Your tail, is becoming too heavy to wag.

 

Your tail, is becoming too heavy to wag.
--
Peter Fleming (1959). The Siege at Peking. NEW YORK 49 East 33rd Street, New York 16, N.Y: HARPER & BROTHERS. p. 226. "One account describes an audience which Tung had of the Empress Dowager on 23 June, the third day of the Siege, at which he complained that 'Jung Lu has the guns which my army needs; with their aid not a stone would be left standing in the whole of the Legation Quarter.' The Empress Dowager, who had been painting a design of bamboos on silk when the warrior was announced, dismissed him with contumely. 'Your tail,' she said elliptically, 'is becoming too heavy to wag.' Ching-Shan mentions Tung's grievance about guns a week later." 

 

Empress Dowager Cixi

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