Characters
- Elizabeth MacLeod (Eve to her husband Gerald) - living at her family's farm in Vermont with her son Rennie after her husband Gerald sent her and him away from Peking.
- Gerald MacLeod - Elizabeth's husband, a university president in Peking, the son of an American father and Chinese mother.
- Rennie MacLeod - Elizabeth's son, age 17 to 20 in the story.
- Matt Greene - caretaker at the Vermont farm.
- grandfather MacLeod (Baba) - Gerald's father, born in Virginia, who left Peking for San Francisco when the Japanese invaded China. He ended up in Little Springs, Kansas, at the farm of Sam Blaine.
- Sam Blaine - American who took in and watched over grandfather MacLeod. Age 42. Grandfather MacLeod had typhoid fever when Sam took him in.
- Dr Bruce Spauldin - The local doctor in Raleigh, Vermont.
- Ai-lan - Gerald's mother. Her fiance died when she was 15. She married grandfather MacLeod when she was 25, he was 30.
- Mei-lan - Gerald's wife-in-absence, second wife or concubine.
- George Bowen - Rennie's college roommate, the brother of his wife-to-be, Mary.
Read more about this topic: Letter From Peking
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has “never had a chance, poor devil,” you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of anyone.”
—Margot Asquith (1864–1945)
“There are as many characters in men
As there are shapes in nature.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
“Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)