectacles and roamed restlessly up and down the library. The two daughters sat near their mother, listening to the talk about China…
Gaston, the one he loved best, was dead--killed in the Boxer uprising in China…
He began to walk softly about in his slippers, looking at nothing, but, as he talked, picking up objects here and there,--drawing-tools, his cocoa-cup, a china cream-pitcher, turning them round and carefully putting them down again, just as he often absently handled pieces of apparatus when he was lecturing…
Louie accompanied them to Chicago, where he was to join his brother, the one who was in the silk trade in China, and go on to New York with him for a family reunion…
At Aix-les-Bains they found a gorgeous dressing-gown for him in a Chinese shop…

1926
Cather, Willa. My mortal enemy. (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1926).
When I entered she was sitting in a wheel-chair by an open window, wrapped in a Chinese dressing-gown, with a bright shawl over her feet…

1927
Cather, Willa. Death comes for the archbishop. (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1927).
There Jacinto knelt down over a fissure in the stone floor, like a crack in china, which was plastered up with clay…

1931
Cather, Willa. Shadows on the rock (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1931).
The same candelabra and china shepherd boy sat on the mantel, the same colour prints of pastoral scenes hung on the walls…
But no, she really believed that everything in the house, the furniture, the china shepherd boy, the casseroles in the kitchen, knew that the herbarium had been restored to the high shelves and that the world was not going to be destroyed this winter…

1932
Cather, Willa. Obscure destinies. (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1932).
Some country housekeepers would have stopped to spread a white cloth over the oilcloth, to change the thick cups and plates for their best china, and the wooden-handled knives for plated ones…
Mrs. Rosen in one of her blue working dresses, the indigo blue that became a dark skin and dusky red cheeks with a tone of salmon colour, was in her shining kitchen, washing her beautiful dishes-- her neighbours often wondered why she used her best china and linen every day--when Vickie Templeton came in with a book under her arm…

1940
Cather, Willa. Sapphira and the slave girl. (New York, N.Y. : Alfred A. Knopf, 1940).
The china was of good quality (as were all the Mistress's things); surprisingly good to find on the table of a country miller in the Virginia backwoods…
Lizzie rolled her eyes that shone like black-and-white china marbles…