initial commit of ebook 1077HEADmain

1 files changed, 5291 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/1077-0.txt b/1077-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cad873e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1077-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5291 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1077 ***
+
+THE MIRROR OF KONG HO
+
+By Ernest Bramah
+
+
+
+     A lively and amusing collection of letters on western living
+     written by Kong Ho, a Chinese gentleman. These addressed to
+     his homeland, refer to the Westerners in London as
+     barbarians and many of the aids to life in our society give
+     Kong Ho endless food for thought. These are things such as
+     the motor car and the piano; unknown in China at this time.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+Estimable barbarian,--Your opportune suggestion that I should permit the
+letters, wherein I have described with undeviating fidelity the customs
+and manner of behaving of your accomplished race, to be set forth in
+the form of printed leaves for all to behold, is doubtless
+gracefully-intentioned, and this person will raise no barrier of dissent
+against it.
+
+In this he is inspired by the benevolent hope that his immature
+compositions may to one extent become a model and a by-word to those who
+in turn visit his own land of Fragrant Purity; for with exacting care
+he has set down no detail that has not come under his direct observation
+(although it is not to be denied that here or there he may, perchance,
+have misunderstood an involved allusion or failed to grasp the inner
+significance of an act), so that Impartiality necessarily sways his
+brush, and Truth lurks within his inkpot.
+
+In an entirely contrary manner some, who of recent years have gratified
+us with their magnanimous presence, have returned to their own countries
+not only with the internal fittings of many of our palaces (which,
+being for the most part of a replaceable nature, need be only trivially
+referred to, the incident, indeed, being generally regarded as a most
+cordial and pressing variety of foreign politeness), but also--in
+the lack of highly-spiced actuality--with subtly-imagined and truly
+objectionable instances. These calumnies they have not hesitated to
+commit to the form of printed books, which, falling into the hands
+of the ignorant and undiscriminating, may even suggest to their
+ill-balanced minds a doubt whether we of the Celestial Empire really are
+the wisest, bravest, purest, and most enlightened people in existence.
+
+As a parting, it only remains to be said that, in order to maintain
+unimpaired the quaint-sounding brevity and archaic construction of your
+prepossessing language, I have engraved most of the remarks upon the
+receptive tablets of my mind as they were uttered. To one who can repeat
+the Five Classics without stumbling this is a contemptible achievement.
+Let it be an imposed obligation, therefore, that you retain these
+portions unchanged as a test and a proof to all who may read. Of my
+own deficient words, I can only in truest courtesy maintain that any
+alteration must of necessity make them less offensively commonplace than
+at present they are.
+
+The Sign and immutable Thumb-mark of,
+
+                                                         KONG HO
+
+By a sure hand to the House of one Ernest Bramah.
+
+
+
+
+THE MIRROR OF KONG HO
+
+
+
+
+LETTER I
+
+
+ Concerning the journey. The unlawful demons invoked by
+ certain of the barbarians; their power and the manner of
+ their suppression. Suppression. The incredible obtuseness of
+ those who attend within tea-houses. The harmonious attitude
+ of a person of commerce.
+
+
+Venerated Sire (at whose virtuous and well-established feet an unworthy
+son now prostrates himself in spirit repeatedly),--
+
+Having at length reached the summit of my journey, that London of which
+the merchants from Canton spoke so many strange and incredible things, I
+now send you filial salutations three times increased, and in accordance
+with your explicit command I shall write all things to you with an
+unvarnished brush, well assured that your versatile object in committing
+me to so questionable an enterprise was, above all, to learn the
+truth of these matters in an undeviating and yet open-headed spirit of
+accuracy and toleration.
+
+Of the perils incurred while travelling in the awe-inspiring devices by
+which I was transferred from shore to shore and yet further inland,
+of the utter absence of all leisurely dignity on the part of
+those controlling their movements, and of the almost unnatural
+self-opinionatedness which led them to persist in starting at a stated
+and prearranged time, even when this person had courteously pointed
+out to them by irrefutable omens that neither the day nor the hour was
+suitable for the venture, I have already written. It is enough to assert
+that a similar want of prudence was maintained on every occasion, and,
+as a result, when actually within sight of the walls of this city, we
+were involved for upwards of an hour in a very evilly-arranged yellow
+darkness, which, had we but delayed for a day, as I strenuously advised
+those in authority after consulting the Sacred Flat and Round Sticks, we
+should certainly have avoided.
+
+Concerning the real nature of the devices by which the ships are
+propelled at sea and the carriages on land, I must still unroll a blank
+mind until I can secretly, and without undue hazard, examine them more
+closely. If, as you maintain, it is the work of captive demons hidden
+away among their most inside parts, it must be admitted that these
+usually intractable beings are admirably trained and controlled, and
+I am wide-headed enough to think that in this respect we
+might--not-withstanding our nine thousand years of civilised
+refinement--learn something of the methods of these barbarians. The
+secret, however, is jealously guarded, and they deny the existence of
+any supernatural forces; but their protests may be ignored, for there
+is undoubtedly a powerful demon used in a similar way by some of the
+boldest of them, although its employment is unlawful. A certain kind of
+chariot is used for the occupation of this demon, and those who wish
+to invoke it conceal their faces within masks of terrifying design, and
+cover their hands and bodies with specially prepared garments, without
+which it would be fatal to encounter these very powerful spirits.
+While yet among the habitations of men, and in crowded places, they are
+constrained to use less powerful demons, which are lawful, but when
+they reach the unfrequented paths they throw aside all restraint, and,
+calling to their aid the forbidden spirit (which they do by secret
+movements of the hands), they are carried forward by its agency at a
+speed unattainable by merely human means. By day the demon looks forth
+from three white eyes, which at night have a penetrating brilliance
+equal to the fiercest glances of the Sacred Dragon in anger. If any
+person incautiously stands in its way it utters a warning cry of
+intolerable rage, and should the presumptuous one neglect to escape to
+the roadside and there prostrate himself reverentially before it, it
+seizes him by the body part and contemptuously hurls him bruised and
+unrecognisable into the boundless space of the around. Frequently
+the demon causes the chariot to rise into the air, and it is credibly
+asserted by discriminating witnesses (although this person only sets
+down as incapable of denial that which he has actually beheld) that
+some have maintained an unceasing flight through the middle air for a
+distance of many li. Occasionally the captive demon escapes from the
+bondage of those who have invoked it, through some incautious gesture
+or heretical remark on their part, and then it never fails to use them
+grievously, casting them to the ground wounded, consuming the chariot
+with fire, and passing away in the midst of an exceedingly debased
+odour, by which it is always accompanied after the manner of our own
+earth spirits.
+
+This being, as this person has already set forth, an unlawful demon on
+account of its power when once called up, and the admitted uncertainty
+of its movements, those in authority maintain a stern and inexorable
+face towards the practice. To entrap the unwary certain persons (chosen
+on account of their massive outlines, and further protected from evil
+influences by their pure and consistent habits) keep an unceasing watch.
+When one of them, himself lying concealed, detects the approach of such
+a being, he closely observes the position of the sun, and signals to
+the other a message of warning. Then the second one, shielded by the
+sanctity of his life and rendered inviolable by the nature of his
+garments--his sandals alone being capable of overturning any demon from
+his path should it encounter them--boldly steps forth into the road and
+holds out before him certain sacred emblems. So powerful are these
+that at the sight the unlawful demon confesses itself vanquished, and
+although its whole body trembles with ill-contained rage, and the air
+around is poisoned by its discreditable exhalation, it is devoid of
+further resistance. Those in the chariot are thereupon commanded to
+dismiss it, and being bound in chains they are led into the presence of
+certain lesser mandarins who administer justice from a raised dais.
+
+“Behold!” exclaims the chief of the captors, when the prisoners have
+been placed in obsequious attitudes before the lesser mandarins, “thus
+the matter chanced: The honourable Wang, although disguised under the
+semblance of an applewoman, had discreetly concealed himself by the
+roadside, all but his head being underneath a stream of stagnant water,
+when, at the eighth hour of the morning, he beheld these repulsive
+outcasts approaching in their chariot, carried forward by the diabolical
+vigour of the unlawful demon. Although I had stationed myself several li
+distant from the accomplished Wang, the chariot reached me in less than
+a breathing space of time, those inside assuming their fiercest and most
+aggressive attitudes, and as they came repeatedly urging the demon to
+increased exertions. Their speed exceeded that of the swallow in
+his hymeneal flight, all shrubs and flowers by the wayside withered
+incapably at the demon’s contaminating glance, running water ceased
+to flow, and the road itself was scorched at their passage, the earth
+emitting a dull bluish flame. These facts, and the times and the
+distances, this person has further inscribed in a book which thus
+disposes of all possible defence. Therefore, O lesser mandarins, let
+justice be accomplished heavily and without delay; for, as the proverb
+truly says, ‘The fiercer the flame the more useless the struggles of the
+victim.’”
+
+At this point the prisoners frequently endeavour to make themselves
+heard, protesting that in the distance between the concealed Wang and
+the one who stands accusing them they had thrice stopped to repair their
+innermost details, had leisurely partaken of food and wine, and had
+also been overtaken, struck, and delayed by a funeral procession. But so
+great is the execration in which these persons are held, that although
+murderers by stealth, outlaws, snatchers from the body, and companies of
+men who by strategy make a smaller sum of money appear to be larger, can
+all freely testify their innocence, raisers of this unlawful demon
+must not do so, and they are beaten on the head with chains until they
+desist.
+
+Then the lesser mandarins, raising their voices in unison, exclaim,
+“The amiable Tsay-hi has reported the matter in a discreet and impartial
+spirit. Hear our pronouncement: These raisers of illegal spirits
+shall each contribute ten taels of gold, which shall be expended in
+joss-sticks, in purifying the road which they have scorched, and in
+alleviating the distress of the poor and virtuous of both sexes. The
+praiseworthy Tsay-hi, moreover, shall embroider upon his sleeve an
+honourable sign in remembrance of the event. Let drums now be beat, and
+our verdict loudly proclaimed throughout the province.”
+
+These things, O my illustrious father (although on account of my
+contemptible deficiencies of style much may seem improbable to your
+all-knowing mind), these things I write with an unbending brush; for
+I set down only that which I have myself seen, or read in their own
+printed records. Doubtless it will occur to one of your preternatural
+intelligence that our own system of administering justice, whereby the
+person who can hire the greater number of witnesses is reasonably held
+to be in the right, although perhaps not absolutely infallible, is in
+every way more convenient; but, as it is well said, “To the blind, night
+is as acceptable as day.”
+
+Henceforth you will have no hesitation in letting it be known throughout
+Yuen-ping that these foreign barbarians do possess secret demons, in
+spite of their denials. Doubtless I shall presently discover others no
+less powerful.
+
+With honourable distinction this person has at length grasped the
+essential details of the spoken language here--not sufficiently well,
+indeed, to make himself understood on most occasions, or even to
+understand others, but enough to perceive clearly when he fails to
+become intelligible or when they experience a like difficulty with him.
+Upon an earlier occasion, before he had made so much progress, being one
+day left to his own resources, and feeling an internal lack, he entered
+what appeared to be a tea-shop of reputable demeanour, and, seating
+himself at one of the little marble tables, he freely pronounced the
+carefully-learned word “rice” to the attending nymph. To put aside all
+details of preparation (into which, indeed, this person could not
+enter) he waved his hand gracefully, at the same time smiling with an
+expression of tolerant acquiescence, as of one who would say that what
+was good enough to be cooked and offered by so entrancing a maiden
+was good enough to be eaten by him. After remaining in unruffled
+tranquillity for the full portion of an hour, and observing that no
+other person around had to wait above half that period, this one began
+to perceive that the enterprise was not likely to terminate in a
+manner satisfactory to himself; so that, leaving this place with a few
+well-chosen phrases of intolerable regret in his own tongue, he entered
+another, and conducted himself in a like fashion.... Towards evening,
+with an unperturbed exterior, but materially afflicted elsewhere, this
+person seated himself within the eleventh tea-shop, and, pointing first
+towards his own constituents of digestion, then at the fire, and
+lastly in an upward direction, thereby signified to any not of stunted
+intellect that he had reached such a condition of mind and body that he
+was ready to consume whatever the ruling deities were willing to allot,
+whether boiled, baked, roast, or suspended from a skewer. In this
+resolve nothing would move him, until--after many maidens had approached
+with outstretched hands and gestures of despair--there presently entered
+a person wearing the helmet of a warrior and the manner of a high
+official, who spoke strongly, yet persuasively, of the virtues of
+immediate movement and a quiet and reposeful bearing.
+
+Assuredly a people who devote so little attention to the study of food,
+and all matters connected with it, must inevitably remain barbaric,
+however skilfully they may feign a superficial refinement. It is said,
+although I do not commit this matter to my own brush, that among them
+are more books composed on subjects which have no actual existence
+than on cooking, and, incredible as it may appear, to be exceptionally
+round-bodied confers no public honour upon the individual. Should a
+favourable occasion present itself, there are many who do not scruple to
+jest upon the subject of food, or, what is incalculably more depraved,
+upon the scarcity of it.
+
+Nevertheless, there are exceptions of a highly distinguished radiance.
+Among these must be accounted one into whose presence this person was
+recently led by our polished and harmonious friend Quang-Tsun, the
+merchant in tea and spices. This versatile person, whose business-name
+is spoken of as Jones Bob-Jones, is worthy of all benignant respect,
+and in a really enlightened country would doubtless be raised to a
+more exalted position than that of a breaker of outsides (an occupation
+difficult to express adequately in the written language of a country
+where it is unknown), for his face is like the sun setting in the time
+of harvest, his waist garment excessive, and the undoubted symmetry of
+his middle portions honourable in the extreme. So welcome in my eyes,
+after witnessing an unending stream of concave and attenuated barbarian
+ghosts, was the sight of these perfections of Jones Bob-Jones, that
+instead of the formal greeting of this Island--the unmeaning “How do
+you do it?”--I shook hands cordially with myself, and exclaimed
+affectionately in our own language, “Illimitable felicities! How is your
+stomach?”
+
+“Well,” replied Jones Bob-Jones, after Quang-Tsun had interpreted this
+polite salutation to his understanding, “since you mention it, that’s
+just the trouble; but I’m going on pretty well, thanks. I’ve tried most
+of the advertised things, and now my doctor has put me practically on a
+bread-and-water course--clear soup, boiled fish, plain joint, no sweets,
+a crumb of cheese, and a bare three glasses of Hermitage.”
+
+During this amiable remark (of which, as it is somewhat of a technical
+nature, I was unable to grasp the contained significance until the
+agreeable Quang-Tsun had subsequently repeated it several times for my
+retention), I maintained a consistent expression of harmonious agreement
+and gratified esteem (suitable, I find, for all like occasions), and
+then, judging from the sympathetic animation of Jones Bob-Jones’s
+countenance, that it had not improbably been connected with food,
+I discreetly introduced the subject of sea-snails, preserved in the
+essence of crushed peaches, by courteously inquiring whether he had ever
+partaken of such a delicacy.
+
+“No,” replied the liberal-minded person, when--encouraged by the
+protruding eagerness of his eyes at the mention of the viand--I had
+further spoken of the refined flavour of the dish, and explained the
+manner of its preparation. “I can’t say that I have, but it sounds
+uncommonly good--something like turtle, I should imagine. I’ll see if
+they can get it for me at Pimm’s.”
+
+This filial tribute goes by a trusty hand, in the person of one Ki Nihy,
+who is shortly committing himself to the protection of his ancestors
+and the voracity of the unbounded Bitter Waters; and with brightness
+and gold it will doubtless reach you in the course of twelve or eighteen
+moons. The superstitious here, this person may describe, when they wish
+to send messages from one to another, inscribe upon the outer cover a
+written representation of the one whose habitation they require, and
+after affixing a small paper talisman, drop it into a hole in the
+nearest wall, in the hope that it may be ultimately conveyed to the
+appointed spot, either by the services of the charitably-disposed
+passer-by, or by the intervention of the beneficent deities.
+
+With a multiplicity of greetings and many abject expressions of a
+conscious inferiority, and attested by an unvarying thumb-mark.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+                      (Effete branch of a pure and magnanimous trunk.)
+
+
+To Kong Ah-Paik, reclining beneath the sign of the Lead Tortoise, in a
+northerly direction beyond the Lotus Beds outside the city of Yuen-ping.
+The Middle Flowery Kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER II
+
+
+ Concerning the ill-destined manner of existence of the hound
+ Hercules. The thoughtlessly-expressed desire of the
+ entrancing maiden and its effect upon a person of
+ susceptible refinement. The opportune (as it may yet be
+ described) visit of one Herbert. The behaviour of those
+ around. Reflections.
+
+
+Venerated Sire (whose large right hand is continuously floating in
+spirit over the image of this person’s dutiful submission),--
+
+Doubtless to your all-consuming prescience, it will at once become plain
+that I have abandoned the place of residence from which I directed my
+former badly-written and offensively-constructed letter, the house of
+the sympathetic and resourceful Maidens Blank, where in return for an
+utterly inadequate sum of money, produced at stated intervals, this very
+much inferior person was allowed to partake of a delicately-balanced and
+somewhat unvarying fare in the company of the engaging of both sexes,
+and afterwards to associate on terms of honourable equality with them in
+the chief apartment. The reason and manner of this one’s departure
+are in no degree formidable to his refined manner of conducting any
+enterprise, but arose partly from an insufficient grasp of the more
+elaborate outlines of a confessedly involved language, and still more
+from a too excessive impetuousness in carrying out what at the time he
+believed to be the ambition of one who had come to exercise a melodious
+influence over his most internal emotions. Well remarked the Sage, “A
+piece of gold may be tried between the teeth; a written promise to pay
+may be disposed of at a sacrifice to one more credulous; but what shall
+be said of the wind, the Hoang Ho, and the way of a woman?”
+
+To contrive a pitfall for this short-sighted person’s immature feet,
+certain malicious spirits had so willed it that the chief and more
+autumnal of the Maidens Blank (who, nevertheless, wore an excessively
+flower-like name), had long lavished herself upon the possession of an
+obtuse and self-assertive hound, which was in the habit of gratifying
+this inconsiderable person and those who sat around by continually
+depositing upon their unworthy garments details of its outer surface,
+and when the weather was more than usually cold, by stretching its
+graceful and refined body before the fire in such a way as to ensure
+that no one should suffer from a too acute exposure to the heat. From
+these causes, and because it was by nature a hound which even on the
+darkest night could be detected at a more than reasonable distance away,
+while at all times it did not hesitate to shake itself freely into
+the various prepared viands, this person (and doubtless others also)
+regarded it with an emotion very unfavourable towards its prolonged
+existence; but observing from the first that those who permitted
+themselves to be deposited upon, and their hands and even their faces to
+be hound-tongue-defiled with the most externally cheerful spirit of
+word suppression, invariably received the most desirable of the allotted
+portions of food, he judged it prudent and conducive to a settled
+digestion to greet it with favourable terms and actions, and to refer
+frequently to its well-displayed proportions, and to the agile dexterity
+which it certainly maintained in breathing into the contents of every
+dish. Thus the matter may be regarded as being positioned for a space of
+time.
+
+One evening I returned at the appointed gong-stroke of dinner, and was
+beginning, according to my custom, to greet the hound with ingratiating
+politeness, when the one of chief authority held up a reproving hand, at
+the same time exclaiming:
+
+“No, Mr. Kong, you must not encourage Hercules with your amiable
+condescension, for just now he is in very bad odour with us all.”
+
+“Undoubtedly,” replied this person, somewhat puzzled, nevertheless, that
+the imperfection should thus be referred to openly by one who hitherto
+had not hesitated to caress the hound with most intimate details,
+“undoubtedly the surrounding has a highly concentrated acuteness
+to-night, but the ever-present characteristic of the hound Hercules is
+by no means new, for whenever he is in the room--”
+
+At this point it is necessary to explain that the ceremonial etiquette
+of these barbarian outcasts is both conflicting and involved. Upon
+most of the ordinary occasions of life to obtrude oneself within the
+conversation of another is a thing not to be done, yet repeatedly when
+this unpretentious person has been relating his experience or inquiring
+into the nature and meaning of certain matters which he has witnessed,
+he has become aware that his words have been obliterated, as it were,
+and his remarks diverted from their original intention by the sudden and
+unanticipated desire of those present to express themselves loudly on
+some topic of not really engrossing interest. Not infrequently on such
+occasions every one present has spoken at once with concentrated anxiety
+upon the condition of the weather, the atmosphere of the room, the hour
+of the day, or some like detail of contemptible inferiority. At other
+times maidens of unquestionable politeness have sounded instruments of
+brass or stringed woods with unceasing vigour, have cast down ornaments
+of china, or even stood upon each other’s--or this person’s--feet with
+assumed inelegance. When, therefore, in the midst of my agreeable remark
+on the asserted no fragrance of the hound Hercules, a gentleman of
+habitual refinement struck me somewhat heavily on the back of the head
+with a reclining seat which he was conveying across the room for the
+acceptance of a lady, and immediately overwhelmed me with apologies
+of almost unnecessary profusion, my mind at once leapt to an inspired
+conclusion, and smiling acquiescently I bowed several times to each
+person to convey to them an admission of the undoubted fact that to the
+wise a timely omen before the storm is as effective as a thunderbolt
+afterwards.
+
+It chanced that there was present the exceptionally prepossessing maiden
+to whom this person has already referred. So varied and ornate were her
+attractions that it would be incompetent in one of my less than average
+ability to attempt an adequate portrayal. She had a light-coloured name
+with the letters so harmoniously convoluted as to be quite beyond my
+inferior power of pronunciation, so that if I wished to refer to her
+in her absence I had to indicate the one I meant by likening her to
+a full-blown chrysanthemum, a piece of rare jade, an ivory pagoda of
+unapproachable antiquity, or some other object of admitted grace. Even
+this description may scarcely convey to you the real extent of her
+elegant personality; but in her presence my internal organs never failed
+to vibrate with a most entrancing uncertainty, and even now, at the
+recollection of her virtuous demeanour, I am by no means settled within
+myself.
+
+“Well,” exclaimed this melodious vision, with sympathetic tact, “if
+every one is going to disown poor Hercules because he has eaten all our
+dinners, I shall be quite willing to have him, for he is a dzear ole
+loveykins, wasn’t ums?” (This, O my immaculate and dignified sire, which
+I transcribe with faithful undeviation, appears to be the dialect of
+a remote province, spoken only by maidens--both young and of autumnal
+solitude--under occasional mental stress; as of a native of Shan-si
+relapsing without consciousness into his uncouth tongue after passing a
+lifetime in the Capital.) “Don’t you think so too, Mr. Kong?”
+
+“When the sun shines the shadow falls, for truly it is said, ‘To the
+faithful one even the voice of the corncrake at evening speaks of his
+absent love,’” replied this person, so engagingly disconcerted at
+being thus openly addressed by the maiden that he retained no delicate
+impression of what she said, or even of what he was replying, beyond
+an unassuming hope that the nature of his feelings might perchance be
+inoffensively revealed to her in the semblance of a discreet allegory.
+
+“Perhaps,” interposed a person of neglected refinement, turning towards
+the maiden, “you would like to have a corncrake also, to remind you of
+Mr. Kong?”
+
+“I do not know what a corncrake is like,” replied the maiden with
+commendable dignity. “I do not think so, however, for I once had a pair
+of canaries, and I found them very unsatisfying, insipid creatures. But
+I should love to have a little dog I am sure, only Miss Blank won’t hear
+of it.”
+
+“Kong Ho,” thought this person inwardly, “not in vain have you burnt
+joss sticks unceasingly, for the enchanting one has said into your
+eyes that she would love to partake of a little dog. Assuredly we have
+recently consumed the cold portion of sheep on more occasions than a
+strict honourableness could require of those who pay a stated sum at
+regular intervals, and the change would be a welcome one. As she truly
+says, the flavour even of canaries is trivial and insignificant by
+comparison.” During the period of dinner--which consisted of eggs and
+green herbs of the field--this person allowed the contemplation to grow
+within him, and inspired by a most pleasant and disinterested ambition
+to carry out the expressed wishes of the one who had spoken, he
+determined that the matter should be unobtrusively arranged despite the
+mercenary opposition of the Maidens Blank.
+
+This person had already learned by experience that dogs are rarely if
+ever exposed for sale in the stalls of the meat venders, the reason
+doubtless being that they are articles of excessive luxury and reserved
+by law for the rich and powerful. Those kept by private persons are
+generally closely guarded when they approach a desirable condition of
+body, and the hound Hercules would not prove an attractive dish to those
+who had known him in life. Nevertheless, it is well said, “The Great
+Wall is unsurmountable, but there are many gaps through,” and that
+same evening I was able to carry the first part of my well-intentioned
+surprise into effect.
+
+The matter now involves one named Herbert, who having exchanged gifts
+of betrothal with a maiden staying at the house, was in the habit of
+presenting himself openly, when he was permitted to see her, after the
+manner of these barbarians. (Yet even of them the more discriminating
+acknowledge that our customs are immeasurably superior; for when I
+explained to the aged father of the Maidens Blank that among us the
+marriage rites are irrevocably performed before the bride is seen
+unveiled by man, he sighed heavily and exclaimed that the parents of
+this country had much to learn.)
+
+The genial-minded Herbert had already acquired for himself the
+reputation of being one who ceaselessly removes the gravity of others,
+both by word and action, and from the first he selected this obscure
+person for his charitable purpose to a most flattering extent. Not only
+did he--on the pretext that his memory was rebellious--invariably greet
+me as “Mr. Hong Kong,” but on more than one occasion he insisted, with
+mirth-provoking reference to certain details of my unbecoming garments,
+that I must surely have become confused and sent a Mrs. Hong Kong
+instead of myself, and frequently he undermined the gravity of all most
+successfully by pulling me backwards suddenly by the pigtail, with the
+plea that he imagined he was picking up his riding-whip. This attractive
+person was always accompanied by a formidable dog--of convex limbs,
+shrunken lip, and suspicious demeanour--which he called Influenza, to
+the excessive amusement of those to whom he related its characteristics.
+For some inexplicable reason from the first it regarded my lower apparel
+as being unsuitable for the ordinary occasions of life, and in spite
+of the low hissing call by which its master endeavoured to attract
+its attention to himself, it devoted its energies unceasingly to the
+self-imposed task of removing them fragment by fragment. Nevertheless it
+was a dog of favourable size and condition, and it need not therefore be
+a matter for surprise that when the intellectual person Herbert took
+his departure on the day in question it had to be assumed that it had
+already preceded him. Having accomplished so much, this person found
+little difficulty in preparing it tastefully in his own apartment, and
+making the substitution on the following day.
+
+Although his mind was confessedly enlarged at the success of his
+venture, and his hopes most ornamentally coloured at the thought of the
+adorable one’s gratified esteem when she discovered how expertly her
+wishes had been carried out, this person could not fail to notice that
+the Maiden Blank was also materially agitated when she distributed the
+contents of the dish before her.
+
+“Will you, of your enlightened courtesy, accept, and overlook the
+deficiencies of, a portion of rabbit-pie, O high-souled Mr. Kong?” she
+inquired gracefully when this insignificant person was reached, and,
+concealing my many-hued emotion beneath an impassive face, I bowed
+agreeably as I replied, “To the beggar, black bread is a royal course.”
+
+“WHAT pie did you say, dear?” whispered another autumnal maiden, when
+all had partaken somewhat, and at her words a most consistently acute
+silence involved the table.
+
+“I--I don’t quite know,” replied the one of the upper end, becoming
+excessively devoid of complexion; and restraining her voice she
+forthwith sent down an attending slave to inquire closely.
+
+At this point a person of degraded ancestry endeavoured to remove the
+undoubted cloud of depression by feigning the nocturnal cry of the
+domestic cat; but in this he was not successful, and a maiden opposite,
+after fixedly regarding a bone on her plate, withdrew suddenly,
+embracing herself as she went. A moment later the slave returned,
+proclaiming aloud that the dish which had been prepared for the occasion
+had now been accidentally discovered by the round-bodied cook beneath
+the cushions of an arm-chair (a spot by no means satisfactory to this
+person’s imagination had the opportunities at his disposal been more
+diffuse).
+
+“What, then, is this of which we have freely partaken?” cried they
+around, and, in the really impressive silence which followed, an
+inopportune person discovered a small silver tablet among the fragments
+upon his plate, and, taking it up, read aloud the single word,
+“Influenza.”
+
+During the day, and even far into the uncounted gong-strokes of the
+time of darkness, this person had frequently remained in a fascinated
+contemplation of the moment when he should reveal himself and stand up
+to receive the benevolently-expressed congratulations of all who paid
+an agreed sum at fixed intervals, and, particularly, the dazzling though
+confessedly unsettling glance-thanks of the celestially-formed maiden
+who had explicitly stated that she was desirous of having a little
+dog. Now, however, when this part of the enterprise ought to have taken
+place, I found myself unable to evade the conclusion that some important
+detail of the entire scheme had failed to agree harmoniously with the
+rest, and, had it been possible, I would have retired with unobtrusive
+tact and permitted another to wear my honourable acquirements. But, for
+some reason, as I looked around I perceived that every eye was fixed
+upon me with what at another time would have been a most engaging
+unanimity, and, although I bowed with undeterred profusion, and
+endeavoured to walk out behind an expression of all-comprehensive
+urbanity that had never hitherto failed me, a person of unsympathetic
+outline placed himself before the door, and two others, standing one
+on each side of me, gave me to understand that a recital of the full
+happening was required before I left the room.
+
+It is hopeless to expect a display of refined intelligence at the hands
+of a people sunk in barbarism and unacquainted with the requirements of
+true dignity and the essentials of food preparation. On the manner
+of behaving of the male portion of those present this person has
+no inducement whatever to linger. Even the maiden for whom he had
+accomplished so much, after the nature of the misunderstanding had been
+made plain to her, uttered only a single word of approval, which, on
+subsequently consulting a book of interpretations, this person found to
+indicate: “A person of weak intellect; one without an adequate sense of
+the proportion and fitness of things; a buffoon; a jester; a compound of
+gooseberries scalded and crushed with cream”; but although each of these
+definitions may in a way be regarded as applicable, he is still unable
+to decide which was the precise one intended.
+
+With salutations of filial regard, and in a spirit seven times refined
+by affliction and purified by vain regrets.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+(Upon whose tablet posterity will perchance inscribe the titles,
+“Ill-destined but Misjudged.”)
+
+
+
+
+LETTER III
+
+
+ Concerning the virtuous amusements of both old and young.
+ The sit-round games. The masterpiece of the divine Li Tang,
+ and its reception by all, including that same Herbert.
+
+
+Venerated Sire (whose breadth of mind is so well developed as to take
+for granted boundless filial professions, which, indeed, become vapid by
+a too frequent reiteration),--
+
+Your amiable inquiry as to how the barbarians pass their time, when not
+employed in affairs of commerce or in worshipping their ancestors, has
+inspired me to examine the matter more fully. At the same time your
+pleasantly-composed aphorism that the interior nature of persons does
+not vary with the colour of their eyes, and that if I searched I should
+find the old flying kites and the younger kicking feather balls or
+working embroidery, according to their sex, does not appear to be
+accurately sustained.
+
+The lesser ones, it is true, engage in a variety of sumptuous
+handicrafts, such as the scorching of wooden tablets with the semblance
+of a pattern, and gouging others with sharpened implements into a crude
+relief; depicting birds and flowers upon the surface of plates, rending
+leather into shreds, and entwining beaten iron, brass, and copper into a
+diversity of most ingenious complications; but when I asked a maiden of
+affectionate and domesticated appearance whether she had yet worked her
+age-stricken father’s coffin-cloth, she said that the subject was one
+upon which she declined to jest, and rapidly involving herself in a
+profuse display of emotion, she withdrew, leaving this one aghast.
+
+To enable my mind to retranquillise, I approached a youth
+of highly-gilded appearance, and, with many predictions of
+self-inferiority, I suggested that we should engage in the stimulating
+rivalry of feather ball. When he learned, however, that the diversion
+consisted in propelling upwards a feather-trimmed chip by striking it
+against the side of the foot, he candidly replied that he was afraid
+he had grown out of shuttle-cock, but did not mind, if I was vigorously
+inclined, “taking me on for a set of yang-pong.”
+
+Old men here, it is said, do not fly kites, and they affect to despise
+catching flies for amusement, although they frequently go fishing.
+Struck by this peculiarity, I put it in the form of an inquiry to one
+of venerable appearance, why, when at least five score flies were
+undeniably before his eyes, he preferred to recline for lengthy periods
+by the side of a stream endeavouring to snare creatures of whose
+existence he himself had never as yet received any adequate proof.
+Doubtless in my contemptible ignorance, however, I used some word
+inaccurately, for those who stood around suffered themselves to become
+amused, and the one in question replied with no pretence of amiable
+condescension that the jest had already been better expressed a hundred
+times, and that I would find the behind parts of a printed leaf
+called “Punch” in the bookcase. Not being desirous of carrying on
+a conversation of which I felt that I had misplaced the most highly
+rectified ingredient, I bowed repeatedly, and replied affably that
+wisdom ruled his left side and truth his right.
+
+It was upon this same occasion that a young man of unprejudiced
+wide-mindedness, taking me aside, asserted that the matter had not been
+properly set forth when I was inquiring about kites. Both old and young
+men, he continued, frequently endeavoured to fly kites, even in the
+involved heart of the city. He had tried once or twice himself, but
+never with encouraging success, chiefly, he was told, because his paper
+was not good enough. Many people, he added, would not scruple to mislead
+me with evasive ambiguity on this one subject owing to an ill-balanced
+conception of what constituted true dignity, but he was unwilling
+that his countrymen should be thought by mine to be sunk into a deeper
+barbarism than actually existed.
+
+His warning was not inopportune. Seated next to this person at a later
+period was a maiden from whose agreeably-poised lips had hitherto
+proceeded nothing but sincerity and fact. Watching her closely I asked
+her, as one who only had a languid interest either one way or the
+other, whether her revered father or her talented and richly-apparelled
+brothers ever spent their time flying kites about the city. In spite of
+a most efficient self-control her colour changed at my words, and her
+features trembled for a moment, but quickly reverting to herself she
+replied that she thought not; then--as though to subdue my suspicions
+more completely--that she was sure they did not, as the kites would
+certainly frighten the horses and the appointed watchmen of the street
+would not allow it. She confessed, however, with unassumed candour, that
+the immediate descendants of her sister were gracefully proficient in
+the art.
+
+From this, great and enlightened one, you will readily perceive
+how misleading an impression might be carried away by a person
+scrupulously-intentioned but not continually looking both ways, when
+placed among a people endowed with the uneasy suspicion of the barbarian
+and struggling to assert a doubtful refinement. Apart from this, there
+has to be taken into consideration their involved process of reasoning,
+and the unexpectedly different standards which they apply to every
+subject.
+
+At the house of the Maidens Blank, when the evening was not spent in
+listening to melodious voices and the harmony of stringed woods, it was
+usual to take part in sit-round games of various kinds. (And while it
+is on his brush this person would say with commendable pride that a
+well-trained musician among us can extort more sound from a hollow
+wooden pig, costing only a few cash, than the most skilful here ever
+attain on their largest instrument--a highly-lacquered coffin on legs,
+filled with bells and hidden springs, and frequently sold for a thousand
+taels.)
+
+Upon a certain evening, at the conclusion of one sit-round game which
+involved abrupt music, a barrier of chairs, and the exhilarating
+possibility of being sat upon by the young and vivacious in their zeal,
+a person of the company turned suddenly to the one who is communicating
+with you and said enticingly, “Why did Birdcage Walk?”
+
+Not judging from his expression that this was other than a polite
+inquiry on a matter which disturbed his repose, I was replying that the
+manifestation was undoubtedly the work of a vexatious demon which had
+taken up its abode in the article referred to, when another, by my side,
+cried aloud, “Because it envied Queen Anne’s Gate”; and without a pause
+cast back the question, “Who carved The Poultry?”
+
+In spite of the apparent simplicity of the demand it was received by
+all in an attitude of complicated doubt, and this person was considering
+whether he might not acquire distinction by replying that such an office
+fell by custom to the lot of the more austere Maiden Blank, when the
+very inadequate reply, “Mark Lane with St. Mary’s Axe,” was received
+with applause and some observations in a half-tone regarding the
+identity of the fowl.
+
+By the laws of the sit-round games the one who had last spoken now
+proclaimed himself, demanding to know, “Why did Battersea Rise?” but the
+involvement was evidently superficial, for the maiden at whose memory
+this one’s organs still vibrate ignobly at once replied, “Because it
+thought Clapham Common,” in turn inquiring, “What made the Marble Arch?”
+
+Although I would have willingly sacrificed to an indefinite extent to be
+furnished with the preconcerted watchword, so that I might have enlarged
+myself in the eyes of this consecrated being’s unapproachable esteem,
+I had already decided that the competition was too intangible for
+one whose thoughts lay in well-defined parallel lines, and it fell to
+another to reply, “To hear Salisbury Court.”
+
+This, O my broad-minded ancestor of the first degree--an aimless
+challenge coupled with the name of one recognisable spot, replied to by
+the haphazard retort of another place, frequently in no way joined to
+it, was regarded as an exceptionally fascinating sit-round game by a
+company of elderly barbarians!
+
+“What couldn’t Walbrook?” it might be, and “Such Cheapside,” would be
+deemed a praiseworthy solution. “When did King’s Bench Walk?” would
+be asked, and to reply, “When Gray’s Inn Road,” covered the one with
+overpowering acclamation. “Bevis Marks only an Inner Circle at The
+Butts; why?” was a demand of such elaborate complexity that (although
+this person was lured out of his self-imposed restraint by the silence
+of all round, and submerging his intelligence to an acquired level,
+unobtrusively suggested, “Because Aylesbury ducks, perchance”) it fell
+to the one propounding to announce, “Because St. John’s Wood Shoot-up
+Hill.”
+
+Admittedly it is written, “When the shutter is fastened the girdle is
+loosened,” but it is as truly said, “Not in the head, nor yet in the
+feet, but in the organs of digestion does wisdom reside,” and even in
+jesting the middle course of neither an excessive pride nor an absolute
+weak-mindedness is to be observed. With what concrete pangs of acute
+mental distress would this person ever behold his immaculate progenitor
+taking part in a similar sit-round game with an assembly of worthy
+mandarins, the one asking questions of meaningless import, as “Why
+did they Hangkow?” and another replying in an equal strain of no
+consecutiveness, “In order to T’in Tung!”
+
+At length a person who is spoken of as having formerly been the captain
+of a band of warriors turned to me with an unsuspected absence of
+ferocity and said, “Your countrymen are very proficient in the art
+of epigram, are they not, Mr. Kong? Will you not, in turn, therefore,
+favour us with an example?” Whereupon several maidens exclaimed with
+engaging high temper, “Oh yes; do ask us some funny Chinese riddles, Mr.
+Kong!”
+
+“Assuredly there are among us many classical instances of the light
+sayings which require matching,” I replied, gratified that I should have
+the opportunity of showing their superiority. “One, harmonious
+beyond the blend of challenge and retort, is as follows--‘The Phoenix
+embroidered upon the side of the shoe: When the shoe advances the
+Phoenix leaps forward.’”
+
+“Oh!” cried several of the maidens, and from the nature of their glances
+it might reasonably be gathered that already they began to recognise the
+inferiority of their own sayings.
+
+“Is that the question, or the answer, or both?” asked a youth of
+unfledged maturity, and to hide their conscious humiliation several
+persons allowed their faces to melt away.
+
+“That which has been expressed,” replied this person with an ungrudging
+toleration, “is the first or question portion of the contrast. The
+answer is that which will be supplied by your honourable condescension.”
+
+“But,” interposed one of the maidens, “it isn’t really a question, you
+know, Mr. Kong.”
+
+“In a way of regarding it, it may be said to be question, inasmuch as it
+requires an answer to establish the comparison. The most pleasing answer
+is that which shall be dissimilar in idea, and yet at the same time
+maintain the most perfect harmony of parallel thought,” I replied. “Now
+permit your exceptional minds to wander in a forest of similitudes: ‘The
+Phoenix embroidered upon the side of the shoe: When the shoe advances
+the Phoenix leaps forward.’”
+
+“Oh, if that’s all you want,” said the one Herbert, who by an ill
+destiny chanced to be present, “‘The red-hot poker held before the Cat’s
+nose: When the poker advances the Cat leaps backwards.’”
+
+“Oh, very good!” cried several of those around, “of course it naturally
+would. Is that right, Mr. Kong?”
+
+“If the high-souled company is satisfied, then it must be, for there is
+no conclusive right or wrong--only an unending search for that which
+is most gem-set and resourceful,” replied this person, with an
+ever-deepening conviction of no enthusiasm towards the sit-round game.
+“But,” he added, resolved to raise for a moment the canopy of a mind
+swan-like in its crystal many-sidedness, and then leave them to their
+own ineptitude, “for five centuries nothing has been judged equal to
+the solution offered by Li Tang. At the time he was presented with
+a three-sided banner of silk with the names of his eleven immediate
+ancestors embroidered upon it in seven colours, and his own name is
+still handed down in imperishable memory.”
+
+“Oh, do tell us what it was,” cried many. “It must have been clever.”
+
+“‘The Dragon painted upon the face of the fan: When the fan is shaken
+the Dragon flies upwards,’” replied this person.
+
+It cannot be denied that this was received with an attitude of
+respectful melancholy strikingly complimentary to the wisdom of the
+gifted Li Tang. But whether it may be that the time was too short to
+assimilate the more subtle delicacies of the saying, or whether the
+barbarian mind is inherently devoid of true balance, this person was
+panged most internally to hear one say to another as he went out, “Do
+you know, I really think that Herbert’s was much the better answer of
+the two--more realistic, and what you might expect at the pantomime.”
+
+
+A like inability to grasp with a clear and uninvolved vision, permeates
+not only the triviality of a sit-round game but even the most important
+transactions of existence.
+
+Shortly after his arrival in the Island, this person was initiated
+by the widely-esteemed Quang-Tsun into the private life of one whose
+occupation was that of a Law-giver, where he frequently drank tea
+on terms of mutual cordiality. Upon such an occasion he was one day
+present, conversing with the lesser ones of the household--the head
+thereof being absent, setting forth the Law in the Temple--when one of
+the maidens cried out with amiable vivacity, “Why, Mr. Kong, you say
+such consistently graceful things of the ladies you have met over here,
+that we shall expect you to take back an English wife with you. But
+perhaps you are already married in China?”
+
+“The conclusion is undeviating in its accuracy,” replied this person,
+unable to evade the allusion. “To Ning, Hia-Fa and T’ain Yen, as the
+matter stands.”
+
+“Ning Hia-Fa An T’ain Yen!” exclaimed the wife of the Law-giver
+pleasantly. “What an important name. Can you pardon our curiosity and
+tell us what she is like?”
+
+“Ning, Hia-Fa AND T’ain Yen,” repeated this person, not submitting to
+be deprived of the consequence of two wives without due protest. “Three
+names, three wives. Three very widely separated likes.”
+
+At this in no way boastfully uttered statement the agreeably outlined
+surface of the faces around variated suddenly, the effect being one
+which I have frequently observed in the midst of my politest expressions
+of felicity. For a moment, indeed, I could not disguise from myself that
+the one who had made the inquiry stretched forth her lotus-like hand
+towards the secret spring by which it is customary to summon the
+attending slaves from the underneath parts, but restraining herself
+with the manner of one who would desire to make less of a thing that it
+otherwise might seem, she turned to me again.
+
+“How nice!” she murmured. “What a pity you did not bring them all with
+you, Mr. Kong. They would have been a great acquisition.”
+
+“Yet it must be well weighed,” I replied, not to be out-complimented
+touching one another, “that here they would have met so many fine and
+superior gentlemen that they might have become dissatisfied with my less
+than average prepossessions.”
+
+“I wonder if they did not think of that in your case, and refuse to let
+you come,” said one of the maidens.
+
+“The various persons must not be regarded as being on their all fours,”
+ I replied, anxious that there should be no misunderstanding on this
+point. “They, of course, reside within one inner chamber, but there
+would be no duplicity in this one adding indefinitely to the number.”
+
+“Of course not; how silly of me!” exclaimed the maiden. “What splendid
+musical evenings you can have. But tell me, Mr. Kong (ought it not to be
+Messrs. Kong, mamma?), if a girl married you here would she be legally
+married to you in China?”
+
+“Oh yes,” replied this person positively.
+
+“But could you not, by your own laws, have the marriage set aside
+whenever you wished?”
+
+“Assuredly,” I admitted. “It is so appointed.”
+
+“Then how could she be legally married?” she persisted, with really
+unbecoming suspicion.
+
+“Legally married, legally unmarried,” replied this person, quite
+distressed within himself at not being able to understand the difficulty
+besetting her. “All perfectly legal and honourably observed.”
+
+“I think, Gwendoline--” said the one of authority, and although the
+matter was no further expressed, by an instinct which he was powerless
+to avert, this person at once found himself rising with ceremonious
+partings.
+
+Not desiring that the obstacle should remain so inadequately swept
+away, I have turned my presumptuous footsteps in the direction of the
+Law-giver’s house on several later occasions, but each time the word of
+the slave guarding the door has been that they of the household,
+down even to those of the most insignificant degree of kinship, have
+withdrawn to a distant and secluded spot.
+
+With renewed assurances that the enterprise is being gracefully
+conducted, however ill-digested and misleading these immature
+compositions may appear.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IV
+
+
+ Concerning a desire to expatiate upon subjects of
+ philosophical importance and its no accomplishment. Three
+ examples of the mental concavity sunk into by these
+ barbarians. An involved episode which had the outward
+ appearance of being otherwise than what it was.
+
+
+Venerated Sire (whose genial liberality on all necessary occasions
+is well remembered by this person in his sacrifices, with the titles
+“Benevolent” and “Open-sleeved”),--
+
+I had it in my head at one time to tell you somewhat of the Classics
+most reverenced in this country, of the philosophical opinions which
+prevail, and to enlighten you generally upon certain other subjects of
+distinguished eminence. As the deities arranged, however, it chanced
+that upon my way to a reputable quarter of the city where the actuality
+of these matters can be learnt with the least evasion, my footsteps were
+drawn aside by an incident which now permeates my truth-laden brush to
+the exclusion of all else.
+
+But in the first place, if it be permitted for a thoroughly
+untrustworthy son to take so presumptuous a liberty with an unvaryingly
+sagacious father, let this one entreat you to regard everything he
+writes in a very wide-headed spirit of looking at the matter from all
+round. My former letters will have readily convinced you that much that
+takes place here, even among those who can afford long finger-nails,
+would not be tolerated in Yuen-ping, and in order to avoid the suspicion
+that I am suffering from a serious injury to the head, or have become
+a prey to a conflicting demon, it will be necessary to continue an
+even more highly-sustained tolerant alertness. This person himself has
+frequently suffered the ill effects of rashly assuming that because he
+is conducting the adventure in a prepossessing spirit his efforts will
+be honourably received, as when he courteously inquired the ages of a
+company of maidens into whose presence he was led, and complimented the
+one whom he was desirous of especially gratifying by assuring her that
+she had every appearance of being at least twice the nine-and-twenty
+years to which she modestly laid claim.
+
+Upon another occasion I entered a barber’s stall, and finding it
+oppressively hot within, I commanded the attendant to carry a reclining
+stool into the street and there shave my lower limbs and anoint my head.
+As he hesitated to obey--doubtless on account of the trivial labour
+involved--I repeated my words in a tone of fuller authority, holding out
+the inducement of a just payment when he complied, and assuring him that
+he would certainly be dragged before the nearest mandarin and tortured
+if he held his joints stiffly. At this he evidently understood his
+danger, for obsequiously protesting that he was only a barber of very
+mean attainments, and that his deformed utensils were quite inadequate
+for the case, he very courteously directed me in inquire for a public
+chariot bound for a quarter called Colney Hatch (the place of commerce,
+it is reasonable to infer, of the higher class barbers), and, seating
+myself in it, instruct the attendant to put me down at the large gates,
+where they possessed every requisite appliance, and also would, if
+desirable, shave my head also. Here the incident assumes a more doubtful
+guise, for, notwithstanding the admitted politeness of the one who
+spoke, each of those to whom I subsequently addressed myself on the
+subject, presented to me a face quite devoid of encouragement. While
+none actually pointed out the vehicle I sought, many passed on in a
+state of inward contemplation without replying, and some--chiefly the
+attendants of other chariots of a similar kind--replied in what I deemed
+to be a spirit of elusive metaphor, as he who asserted that such a
+conveyance must be sought for at a point known intimately as the Aldgate
+Pump, whence it started daily at half-past the thirteenth gong-stroke;
+and another, who maintained that I had no prospect of reaching the
+desired spot until I secured the services of one of a class of female
+attendants who wear flowing blue robes in order to indicate that they
+are prepared to encounter and vanquish any emergency in life. To make no
+elaborate pretence in the matter this person may definitely admit that
+he never did reach the place in question, nor--in spite of a diligent
+search in which he has encountered much obloquy--has he yet found any
+barber sufficiently well equipped to undertake the detail.
+
+Even more recently I suffered the unmerited rebuke of the superficial
+through performing an act of deferential politeness. Learning that the
+enlightened and magnanimous sovereign of this country was setting out on
+a journey I stationed myself in the forefront of those who stood before
+his palace, intending to watch such parts of the procession as might be
+fitly witnessed by one of my condition. When these had passed, and the
+chariot of the greatest approached, I respectfully turned my back to
+the road with a propitiatory gesture, as of one who did not deem himself
+worthy even to look upon a being of such majestic rank and acknowledged
+excellence. This delicate action, by some incredible process of mental
+obliquity, was held by those around to be a deliberate insult, if not
+even a preconcerted signal, of open treachery, and had not a heaven-sent
+breeze at that moment carried the hat of a very dignified bystander into
+the upper branches of an opportune tree, and successfully turned aside
+the attention of the assembly into a most immoderate exhibition of utter
+loss of gravity, I should undoubtedly have been publicly tortured, if
+not actually torn to pieces.
+
+But the incident first alluded to was of an even more
+elaborately-contrived density than these, and some of the details are
+still unrolled before the keenest edge of this one’s inner perception.
+Nevertheless, all is now set down in unbroken exactness for your
+impartial judgment.
+
+At the time of this exploit I had only ventured out on a few occasions,
+and then, save those recorded, to no considerable extent; for it had
+already become obvious that the enterprises in which I persistently
+became involved never contributed to my material prosperity, and the
+disappointment of finding that even when I could remember nine words
+of a sentence in their language none of the barbarians could understand
+even so much as a tenth of my own, further cast down my enthusiasm.
+
+On the day which has been the object of this person’s narration from
+the first, he set out to become more fully instructed in the subjects
+already indicated, and proceeding in a direction of which he had no
+actual knowledge, he soon found himself in a populous and degraded
+quarter of the city. Presently, to his reasonable astonishment, he saw
+before him at a point where two ill-constructed thoroughfares met, a
+spacious and important building, many-storied in height, ornamented
+with a profusion of gold and crystal, marble and precious stones,
+and displaying from a tall pole the three-hued emblem of undeniable
+authority. A never-ending stream of people passed in and out by the
+numerous doors; the strains of expertly wielded instruments could be
+distinctly heard inside, and the warm odour of a most prepossessing
+spiced incense permeated the surroundings. “Assuredly,” thought the
+person who is now recording the incident, “this is one of the Temples
+of barbarian worship”; and to set all further doubt at rest he saw in
+letters of gilt splendour a variety of praiseworthy and appropriate
+inscriptions, among which he read and understood, “Excellent,” “Fine
+Old,” “Well Matured,” “Spirits only of the choicest quality within,”
+ together with many other invocations from which he could not wrest the
+hidden significance, as “Old Vatted,” “Barclay’s Entire,” “An Ordinary
+at One,” and the like.
+
+By this time an impressive gathering had drawn around, and from its
+manner of behaving conveyed the suspicion that an entertainment or
+manifestation of some kind was confidently awaited. To disperse so
+outrageous a misconception this person was on the point of withdrawing
+himself when he chanced to see, over the principal door of the Temple,
+a solid gold figure of colossal magnitude, represented as crowned with
+leaves and tendrils, and holding in his outstretched hands a gigantic,
+and doubtless symbolic, bunch of grapes. “This,” I said to myself, “is
+evidently the tutelary deity of the place, so displayed to receive the
+worship of the passer-by.” With the discovery a thought of the most
+irreproachable benevolence possessed me. “Why should not this person,” I
+reflected, “gain the unstinted approbation of those barbarians” (who by
+this time completely encircled me in) “by doing obeisance towards their
+deity, and by the same act delicately and inoffensively rebuke them for
+their own too-frequent intolerable attitude towards the susceptibilities
+of others? As an unprejudiced follower, in his own land, of the systems
+of Confucius, Lao-tse, and Buddha, this person already recognises the
+claims of seventeen thousand nine hundred and thirty-three deities of
+various grades, so that the addition of one more to that number can be
+a heresy of very trivial expiation.” Inspired by these honourable
+sentiments, therefore, I at once prostrated myself on the ground, and,
+amid a silence of really illimitable expectation, I began to kow-tow
+repeatedly with ceremonious precision.
+
+At this display of charitable broadmindedness an approving shout went
+up on all sides. Thus encouraged I proceeded to kow-tow with even more
+unceasing assiduousness, and presently words of definite encouragement
+mingled with the shout. “Do not flag in your amiable disinterestedness,
+Kong Ho,” I whispered in my ear, “and out of your well-sustained
+endurance may perchance arise a cordial understanding, and ultimately
+a remunerative alliance between two distinguished nations.” Filled with
+this patriotic hope I did not suffer my neck to stiffen, and doubtless I
+would have continued the undertaking as long as the sympathetic persons
+who hemmed me in signified their refined approval, when suddenly the cry
+was raised, “Look out, here comes the coppers!”
+
+This, O my venerable-headed father, I at once guessed to be the
+announcement heralding the collecting-bowl which some over-zealous
+bystander was preparing to pass round on my behalf, doubtless under the
+impression--so obtuse in grasping the true relationship of events are
+many of the barbarians--that I was a wandering monk, displaying my
+reverence for the purpose of mendicancy. Not wishing to profit by this
+offensive misapprehension, I was preparing to rise, when a hand was
+unceremoniously laid upon my shoulder, and turning round I saw behind me
+one of the official watch--a class of men so powerful that at a gesture
+from their uplifted hands even the fiercest untamed horse will not
+infrequently stand upon its hind legs in mute submission.
+
+“Early morning salutations,” I said pleasantly, though somewhat involved
+in speech by my exertion (for these persons are ever to be treated
+with discriminating courtesy). “Prosperity to your house, O energetic
+street-watcher, and a thousand grandsons to worship their illustrious
+ancestor.”
+
+“Thanks,” he replied concisely. “I’m a single man. As yet. Now then,
+will you make a way there? Can you stand?”
+
+“Stand?” repeated this person, at once recognising one of the important
+words of inner meaning concerning which he had been initiated by the
+versatile Quang-Tsun. “Certainly this person will not hesitate to
+establish his footing if the exaction is thought to be desirable.
+Let us, therefore, bend our steps in the direction of a tea-house of
+unquestionable propriety.”
+
+“You’ve bent your steps into quite enough tea-houses, as you call them,
+for one day,” replied the official with evasive meaning, at the same
+time assisting me to rise (for it need not be denied that the restrained
+position had made me for the moment incapable of a self-sustaining
+effort). “Look what you’ve done.”
+
+At the direction of his glance I cast my eyes along the street, east and
+west, and for the first time I became aware that what I had last seen as
+a reasonable gathering had now taken the proportions of an innumerable
+multitude which filled the entire space of the thoroughfare, while
+others covered the roofs above and protruded themselves from every
+available window. In our own land the interspersal of umbrellas, musical
+instruments, and banners, with an occasional firework, would have given
+a greater animation to the scene; but with this exception I have never
+taken part in a more impressive and well-extended procession. Even
+while I looked, the helmets of other official watchers appeared in the
+distance, as immature junks upon the storm-tossed Whang-Hai, apparently
+striving fruitlessly to reach us.
+
+As I was by no means sure what attitude was expected of me, I smiled
+with an all-embracing approval, and signified to the one at my side, by
+way of passing the time pleasurably together, that the likelihood of his
+nimble-witted friends reaching us with unruffled garments was remote in
+the extreme.
+
+“Don’t you let that worry you, Li Hung Chang,” he said, in a tone that
+had the appearance of being outside itself around a deeper and more
+bitter significance; “if we get out again with any garments at all it
+won’t be your fault. Why, you--well, YOU ought to have been put on the
+Black List long ago, by rights.”
+
+This, exalted one, although I have not yet been able to learn the exact
+dignity of it from any of the books of civil honours, is undoubtedly
+a mark of signal attainment, conferred upon the few for distinguishing
+themselves by some particular capacity; as our Double Dragon, for
+instance. Anxious to learn something of the privileges of the rank from
+one who evidently was not without influence in the bestowal, and not
+unwilling to show him that I was by no means of low-caste descent, I
+said to the official, “In his own country one of this person’s ancestors
+wore the Decoration of the Yellow Scabbard, which entitled him to be
+carried in his chair up to the gate of the Forbidden Palace before
+descending to touch the ground. Is this Order of the Black List of a
+like purport?”
+
+“You’re right,” he said, “it is. In this country it entitles you to be
+carried right inside the door at Bow Street without ever touching the
+ground. Look out! Now we shall not--”
+
+At that moment what this person at first assumed to be a floral tribute,
+until he saw that not only the entire plant, but the earthenware jar
+also were attached, struck the official upon the helmet, whereupon,
+drawing a concealed club, he ceased speaking.
+
+How the entertainment was conducted to such a development this person is
+totally inadequate to express; but in an incredibly short space of time
+the scene became one of most entrancing variety. From every visible
+point around the air became filled with commodities which--though
+doubtless without set intention--fittingly represented the arts,
+manufactures, and natural history of this resourceful country, all cast
+in prolific abundance at the feet of the official and myself, although
+the greater part inevitably struck our heads and bodies before reaching
+them. Beyond our immediate circle, as it may be expressed, the crowd
+never ceased to press forward with resistless activity, and among
+it could be seen occasionally the official watchmen advancing
+self-reliantly, though frequently without helmets, and, not less often,
+the helmets advancing without the official watchmen. To add to the
+acknowledged interest, every person present was proclaiming his views
+freely on a diversity of subjects, and above all could be heard the
+clear notes of the musical instruments by which the officials sought
+to encourage one another in their extremity, and to deaden the cries of
+those whom they outclubbed.
+
+Despite this person’s repeated protests that the distinction was too
+excessive, he was plucked from hand to hand irresistibly among those
+around, losing a portion of his ill-made attire at each step, so
+agreeably anxious were all to detain him. Just when the exploit seemed
+likely to have a disagreeable ending, however, he was thrust heavily
+against a door which yielded, and at once barring it behind him, he
+passed across the open space into which it led, along a passage between
+two walls, and thence through an involved labyrinth and beneath the
+waters of a canal into a wood of attractive seclusion. Here this person
+remained, spending the time in a profitable meditation, until the light
+withdrew and the great sky lantern had ascended. Then he cautiously
+crept forth, and after some further trivial episodes which chiefly
+concern the obstinate-headed slave guarding the outer door of a
+tea-house, an unintelligent maiden in the employment of one vending
+silk-embroidered raiment, the mercenary controller of a two-wheeled
+chariot and the sympathetic and opportune arrival of a person seated
+upon a funeral car, he succeeded in reaching the place of his abode.
+
+With unalterable affection and a material request that an unstinted
+adequacy of new garments may be sent by a sure and speedy hand.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER V
+
+
+ Concerning the neglect of ancestors and its discreditable
+ consequences. Two who state the matter definitely.
+ Concerning the otherside way of looking at things and the
+ self-contradictory bearing of the maiden Florence.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--A discovery of overwhelming malignity oppresses me. In
+spite of much baffling ambiguity and the frequent evasion of conscious
+guilt, there can be no longer any reasonable doubt that these barbarians
+_do not worship their ancestors!_
+
+Hitherto the matter had rested in my mind as an uneasy breath of
+suspicion, agitated from time to time by countless indications that
+such a possibility might, indeed, exist in a condensed form, but too
+inauspiciously profane to be contemplated in the altogether. Thus, when
+in the company of the young this person has walked about the streets
+of the city, he may at length have said, “Truly, out of your amiable
+condescension, you have shown me a variety of entrancing scenes. Let
+us now in turn visit the tombs of your ancestors, to the end that I may
+transmit fitting gifts to their spirits and discharge a few propitious
+fireworks as a greeting.” Yet in no case has this well-intentioned
+offer been agilely received, one asserting that he did not know
+the resting-place of the tombs in question, a second that he had no
+ancestors, a third that Kensal Green was not an entrancing spot for
+a wet afternoon, a fourth that he would see them removed to a greater
+distance first, another that he drew the line at mafficking in a
+cemetery, and the like. These things, it may occur to your omniscience,
+might in themselves have been conclusive, yet the next reference to the
+matter would perhaps be tending to a more alluring hope.
+
+“To-morrow,” a person has remarked in the hearing of this one, “I go
+to the Stratford which is upon the Avon, and without a pause I shall
+prostrate myself intellectually before the immortal Shakespeare’s tomb
+and worship his unequalled memory.”
+
+“The intention is benevolently conceived,” I remarked. “Yet has he no
+descendants, this same Shakespeare, that the conciliation of his spirit
+must be left to chance?”
+
+When he assured me that this calamity had come about, I would have added
+a richly-gilded brick from my store for transmission also, in the hope
+that the neglected and capricious shadow would grant me an immunity from
+its resentful attention, but the one in question raised a barrier of
+dissent. If I wished to adorn a tomb, he added (evading the deeper
+significance of the act), there was that of Goldsmith within its Temple,
+upon which many impressionable maidens from across the Bitter Waters of
+the West make it a custom to deposit chaplets of verses, in the hope
+of seeing the offering chronicled in the papers; and in the Open Space
+called Trafalgar there were the images of a great captain who led many
+junks to victory and the Emperor of a former dynasty, where doubtless
+the matter could be arranged; but the surrounding had by this time
+become too involved, and this person had no alternative but to smile
+symmetrically and reply that his words were indeed opals falling from a
+topaz basin.
+
+Later in the day, being desirous of becoming instructed more definitely,
+I addressed myself to a venerable person who makes clean the passage of
+the way at a point not far distant.
+
+“If you have no sons to extend your industrious line,” I said, when he
+had revealed this fact to me, “why do you not adopt one to that end?”
+
+With narrow-minded covetousness, he replied that nowadays he had enough
+to do to keep himself, and that it would be more reasonable to get some
+one to adopt HIM.
+
+“But,” I exclaimed, ignoring this ill-timed levity, “who, when you
+have Passed Beyond, will worship you and transmit to your spirit the
+necessities of life?”
+
+“Governor,” he replied, using the term of familiar dignity, “I’ve made
+shift without being worshipped for five and sixty years, and it worries
+me a sight more to know who will transmit to my body the necessities of
+life until I HAVE Passed Beyond.”
+
+“The final consequences of your self-opinionated carelessness,” this
+person continued, “will be that your neglected and unprovided shadow,
+finding itself no longer acceptable to the society of the better
+class demons, will wander forth, and allying itself in despair to the
+companionship of a band of outcasts like itself, will be driven to dwell
+in unclean habitations and to subsist on the uncertain bounty of the
+charitable.”
+
+“Very likely,” replied the irredeemable person before me. “I can’t help
+its troubles. I have to do all that myself as it is.”
+
+Doubtless this fanaticism contains the secret of the ease with which
+these barbarians have possessed themselves of the greater part of the
+earth, and have even planted their assertive emblems on one or two spots
+in our own Flowery Kingdom. What, O my esteemed parent, what can a brave
+but devout and demon-fearing nation do when opposed to a people who are
+quite prepared to die without first leaving an adequate posterity to
+tend their shrines and offer incense? Assuredly, as a neighbouring
+philosopher once had occasion to remark, using for his purpose a
+metaphor so technically-involved that I must leave the interpretation
+until we meet, “It may be war, but it isn’t cricket.”
+
+The inevitable outcome, naturally, is that the Island must be the
+wandering-place of myriads of spirits possessing no recognised standing,
+and driven by want--having none to transmit them offerings--to the most
+degraded subterfuges. It is freely admitted that there is scarcely an
+ancient building not the abode of one or more of these abandoned demons,
+doubtless well-disposed in the first instance, and capable of becoming
+really beneficent Forces until they were driven to despair by obstinate
+neglect. A society of very honourable persons (to which this one has
+unobtrusively contributed a gift), exists for the purpose of searching
+out the most distressing and meritorious cases among them, and removing
+them, where possible, to a more congenial spot. The remarkable fact,
+to this person’s mind, is, that with the air and every available
+space around absolutely packed with demons (as certainly must be the
+prevailing state of things), the manifestations of their malignity and
+vice are, if anything, rather less evident here than in our own favoured
+country, where we do all in our power to satisfy their wants.
+
+That same evening I found myself seated next to a maiden of
+prepossessing vivacity, who was spoken of as being one of a kindred
+but not identical race. Filled with the incredible profanity of those
+around, and hoping to find among a nation so alluringly high-spirited
+a more congenial elevation of mind, I at length turned to her and said,
+“Do not regard the question as one of unworthy curiosity, for this
+person’s inside is white and funereal with his fears; but do you, of
+your allied race, worship your ancestors?”
+
+The maiden spent a moment in conscientious thought. “No, Mr. Kong,” she
+replied, with a most commendable sigh of unfeigned regret, “I can’t say
+that we do. I guess it’s because we’re too new. Mine, now, only go back
+two generations, and they were mostly in lard. If they were old and
+baronial it might be different, but I can’t imagine myself worshipping
+an ancestor in lard.” (This doubtless refers to some barbaric method of
+embalming.)
+
+“And your wide and enlightened countrymen?” I asked, unable to restrain
+a passion of pure-bred despair. “Do they also so regard the obligation?”
+
+“I am afraid so,” replied the maiden, with an honourable indication
+towards my emotion. “But of course when a girl marries into the European
+aristocracy, she and all her folk worship her husband’s ancestors, until
+every one about is fairly dizzy with the subject.”
+
+It is largely owing to the graceful and virtuous conversation of these
+lesser ones that this person’s knowledge of the exact position which
+the ceremonial etiquette of the country demands on various occasions is
+becoming so proficiently enlarged. It is true that they of my own sex do
+not hesitate to inquire with penetrating assiduousness into certain of
+the manners and customs of our land, but these for the most part do
+not lead to a conversation in any way profitable to my discreeter
+understanding. Those of the inner chamber, on the other hand, while
+not scrupling to question me on the details of dress, the braiding and
+gumming of the hair, the style and variety of the stalls of merchants,
+the wearing of jade, gold, and crystal ornaments and flowers about
+the head, smoking, and other matters affecting our lesser ones, very
+magnanimously lead my contemplation back to a more custom-established
+topic if by any hap in my ambitious ignorance I outstep it.
+
+In such a manner it chanced on a former occasion that I sat side by side
+with a certain maiden awaiting the return of others who had withdrawn
+for a period. The season was that of white rains, and the fire being
+lavishly extended about the grate we had harmoniously arranged ourselves
+before it, while this person, at the repeated and explicit encouragement
+of the maiden, spoke openly of such details of the inner chamber as he
+has already indicated.
+
+“Is it true, Mr. Ho” (thus the maiden, being unacquainted with the
+actual facts, consistently addressed me), “that ladies’ feet are
+relentlessly compressed until they finally assume the proportions and
+appearance of two bulbs?” and as she spoke she absent-mindedly regarded
+her own slippers, which were out-thrust somewhat to receive the action
+of the fire.
+
+“It is a matter which cannot reasonably be denied,” I replied; “and
+it is doubtless owing to this effect that they are designated ‘Golden
+Lilies.’ Yet when this observance has been slowly and painfully
+accomplished, the extremities in question are not less small but
+infinitely less graceful than the select and naturally-formed pair which
+this person sees before him.” And at the ingeniously-devised compliment
+(which, not to become large-headed in self-imagination, it must be
+admitted was revealed to me as available for practically all occasions
+by the really invaluable Quang-Tsun), I bowed unremittingly.
+
+“O, Mr. Ho!” exclaimed the maiden, and paused abruptly at the sound of
+her words, as though they were inept.
+
+“In many other ways a comparison equally irreproachable to the exalted
+being at my side might be sought out,” I continued, suddenly forming
+the ill-destined judgment that I was no less competent than the more
+experienced Quang-Tsun to contrive delicate offerings of speech. “Their
+hair is rope like in its lack of spontaneous curve, their eyes as
+deficient in lustre as a half-shuttered window; their hands are
+exceedingly inferior in colour, and both on the left side, as it may be
+expressed; their legs--” but at this point the maiden drew herself so
+hastily into herself that I had no alternative but to conclude that
+unless I reverted in some way the enterprise was in peril of being
+inharmoniously conducted.
+
+“Mr. Ho,” said the maiden, after contemplating her inward thoughts for
+a moment, “you are a foreigner, and you cannot be expected to know by
+instinct what may and what may not be openly expressed in this country.
+Therefore, although the obligation is not alluring, I think it kinder
+to tell you that the matters which formed the subject of your last words
+are never to be referred to.”
+
+At this rebuke I again bowed persistently, for it did not appear
+reasonable to me that I could in any other way declare myself without
+violating the imposed command.
+
+“Not only are they never openly referred to,” continued the maiden,
+who in spite of the declared no allurement of the subject did not seem
+disposed to abandon it at once, “but among the most select they are,
+by unspoken agreement, regarded as ‘having no actual existence,’ as you
+yourself would say.”
+
+“Yet,” protested this person, somewhat puzzled, “to one who has
+witnessed the highly-achieved attitudes of those within your Halls of
+Harmony, and in an unyielding search for knowledge has addressed himself
+even to the advertisement pages of the ladies’ papers--”
+
+The maiden waved her hand magnanimously. “In your land, as you have told
+me, there are many things, not really existing, which for politeness you
+assume to be. In a like but converse manner this is to be so regarded.”
+
+I thanked her voluminously. “The etiquette of this country is as
+involved as the spoken tongue,” I said, “for both are composed chiefly
+of exceptions to a given rule. It was formerly impressed upon this
+person, as a guiding principle, that that which is unseen is not to be
+discussed; yet it is not held in disrepute to allude to so intimate and
+secluded an organ as the heart, for no further removed than yesterday he
+heard the deservedly popular sea-lieutenant in the act of declaring to
+you, upon his knees, that you were utterly devoid of such a possession.”
+
+At this inoffensively-conveyed suggestion, the fire opposite had all the
+appearance of suddenly reflecting itself into the maiden’s face with a
+most engaging concentration, while at the same time she stamped her foot
+in ill-concealed rage.
+
+“You’ve been listening at the door!” she cried impetuously, “and I shall
+never forgive you.”
+
+“To no extent,” I declared hastily (for although I had indeed been
+listening at the door, it appeared, after the weight which she set
+upon the incident, more honourable that I should deny it in order to
+conciliate her mind). “It so chanced that for the moment this person
+had forgotten whether the handle he was grasping was of the push-out or
+turn-in variety, and in the involvement a few words of no particular or
+enduring significance settled lightly upon his perception.
+
+“In that case,” she replied in high-souled liberality, while her eyes
+scintillated towards me with a really all-overpowering radiance, “I will
+forgive you.”
+
+“We have an old but very appropriate saying, ‘To every man the voice of
+one maiden carries further than the rolling of thunder,’” I remarked
+in a significantly restrained tone; for, although conscious that the
+circumstance was becoming more menace-laden than I had any previous
+intention, I found myself to be incapable of extrication. “Florence--”
+
+“Oh,” she exclaimed quickly, raising her polished hand with an
+undeniable gesture of reproof, “you must not call me by my christian
+name, Mr. Ho.”
+
+“Yet,” replied this person, with a confessedly stubborn inelegance, “you
+call me by the name of Ho.”
+
+Her eyes became ox-like in an utter absence of almond outline. “Yes,”
+ she said gazing, “but that--that is not your christian name, is it?”
+
+“In a position of speaking--this one being as a matter of fact a
+discreditable follower of the sublime Confucius--it may be so regarded,”
+ I answered, “inasmuch as it is the milk-name of childhood.”
+
+“But you always put it last,” she urged.
+
+“Assuredly,” I replied. “Being irrevocably born with the family name of
+Kong, it is thought more reasonable that that should stand first. After
+that, others are attached as the various contingencies demand it, as Ho
+upon participating in the month-age feast, the book-name of Tsin at a
+later period, Paik upon taking a degree, and so forth.”
+
+“I am very sorry, Mr. Kong,” said the maiden, adding, with what at
+the time certainly struck this person as shallow-witted prejudice. “Of
+course it is really quite your own fault for being so tospy-turvily
+arranged in every way. But, to return to the subject, why should not one
+speak of one’s heart?”
+
+“Because,” replied this person, colouring deeply, and scarcely able to
+control his unbearable offence that so irreproachably-moulded a creature
+should openly refer to the detail, “because it is a gross and unrefined
+particular, much more internal and much less pleasantly-outlined
+than those extremities whose spoken equivalent shall henceforth be an
+abandoned word from my lips.”
+
+“But, in any case, it is not the actual organ that one infers,”
+ protested the maiden. “As the seat of the affections, passions, virtues,
+and will, it is the conventional emblem of every thought and emotion.”
+
+“By no means,” I cried, forgetting in the face of so heterodox an
+assertion that it would be well to walk warily at every point. “That is
+the stomach.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed the maiden, burying her face in a gracefully-perfumed
+remnant of lace, to so overwhelming a degree that for the moment I
+feared she might become involved in the dizzy falling. “Never, by any
+mischance, use that word again in the society of the presentable, Mr.
+Kong.”
+
+“The ceremonial usage of my own land of the Heavenly Dynasty is
+proverbially elaborate,” I said, with a gesture of self-abasement, “but
+in comparison with yours it may be regarded as an undeviating walk when
+opposed to a stately and many-figured dance. Among the company of the
+really excessively select (in which must ever be included the one whom
+I am now addressing), it becomes difficult for an outcast of my
+illimitable obtuseness to move to one side or the other without putting
+his foot into that.”
+
+“Oh no,” exclaimed the maiden, in fragrant encouragement, “I think you
+are getting on very nicely, Mr. Kong, and one does not look for absolute
+conformance from a foreigner--especially one who is so extremely
+foreign. If I can help you with anything--of course I could not even
+speak as I have done to an ordinary stranger, but with one of a distant
+race it seems different--if I can tell you anything that will save
+you--”
+
+“You are all-exalted,” I replied, with seemly humility, “and virtue and
+wisdom press out your temples on either side. Certainly, since I have
+learned that the heart is so poetically regarded, I have been assailed
+by a fear lest other organs which I have hitherto despised might be used
+in a similar way. Now, as regards liver--”
+
+“It is only used with bacon,” replied the maiden, rising abruptly.
+
+“Kidneys?” suggested this person diffidently, really anxious to detain
+her footsteps, although from her expression it did not rest assured that
+the incident was taking an actually auspicious movement.
+
+“I don’t think you need speak of those except at breakfast,” she said;
+“but I hear the others returning, and I must really go to dress for
+dinner.”
+
+Among the barbarians many keep books wherein to inscribe their deep and
+beautiful thoughts. This person had therefore provided himself with
+one also, and, drawing it forth, he now added to a page of many other
+interesting compositions: “Maidens of immaculate refinement do not
+hesitate to admit before a person of a different sex that they are on
+the point of changing their robes. The liver is in some intricate way
+an emblem representing bacon, or together with it the two stand for
+a widely differing analogy. Among those of the highest exclusiveness
+kidneys are never alluded to after the tenth gong-stroke of the
+morning.”
+
+With a sincerely ingrained trust that the scenes of dignity, opulence,
+and wisdom, set forth in these superficial letters, are not unsettling
+your intellect and causing you to yearn for a fuller existence.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VI
+
+
+ Concerning this person’s well-sustained efforts to discover
+ further demons. The behaviour of those invoked on two
+ occasions.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--In an early letter I made some reference to a variety
+of demon invoked by certain of the barbarians. As this matter aroused
+your congenial interest, I have since privately bent my mind incessantly
+to the discovery of others; but this has been by no means easy, for,
+touching the more intimate details of the subject, the barbarians
+frequently maintain a narrow-minded suspicion. Many whom I have
+approached feign to become amused or have evaded a deliberate answer
+under the subterfuge of a jest; yet, whenever I would have lurked by
+night in their temples or among the enclosed spaces of their tombs to
+learn more, at a given signal one in authority has approached me with
+anxiety and mistrust engraved upon his features, and, disregarding my
+unassuming protest that I would remain alone in a contemplative reverie,
+has signified that so devout an exercise is contrary to their written
+law.
+
+On one occasion only did this person seem to hold himself poised on the
+very edge of a fuller enlightenment. This was when, in the venerable
+company of several benevolent persons, he was being taken from place to
+place to see the more important buildings, and to observe the societies
+of artificers labouring at their crafts. The greater part of the day had
+already been spent in visiting temples, open spaces reserved to children
+and those whose speech, appearance, and general manner of behaving
+make it desirable that they should be set apart from the contact of the
+impressionable, halls containing relics and emblems of the past,
+places of no particular size or attraction but described as being of
+unparalleled historic interest, and the stalls of the more reputable
+venders of merchandise.
+
+Doubtless, with observing so many details of a conflicting nature,
+this person’s discriminating faculties had become obscured, but towards
+evening he certainly understood that we sought the company of an
+assembly of those who had been selected from all the Empire to pronounce
+definitely upon matters of supreme import. The building before which our
+chariot stopped had every appearance of being worthy of so exceptional a
+gathering, and with a most affluent joy that I should at last be able to
+glean a decisive pronouncement, I evaded those who had accompanied
+me, and, mingling self-reliantly with the throng inside, I quickly
+surrounded myself with many of the wisest-looking, and begged that they
+would open their heads freely and express their innermost opinions upon
+the subject of demons of all kinds.
+
+Although I had admittedly hoped that these persons would not conceal
+themselves behind the wings of epigram or intangible prevarication, I
+was far from being prepared for the candour with which they greeted me,
+and although by long usage I am reasonably unconcerned at the proximity
+of any of our own recognised genii, it is not to be denied that my
+organs of ferocity grew small and unstable at the revelations.
+
+From their words it appeared that the spot on which we stood had
+long been the recognised centre and meeting-place for every class of
+abandoned and objectionable spirit of the universe. Not only this, but
+several of the persons who had gathered around were confidently pointed
+out as the earthly embodiment of various diabolical Forces, while others
+cheerfully admitted that they themselves were the shadows of certain
+illustrious ones who had long Passed Above, and all united in declaring
+that those who moved among them wearing the distinction of a dark blue
+uniform were Evil Beings of a most ghoulish and repulsive type. Indeed,
+as I looked more closely, I could see that not only those pointed out,
+but all standing around, had expressions immeasurably more in
+keeping with a band of outcast spirits than suggestive of an assembly
+representing wisdom and dignified ease. At that moment, however, a most
+inelegant movement was caused by one suddenly declaring that he
+had recognised this one who is inscribing his experiences to be the
+apparition of a certain great reformer who during the period of his
+ordinary existence had received the name of Guy Fawkes, and amid a
+tumult of overwhelming acclamation a proposal was raised that I
+should be carried around in triumph and afterwards initiated into
+the observance of a time-honoured custom. Although it had now become
+doubtful to what end the adventure was really tending, this person
+would have submitted himself agreeably to the participation had not the
+blue-apparelled band cleft their way into the throng just as I was about
+to be borne off in triumph, and forming themselves into a ringed
+barrier around me they presently succeeded in rearranging the contending
+elements and in restoring me to the society of my friends. To these
+persons they complained with somewhat unreasoning acrimony that I
+had been exciting the inmates into a state of rebellion with wild
+imaginings, and for the first time I then began to understand that an
+important error had been perpetrated by some one, and that instead of
+being a meeting-place for those upholding the wisdom and authority
+of the country, the building was in reality an establishment for the
+mentally defective and those of treacherous instincts.
+
+For some time after this occurrence I failed to regard the subject of
+demons and allied Forces in any but a spirit of complete no enthusiasm,
+but more recently my interest and research have been enlarged by the
+zeal and supernatural conversation of a liberal-minded person who
+sought my prosaic society with indefatigable persistence. When we had
+progressed to such a length that the one might speak of affairs without
+the other at once interposing that he himself had also unfortunately
+come out quite destitute of money, this stranger, who revealed to me
+that his name was Glidder, but that in the company of a certain chosen
+few he was known intimately as the Keeper of the Salograma, approached
+me confidentially, and inquired whether we of our Central Kingdom were
+in the habit of receiving manifestations from the spirits of those who
+had Passed Beyond.
+
+At the unassumed ingenuousness of this remark I suffered my
+impassiveness to relax, as I replied with well-established pride that
+although a country which neglected its ancestors might doubtless be
+able to produce more of the ordinary or graveyard spectres, we were
+unapproachable for the diverse forms and malignant enmity of our
+apparitions. Of invisible beings alone, I continued tolerantly, we
+had the distinction of being harassed by upwards of seven hundred
+clearly-defined varieties, while the commoner inflictions of demons,
+shades, visions, warlocks, phantoms, sprites, imps, phenomena, ghosts,
+and reflections passed almost without comment; and touching our admitted
+national speciality of dragons, the honour of supremacy had never been
+questioned.
+
+At this, the agreeable person said that the pleasure he derived from
+meeting me was all-excelling, and that I must certainly accompany him to
+a meeting-place of this same chosen few the following evening, when,
+by the means of sacred expedients, they hoped to invoke the presence
+of some departed spirits, and perchance successfully raise a tangible
+vision or two. To so fair-minded a proposal I held myself acquiescently,
+and then inquired where the meeting-place in question was destined
+to be--whether in a ruined and abandoned sanctuary, or upon some
+precipitous spot of desolation.
+
+The inquiry was gracefully intended, but a passing cloud of unworthy
+annoyance revealed itself upon the upper part of the other’s expression
+as he replied, “We, the true seekers, despise theatrical accessories,
+and, as a matter of fact, I couldn’t well get away from the office in
+time to go anywhere far. To-morrow we meet at my place in the Camden
+Road. It’s only a three-half-penny tram stage from the Euston and
+Tottenham Court corner, so it couldn’t be much more convenient for you.”
+ He thereupon gave me an inscribed fragment of paper and mentioned the
+appointed hour.
+
+“I’ll tell you why I am particularly anxious for you to come to-morrow,”
+ he said as we were each departing from one another. “Pash--he’s the
+Reader of the Veda among us--and his people have got hold of a Greek
+woman (they SAY she is a princess, of course), who can do a lot of
+things with flowers and plate glass. They are bringing her for the first
+time to-morrow, and it struck me that if I have YOU there already when
+they arrive--you’ll come in your national costume by the way?--it will
+be a considerable set-off. Since his daughter was presented to the
+duchess at the opening of a bazaar, there has been no holding Pash; why
+he was ever elected Reader of the Books, I don’t know. Er--we have had
+scoffers sometimes, but I trust I may rely upon you not to laugh at
+anything you may not happen to agree with?”
+
+With conscientious dignity I replied that I had only really laughed
+seven times in my life, and therefore the entertainment was one which
+I was not likely to embark upon hastily or with inadequate cause. He
+immediately expressed a seemly regret that the detail had been spoken,
+and again assuring him that at the stated hour I would present myself
+at the house bearing the symbol engraved upon the card, we definitely
+parted.
+
+That, as a matter of fact, I did not so present myself at the exact
+hour, chiefly concerns the uncouth and arbitrary-minded charioteer who
+controlled the movements of the vehicle to which the one whom I was
+seeking had explicitly referred; for at an angle in the road he suffered
+the horses to draw us aside into a path which did not correspond to the
+engraved signs upon the card, nor by any word of persuasion could he be
+prevailed upon to return.
+
+Thus, without any possible reproach upon the manner in which I was
+conducting the enterprise, it came about that by the time I reached the
+spot indicated, all those persons who had been spoken of as constituting
+a chosen band were assembled, and with them the barbarian princess.
+Nevertheless, this person was irreproachably greeted, and the maiden
+indicated even spoke a few words to him in an outside tongue. Being
+necessarily unacquainted with the import of the remark I spread out my
+hands with a sign of harmonious sympathy and smiled agreeably, whereat
+she appeared to receive an added esteem from the faces of those around
+(excluding those directly of the House of Glidder), and was thereby
+encouraged to speak similarly at intervals, this person each time
+replying in a like fashion.
+
+“Is he then a Guide of the Way, also, princess?” said the one Pash, who
+had noted the occurrence; to which the maiden replied, “To a degree, yet
+lacking the Innermost Mysteries.”
+
+Presently it was announced that all things were fittingly prepared in
+another chamber. Here, upon a table of polished wood, stood on the one
+side a round stone with certain markings, a group of inscribed books,
+and various other emblems; and on the other side a bowl of water, a
+sphere of crystal, pieces of unwritten parchment, and behind all, and at
+a distance away, a sheet of transparent glass, greater in height than
+an ordinary person and as wide. When all were seated--the one who had
+enticed me among them placing himself before the stone, the person
+Pash guarding the books, the barbarian princess being surrounded by her
+symbols and alone in a self-imposed solitude, and the others at various
+points--the lights were subdued and the appearances awaited.
+
+It would scarcely be respectful, O my enlightened father, to take up
+your well-spent leisure by a too prolific account of the matters which
+followed, they being in no way dissimilar from the manifestations
+by which the uninitiated little ones of Yuen-ping are wont to amuse
+themselves and pass the winter evenings. From time to time harmonious
+sounds could be plainly detected, flowers and branches of wood were
+scattered sparsely here and there, persons claimed that passing objects
+had touched their faces, and misshapen forms of smoke-like density
+(which some confidently recognised as the outlines of departed ones whom
+they had known), revealed themselves against the glass. When this had
+been accomplished, the lights were recalled, and the barbarian maiden,
+sinking into a condition of languor, announced and foretold events and
+happenings upon which she was consulted, sometimes replying by spoken
+words, at others suffering her hand to trace them lightly upon the
+parchment sheets. Thus, to an inquirer it was announced that one, Aunt
+Mary, in the Upper Air, was well and happy, though undeniably pained at
+the action of Cousin William in the matter of the freehold houses, and
+more than sceptical how his marriage would turn out. Another was advised
+that although the interest on Consols was admittedly lower than that
+anticipated by those controlling the destines of a new venture entitled,
+The Great Rosy Dawn Gold Mine Development Syndicate, and the name
+certainly less poetically inspiring, the advising spirits were of the
+opinion that the former enterprise would prove the more stable of the
+two, and, in any case, they recommended the person in question to begin
+by placing not more than half of her life’s savings into the mine.
+The family of the House of Pash was assured that beneficent spirits
+surrounded them at every turn, and that their good deeds were not
+suffered to fall unfruitfully to the ground; while many bearing the name
+of Glidder, on the other hand, were reproved by one who had known them
+in infancy for the offences of jealousy, ostentation, vain thoughts,
+shallowness of character, and the like.
+
+At length, revered, as there seemed to be no reasonable indication of
+any barbarian phantom of weight or authority appearing--nothing,
+indeed, beyond what a person in our country, of no admitted skill, would
+accomplish in the penetrating light of day with two others holding his
+hands, and a third reposing upon his head, I formed the perhaps immature
+judgment that the one to whom I was indebted for the entertainment would
+be suffering a grievous frustration of his hopes and a diminution of his
+outward authority. Therefore, without sufficient consideration of the
+restricted surroundings, as it afterwards appeared, I threw myself
+into a retrospective vision, and floating unencumbered through space,
+I sought for Kwan Kiang-ti, the Demon of the Waters, upon whom I might
+fittingly call, as I was given into his keeping by the ceremony of
+spirit-adoption at an early age. Meeting an influence which I recognised
+to be an indication of his presence, in the vicinity of the Eighth
+Region, I obsequiously entreated that he would reveal himself without
+delay, and then, convinced of his sympathetic intervention, I suffered
+my spirit to recall itself, and revived into the condition of an
+ordinary existence.
+
+“We have among us this evening, my friends,” the one Pash was saying,
+“a very remarkable lady--if I may use so democratic a term in the
+connection--to whom the limits of Time and Space are empty words, and
+before whose supreme Will the most portentous Forces of Occult Nature
+mutely confess themselves her attending slaves--” But at that moment
+the rolling drums of Kiang-ti’s thunder drowned his words, although he
+subsequently raised his voice above it to entreat that any knives or
+other articles of a bright and attractive kind should at once be removed
+to a place of safety.
+
+Heralded by these continuous sounds, and accompanied by innumerable
+flashes of lightning, the genius presently manifested himself, leisurely
+developing out of the air around. He appeared in his favourite guise of
+an upright dragon, his scales being arranged in rows of nine each way,
+a pearl showing within his throat, and upon his head the wooden bar. The
+lights were extinguished incapably by the rain which fell continually in
+his presence, but from his body there proceeded a luminous breath which
+sufficiently revealed the various incidents.
+
+“Kong Ho,” said this opportune vision, speaking with a voice like the
+beating of a brass gong, “the course you have adopted is an unusual one,
+but the weight and regularity of your offerings have merit in my eyes.
+Nevertheless, if your invocation is only the outcome of a shallow vanity
+or a profane love of display, nothing can save you from a painful death.
+Speak now, fully and without evasion, and fear nothing.”
+
+“Amiable Being,” said this person, kow-towing profoundly, “the matter
+was designed to the end only that your incomparable versatility might
+be fittingly displayed. These barbarians sought vainly to raise phantoms
+capable of any useful purpose, whereupon I, jealous of your superior
+omnipotence, judged it would be an unseemly neglect not to inform you of
+the opportunity.”
+
+“It is well,” said the demon affably. “All doubt in the matter shall
+now be set at rest. Could any more convincing act be found than that
+I should breath upon these barbarians and reduce them instantly to a
+scattering of thin white ashes?”
+
+“Assuredly it would be a conclusive testimony,” I replied; “yet in
+that case consider how inadequate a witness could be borne to your
+enlightened condescension, when none would be left but one to whom the
+spoken language of this Island is more in the nature of a trap than a
+comfortable vehicle.”
+
+“Your reasoning is profound, Kong Ho,” he replied, “yet abundant
+proof shall not be wanting.” With these words he raised his hand, and
+immediately the air became filled with an overwhelming shower of
+those productions with which Kwan Kiang-ti’s name is chiefly
+associated--shells and pebbles of all kinds, lotus and other roots from
+the river banks, weeds from seas of greater depths, fish of interminable
+variety from both fresh and bitter waters, all falling in really
+embarrassing abundance, and mingled with an incessant rain of sand and
+water. In the midst of this the demon suddenly passed away, striking the
+table as he went, so that it was scarred with the brand of a five-clawed
+hand, shattering all the objects upon it (excepting the stone and
+the books, which he doubtless regarded as sacred to some extent), and
+leaving the room involved in a profound darkness.
+
+“For the love av the saints--for the love av the saints, save us from
+the yellow devils!” exclaimed a voice from the spot where last the
+barbarian princess had reclined, and upon this person going to her
+assistance with lights it was presently revealed that she alone had
+remained seated, the others having all assembled themselves beneath the
+table in spite of the incapability of the space at their disposal. Most
+of the weightier evidences of Kwan Kiang-ti’s majestic presence had
+faded away, though the table retained the print of his impressive hand,
+many objects remained irretrievably torn apart, and in a distant corner
+of the room an insignificant heap of shells and seaweed still lingered.
+From the floor covering a sprinkling of the purest Fuh-chow sand rose
+at every step, the salt dew of the Tung-Hai still dropped from
+the surroundings, and, at a later period, a shore crab was found
+endeavouring to make its escape undetected.
+
+Convinced that the success of the manifestation would have enlarged
+the one Glidder’s esteem towards me to an inexpressible degree, I now
+approached him with words of self-deprecation ready on my tongue, but
+before he spoke I became aware, from the nature of his glance, that
+the provision had been unnecessary, for already his face had begun to
+assume, to a most distended amount, the expression which I had long
+recognised as a synonym that some detail had been regarded at a
+different angle from that anticipated.
+
+“May I ask,” he began in a somewhat heavily-laden voice, after he had
+assured himself that the person who was speaking was himself, and his
+external attributes unchanged, “May I ask, sir” (and at this title,
+which is untranslatable in its many-sided significance when technically
+employed, I recognised that all complimentary intercourse might be
+regarded as having closed), “whether you accept the responsibility of
+these proceedings?”
+
+“Touching the appearance which has so essentially contributed to the
+success of the occasion, it is undeniably due to this one’s foresight,”
+ I replied modestly.
+
+“Then let me tell you, sir, that I consider it an outrage--a dastardly
+outrage.”
+
+“Yet,” protested this person with retiring assertiveness, “the expressed
+object of the ceremony, as it stood before my intelligence, was for the
+set purpose of invoking spirits and raising certain visions.”
+
+“Spirits!” exclaimed the one before me with an accent of concentrated
+aversion; “yes, spirits; impalpable, civilised, genuine spirits, who
+manifest themselves through recognised media, and are conformable to the
+usages of the best drawing-room society--yes. But not demons, sir; not
+Chinese devils in the Camden Road--no. Truth and Light at any cost, not
+paganism. It’s perfectly scandalous. Look at the mahogany table--ruined;
+look at the wall-paper--conventional mackerels with a fishing-net
+background, new this spring--soused; look at the Brussels carpet,
+seventeen six by twenty-five--saturated!”
+
+“I quite agree with you, Mr. Glidder,” here interposed the individual
+Pash. “I was watching you, sir, closely the whole time, and I have my
+suspicions about how it was done. I don’t know whether Mr. Glidder
+has any legal redress, but I should certainly advise him to see his
+solicitors to-morrow, and in the meantime--”
+
+“He is my guest,” exclaimed the one whose hospitality I was enjoying,
+“and while he is beneath my roof he is sacred.”
+
+“But I do not think that it would be kind to detain him any longer in
+his wet things,” said another of the household, with pointed malignity,
+and accepting this as an omen of departure, I withdrew myself, bowing
+repeatedly, but offering no closer cordiality.
+
+“Through a torn sleeve one drops a purse of gold,” it is well said; and
+as if to prove to a deeper end that misfortune is ever double-handed,
+this incapable being, involved in thoughts of funereal density, bent
+his footsteps to an inaccurate turning, and after much wandering was
+compelled to pass the night upon a desolate heath--but that would be the
+matter of another narrative.
+
+With an insidious doubt whether, after all, the far-seeing Kwan
+Kiang-ti’s first impulse would not have been the most satisfactory
+conclusion to the enterprise.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VII
+
+
+ Concerning warfare, both as waged by ourselves and by a
+ nation devoid of true civilisation. The aged man and the
+ meeting and the parting of our ways. The instance of the one
+ who expressed emotion by leaping.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--You are omniscient, but I cannot regard the fear which
+you express in your beautifully-written letter, bearing the sign of the
+eleventh day of the seventh moon, as anything more than the imaginings
+prompted by a too-lavish supper of your favourite shark’s fin and peanut
+oil. Unless the dexterously-elusive attributes of the genial-spoken
+persons high in office at Pekin have deteriorated contemptibly
+since this one’s departure, it is quite impossible for our great
+and enlightened Empire to be drawn into a conflict with the northern
+barbarians whom you indicate, against our will. When the matter becomes
+urgent, doubtless a prince of the Imperial line will loyally suffer
+himself to Pass Above, and during the period of ceremonial mourning
+for so pure and exalted an official it would indeed be an unseemly
+desecration to engage in any public business. If this failed, and an
+ultimatum were pressed with truly savage contempt for all that is sacred
+and refined, it might be well next to consider the health even of the
+sublime Emperor himself (or, perhaps better, that of the select and
+ever-present Dowager Empress); but should the barbarians still advance,
+and, setting the usages of civilised warfare at defiance, threaten an
+engagement in the midst of this unparalleled calamity, there will be no
+alternative but to have a formidable rebellion in the Capital. All
+the barbarian powers will then assemble as usual, and in the general
+involvement none dare move alone, and everything will have to be
+regarded as being put back to where it was before. It is well said, “The
+broken vessel can never be made whole, but it may be delicately arranged
+so that another shall displace it.”
+
+These barbarians, less resourceful in device, have only recently emerged
+from a conflict into which they do not hesitate to admit they were drawn
+despite their protests. Such incompetence is characteristic of their
+methods throughout. Not in any way disguising their purpose, they
+at once sent out an army of those whom could be the readiest seized,
+certainly furnishing them with weapons, charms to use in case of
+emergency, and three-coloured standards (their adversaries adopting
+a white banner to symbolise the conciliation of their attitude, and
+displaying both freely in every extremity), but utterly neglecting to
+teach them the arts of painting their bodies with awe-inspiring forms,
+of imitating the cries of wild animals as they attacked, of clashing
+their weapons together with menacing vigour, or any of the recognised
+artifices by which terror may be struck into the ranks of an awaiting
+foeman. The result was that which the prudent must have foreseen. The
+more accomplished enemy, without exposing themselves to any unnecessary
+inconvenience, gained many advantages by their intrepid power of
+dissimulation--arranging their garments and positions in such a way that
+they had the appearance of attacking when in reality they were effecting
+a prudent retreat; rapidly concealing themselves among the earth on the
+approach of an overwhelming force; becoming openly possessed with the
+prophetic vision of an assured final victory whenever it could be no
+longer concealed that matters were becoming very desperate indeed; and
+gaining an effective respite when all other ways of extrication were
+barred against them by the stratagem of feigning that they were other
+than those whom they had at first appeared to be.
+
+In the meantime the adventure was not progressing pleasantly for those
+chiefly concerned at home. With the earliest tidings of repulse it was
+discovered that in the haste of embarkation the wrong persons had been
+sent, all those who were really the fittest to command remaining behind,
+and many of these did not hesitate to write to the printed papers,
+resolutely admitting that they themselves were in every way better
+qualified to bring the expedition to a successful end, at the same time
+skilfully pointing out how the disasters which those in the field
+had incurred could easily have been avoided by acting in a precisely
+contrary manner.
+
+In the emergency the most far-seeing recommended a more unbending policy
+of extermination. Among these, one in particular, a statesman bearing
+an illustrious name of two-edged import, distinguished himself by the
+liberal broad-mindedness of his opinions, and for the time he even did
+not flinch from making himself excessively unpopular by the wide
+and sweeping variety of his censure. “We are confessedly a barbarian
+nation,” fearlessly declared this unprejudiced person (who, although
+entitled by hereditary right to carry a banner on the field of battle,
+with patriotic self-effacement preferred to remain at home and encourage
+those who were fighting by pointing out their inadequacy to the task and
+the extreme unlikelihood of their ever accomplishing it), “and in order
+to achieve our purpose speedily it is necessary to resort to the methods
+of barbarism.” The most effective measure, as he proceeded to explain
+with well-thought-out detail, would be to capture all those least
+capable of resistance, concentrate them into a given camp, and then
+at an agreed signal reduce the entire assembly to what he termed, in
+a passage of high-minded eloquence, “a smoking hecatomb of women and
+children.”
+
+His advice was pointed with a crafty insight, for not only would such a
+course have brought the stubborn enemy to a realisation of the weakness
+of their position and thus paved the way to a dignified peace, but by
+the act itself few would have been left to hand down the tradition of
+a relentless antagonism. Yet with incredible obtuseness his advice was
+ignored and he himself was referred to at the time by those who regarded
+the matter from a different angle, with a scarcely-veiled dislike, which
+towards many of his followers took the form of building materials and
+other dissentient messages whenever they attempted to raise their voices
+publicly. As an inevitable result the conquest of the country took
+years, where it would have been moons had the more truly humane policy
+been adopted, commerce and the arts languished, and in the end so little
+spoil was taken that it was more common to meet six mendicants wearing
+the honourable embellishment of the campaign than to see one captured
+slave maiden offered for sale in the market places--indeed, even to this
+day the deficiency is clearly admitted and openly referred to as The
+Great “Domestic” Problem.
+
+
+At various times during my residence here I have been filled with a
+most acute gratification when the words of those around have seemed to
+indicate that they recognised the undoubted superiority of the laws and
+institutions of our enlightened country. Sometimes, it is true, upon a
+more detailed investigation of the incident, it has presently appeared
+that either I had misunderstood the exact nature of their sentiments
+or they had slow-wittedly failed to grasp the precise operation of the
+enactment I had described; but these exceptions are clearly the outcome
+of their superficial training, and do not affect the fact my feeble and
+frequently even eccentric arguments are at length certainly moving the
+more intelligent into an admission of what constitutes true justice
+and refinement. It is not to be denied that here and there exists a
+prejudice against our customs even in the minds of the studious; but as
+this is invariably the shadow of misconception, it has frequently been
+my sympathetic privilege to promote harmony by means of the inexorable
+logic of fact and reason. “But are not your officials uncompromisingly
+opposed to the freedom of the Press?” said one who conversed with me on
+the varying phases of the two countries, and knowing that in his eyes
+this would constitute an unendurable offence, I at once appeased his
+mind. “By no means,” I replied; “if anything, the exact contrary is
+the case. As a matter of reality, of course, there is no Press now, the
+all-seeing Board of Censors having wisely determined that it was not
+stimulating to the public welfare; but if such an institution was
+permitted to exist you may rest genially assured that nothing could
+exceed the lenient toleration which all in office would extend towards
+it.” A similar instance of malicious inaccuracy is widely spoken of
+regarding our lesser ones. “Is it really a fact, Mr. Kong,” exclaimed a
+maiden of magnanimous condescension, to this person recently, “that
+we poor women are despised in your country, and that among the
+working-classes female children are even systematically abandoned as
+soon as they are born?” Suffering my features to express amusement at
+this unending calumny, I indicated my violent contempt towards the one
+who had first uttered it. “So far from despising them,” I continued,
+with ingratiating gallantry, “we recognise that they are quite necessary
+for the purposes of preparing our food, carrying weighty burdens,
+and the like; and how grotesque an action would it be for poor but
+affectionate parents to abandon one who in a few years’ time could be
+sold at a really remunerative profit, this, indeed, being the principal
+means of sustenance in many frugal families.”
+
+On another occasion I had seated myself upon a wooden couch in one
+of the open spaces about the outskirts of the city, when an aged man
+chanced to pass by. Him I saluted with ceremonious politeness, on
+account of his years and the venerable dignity of his beard. Thereupon
+he approached near, and remarking affably that the afternoon was good
+(though, to use no subtle evasion, it was very evil), he congenially sat
+by my side and entered into familiar discourse.
+
+“They say that in your part of the world we old grandfathers are
+worshipped,” he said, after recounting to my ears all the most intimate
+details of his existence from his youth upwards; “now, might that be
+right?”
+
+“Truly,” I replied. “It is the unchanging foundation of our system of
+morality.”
+
+“Ay, ay,” he admitted pleasantly. “We are a long way behind them
+foreigners in everything. At the rate we’re going there won’t be any
+trade nor work nor religion left in this country in another twenty
+years. I often wish I had gone abroad when I was younger. And if I
+had chanced upon your parts I should be worshipped, eh?” and at the
+agreeable thought the aged man laughed in his throat with simple humour.
+
+“Assuredly,” I replied; “--after you were dead.”
+
+“Eh?” exclaimed the venerable person, checking the fountain of his mirth
+abruptly at the word. “Dead! not before? Doesn’t--doesn’t that seem a
+bit of a waste?”
+
+“Such has been the observance from the time of unrecorded antiquity,” I
+replied. “‘Obey parents, respect the old, loyally uphold the sovereign,
+and worship ancestors.’”
+
+“Well, well,” remarked the one beside me, “obedience and respect--that’s
+something nowadays. And you make them do it?”
+
+“Our laws are unflinching in their application,” I said. “No crime is
+held to be more detestable than disrespect of those to whom we owe our
+existence.”
+
+“Quite right,” he agreed, “it’s a pleasure to hear it. It must be a
+great country, yours; a country with a future, I should say. Now, about
+that youngest lad of my son Henry’s--the one that drops pet lizards down
+my neck, and threatened to put rat poison into his mother’s tea when she
+wouldn’t take him to the Military Turneyment; what would they do to him
+by your laws?”
+
+“If the assertion were well sustained by competent witnesses,” I
+replied, “it would probably be judged so execrable an offence, that
+a new punishment would have to be contrived. Failing that, he would
+certainly be wrapped round from head to foot in red-hot chains, and thus
+exposed to public derision.”
+
+“Ah, red-hot chains!” said the aged person, as though the words formed a
+pleasurable taste upon his palate. “The young beggar! Well, he’d deserve
+it.”
+
+“Furthermore,” I continued, gratified at having found one who so
+intelligently appreciated the deficiencies of his own country and the
+unblemished perfection of ours, “his parents and immediate descendants,
+if any should exist, would be submitted to a fate as inevitable but
+slightly less contemptuous--slow compression, perchance; his parents
+once removed (thus enclosing your venerable personality), and remoter
+offsprings would be merely put to the sword without further ignominy,
+and those of less kinship to about the fourth degree would doubtless
+escape with branding and a reprimand.”
+
+“Lordelpus!” exclaimed the patriarchal one, hastily leaping to the
+extreme limit of the wooden couch, and grasping his staff into a
+significant attitude of defence; “what’s that for?”
+
+“Our system of justice is all-embracing,” I explained. “It is reasonably
+held that in such a case either that there is an inherent strain of
+criminality which must be eradicated at all hazard, or else that those
+who are responsible for the virtuous instruction of the young have been
+grossly neglectful of their duty. Whichever is the true cause, by this
+unfailing method we reach the desired end, for, as our proverb aptly
+says, ‘Do the wise pluck the weed and leave the roots to spread?’”
+
+“It’s butchery, nothing short of Smithfield,” said the ancient person
+definitely, rising and moving to a more remote distance as he spoke the
+words, yet never for a moment relaxing the aggressive angle at which
+he thrust out his staff before him. “You’re a bloodthirsty race in my
+opinion, and when they get this door open in China that there’s so much
+talk about, out you go through it, my lad, or old England will know
+why.” With this narrow-minded imprecation on his lips he left me, not
+even permitting me to continue expounding what would be the most likely
+sentences meted out to the witnesses in the case, the dwellers of the
+same street, and the members of the household with whom the youth in
+question had contemplated forming an alliance.
+
+Among the many contradictions which really almost seem purposely
+arranged to entrap the unwary in this strangely under-side-up country,
+is the fact that while the ennobled and those of high official rank are
+courteous in their attitude and urbane--frequently even to the extent
+of refusing money from those whom they have obliged, no matter how
+privately pressed upon them--the low-caste and slavish are not only
+deficient in obsequiousness, but are permitted to retort openly to those
+who address them with fitting dignity. Here such a state of things
+is too general to excite remark, but as instances are well called the
+flowers of the tree of assertion, this person will set forth the manner
+in which he was contumaciously opposed by an oblique-eyed outcast who
+attended within the stall of one selling wrought gold, jewels, and
+merchandise of the finer sort.
+
+Being desirous of procuring a gift wherewith to propitiate a certain
+maiden’s esteem, and seeing above a shop of varied attraction a
+suspended sign emblematic of three times repeated gild abundance I drew
+near, not doubting to find beneath so auspicious a token the fulfilment
+of an honourable accommodation. Inside the window was displayed one
+of the implements by which the various details of a garment are joined
+together upon turning a wheel, hung about with an inscription setting
+forth that it was esteemed at the price of two units of gold, nineteen
+pieces of silver, and eleven and three-quarters of the brass cash of the
+land, and judging that no more suitable object could be procured for the
+purpose, I entered the shop, and desired the attending slave to submit
+it to my closer scrutiny.
+
+“Behold,” I exclaimed, when I had made a feint of setting the device
+into motion (for it need not be concealed from you, O discreet one, that
+I was really inadequate to the attempt, and, indeed, narrowly escaped
+impaling myself upon its sudden and unexpected protrusions), “the
+highly-burnished surface of your dexterously arranged window gave to
+this engine a rich attractiveness which is altogether lacking at a
+closer examination. Nevertheless, this person will not recede from a
+perhaps too impulsive offer of one unit of gold, three pieces of silver,
+and four and a half brass cash,” my object, of course, being that after
+the mutual recrimination of disparagement and over-praise we should in
+the length of an hour or two reach a becoming compromise in the middle
+distance.
+
+“Well,” responded the menial one, regarding me with an expression in
+which he did not even attempt to subdue the baser emotions, “you HAVE
+come a long way for nothing”; and he made a pretence of wishing to
+replace the object.
+
+“Yet,” I continued, “observe with calm impartiality how insidiously the
+rust has assailed the outer polish of the lacquer; perceive here upon
+the beneath part of wood the ineffaceable depression of a deeply-pointed
+blow; note well the--”
+
+“It was good enough for you to want me to muck up out of the window,
+wasn’t it?” demanded the obstinate barbarian, becoming passionate in his
+bearing rather than reluctantly, but with courteous grace, lessening the
+price to a trifling degree, as we regard the proper way of carrying on
+the enterprise.
+
+“It is well said,” I admitted, hoping that he might yet learn wisdom
+from my attitude of unruffled urbanity, though I feared that his angle
+of negotiating was unconquerably opposed to mine, “but now its many
+imperfections are revealed. The inelegance of its outline, the grossness
+of the applied colours, the unlucky combination of numbers engraved upon
+this plate, the--”
+
+“Damme!” cried the utterly perverse rebel standing opposite, “why don’t
+you keep on your Compound, you Yellow Peril? Who asked you to come into
+my shop to blackguard the things? Come now, who did?”
+
+“Assuredly it is your place of commerce,” I replied cheerfully,
+preparing to bring forward an argument, which in our country never fails
+to shake the most stubborn, “yet bend your eyes to the fact that at no
+great distance away there stands another and a more alluring stall of
+merchandise where--”
+
+“Go to it then!” screamed the abandoned outcast, leaping over his
+counter and shouting aloud in a frenzy of uncontrollable rage. “Clear
+out, or I’ll bend my feet--” but concluding at this point that some
+private calumny from which he was doubtless suffering was disturbing
+his mind to so great an extent that there was little likelihood of
+our bringing the transaction to a profitable end, I left the shop
+immediately but with befitting dignity.
+
+With a fell-founded assurance that you will now be acquiring a really
+precise and bird’s-eye-like insight into practically all phases of this
+country.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+
+ Concerning the wisdom of the sublime Wei Chung and its
+ application to the ordinary problems of existence. The
+ meeting of three, hitherto unknown to each other, about a
+ wayside inn, and their various manners of conducting the
+ enterprise.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--You will doubtless remember the behaviour of the aged
+philosopher Wei Chung, when commanded by the broad-minded emperor of his
+time to reveal the hidden sources of his illimitable knowledge, so
+that all might freely acquire, and the race thereby become raised to a
+position of unparalleled excellence. Taking the well-disposed sovereign
+familiarly by the arm, Wei Chung led him to the mouth of his cave in the
+forest, and, standing by his side, bade him reflect with open eyes for
+a short space of time, and then express aloud what he had seen. “Nothing
+of grave import,” declared the emperor when the period was accomplished;
+“only the trees shaken by the breeze.” “It is enough,” replied Wei
+Chung. “What, to the adroitly-balanced mind, does such a sight
+reveal?” “That it is certainly a windy day,” exclaimed the omnipotent
+triumphantly, for although admittedly divine, he yet lacked the
+philosopher’s discrimination. “On the contrary,” replied the sage
+coldly, “that is the natural pronouncement of the rankly superficial. To
+the highly-trained intellect it conveys the more subtle truth that the
+wind affects the trees, and not the trees affect the wind. For upwards
+of seventy years this one has daily stood at the door of his cave for
+a brief period, and regularly garnering a single detail of like
+brilliance, has made it the well-spring for a day’s reflection. As the
+result he now has by heart upwards of twenty-five thousand useful facts,
+all serviceable for original proverbs, and an encyclopaedic mind
+which would enable him to take a high place in a popular competition
+unassisted by a single work of reference.” Much impressed by the
+adventure the charitably-inclined emperor presented Wei Chung with an
+onyx crown (which the philosopher at once threw into an adjacent well),
+and returning to his capital published a decree that each day at
+sunrise every person should stand at the door of his dwelling, and after
+observing for a period, compare among themselves the details of their
+thoughts. By this means he hoped to achieve his imperial purpose, but
+although the literal part of the enactment is scrupulously maintained,
+especially by the slothful and defamatory, who may be seen standing
+at their doors and conversing together even to this day, from some
+unforeseen imperfection the intellectual capacity of the race has
+remained exactly as it was before.
+
+Nevertheless it is not to be questioned that the system of the versatile
+Wei Chung was, in itself, grounded upon a far-seeing accuracy, and
+as the need of such a rational observation is deepened among the
+inconsistencies and fantastic customs of a barbarian race, I have made
+it a useful habit to accept as a guide for the day’s behaviour the
+reflections engendered by the first noteworthy incident of the morning.
+
+Upon the day with which this letter concerns itself I had set forth, in
+accordance with an ever-present desire, to explore some of the hidden
+places of the city. At the time a tempest of great ferocity was raging,
+and bending my head before it I had the distinction of coming into
+contact with a person of ill-endowed exterior at an angle where two
+roads met. This amiable wayfarer exchanged civilities with me after the
+politeness characteristic of the labouring classes towards those who
+differ from them in speech, dress, or colour: that is to say, he filled
+his pipe from my proffered store, and after lighting it threw the match
+into my face, and passed on with an appropriate remark.
+
+Doubtless this insignificant occurrence would have faded without
+internal comment if the penetrating Wei Chung had never existed, but
+now, guided by his sublime precedent, I arranged the incident for the
+day’s conduct under three reflective heads.
+
+It was while I was meditating on the second of these that an exclamation
+caused me to turn, when I observed a prosperously-outlined person in
+the act of picking up a scrip which had the appearance of being lavishly
+distended with pieces of gold.
+
+“If I had not seen you pass it, I should have opined that this hyer
+wallet belonged to you,” remarked the justice-loving stranger (for
+the incident had irresistibly retarded my own footsteps), speaking
+the language of this land, but with an accent of penetrating harmony
+hitherto unknown to my ears. With these auspicious words he turned over
+the object upon his hand doubtfully.
+
+“So entrancing a possibility is, as you gracefully suggest, of
+unavoidable denial,” I replied. “Nevertheless, this person will not
+hesitate to join his acclamation with yours; for, as the Book of Verses
+wisely says, ‘Even the blind, if truly polite, will extol the prospect
+from your house-top.’”
+
+“That’s so,” admitted the one by my side. “But I don’t know that there
+is any call for a special thanksgiving. As I happen to have more
+money of my own than I can reasonably spend I shall drop this in at a
+convenient police station. I dare say some poor critter is pining away
+for it now.”
+
+Pleasantly impressed by the resolute benevolence of the one who had
+a greater store of wealth than he could, by his own unaided efforts,
+dispose of, I arranged myself unobtrusively at his side, and maintaining
+an exhibition of my most polished and genial conversation, I sought to
+penetrate deeply into his esteem.
+
+“Gaze in this direction, Kong,” he said at length, calling me by name
+with auspicious familiarity; “I am a benighted stranger in this hyer
+city, and so are you, I rek’n. Suppose we liquor up, and then take a few
+of the side shows together.”
+
+“The suggestion is one against which I will erect no ill-disposed
+barrier,” I at once replied, so inflexibly determined not to lose sight
+of a person possessing such engaging attributes as to be cheerfully
+prepared even to consume my rice spirit in the inverted position which
+his words implied if the display was persisted in. “Nevertheless,”
+ I added, with a resourceful prudence, “although by no means
+undistinguished among the highest literary and competitive circles of
+his native Yuen-ping, the one before you is incapable of walking in the
+footsteps of a person whose accumulations are greater than he himself
+can appreciably diminish.”
+
+“That’s all right, Kong,” exclaimed the one whom my last words fittingly
+described, striking the recess of his lower garment with a gesture of
+graceful significance. “When I take a fancy to any one it isn’t a matter
+of dollars. I usually carry a trifle of five hundred or a thousand
+pounds in my pocket-book, and if we can get through that--why, there’s
+plenty more waiting at the bank. Say, though, I hope you don’t keep much
+about you; it isn’t really safe.”
+
+“The temptation to do so is one which this person has hitherto
+successfully evaded,” I replied. “The contents of this reptile-skin
+case”--and not to be outshone in mutual confidence I here displayed it
+openly--“do not exceed nine or ten pieces of gold and a like number of
+printed obligations promising to pay five pieces each.”
+
+“Put it away, Kong,” he said resolutely. “You won’t need that so long as
+you’re with me. Well, now, what sort of a saloon have we here?”
+
+As far as the opinion might be superficially expressed it had every
+indication of being one of noteworthy antiquity, and to the innately
+modest mind its unassuming diffidence might have lent an added charm.
+Nevertheless, on most occasions this person would have maintained
+an unshaken dexterity in avoiding its open door, but as the choice
+admittedly lay in the hands of one who carried five hundred or a
+thousand pieces of gold we went in together and passed through to a
+compartment of retiring seclusion.
+
+In our own land, O my orthodox-minded father, where the unfailing
+resources of innumerable bands of dragons, spirits, vampires, ghouls,
+shadows, omens, and thunderstorms are daily enlisted to carry into
+effect the pronouncements of an appointed destiny, we have many
+historical examples of the inexorably converging legs of coincidence,
+but none, I think, more impressively arranged than the one now
+descending this person’s brush.
+
+We had scarcely reposed ourselves, and taken from the hands of an
+awaiting slave the vessels of thrice-potent liquid which in this Island
+is regarded as the indispensable accompaniment to every movement of
+existence, when a third person entered the room, and seating himself
+at a table some slightly removed distance away, lowered his head and
+abandoned himself to a display of most lavish dejection.
+
+“That poor cuss doesn’t appear to be holiday-making,” remarked the
+sincerely-compassionate person at my side, after closely observing the
+other for a period; and then, moved by the overpowering munificence of
+his inward nature, he called aloud, “Say, stranger, you seem to have
+got it thickly in the neck. Is it family affliction or the whisky of the
+establishment?”
+
+At these affably-intentioned words the stranger raised his eyes quickly,
+with an indication of not having up to that time been aware of our
+presence.
+
+“Sir,” he exclaimed, approaching to a spot where he could converse
+with a more enhanced facility, “when I loosened the restraint of an
+overpowering if unmanly grief, I imagined that I was alone, for I
+would have shunned even the most flattering sympathy, but your
+charitably-modulated voice invites confidence. The one before you is the
+most contemptible, left-handed, and disqualified outcast in creation,
+and he is now making his way towards the river, while his widow will be
+left to take in washing, his infant son to vend evening printed leaves,
+and his graceful and hitherto highly secluded daughters to go upon the
+stage.”
+
+“Say, stranger,” interposed this person, by no means unwilling to
+engrave upon his memory this newly-acquired form of greeting, “the
+emotion is doubtless all-pressing, but in my ornate and flower-laden
+tongue we have a salutation, ‘Slowly, slowly; walk slowly,’ which seems
+to be of far-seeing application.”
+
+“That’s so,” remarked the one by my side. “Separate it with the teeth,
+inch by inch.”
+
+“I will be calm, then,” continued the other (who, to avoid the
+complication of the intermingling circumstances, may be described as
+the more stranger of the two), and he took of his neckcloth. “I am a
+merchant in tea, yellow fat, and mixed spices, in a small but hitherto
+satisfactory way.” Thus revealing himself, he continued to set forth
+how at an earlier hour he had started on a journey to deposit his wealth
+(doubtless as a propitiation of outraged deities) upon a certain bank,
+and how, upon reaching the specified point, he discovered that what
+he carried had eluded his vigilance. “All gone: notes, gold, and
+pocket-book--the savings of a lifetime,” concluded the ill-omened one,
+and at the recollection a sudden and even more highly-sustained frenzy
+of self-unpopularity involving him, without a pause he addressed himself
+by seven and twenty insulting expressions, many of which were quite new
+to my understanding.
+
+At the earliest mention of the details affecting the loss, the elbow of
+the person who had made himself responsible for the financial obligation
+of the day propelled itself against my middle part, and unseen by the
+other he indicated to me by means of his features that the entertainment
+was becoming one of agreeable prepossession.
+
+“Now, touching this hyer wallet,” he said presently. “How might you
+describe it?”
+
+“In colour it was red, and within were two compartments, the one
+containing three score notes each of ten pounds, the other fifty pounds
+of gold. But what’s the use of describing it? Some lucky demon will pick
+it up and pocket the lot, and I shall never see a cent of it again.”
+
+“Then you’d better consult one who reburnishes the eyes,” declared the
+magnanimous one with a laugh, and drawing forth the article referred to
+he cast it towards the merchant in a small way.
+
+At this point of the narrative my thoroughly incompetent brush confesses
+the proportions of the requirement to be beyond its most extended
+limit, and many very honourable details are necessarily left without
+expression.
+
+“I’ve known men of all sorts, good, bad, and bothwise,” exclaimed the
+one who had recovered his possessions; “but I never thought to meet
+a gent as would hand over six hundred and fifty pounds as if it was a
+toothpick. Sir, it overbalances me; it does, indeed.”
+
+“Say no more about it,” urged the first person, and to suggest
+gracefully that the incident had reached its furthest extremity, he
+began to set out the melody of an unspoken verse.
+
+“I will say no more, then,” he replied; “but you cannot reasonably
+prevent my doing something to express my gratitude. If you are not too
+proud you will come and partake of food and wine with me beneath the
+sign of the Funereal Male Cow, and to show my confidence in you I shall
+insist upon you carrying my pocket-book.”
+
+The person whom I had first encountered suffered his face to become
+excessively amused. “Say, stranger, do you take me for a pack-mule?”
+ he replied good-naturedly. “I already have about as much as I want to
+handle. Never mind; we’ll come along with you, and Mr. Kong shall carry
+your bullion.”
+
+At this delicate and high-minded proposal a rapid change, in no way
+complimentary to my explicit habit of adequately conducting any venture
+upon which I may be engaged, came over the face of the second person.
+
+“Sir,” he exclaimed, “I have nothing to say against this gentleman, but
+I am under no obligation to him, and I don’t see why I should trust him
+with everything I possess.”
+
+“Stranger,” exclaimed the other rising to his feet (and from this point
+it must be understood that the various details succeeded one another
+with a really agile dexterity), “let me tell you that Mr. Kong is my
+friend, and that ought to be enough.”
+
+“It is. If you say this gentleman is your friend, and that you have
+known him long and intimately enough to be able to answer for him,
+that’s good enough for me.”
+
+“Well,” admitted the first person, and I could not conceal from myself
+that his tone was inauspiciously reluctant, “I can’t exactly say that
+I’ve known him long; in fact I only met him half an hour ago. But I have
+the fullest confidence in his integrity.”
+
+“It’s just as I expected. Well, sir, you’re good-natured enough for
+anything, but if you’ll excuse me, I must say that you’re a small piece
+of an earthenware vessel after all”--the veiled allusion doubtlessly
+being that the vessel of necessity being broken, the contents inevitably
+escape--“and I hope you’re not being had.”
+
+“I’m not, and I’ll prove it before we go out together,” retorted the
+engaging one, who had in the meantime become so actively impetuous on my
+account, that he did not remain content with the spoken words, but threw
+the various belongings about as he mentioned them in a really profuse
+display of inimitable vehemence. “Here, Kong, take this hyer pocket-book
+whatever he says. Now on the top of that take everything I’ve got, and
+you know what THAT figures up to. Now give this gentleman your little
+lot to keep him quiet; I don’t ask for anything. Now, stranger, I’m
+ready. You and I will take a stroll round the block and back again, and
+if Mr. Kong isn’t waiting here for us when we return with everything
+intact and O.K., I’ll double your deposit and never trust a durned soul
+again.”
+
+Nodding genially over his shoulder with a harmonious understanding,
+expressive of the fact that we were embarking upon an undeniably
+diverting episode, the benevolent-souled person who had accumulated more
+riches than he was competent to melt away himself, passed out, urging
+the doubtful and still protesting one before him.
+
+Thus abandoned to my own reflections, I pondered for a short time
+profitably on the third head of the day’s meditation (Touching the match
+and this person’s unattractively-lined face. The revealed truth: the
+inexperienced sheep cannot pass through the hedge without leaving
+portions of his wool), and then finding the philosophy of Wei Chung very
+good, I determined to remove the superfluous apprehensions of the vender
+of food-stuffs with less delay by setting out and meeting them on their
+return.
+
+A few paces distant from the door, one of the ever-present watchers of
+the street was standing, watching the street with unremitting vigilance,
+while from the well-guarded expression of his face it might nevertheless
+be gathered that he stood as though in expectation.
+
+“Prosperity,” I said, with seasonable greeting. (For no excess of
+consideration is too great to be lavished upon these, who unite
+within themselves the courage of a high warrior, the expertness of a
+three-handed magician, and the courtesy of a genial mandarin.) “I
+seek two, apparelled thus and thus. Did you, by any chance, mark the
+direction of their footsteps?”
+
+“Oh,” he said, regarding this person with a most flattering application,
+“YOU seek them, do you? Well, they’ve just gone off in a hansom, and
+they’ll want a lot of seeking for the next week or two. You let them
+carry your purse, perhaps?”
+
+“Assuredly,” I replied. “As a mark of confidence; this person, for his
+part, receiving a like token at their hands.”
+
+“That’s it,” said the official watcher, conveying into his voice a
+subtle indication that he had become excessively fatigued. “It’s like
+a nursery tale--never too old to take with the kids. Well, come along,
+poor lamb, the station isn’t far.”
+
+So great had become the reliance which by this time I habitually reposed
+in these men, that I never sought to oppose their pronouncements (such
+a course being not only useless but undignified), and we therefore
+together reached the place which the one by my side had described as a
+station.
+
+From the outside the building was in no way imposing, but upon reaching
+an inner dungeon it at once became plain that no matter with what crime
+a person might be charged, even the most stubborn resistance would be
+unavailing. Before a fiercely-burning fire were arranged metal pincers,
+massive skewers, ornamental branding irons, and the usual accessories of
+the grill, one tool being already thrust into the heart of the flame
+to indicate the nature of its use, and its immediate readiness for the
+purpose. Pegs from which the accused could be hung by the thumbs
+with weights attached to the feet, covered an entire wall; chains,
+shackling-irons, fetters, steel rings for compressing the throat, and
+belts for tightening the chest, all had their appointed places, while
+the Chair, the Boot, the Heavy Hat, and many other appliances quite
+unknown to our system of administering justice were scattered about.
+
+Without pausing to select any of these, the one who led me approached
+a raised desk at which was seated a less warlike official, whose
+sympathetic appearance inspired confidence. “Kong Ho,” exclaimed to
+himself the person who is inscribing these words, “here is an individual
+into whose discriminating ear it would be well to pour the exact
+happening without evasion. Then even if the accusation against you be
+that of resembling another or trafficking with unlawful Forces, he will
+doubtless arrange the matter so that the expiation shall be as light and
+inexpensive as possible.”
+
+By this time certain other officials had drawn near. “What is it?” I
+heard one demand, and another replied, “Brooklyn Ben and Jimmie the
+Butterman again. Ah, they aren’t artful, are they!” but at this moment
+the two into whose power I had chiefly fallen having conversed together,
+I was commanded to advance towards them and reveal my name.
+
+“Kong,” I replied freely; and I had formed a design to explain somewhat
+of the many illustrious ancestors of the House, when the one at the
+desk, pausing to inscribe my answer in a book, spoke out.
+
+“Kong?” he said. “Is that the christian or surname?”
+
+“Sir-name?” replied this person between two thoughts. “Undoubtedly
+the one before you is entitled by public examination to the degree
+‘Recognised Talent,’ which may, as a meritorious distinction, be held
+equal to your title of a warrior clad in armour. Yet, if it is so held,
+that would rightly be this person’s official name of Paik.”
+
+“Oh, it would, would it?” said the one seated upon the high chair.
+“That’s quite clear. Are there any other names as well?”
+
+“Assuredly,” I explained, pained inwardly that one of official rank
+should so slightly esteem my appearance as to judge that I was so
+meagrely endowed. “The milk name of Ho; Tsin upon entering the Classes;
+as a Great Name Cheng; another style in Quank; the official title
+already expressed, and T’chun, Li, Yuen and Nung as the various
+emergencies of life arise.”
+
+“Thank you,” said the high-chair official courteously. “Now, just the
+name in full, please, without any velvet trimmings.”
+
+“Kong,” began this person, desirous above all things of putting
+the matter competently, yet secretly perturbed as to what might be
+considered superfluous and what deemed a perfidious suppression, “Ho
+Tsin Cheng Quank--”
+
+“Hold hard,” cried this same one, restraining me with an uplifted pen.
+“Did you say ‘Quack’?”
+
+“Quack?” repeated this person, beginning to become involved within
+himself, and not grasping the detail in the right position. “In a manner
+of setting the expression forth--”
+
+“Put him down, ‘Quack Duck,’ sir,” exclaimed one of dog-like dejection
+who stood by. “Most of these Lascars haven’t got any real names--they
+just go by what any one happens to call them at the time, like ‘Burmese
+Ike’ down at the Mint,” and this person unfortunately chancing to smile
+and bow acquiescently at that moment (not with any set intention, but
+as a general principle of courteous urbanity), in place of his really
+distinguished titles he will henceforth appear among the historical
+records of this dynasty under what he cannot disguise from his inner
+misgivings to be the low-caste appellation of Quack Duck.
+
+“Now the address, please,” continued the high one, again preparing to
+inscribe the word, and being determined that by no mischance should this
+particular be offensively reported, I unhesitatingly replied, “Beneath
+the Sign of the Lead Tortoise, on the northern course from the Lotus
+Pools outside the walls of Yuen-ping.”
+
+This answer the one with the book did not immediately record. “I
+don’t say it isn’t all right when you know the parts,” he remarked
+broad-mindedly, “but it does sound a trifle irregular. Can’t you give it
+a number and a street?”
+
+“I fancy it must be a pub, sir,” observed another. “He said that it had
+a sign--the Red Tortoise.”
+
+“Well, haven’t you got a London address?” said the high one, and this
+person being able to supply a street and a number as desired, this part
+of the undertaking was disposed of, to his cordial satisfaction.
+
+“Now let me see the articles which these men left with you,” commanded
+the chieftain of the band, and without any misleading discrepancies I at
+once drew forth from an inner sleeve the two scrips, of which adequate
+mention has already been made, another hitherto undescribed, two
+instruments for measuring the passing hours of the day, together with a
+chain of fine gold ingeniously wrought into the semblance of a cable,
+an ornament for the breast, set about with a jewel, two neck-cloths of
+a kind usually carried in the pocket, a book for recording happenings of
+any moment, pieces of money to the value of about eleven taels, a silver
+flagon, a sheathed weapon and a few lesser objects of insignificant
+value. These various details I laid obsequiously before the one who had
+commanded it, while the others stood around either in explicit silence
+or speaking softly beneath their breath.
+
+“Do I understand that the two persons left all these things with you,
+while they took your purse in exchange?” said the high official, after
+examining certain obscure signs upon the metals, the contents of the
+third scrip, and the like.
+
+“It cannot reasonably be denied,” I replied; “inasmuch as they departed
+without them.”
+
+“Spontaneously?” he demanded, and in spite of the unevadible severity of
+his voice the expression of his nearer eye deviated somewhat.
+
+“The spoken and conclusive word of the first was that it was his
+intention to commit to this one’s keeping everything which he had; the
+assertion of the second being that with this scrip I received all that
+he possessed.”
+
+“While of yours, what did they get, Mr. Quack?” and the tone of the one
+who spoke had a much more gratifying modulation than before, while the
+attitudes of those who stood around had favourably changed, until they
+now conveyed a message of deliberate esteem.
+
+“A serpent-skin case of two enclosures,” I replied. “On the one side
+was a handcount of the small copper-pieces of this Island, which I had
+caused to be burnished and gilt for the purpose of taking back to amuse
+those of Yuen-ping. On the other side were two or three pages from a
+gravity-removing printed leaf entitled ‘Bits of Tits,’ with which
+this person weekly instructs himself in the simpler rudiments of the
+language. For the rest the case was controlled by a hidden spring, and
+inscribed about with a charm against loss, consumption by fire, or being
+secretly acquired by the unworthy.”
+
+“I don’t think you stand in much need of that charm, Mr. Quack,”
+ remarked another of more than ordinary rank, who was also present. “Then
+they really got practically no money from you?”
+
+“By no means,” I admitted. “It was never literally stipulated, and
+whatever of wealth he possesses this person carries in a concealed spot
+beneath his waistbelt.” (For even to these, virtuous sire, I did not
+deem it expedient to reveal the fact that in reality it is hidden within
+the sole of my left sandal.)
+
+“I congratulate you,” he said with lavish refinement. “Ben and the
+Butterman can be very bland and persuasive. Could you tell me, as a
+matter of professional curiosity, what first put you on your guard?”
+
+“In this person’s country,” I replied, “there is an apt saying, ‘The
+sagacious bird does not build his nest twice in the empty soup-toureen,’
+and by observing closely what has gone before one may accurately
+conjecture much that will follow after.” It may be, that out of my
+insufferable shortcomings of style and expression, this answer did not
+convey to his mind the logical sequence of the warning; yet it would
+have been more difficult to show him how everything arose from the
+faultlessly-balanced system of the heroic Wei Chung, or the exact
+parallel lying between the ill-clad outcast who demanded a portion of
+tobacco and the cheerfully unassuming stranger who had in his possession
+a larger accumulation of money than he could conveniently disperse.
+
+In such a manner I took leave of the station and those connected with
+it, after directing that the share of the spoil which fell by the law
+of this Island to my lot should be sold and the money of exchange
+faithfully divided among the virtuous and necessitous of both sexes. The
+higher officials each waved me pleasantly by the hand, according to the
+striking and picturesque custom of the land, while the lesser ones stood
+around and spoke flattering words as I departed, as “honourable,” “a
+small piece of all-right,” “astute ancient male fowl,” “ah!” and the
+like.
+
+With repeated assurances that however ineptly the adventure may at the
+time appear to be tending, as regards the essentials of true dignity
+and an undeviating grasp upon articles of negotiable value, nothing of a
+regrettable incident need be feared.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER IX
+
+
+ Concerning the proverb of the highly-accomplished horse. The
+ various perils to be encountered in the Beneath Parts. The
+ inexplicable journey performed by this one, and concerning
+ the obscurity of the witchcraft employed.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--Among these islanders there is a proverb, “Do not place
+the carte” (or card, the two words having an identical purport, and
+both signifying the inscribed tablet of viands prepared for a banquet,)
+“before the horse.” Doubtless the saying first arose as a timely rebuke
+to a certain barbarian emperor who announced his contempt for the
+intelligence of his subjects by conferring high mandarin rank upon a
+favourite steed and ceremoniously appointing it to be his chancellor;
+but from the narrower moral that an unreasoning animal is out of place,
+and even unseemly, in the entertaining hall or council chamber, the
+expression has in the course of time taken a wider application and is
+now freely used as an insidious thrust at one who may be suspected of
+contrariness of character, of confusing issues, or of acting in a vain
+or illogical manner. I had already preserved the saying among other
+instances of foreign thought and expression which I am collecting for
+your dignified amusement, as it is very characteristic of the wisdom and
+humour of these Outer Lands. The imagination is essentially barbaric. A
+horse--doubtless well-groomed, richly-caparisoned, and as intellectual
+as the circumstances will permit, but inevitably an animal of degraded
+attributes and untraceable ancestry--a horse reclining before a lavishly
+set-out table and considering well of what dish it shall next partake!
+Could anything, it appears, be more diverting! Truly to our more refined
+outlook the analogy is lacking both in delicacy of wit and in exactitude
+of balance, but to the grosser barbarian conception of what is
+gravity-removing it is irresistible.
+
+I am, however, reminded of the saying by perceiving that I was on the
+point of recording certain details of recent occurrence without first
+unrolling to your mind the incidents from which it has arisen that the
+person who is now communicating with you is no longer reposing in the
+Capital, but spending a period profitably in observing the habits of
+those who dwell in the more secluded recesses on the outskirts of the
+Island. This reversal of the proper sequence of affairs would doubtless
+strike those around as an instance of setting the banquet before the
+horse. Without delay, then, to pursue the allusion to its appropriate
+end, I will return, as it may be said, to my nosebag.
+
+At various points about the streets of the Capital there are certain
+caverns artificially let into the bowels of the earth, to which any
+person may betake himself upon purchasing a printed sign which he must
+display to the guardian of the gate. Once within the underneathmost
+parts he is free to be carried from place to place by means of the
+trains of carriages which I have already described to you, until he
+would return to the outer surface, when he must again display his
+talisman before he is permitted to pass forth. Nor is this an empty
+form, for upon an occasion this person himself witnessed a very bitter
+contention between a keeper of the barrier and one whose token had
+through some cause lost its potency.
+
+In the company of the experienced I had previously gone through the
+trial without mischance, so that recently when I expressed a wish to
+visit a certain Palace, and was informed that the most convenient manner
+would be to descend into the nearest cavern, I had no reasonable device
+for avoiding the encounter. Nevertheless, enlightened sire, I will
+not attempt to conceal from your omniscience that I was by no means
+impetuous towards the adventure. Owing to the pugnacious and unworthy
+suspicions of those who direct their destinies, I have not yet been
+able to penetrate the exact connection between the movements of these
+hot-smoke chariots and the Unseen Forces. To a person whose chief object
+in life is to avoid giving offence to any of the innumerable demons
+which are ever on the watch to revenge themselves upon our slightest
+indiscretion, this uncertainty opens an unending vista of intolerable
+possibilities. As if to emphasise the perils of this overhanging doubt
+the surroundings are ingeniously arranged so as to represent as nearly
+as practicable the terrors of the Beneath World. Both by day and night a
+funereal gloom envelops the caverns, the pathways and resting-places are
+meagre and so constructed as to be devoid of attraction or repose, and
+by a skilful contrivance the natural atmosphere is secretly withdrawn
+and a very acrimonious sulphurous haze driven in to replace it.
+In sudden and unforeseen places eyes of fire open and close with
+disconcerting rapidity, and even change colour in vindictive
+significance; wooden hands are outstretched as in unrelenting rigidity
+against supplication, or, divining the unexpressed thoughts, inexorably
+point, as one gazes, still deeper into the recesses of the earth; while
+the air is never free from the sounds of groans, shrieks, the rattling
+of chains, dull, hopeless noises beneath one’s feet or overhead, and the
+hoarse wordless cries of despair with which the attending slaves of the
+caverns greet the distant clamour of every approaching fire-chariot.
+Admittedly the intention of the device is benevolently conceived, and
+it is strenuously asserted that many persons of corrupt habits and
+ill-balanced lives, upon waking unexpectedly while passing through
+these Beneath Parts, have abandoned the remainder of their journey, and,
+escaping hastily to the outer air, have from that time onwards led a
+pure and consistent existence; but, on the other foot, those who are
+compelled to use the caverns daily, freely confess that the surroundings
+do not in any material degree purify their lives or tranquillise the
+nature of their inner thoughts.
+
+In this emergency I did not neglect to write out a diversity of charms
+against every possible variety of evil influence, and concealing them
+lavishly about my head and body, I presented myself with the outer
+confidence of a person who is inured to the exploit. Doubtless thereby
+being mistaken for one of themselves in the obscurity, I received the
+inscribed safeguard without opposition, and even an added sum in copper
+pieces, which I discreetly returned to the one behind the shutter, with
+the request that he would honourably burn a few joss sticks or sacrifice
+to a trivial amount, to the success of my journey. In such a manner
+I reached an awaiting train, and, taking up within it a position of
+retiring modesty, I definitely committed myself to the undertaking.
+
+At the next tarrying place there entered a barbarian of high-class
+appearance, and being by this time less assured of my competence in the
+matter unaided, both on account of the multiplicity of evil omens on
+every side, and the perverse impulses of the guiding demon, whereby
+at sudden angles certain of my organs had the emotion of being left
+irrevocably behind and others of being snatched relentlessly forward, I
+approached him courteously.
+
+“Behold,” I said, “many thousand li of water, both fresh and bitter,
+flow between the one who is addressing you and his native town of
+Yuen-ping, where the tablets at the street corners are as familiar to
+him as the lines of his own unshapely hands; for, as it is truly said,
+‘Does the starling know the lotus roots, or the pomfret read its way by
+the signs among the upper branches of the pines?’ Out of the necessities
+of his ignorance and your own overwhelming condescension enlighten him,
+therefore, whether the destination of this fire-chariot by any chance
+corresponds with the inscribed name upon his talisman?”
+
+Thus adjured, the stranger benevolently turned himself to the detail,
+and upon consulting a book of symbols he expressed himself to this wise:
+that after a sufficient interval I should come into a certain station,
+called in part after the title of the enlightened ruler of this Island,
+and there abandoning the train which was carrying us, I should enter
+another which would bring me out of the Beneath Parts and presently into
+the midst of that Palace which I sought. This advice seemed good, for
+a reasonable connection might be supposed to exist between a station
+so auspiciously called and a Palace bearing the harmonious name of
+the gracious and universally-revered sovereign-consort. Accordingly I
+thanked him ceremoniously, not only on my own part, but also on behalf
+of eleven generations of immediate ancestors, and in the name of seven
+generations who should come after, and he on his side agreeably replied
+that he was sure his grandmother would have done as much for mine, and
+he sincerely hoped that none of his great-great-grandchildren would
+prove less obliging. In this intellectual manner, varied with the
+entertainment of profuse bows, the time passed cordially between us
+until the barbarian reached his own alighting stage, when he again
+repeated the various details of the strategy for my observance.
+
+At this point let it be set forth deliberately that there existed no
+treachery in the advice, still less that this person is incapable of
+competently achieving the destined end of any hazard upon which he
+may embark when once the guiding signs have been made clear to his
+understanding. Whatever entanglement arose was due merely to the
+conflicting manners of expression used by two widely-varying races, even
+as our own proverb says, “What is only sauce for the cod is serious for
+the oyster.”
+
+At the station indicated as bearing the sign of the ruler of the country
+(which even a person of little discernment could have recognised by
+the highly-illuminated representation bearing the elusively-worded
+inscription, “In packets only”), I left this fire-chariot, and at once
+perceiving another in an attitude of departure, I entered it, as the
+casual barbarian had definitely instructed, and began to assure myself
+that I had already become expertly proficient in the art of journeying
+among these Beneath Regions and to foresee the time, not far distant,
+when others would confidently address themselves to me in their
+extremities. So entrancing did this contemplation grow, that this
+outrageous person began to compose the actual words with which he would
+instruct them as the occasion arose, as thus, “Undoubtedly, O virtuous
+and not unattractive maiden, this fire-engine will ultimately lead your
+refined footsteps into the street called Those who Bake Food. Do not
+hesitate, therefore, to occupy the vacant place by this insignificant
+one’s side”; or, “By no means, honourable sir; the Cross of Charing
+is in the precisely opposite direction to that selected by this
+self-opinionated machine for its inopportune destination. Do not rebuke
+this person for his immoderate loss of mental gravity, for your mistake,
+though pardonable in a stranger, is really excessively diverting. Your
+most prudent course now will assuredly be to cast yourself from the
+carriage without delay and rely upon the benevolent intervention of a
+fire-chariot proceeding backwards.”
+
+Alas, it is truly said, “None but sword-swallowers should endeavour to
+swallow swords,” thereby signifying the vast chasm that lies between
+those who are really adroit in an undertaking and those who only think
+that they may easily become so. Presently it began to become deeply
+impressed upon my discrimination that the journey was taking a more
+lengthy duration than I had been given to understand would be the case,
+while at the same time a permanent deliverance from the terrors of the
+Beneath Parts seemed to be insidiously lengthening out into a funereal
+unattainableness. The point of this person’s destination, he had been
+assured on all hands, was a spot beyond which even the most aggressively
+assertive engine could not proceed, so that he had no fears of being
+incapably drawn into more remote places, yet when hour after hour passed
+and the ill-destined machine never failed in its malicious endeavours to
+leave each successive tarrying station, it is not to be denied that
+my imagination dwelt regretfully upon the true civilisation of our
+own enlightened country, where, by the considerate intervention of an
+all-wise government, the possibilities of so distressing an experience
+are sympathetically removed from one’s path. Thus the greater part of
+the day had faded, and I was conjecturing that by this time we must
+inevitably be approaching the barren and inhospitable country which
+forms the northern limit of the Island, when the door suddenly opened
+and the barbarian stranger whom I had left many hundred li behind
+entered the carriage.
+
+At this manifestation all uncertainty departed, and I now understood
+that to some obscure end witchcraft of a very powerful and high-caste
+kind was being employed around me; for in no other way was it credible
+to one’s intelligence that a person could propel himself through the
+air with a speed greater than that of one of these fire-chariots, and
+overtake it. Doubtless it was a part of this same scheme which made it
+seem expedient to the stranger that he should feign a part, for he
+at once greeted me as though the occasion were a matter of everyday
+happening, exclaiming genially--
+
+“Well, Mr. Kong, returning? And what do you think of the Palace?”
+
+“It is fitly observed, ‘To the earthworm the rice stalk is as high as
+the pagoda,’” I replied with adroit evasion, clearly understanding from
+his manner that for some reason, not yet revealed to me, a course of
+dissimulation was expedient in order to mislead the surrounding
+demons concerning my movements, and by a subtle indication of the face
+conveying to the stranger an assurance that I had tactfully grasped
+the requirement, and would endeavour to walk well upon his heels,
+“and therefore it would be unseemly for a person of my insignificant
+attainments to engage in the doubtful flattery of comparing it with
+the many other residences of the pure and exalted which embellish your
+Capital.”
+
+“Oh,” said the one whom I may now suitably describe by the name of Sir
+Philip, “that’s rather a useful proverb sometimes. Many people there?”
+
+At this inquiry I could not disguise from myself an emotion that
+the person seated opposite was not diplomatically inspired in so
+persistently clinging to the one subject upon which he must assuredly
+know that I experienced an all-pervading deficiency. Nevertheless,
+being by this more fully convinced that the disguise was one of critical
+necessity, and not deeming that the essential ceremonies of one Palace
+would differ from those of another, no matter in what land they stood
+(while through all I read a clear design on Sir Philip’s part that
+the opportunity was craftily arranged so that I might impress upon any
+vindictively-intentioned spirits within hearing an assumption of high
+protection), I replied that the gathering had been one of unparalleled
+splendour, both by reason of the multitude of exalted nobles present
+and also owing to the jewelled magnificence lavished on every detail.
+Furthermore, I continued, now definitely abandoning all the promptings
+of a wise reserve, and reflecting, as we say, that one may as well be
+drowned in the ocean as in a wooden bucket, not only did the sublime and
+unapproachable sovereign graciously permit me to kow-tow respectfully
+before him, but subsequently calling me to his side beneath a canopy of
+golden radiance, he conversed genially with me and benevolently assured
+me of his sympathetic favour on all occasions (this, I conjectured,
+would certainly overawe any Evil Force not among the very highest
+circles), while the no less magnanimous Prince of the Imperial Line
+questioned me with flattering assiduousness concerning a method of
+communicating with persons at a distance by means of blows or stamps
+upon a post (as far as the outer meaning conveyed itself to me), the
+houses which we build, and whether they contained an adequate provision
+of enclosed spaces in the walls.
+
+Doubtless I could have continued in this praiseworthy spirit of delicate
+cordiality to an indefinite amount had I not chanced to observe at this
+point that the expression of Sir Philip’s urbanity had become entangled
+in a variety of other emotions, not all propitious to the scheme,
+so that in order to retire imperceptibly within myself I smiled
+broad-mindedly, remarking that it was well said that the moon was only
+bright while the sun was hid, and that I had lately been dazzled with
+the sight of so much brilliance and virtuous condescension that
+there were occasions when I questioned inwardly how much I had really
+witnessed, and how much had been conveyed to me in the nature of an
+introspective vision.
+
+It will already have been made plain to you, O my courtly-mannered
+father, that these barbarians are totally deficient in the polite
+art whereby two persons may carry on a flattering and highly-attuned
+conversation, mutually advantageous to the esteem of each, without it
+being necessary in any way that their statements should have more than
+an ornamental actuality. So wanting in this, the most concentrated form
+of truly well-bred entertainment, are even their high officials,
+that after a few more remarks, to which I made answer in a spirit of
+skilfully-sustained elusiveness, the utterly obtuse Sir Philip said at
+length, “Excuse my asking, Mr. Kong, but have you really been to the
+Alexandra Palace at all?”
+
+Admittedly there are few occasions in life on which it is not possible
+to fail to see the inopportune or low-class by a dignified impassiveness
+of features, an adroitly-directed jest, or a remark of baffling
+inconsequence, but in the face of so distressingly straightforward a
+demand what can be advanced by a person of susceptible refinement when
+opposed to one of incomparably larger dimensions, imprisoned by his side
+in the recess of a fire-chariot which is leaping forward with uncurbed
+velocity, and surrounded by demons with whose habits and partialities he
+is unfamiliar?
+
+“In a manner of expressing the circumstance,” I replied, “it is not to
+be denied that this person’s actual footsteps may have imperceptibly
+been drawn somewhat aside from the path of his former design. Yet
+inasmuch as it is truly said that the body is in all things subservient
+to the mind, and is led withersoever it is willed, and as your engaging
+directions were scrupulously observed with undeviating fidelity, it
+would be impertinently self-opinionated on this person’s part to
+imply that they failed to guide him to his destination. Thus, for all
+ceremonial purposes, it is permissible conscientiously to assume that he
+HAS been there.”
+
+“I am afraid that I must not have been sufficiently clear,” said Sir
+Philip. “Did you miss the train at King’s Cross?”
+
+“By no means,” I replied firmly, pained inwardly that he should cast the
+shadow of such narrow incompetence upon me. “Seeing this machine on the
+point of setting forth on a journey, even as your overwhelming
+sagacity had enabled you to predict would be the case, I embarked with
+self-reliant confidence.”
+
+“Good lord!” murmured the person opposite, beginning to manifest an
+excess of emotion for which I was quite unable to account. “Then you
+have been in this train--your actual footsteps I mean, Mr. Kong; not
+your ceremonial abstract subliminal ego--ever since?”
+
+To this I replied that his words shone like the moon at midnight with
+scintillating points of truth; adding, however, as the courtesies of
+the occasion required, that I had been so impressed with the many-sided
+brilliance of his conversation earlier in the day as to render the
+flight of time practically unnoticed by me.
+
+“But did it never occur to you to ask at one of the stations?” he
+demanded, still continuing to wave his hands incapably from side to
+side. “Any of the porters would have told you.”
+
+“Kong Li Heng, the founder of our line, who was really great, has been
+dead eleven centuries, and no single fact or incident connected with his
+life has been preserved to influence mankind,” I replied. “How much less
+will it matter, then, even in so limited a space of time as a hundred
+years, in what fashion so insignificant a person as the one before you
+acted on any occasion, and why, therefore, should he distress himself
+unnecessarily to any precise end?” In this manner I sought to place
+before him the dignified example of an imperturbability which can be
+maintained in every emergency, and at the same time to administer a
+plain yet scrupulously-sheathed rebuke; for the inauspicious manner in
+which he had first drawn me on to speak confidently of the ceremonies of
+the Royal Palace and then held up my inadequacy to undeserved contempt
+had not rejoiced my imagination, and I was still uncertain how much to
+claim, and whether, perchance, even yet a more subtle craft lay under
+all.
+
+“Well, in any case, when you go back you can claim the distinction of
+having been taken seven times round London, although you can’t really
+have seen much of it,” said Sir Philip. “This is a Circle train.”
+
+At this assertion I looked up. Though admittedly curved a little about
+the roof the chariot was in every essential degree what we should
+pronounce to be a square one; whereupon, feeling at length that the
+involvement had definitely passed to a point beyond my contemptible
+discernment, I spread out my hands acquiescently and affably remarked
+that the days were lengthening out pleasantly.
+
+In such a manner I became acquainted with the one Sir Philip, and
+thereby, in a somewhat circuitous line, the original purpose which
+possessed my brush when I began this inept and commonplace letter
+is reached; for the person in question not only lay upon himself the
+obligation of leading me “by the strings of his apron-garment”--in the
+characteristic and fanciful turn of the barbarian language--to that same
+Palace on the following day, but thenceforth gracefully affecting to
+discern certain agreeable virtues in my conversation and custom of habit
+he frequently sought me out. More recently, on the double plea that they
+of his household had a desire to meet me, and that if I spent all my
+time within the Capital my impressions of the Island would necessarily
+be ill-balanced and deformed, he advanced a project that I should
+accompany him to a spot where, as far as I was competent to grasp
+the idiom, he was in the habit of sitting (doubtless in an abstruse
+reverie), in the country; and having assured myself by means of discreet
+innuendo that the seat referred to would be adequate for this person
+also, and that the occasion did not in any way involve a payment of
+money, I at once expressed my willingness towards the adventure.
+
+With numerous expressions of unfeigned regret (from a filial point of
+view) that the voice of one of the maidens of the household, lifted
+in the nature of a defiance against this one to engage with her in a
+two-handed conflict of hong pong, obliges him to bring this immature
+composition to a hasty close.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER X
+
+
+ Concerning the authority of this high official, Sir Philip.
+ The side-slipperyness of barbarian etiquette. The hurl-
+ headlong sportiveness and that achieving its end by means of
+ curved mallets.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--If this person’s memory is accurately poised on the
+detail, he was compelled to abandon his former letter (when on the point
+of describing the customs of these outer places), in order to take part
+in a philosophical discussion with some of the venerable sages of the
+neighbourhood.
+
+Resuming the narration where it had reached this remote province of
+the Empire, it is a suitable opportunity to explain that this same
+Sir Philip is here greeted on every side with marks of deferential
+submission, and is undoubtedly an official of high button, for whenever
+the inclination seizes him he causes prisoners to be sought out, and
+then proceeds to administer justice impartially upon them. In the case
+of the wealthy and those who have face to lose, the matter is generally
+arranged, to his profit and to the satisfaction of all, by the payment
+of an adequate sum of money, after the invariable custom of our own
+mandarincy. When this incentive to leniency is absent it is usual to
+condemn the captive to imprisonment in a cell (it is denied officially,
+but there is no reason to doubt that a large earthenware vessel is
+occasionally used for this purpose,) for varying periods, though it is
+notorious that in the case of the very necessitous they are sometimes
+set freely at liberty, and those who took them publicly reprimanded for
+accusing persons from whose condition no possible profit could arise.
+This confinement is seldom inflicted for a longer period than seven,
+fourteen, or twenty-one days (these being lucky numbers,) except in the
+case of those who have been held guilty of ensnaring certain birds and
+beasts which appear to be regarded as sacred, for they have their duly
+appointed attendants who wear a garb and are trained in the dexterous
+use of arms, lurking with loaded weapons in secret places to catch the
+unwary, both by night and day. Upheld by the high nature of their office
+these persons shrink from no encounter and even suffer themselves to be
+killed with resolute unconcern; but when successful they are not denied
+an efficient triumph, for it is admitted that those whom they capture
+are marked men from that time (doubtless being branded upon the body
+with the name of their captor), and no future defence is availing. The
+third punishment, that of torture, is reserved for a class of solitary
+mendicants who travel from place to place, doubtless spreading the germs
+of an inflammatory doctrine of rebellion, for, owing to my own degraded
+obtuseness, the actual nature of their crimes could never be made clear
+to me. Of the tortures employed that known in their language as the
+“bath” (for which we have no real equivalent,) is the most dreaded, and
+this person has himself beheld men of gigantic proportions, whose bodies
+bore the stain of a voluntary endurance to every privation, abandon
+themselves to a most ignoble despair upon hearing the ill-destined word.
+Unquestionably the infliction is closely connected with our own ordeal
+of boiling water, but from other indications it is only reasonable to
+admit that there is an added ingredient, of which we probably have no
+knowledge, whereby the effect is enhanced in every degree, and the outer
+surface of the victim rendered more vulnerable. There is also another
+and milder form of torture, known as the “task”, consisting either of
+sharp-edged stones being broken upon the body, or else the body broken
+upon sharp-edged stones, but precisely which is the official etiquette
+of the case this person’s insatiable passion for accuracy and his
+short-sighted limitations among the more technical outlines of the
+language, prevent him from stating definitely.
+
+Let it here be openly confessed that the intricately-arranged titles
+used among these islanders, and the widely-varying dignities which they
+convey, have never ceased to embarrass my greetings on all occasions,
+and even yet, when a more crystal insight into their strangely illogical
+manners enables me not only to understand them clearly myself, but
+also to expound their significance to others, a necessary reticence is
+blended with my most profuse cordiality, and my salutations to one whom
+I am for the first time encountering are now so irreproachably balanced,
+that I can imperceptibly develop them into an engaging effusion, or,
+without actual offence, draw back into a condition of unapproachable
+exclusiveness as the necessity may arise. With us, O my immaculate sire,
+a yellow silk umbrella has for three thousand years denoted a fixed and
+recognisable title. A mandarin of the sixth degree need not hesitate to
+mingle on terms of assured equality with other mandarins of the sixth
+degree, and without any guide beyond a seemly instinct he perceives
+the reasonableness of assuming a deferential obsequiousness before a
+mandarin of the fifth rank, and a counterbalancing arrogance when in the
+society of an official who has only risen to the seventh degree, thus
+conforming to that essential principle of harmonious intercourse,
+“Remember that Chang Chow’s ceiling is Tong Wi’s floor”; but who shall
+walk with even footsteps in a land where the most degraded may legally
+bear the same distinguished name as that of the enlightened sovereign
+himself, where the admittedly difficult but even more purposeless
+achievement of causing a gold mine to float is held to be more
+praiseworthy than to pass a competitive examination or to compose a
+poem of inimitable brilliance, and where one wearing gilt buttons and an
+emblem in his hat proves upon ingratiating approach not to be a powerful
+official but a covetous and illiterate slave of inferior rank?
+Thus, through their own narrow-minded inconsistencies, even the most
+ceremoniously-proficient may at times present an ill-balanced attitude.
+This, without reproach to himself, concerns the inward cause whereby
+the one who is placed to you in the relation of an affectionate and
+ever-resourceful son found unexpectedly that he had lost the benignant
+full face of a lady of exalted title.
+
+At that time I had formed the acquaintance, in an obscure quarter of the
+city, of one who wore a uniform, and was addressed on all sides as the
+commander of a band, while the gold letters upon the neck part of his
+outer garment inevitably suggested that he had borne an honourable share
+in the recent campaign in a distant land. As I had frequently met many
+of similar rank drinking tea at the house of the engaging countess to
+whom I have alluded, I did not hesitate to prevail upon this Captain
+Miggs to accompany me there upon an occasion also, assuring him of
+equality and a sympathetic reception; but from the moment of our
+arrival the attitudes of those around pointed to the existence of some
+unpropitious barrier invisible to me, and when the one with whom I was
+associated took up an unassailable position upon the central table,
+and began to speak authoritatively upon the subject of The Virtues,
+the unenviable condition of the proud and affluent, and the myriads of
+fire-demons certainly laying in wait for those who partook of spiced tea
+and rich foods in the afternoon, and did not wear a uniform similar to
+his own, I began to recognise that the selection had been inauspiciously
+arranged. Upon taxing some around with the discrepancy (as there seemed
+to be no more dignified way of evading the responsibility), they were
+unable to contend against me that there were, indeed, two, if not more,
+distinct varieties of those bearing the rank of captain, and that they
+themselves belonged to an entirely different camp, wearing another
+dress, and possessing no authority to display the symbol of the letters
+S.A. upon their necks. With this admission I was content to leave the
+matter, in no way accusing them of actual duplicity, yet so withdrawing
+that any of unprejudiced standing could not fail to carry away the
+impression that I had been the victim of an unworthy artifice, and had
+been lured into their society by the pretext that they were other than
+what they really were.
+
+With the bitter-flavoured memory of this, and other in no way dissimilar
+episodes, lingering in my throat, it need not be a matter of conjecture
+that for a time I greeted warily all who bore a title, a mark of rank,
+or any similar appendage; who wore a uniform, weapon, brass helmet,
+jewelled crown, coat of distinctive colour, or any excessive superfluity
+of pearl or metal buttons; who went forth surrounded by a retinue, sat
+publicly in a chair or allegorical chariot, spoke loudly in the highways
+and places in a tone of official pronouncement, displayed any feather,
+emblem, inscribed badge, or printed announcement upon a pole, or in any
+way conducted themselves in what we should esteem to be fitting to
+a position of high dignity. From this arose the absence of outward
+enthusiasm with which I at first received Sir Philip’s extended
+favour; for although I had come to distrust all the reasonable signs of
+established power, I distrusted, to a much more enhanced degree, their
+complete absence; and when I observed that the one in question was never
+accompanied by a band of musicians or flower-strewers, that he mingled
+as though on terms of familiar intercourse with the ordinary passers-by
+in the streets, and never struck aside those who chanced to impede
+his progress, and that he actually preferred those of low condition to
+approach him on their feet, rather than in the more becoming attitude
+of unconditional prostration, I reasoned with myself whether indeed he
+could consistently be a person of well-established authority, or whether
+I was not being again led away from my self-satisfaction by another
+obliquity of barbarian logic. It was for this reason that I now welcomed
+the admitted power which he has of incriminating persons in a variety
+of punishable offences, and I perceived with an added satisfaction
+that here, where this privilege is more fully understood, few meet him
+without raising their hands to the upper part of their heads in token of
+unquestioning submission; or, as one would interpret the symbolism into
+actual words, meaning, “Thus, from this point to the underneath part of
+our sandals, all between lies in the hollow of your comprehensive hand.”
+
+
+There is a written jest among another barbarian nation that these among
+whom I am tarrying, being by nature a people who take their pleasures
+tragically, when they rise in the morning say, one to another, “Come,
+behold; it is raining again as usual; let us go out and kill somebody.”
+ Undoubtedly the pointed end of this adroit-witted saying may be found
+in the circumstance that it is, indeed, as the proverb aptly claims,
+raining on practically every occasion in life; while, to complete the
+comparison, for many dynasties past this nation has been successfully
+engaged in killing people (in order to promote their ultimate benefit
+through a momentary inconvenience,) in every part of the world. Thus
+the lines of parallel thought maintain a harmonious balance beyond the
+general analogy of their sayings; but beneath this may be found an even
+subtler edge, for in order to inure themselves to the requirement of a
+high destiny their various games and manners of disportment are, with a
+set purpose, so rigorously contested that in their progress most of the
+weak and inefficient are opportunely exterminated.
+
+There is a favourite and well-attended display wherein two opposing
+bands, each clad in robes of a distinctive colour, stand in extended
+lines of mutual defiance, and at a signal impetuously engage. The
+design of each is by force or guile to draw their opponents into an
+unfavourable position before an arch of upright posts, and then surging
+irresistibly forward, to carry them beyond the limit and hurl them to
+the ground. Those who successfully inflict this humiliation upon their
+adversaries until they are incapable of further resistance are hailed
+victorious, and sinking into a graceful attitude receive each a golden
+cup from the magnanimous hands of a maiden chose to the service, either
+on account of her peerless outline, the dignified position of her House,
+or (should these incentives be obviously wanting,) because the chief
+ones of her family are in the habit of contributing unstintingly to the
+equipment of the triumphal band. There is also another kind of strife,
+differing in its essentials only so far that all who engage therein are
+provided with a curved staff, with which they may dexterously draw their
+antagonists beyond the limits, or, should they fail to defend themselves
+adequately, break the smaller bones of their ankles. But this form of
+encounter, despite the use of these weapons, is really less fatal
+than the other, for it is not a permissible act to club an antagonist
+resentfully about the head with the staff, nor yet even to thrust
+it rigidly against his middle body. From this moderation the public
+countenance extended to the curved-pole game is contemptibly meagre when
+viewed by the side of the overwhelming multitudes which pour along every
+channel in order to witness a more than usually desperate trial of the
+hurl-headlong variety (the sight, indeed, being as attractive to these
+pale, blood-thirsty foreigners as an unusually large execution is
+with us), and as a consequence the former is little reputed save among
+maidens, the feeble, and those of timorous instincts.
+
+Thus positioned, regarding a knowledge of their outside amusements, it
+has always been one of the most prominent ambitions of this person’s
+strategy to avoid being drawn into any encounter. At the same time,
+the thought that the maidens of the household here (of whom there are
+several, all so attractively proportioned that to compare them in a
+spirit of definite preference would be distastefully presumptuous to
+this person,) should regard me as one lacking in a sufficient display
+of violence was not fragrant to my sense of refinement; so that when
+Sir Philip, a little time after our arrival, related to me that on the
+following day he and a chosen band were to be engaged in the match of a
+cricket game against adversaries from the village, and asked whether I
+cared to bear a part in the strife, I grasped the muscles of the upper
+part of my left arm with my right hand--as I had frequently seen the
+hardy and virile do when the subject of their powers had been raised
+questioningly--and replied that I had long concealed an insatiable wish
+to take such a part at a point where the conflict would be the most
+revengefully contested.
+
+Being thus inflexibly committed it became very necessary to arrange a
+well-timed intervention (whether in the nature of bodily disorder, fire,
+or demoniacal upheaval, a warning omen, or the death of some of our
+chief antagonists), but before doing so I was desirous of understanding
+how this contest, which had hitherto remained outside my experience, was
+waged.
+
+There is here one of benevolent rotundity in whose authority lie the
+cavernous stores beneath the house and the vessels of gold and silver;
+of menial rank admittedly, yet exacting a seemly deference from all
+by the rich urbanity of his voice and the dignity of his massive
+proportions. In the affable condescension of his tone, and the
+discriminating encouragement of his attitude towards me on all
+occasions, I have read a sympathetic concern over my welfare. Him I now
+approached, and taking him aside, I first questioned him flatteringly
+about his age and the extent of his yearly recompense, and then casually
+inquired what in his language he would describe the nature of a cricket
+to be.
+
+“A cricket?” repeated the obliging person readily; “a cricket, sir, is a
+hinsect. Something, I take it, after the manner of a grass-’opper.”
+
+“Truly,” I agreed. “It is aptly likened. And, to continue the simile, a
+game cricket--?”
+
+“A game cricket?” he replied; “well, sir, naturally a game one would be
+more gamier than the others, wouldn’t it?”
+
+“The inference is unflinching,” I admitted, and after successfully
+luring away his mind from any significance in the inquiry by asking him
+whether the gift of a lacquered coffin or an embroidered shroud would be
+the more regarded on parting, I left him.
+
+His words, esteemed, for a definite reason were as the jade-clappered
+melody of a silver bell. This trial of sportiveness, it became
+clear,--less of a massacre than most of their amusements--is really
+a rivalry of leapings and dexterity of the feet: a conflict of game
+crickets or grass-hoppers, in the somewhat wide-angled obscurity of
+their language, or, as we would more appropriately call it doubtless,
+a festive competition in the similitude of high-spirited locusts. To
+whatever degree the surrounding conditions might vary, there could no
+longer be a doubt that the power of leaping high into the air was
+the essential constituent of success in this barbarian match of
+crickets--and in such an accomplishment this person excelled from the
+time of his youth with a truly incredible proficiency. Can it be a
+reproach, then, that when I considered this, and saw in a vision the
+contempt of inferiority which I should certainly be able to inflict
+upon these native crickets before the eyes of their maidens, even
+the accumulated impassiveness of thirty-seven generations of Kong
+fore-fathers broke down for the moment, and unable to restrain every
+vestige of emotion I crept unperceived to the ancestral hall of Sir
+Philip and there shook hands affectionately with myself before each of
+the nine ironclad warriors about its walls before I could revert to
+a becoming state of trustworthy unconcern. That night in my own upper
+chamber I spent many hours in testing my powers and studying more
+remarkable attitudes of locust flight, and I even found to be within
+myself some new attainments of life-like agility, such as feigning the
+continuous note of defiance with which the insect meets his adversary,
+as remaining poised in the air for an appreciable moment at the summit
+of each leap, and of conveying to the body a sudden and disconcerting
+sideway movement in the course of its ascent. So immersed did I become
+in the achievement of a high perfection that, to my never-ending
+self-reproach, I failed to notice a supernatural visitation of undoubted
+authenticity; for the next morning it was widely admitted that a certain
+familiar demon of the house, which only manifests its presence on
+occasions of tragic omen, had been heard throughout the night in
+warning, not only beating its head and body against the walls and
+doors in despair, but raising from time to time a wailing cry of
+soul-benumbing bitterness.
+
+With every assurance that the next letter, though equally distorted
+in style and immature in expression, will contain the record of a
+deteriorated but ever upward-striving son’s ultimate triumph.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XI
+
+
+ Concerning the game which we should call “Locusts,” and the
+ deeper significance of its acts. The solicitous warning of
+ one passing inwards and the complication occasioned by his
+ ill-chosen words. Concerning that victory already dimly
+ foreshadowed.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--This barbarian game of agile grass-hoppers is not
+conducted in the best spirit of a really well-balanced display, and
+although the one now inscribing his emotions certainly achieved a wide
+popularity, and wore his fig leaves with becoming modesty, he has never
+since been quite free from an overhanging doubt that the compliments and
+genial remarks with which he was assailed owed their modulation to an
+unsubstantial atmosphere of two-edged significance which for a period
+enveloped all whom he approached; as in the faces of maidens concealed
+behind fans when he passed, the down-drawn lips and up-raised eyes
+of those of fuller maturity, the practice in most of his own kind
+of turning aside, pressing their hands about their middle parts, and
+bending forward into a swollen attitude devoid of grace, on the spur of
+a sudden remembrance, and in the auspicious but undeniably embarrassing
+manner in which all the unfledged ones of the village clustered about
+his retiring footsteps, saluting him continually as one “James,” upon
+whom had been conferred the gratifying title of “Sunny.” Thus may the
+outline of the combat be recounted.
+
+From each opposing group eleven were chosen as a band, and we of our
+company putting on a robe of distinctive green (while they elected to
+be regarded as an assemblage of brown crickets), we presently came to a
+suitable spot where the trial was to be decided. So far this person
+had reasonably assumed that at a preconcerted signal the contest would
+begin, all rising into the air together, uttering cries of menace,
+bounding unceasingly and in every way displaying the dexterity of our
+proportions. Indeed, in the reasonableness of this expectation it cannot
+be a matter for reproach to one of the green grass-hoppers--who need not
+be further indicated--that he had already begun a well-simulated note
+of challenge to those around clad in brown, and to leap upwards in
+a preparatory essay, when the ever-alert Sir Philip took him
+affectionately by the arm, on the plea that the seclusion of a
+neighbouring pavilion afforded a desirable shade.
+
+Beyond that point it is difficult to convey an accurately grouped and
+fully spread-out design of the encounter. In itself the scheme and
+intention of counterfeiting the domestic life and rivalries of two
+opposing bands of insects was pleasantly conceived, and might have been
+carried out with harmonious precision, but, after the manner of these
+remote tribes, the original project had been overshadowed and the purity
+of the imagination lost beneath a mass of inconsistent detail. To
+this imperfection must it be laid that when at length this person was
+recalled from the obscurity of the pagoda and the alluring society of
+a maiden of the village, to whom he was endeavouring to expound the
+strategy of the game, and called upon to engage actively in it, he
+courteously admitted to those who led him forth that he had not the most
+shadowy-outlined idea of what was required of him.
+
+Nevertheless they bound about his legs a frilled armour, ingeniously
+fashioned to represent the ribbed leanness of the insect’s shank,
+encased his hands and feet in covers to a like purpose, and pressing
+upon him a wooden club indicated that the time had come for him to
+prove his merit by venturing alone into the midst of the eleven brown
+adversaries who stood at a distance in poised and expectant attitudes.
+
+Assuredly, benignant one, this sport of contending locusts began, as one
+approached nearer to it, to wear no more pacific a face than if it had
+been a carnage of the hurl-headlong or the curved-hook varieties. In
+such a competition, it occurred to him, how little deference would be
+paid to this one’s title of “Established Genius,” or how inadequately
+would he be protected by his undoubted capacity of leaping upwards,
+and even in a sideway direction, for no matter how vigorously he
+might propel himself, or how successfully he might endeavour to remain
+self-sustained in the air, the ill-destined moment could not be long
+deferred when he must come down again into the midst of the eleven--all
+doubtless concealing weapons as massive and fatally-destructive as his
+own. This prospect, to a person of quiescent taste, whose chief
+delight lay in contemplating the philosophical subtleties of the higher
+Classics, was in itself devoid of glamour, but with what funereal
+pigments shall he describe his sinking emotions when one of his own
+band, approaching him as he went, whispered in his ear, “Look out at
+this end; they kick up like the very devil. And their man behind the
+wicket is really smart; if you give him half a chance he’ll have
+your stumps down before you can say ‘knife.’” Shorn of its uncouth
+familiarity, this was a charitable warning that they into whose
+stronghold I was turning my footsteps--perhaps first deceiving my
+alertness with a proffered friendship--would kick with the ferocity of
+untamed demons, and that one in particular, whose description, to my
+added despair, I was unable to retain, was known to possess a formidable
+knife, with which it was his intention to cut off this person’s legs at
+the first opportunity, before he could be accused of the act. Truly, “To
+one whom he would utterly destroy Buddha sends a lucky dream.”
+
+Behind lay the pagoda (though the fact that this one did admittedly turn
+round for a period need not be too critically dwelt upon), with three
+tiers of maidens, some already waving their hands as an encouraging
+token; on each side a barrier of prickly growth inopportunely presented
+itself, while in front the eleven kicking crickets stood waiting, and
+among them lurked the one grasping a doubly-edged blade of a highly
+proficient keenness.
+
+There are occasional moments in the life of a person when he has the
+inward perception of retiring for a few paces and looking back in order
+to consider his general appearance and to judge how he is situated
+with regard to himself, to review his past life in a spirit of judicial
+severity, to arrange definitely upon a future composed entirely of acts
+of benevolence, and to examine the working of destiny at large. In such
+a scrutiny I now began to understand that it would perhaps have been
+more harmonious to my love of contemplative repose if I had considered
+the disadvantages closer before venturing into this barbarian region,
+or, at least, if I had used the occasion profitably to advance an
+argument tending towards a somewhat fuller allowance of taels from your
+benevolent sleeve. Our own virtuous and flower-strewn land, it is true,
+does not possess an immunity from every trifling drawback. The Hoang
+Ho--to concede specifically the existence of some of these--frequently
+bursts through its restraining barriers and indiscriminately sweeps
+away all those who are so ill-advised as to dwell within reach of its
+malignant influence. From time to time wars and insurrections are found
+to be necessary, and no matter how morally-intentioned and humanely
+conducted, they necessarily result in the violation, dismemberment or
+extirpation of many thousand polite and dispassionate persons who have
+no concern with either side. Towns are repeatedly consumed by fire,
+districts scourged by leprosy, and provinces swept by famine. The storms
+are admittedly more fatal than elsewhere, the thunderbolts larger, more
+numerous, and all unerringly directed, while the extremities of heat and
+cold render life really uncongenial for the greater part of each year.
+The poor, having no money to secure justice, are evilly used, whereas
+the wealthy, having too much, are assailed legally by the gross
+and powerful for the purpose of extorting their riches. Robbers and
+assassins lurk in every cave; vast hoards of pirates blacken the surface
+of every river; and mandarins of the nine degrees must make a livelihood
+by some means or other. By day, therefore, it is inadvisable to go forth
+and encounter human beings, while none but the shallow-headed would risk
+a meeting with the countless demons and vampires which move by night. To
+one who has spent many moons among these foreign apparitions the absence
+of drains, roads, illustrated message-parchments, maidens whose voices
+may be heard protesting upon ringing a wire, loaves of conflicting
+dimensions, persons who strive to put their faces upon every
+advertisement, pens which emit fountains when carried in the pocket,
+a profusion of make-strong foods, and an Encyclopaedia Mongolia, may
+undoubtedly be mentioned as constituting a material deficiency. Affairs
+are not being altogether reputably conducted during the crisis; it can
+never be quite definitely asserted what the next action of the versatile
+and high-spirited Dowager Empress will be; and here it is freely
+contended that the Pure and Immortal Empire is incapable of remaining
+in one piece for much longer. These, and other inconveniences of a like
+nature, which the fastidious might distort into actual hardships, have
+never been denied, yet at no period of the nine thousand years of our
+civilisation has it been the custom to lure out the unwary, on the plea
+of an agreeable entertainment, and then to abandon him into the society
+of eleven club-bearing adversaries, one of whom may be depicted as in
+the act of imparting an unnecessary polish to the edge of his already
+preternaturally acute weapon, while those of his own band offer no
+protection, and three tiers of very richly-dressed maidens encourage him
+to his fate by refined gestures of approval.
+
+Doubtless this person had unconsciously allowed his inner meditations
+to carry him away, as it may be expressed, for when he emerged from this
+strain of reverie it was to discover himself in the chariot-road and--so
+incongruously may be the actions when the controlling intelligence is
+withdrawn--even proceeding at a somewhat undignified pace in a direction
+immediately opposed to an encounter with the brown locusts. From
+this mortifying position he was happily saved by emerging from these
+thought-dreams before it was too late to return, and, also, if the
+detail is not too insignificant to be related, by the fact that certain
+chosen runners from his own company had reached a point in the road
+before him, and now stood joining their outstretched arms across the
+passage and raising gravity-dispelling cries. Smiling acquiescently,
+therefore, this person returned in their midst, and receiving a new
+weapon, his own club having been absent-mindedly mislaid, he again set
+forth warily to the encounter.
+
+Yet in this he did not altogether neglect a discreet prudence. The
+sympathetic person to whom he was indebted for the pointed allusion had
+specifically declared that they who used their feet with the desperate
+savagery of baffled spectres guarded the nearer limits of their
+position, the intention of his timely hint assuredly being that I should
+seek to approach from the opposite end, where, doubtless, the more
+humane and conciliatory grass-hoppers were assembled. Thus guided I now
+set forth in a widely-circuitous direction, having the point where I
+meant to open an attack clearly before my eyes, yet seeking to deliver
+a more effective onslaught by reaching it to some extent unperceived and
+to this end creeping forward in the protecting shadow of the long grass
+and untrimmed herbage.
+
+Whether the one already referred to had incapably failed to express his
+real meaning, or whether he was tremulous by nature and inordinately
+self-deficient, concerns the narration less than the fact that he had
+admittedly produced a state of things largely in excess of the actual.
+There is no longer any serviceable pretext for maintaining that
+those guarding any point of their position were other than mild and
+benevolent, while the only edged weapon displayed was one courteously
+produced to aid this person’s ineffectual struggles to extricate himself
+when, by some obscure movement, he had most ignobly entangled his
+pigtail about the claws of his sandal.
+
+Ignorant of this, the true state of things, I was still advancing subtly
+when one wearing the emblems of our band appeared from among the brown
+insects and came towards me. “Courage!” I exclaimed in a guarded tone,
+raising my head cautiously and rejoiced to find that I should not be
+alone. “Here is one clad in green bearing succour, who will, moreover,
+obstinately defend his stumps to the last extremity.”
+
+“That’s right,” replied the opportune person agreeably; “we need a few
+like that. But do get up on your hind legs and come along, there’s a
+good fellow. You can play at bears in the nursery when we get back, if
+you want.”
+
+Certainly one can simulate the movements of wild animals in a
+market-garden if the impersonation is thought to be desirable, yet
+the reasonable analogy of the saying is elusive in the extreme, and
+I followed the ally who had thus betrayed my presence with a deep-set
+misgiving although in the absence of a more trustworthy guide, and in
+the suspicion that some point of my every ordinary strategy had been
+inept, I was compelled to mould myself identically into his advice.
+
+Scarcely had he left me, and I was endeavouring to dispel any idea of
+treachery towards those about by actions of graceful courtesy, when
+one--unworthy of burial--standing a score of paces distant, (to whom,
+indeed, this person was at the moment bowing with almost passionate
+vehemence, inspired by the conviction that he, for his part, was
+engaged in a like attention,) suddenly cast a missile--which, somewhat
+double-facedly, he had hitherto held concealed in his closed hand--with
+undeviating force and accuracy. So unexpected was the movement,
+so painfully-impressed the vindictive contact, that I should have
+instinctively seized the offensively-directed object and contemptuously
+hurled it back again, if the consequence of the blow had not deprived
+my mind of all retaliatory ambitions. In this emergency was manifested
+a magnanimous act worthy of the incense of a poem, for a person standing
+immediately by, seeing how this one was balanced in his emotions, picked
+up the missile, and although one of the foremost of the opposing band,
+very obligingly flung it back at the assailant. Even an outcast would
+not have passed this without a suitable tribute, and turning to him,
+I was remarking appreciatively that men were not divided by seas and
+wooden barriers, but by the unchecked and conflicting lusts of the mind,
+when the unclean and weed-nurtured traitor twenty paces distant, taking
+a degraded advantage from this person’s attitude, again propelled his
+weapon with an even more concentrated perfidy than before. At this new
+outrage every brown cricket shrank from the attitude of alert vigour
+which hitherto he had maintained, and as though to disassociate
+themselves from the stain of complicity all crossed over and took up new
+positions.
+
+Up to this point, majestic head, in order to represent the adventure
+in its proper sequence, it has been advisable to present the details as
+they arose before the eyes of a reliable and dispassionate gazer. Now,
+however, it is no less seemly to declare that this barbarian sport
+of leaping insects is not so discreditably shallow as it had at first
+appeared, while in every action there may be found an apt but hidden
+symbol. Thus the presence of the two green locusts in the midst of
+others of a dissimilar nature represents the unending strife by which
+even the most pacific are ever surrounded. The fragile erection of
+sticks (behind which this person at first sought to defend himself
+until led into a more exposed position by one garbed in white,) may be
+regarded as the home and altar, and adequately depicts the hollowness
+of the protection it affords and the necessity of reliantly emerging to
+defy an invader rather than lurking discreditably among its recesses.
+The missile is the equivalent of a precise and immediate danger, the
+wooden club the natural instinct for defence with which all living
+creatures are endowed, so that when the peril is for the time driven
+away the opportunity is at hand for the display of virtuous amusements,
+the exchanging of hospitality, and the beating of professional drums as
+we would say. Thus, at the next attack the one sharing the enterprise
+with me struck the missile so proficiently that its recovery engaged the
+attention of all our adversaries, and then began to exhibit his powers
+by running and leaping towards me. Recognising that the actual moment of
+the display had arrived, this person at once emitted a penetrating cry
+of concentrated challenge, and also began to leap upwards and about,
+and with so much energy that the highly achieved limits of his flight
+surprised even himself.
+
+As for the bystanders, esteemed, those who opposed us, and the members
+of our own band, although this leaping sportiveness is a competition
+more regarded and practised among all orders than the pursuit of
+commercial eminence, or even than the allurements of the sublimest
+Classics, it may be truly imagined that never before had they witnessed
+so remarkable a game cricket. From the pagoda a loud cry of wonder
+acclaimed the dexterity of this person’s efforts; the three tiers of
+maidens climbed one upon another in their anxiety to lose no detail of
+the adventure, and outstanders from distant points began to assemble.
+The brown enemy at once abandoned themselves to a panic, and for the
+most part cast themselves incapably to the ground, rolling from side to
+side in an access of emotion; the two arbiters clad in white conferred
+together, doubtless on the uselessness of further contest, while the
+ally who had summoned me to take a part instead of being encouraged to
+display his agility in a like manner continued to run slavishly from
+point to point, while I overcame the distances in a series of inspired
+bounds.
+
+In the meanwhile the sounds of encouragement from the ever-increasing
+multitude grew like the falling of a sudden coast storm among the ripe
+leaves of a tea-plantation, and with them the voices of many calling
+upon my name and inciting me to further and even higher achievements
+reached my ears. Not to grow small in the eyes of these estimable
+persons I continued in my flight, and abandoning all set movements and
+limits, I began to traverse the field in every direction, becoming more
+proficient with each effort, imparting to myself a sideway and even
+backward motion while yet in the upper spaces, remaining poised for an
+appreciable period, and lightly, yet with graceful ease, avoiding the
+embraces of those who would have detained me. Undoubtedly I could have
+maintained this supremacy until our band might justly have claimed the
+reward, had not the flattering cries of approval caused an indiscreet
+mistake, for the alarm being spread in the village that a conflagration
+of imposing ferocity was raging, an ornamental chariot conveying a band
+of warriors clad in brass armour presently entered into the strife, and
+discovering no fire to occupy their charitable energies they misguidedly
+honoured this offensive person by propelling a solid column of the
+purest and most refreshing water against his ignoble body when at the
+point of his highest flight. This introduction of a thunderbolt into the
+everyday life of an insect must be of questionable authenticity, yet
+not feeling sufficiently instructed in the lesser details of the
+sportiveness to challenge the device, I suffered myself to be led
+towards the pavilion with no more struggling than enough to remove the
+ignominy of an unresisting surrender, pleasantly remarking to those
+who bore me along that to a person of philosophical poise the written
+destiny was as apparent in the falling leaf as in the rising sun,
+pointing the saying thus: “Although the Desert of Shan-tz is boundless,
+and mankind number a million million, yet in it Li-hing encountered his
+mother-in-law.” Changing to meet another of our company setting forth
+with a club to make the venture, I was permitted for a moment to
+engage him; whereupon thrusting into his hand a leather charm against
+ill-directed efforts, and instructing him to bind it about his head, I
+encouraged him with the imperishable watch-word of the Emperor Tsin Su,
+“The stars are indeed small, but their light carries as far as that of
+the full moon.”
+
+At the steps of the pagoda so great was the throng of those who would
+have overwhelmed me with their gracious attention, that had not this
+person’s neck become practically automatic by ceaseless use of late, he
+would have been utterly unequal to the emergency. As it was, he could
+only bestow a superficial hand-wave upon a company of gold-embroidered
+musicians who greeted his return with appropriate melody, and a glance
+of well-indicated regret that he had no fuller means of conveying his
+complicated emotions, in the direction of the uppermost tier of maidens.
+Then the awaiting Sir Philip took him firmly towards the inner part of
+the pavilion, and announced, so adroitly and with such high-spirited
+vigour had this one maintained the conflict, that it had been resolutely
+agreed on all sides not to make a test of his competence any further.
+
+Thereupon a band of very sumptuously arrayed nymphs drew near with
+offerings of liquid fat and a variety of crimson fruit, which it is
+customary to grind together on the platter--unapproachable in the
+result, certainly, yet incredibly elusive to the unwary in the manner of
+bruising, and practically ineradicable upon the more delicate shades
+of silk garment. In such a situation the one who is now relating the
+various incidents of the day may be imagined by a broad-minded and
+affectionate sire: partaking of this native fruit and oil, and from time
+to time expressing his insatiable anguish that he continually fails
+to become more proficient in controlling the oblique movements of the
+viands, while the less successful crickets are constrained to persevere
+in the combat, and the ever-present note of evasive purport is raised
+by a voice from behind a screen exclaiming, “Out afore? That he may have
+been, but do he think we was a-going to give he out afore? No, maaster,
+us doant a-have a circus every day hereabouts.”
+
+Thus may this imagination of competitive locusts be set forth to
+the end. If a fuller proof of what an unostentatious self-effacement
+hesitates to enlarge upon were required, it might be found in the
+barbarian printed leaf, for the next day this person saw a public record
+of the strife, in which his own name was followed by a numerical emblem
+signifying that he had not stumbled or proved incompetent in any one
+particular. Sir Philip, I beheld with pained surprise, had obtusely
+suffered himself to be caught out in the committal of fifty-nine set
+offences.
+
+With a not unnatural anticipation that, as a result of this painstaking
+description, this person will find two well-equipped camps of contending
+locusts in Yuen-ping on his return.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XII
+
+
+ Concerning the obvious misunderstanding which has entwined
+ itself about a revered parent’s faculties of passionless
+ discrimination. The all-water disportment and the two, of
+ different sexes, who after regarding me conflictingly from
+ the beginning, ended in a like but inverted manner.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--Your gem-adorned letter containing a thousand burnished
+words of profuse reproach has entered my diminished soul in the form
+of an equal number of rusty barbs. Can it be that the incapable
+person whom, as you truly say, you sent, “to observe the philosophical
+subtleties of the barbarians, to study their dynastical records and to
+associate liberally with the venerable and dignified,” has, in your
+own unapproachable felicity of ceremonial expression, “according to
+a discreet whisper from many sources, chiefly affected the society of
+tea-house maidens, the immature of both sexes, doubtful characters of
+all classes, and criminals awaiting trial; has evinced an unswerving
+affinity towards light amusement and entertainments of a no-class kind;
+and in place of a wise aloofness, befitting a wearer of the third Gold
+Button and the Horn Belt-clasp, in situations of critical perplexity,
+seems by his own ingenuous showing to have maintained an unparalleled
+aptitude for behaving either with the crystalline simplicity of a
+Kan-su earth-tiller, or the misplaced buffoonery of a seventh-grade
+body-writher taking the least significant part in an ill-equipped Swatow
+one-cash Hall of Varied Melodies.” Assuredly, if your striking and
+well-chosen metaphors were not more unbalanced than the ungainly
+attitude of a one-legged hunchback crossing a raging torrent by means
+of a slippery plank on a stormy night, they would cause the very acutest
+bitterness to the throat of a dutiful and always high-stepping son.
+There is an apt saying, however, “A quarrel between two soldiers in the
+market-place becomes a rebellion in the outskirts,” and when this person
+remembers that many thousand li of mixed elements flow between him and
+his usually correct and dispassionate sire, he is impelled to take a
+mild and tolerant attitude towards the momentary injustice brought about
+by the weakness of approaching old age, the vile-intentioned mendacity
+of outcasts envious of the House of Kong, and, perchance, the irritation
+brought on by a too lavish indulgence in your favourite dish of stewed
+mouse.
+
+Having thus re-established himself in the clear-sighted affection of an
+ever mild and perfect father, and cleansed the ground of all possible
+misunderstandings in the future, this person will concede the fact that,
+not to stand beneath the faintest shadow of an implied blemish in your
+sympathetic eyes, he had no sooner understood the attitude in which he
+had been presented than he at once plunged into the virtuous society of
+a band of the sombre and benevolent.
+
+These, so far as his intelligence enables him to grasp the position,
+may be reasonably accepted as the barbarian equivalent of those very
+high-minded persons who in our land devote their whole lives secretly
+to killing others whom they consider the chief deities do not really
+approve of; for although they are not permitted here, either by written
+law or by accepted custom, to perform these meritorious actions, they
+are so intimately initiated into the minds and councils of the Upper
+Ones that they are able to pronounce very severe judgments of torture--a
+much heavier penalty than merely being assassinated--upon all who remain
+outside their league. As some of the most objurgatory of these alliances
+do not number more than a score of persons, it is inevitable that the
+ultimate condition of the whole barbarian people must be hazardous in
+the extreme.
+
+Having associated myself with this class sufficiently to escape their
+vindictive pronouncements, and freely professed an unswerving adherence
+to their rites, I next sought out the priests of other altars, intending
+by a seemly avowal to each in turn to safeguard my future existence
+effectually. This I soon discovered to be beyond the capacity of an
+ordinary lifetime, for whereas we, with four hundred million subjects
+find three religions to be sufficient to meet every emergency, these
+irresolute island children, although numbering us only as one to ten,
+vacillate among three hundred; and even amid this profusion it is
+asserted that most of the barbarians are unable to find any temple
+exactly conforming to their requirements, and after writing to the paper
+to announce the fact, abandon the search in despair.
+
+It was while I was becoming proficient in the inner subtleties of one
+of these orders--they who drink water on all occasions and wear a
+badge--that a maiden of some authority among them besought my aid for
+the purpose of amusing a band which she was desirous of propitiating
+into the adoption of this badge. It is possible that in the immature
+confidence of former letters this person may already have alluded to
+certain maidens with words of courteous esteem, but it is now necessary
+to admit finally that in the presence of this same Helena they would
+all appear as an uninviting growth of stunted and deformed poppies
+surrounding a luxuriant chrysanthemum. At the presumptuous thought of
+describing her illimitable excellences my fingers become claw-like in
+their confessed inadequacy to hold a sufficiently upright brush; yet
+without undue confidence it may be set down that her hands resembled the
+two wings of a mandarin drake in their symmetrical and changing motion,
+her hair as light and radiant-pointed as the translucent incense cloud
+floating before the golden Buddha of Shan-Si, thin white satin stretched
+tightly upon polished agate only faintly comparable to her jade cheeks,
+while her eyes were more unfathomable than the crystal waters of the
+Keng-kiang, and within their depths her pure and magnanimous thoughts
+could be dimly seen to glide like the gold and silver carp beneath the
+sacred river.
+
+When this insurpassable being approached me with the flattering
+petition already alluded to, my gratified emotions clashed together
+uncontrollably with the internal feeling of many volcanoes in movement,
+and my organs of expression became so entangled at the condescension of
+her melodious voice being directly addressed to one so degraded, that
+for several minutes I was incapable of further acquiescence than that
+conveyed by an adoring silence and an unchanging smile. No formality
+appeared worthy to greet her by, no expression of self-contempt
+sufficiently offensive to convey to her enlightenment my own sense of
+a manifold inferiority, and doubtless I should have remained in a
+transfixed attitude until she had at length turned aside, had not your
+seasonable reference to a Swatow limb-contorter struck me heavily and
+abruptly turned off the source of my agreement. Might not this all-water
+entertainment, it occurred to this one, consist in enticing him to drink
+a potion made unsuspectedly hot, in projecting him backwards into a vat
+of the same liquid, or some similar device for the pleasurable amusement
+of those around, which would come within the boundaries of your refined
+disapproval? As one by himself there was no indignity that this person
+would not cheerfully have submitted to, but the inexorable cords of an
+ingrained filial regard suddenly pulled him sideways and into another
+direction.
+
+“But, Mr. Kong,” exclaimed the bee-lipped maiden, when I had explained
+(as being less involved to her imagination,) that I was under a vow,
+“we have been relying upon you. Could you not”--and here she dropped her
+eyes and picked them up again with a fluttering motion which our lesser
+ones are, to an all-wise end, quite unacquainted with--“could you not
+unvow yourself for one night, just to please ME?”
+
+At these words, the illuminated proficiency of her glance, and her
+honourable resolution to implicate me in the display by head or feet,
+the ever-revered image of a just and obedience-loving father ceased to
+have any further tangible influence. Let it be remembered that there
+is a deep saying, “A virtuous woman will cause more evil than ten river
+pirates.” As for the person who is recording his incompetence, the room
+and all those about began to engulf him in an ever-increasing circular
+motion, his knees vibrated together with unrestrained pliancy, and
+concentrating his voice to indicate by the allegory some faint measure
+of his emotion, he replied passionately, “Let the amusement referred to
+take the form of sitting in a boiling cauldron exposed to the derision
+of all beholders, this one will now enter it wearing yellow silk
+trousers.”
+
+
+It is characteristic of these illogical out-countries that the all-water
+diversion did not, as a matter to record, concern itself with that
+liquid in any detail, beyond the contents of a glass vessel from which a
+venerable person, who occupied a raised chair, continually partook. This
+discriminating individual spoke so confidently of the beneficial action
+of the fluid, and so unswervingly described my own feelings at the
+moment--as of head giddiness, an inexactitude of speech, and no clear
+definition of where the next step would be arrived at--as the common
+lot of all who did not consume regularly, that when that same Helena
+had passed on to speak to another, I left the hall unobserved and drank
+successive portions, in each case, as the night was cold, prudently
+adding a measure of the native rice spirit. His advice had been
+well-directed, for with the fourth portion I suddenly found all
+doubtful and oppressive visions withdrawn, and a new and exhilarating
+self-confidence raised in their place. In this agreeable temper I
+returned to the place of meeting to find a priest of one of the lesser
+orders relating a circumstance whereby he had encountered a wild maiden
+in the woods, who had steadfastly persisted that she was one of a
+band of seven (this being the luckiest protective number among the
+superstitious). Though unable to cause their appearance, she had gone
+through a most precise examination at his hands without deviating in the
+slightest particular, whereupon distrusting the outcome of the strife,
+the person who was relating the adventure had withdrawn breathless.
+
+When this versatile lesser priest had finished the narration, and
+the applause, which clearly showed that those present approved of the
+solitary maiden’s discreet stratagem, had ceased, the one who occupied
+the central platform, rising, exclaimed loudly, “Mr. Kong will next
+favour us with a contribution, which will consist, I am informed, of a
+Chinese tale.”
+
+Now there chanced to be present a certain one who had already become
+offensive to me by the systematic dexterity with which he had planted
+his inopportune shadow between the sublime-souled Helena and any other
+who made a movement to approach her heaven-dowered outline. When this
+presumptuous and ill-nurtured outcast, who was, indeed, then seated
+by the side of the enchanting maiden last referred to, heard the
+announcement he said in a voice feigned to reach her peach-skin ear
+alone, yet intentionally so modulated as to penetrate the furthest limit
+of the room, “A Chinese tale! Why, assuredly, that must be a pig-tail.”
+ At this unseemly shaft many of those present allowed themselves to
+become immoderately amused, and even the goat-like sage who had
+called upon my name concealed his face behind an open hand, but the
+amiably-disposed Helena, after looking at the undiscriminating youth
+coldly for a moment, deliberately rose and moved to a vacant spot at a
+distance. Encouraged by this fragrant act of sympathy I replied with a
+polite bow to indicate the position, “On the contrary, the story which
+it is now my presumptuous intention to relate will contain no reference
+whatever to the carefully-got-up one occupying two empty seats in the
+front row,” and without further introduction began the history of Kao
+and his three brothers, to which I had added the title, “The Three
+Gifts.”
+
+At the conclusion of this classical example of the snares ever lying
+around the footsteps of the impious, I perceived that the jocular
+stripling, whom I had so delicately reproved, was no longer present.
+Doubtless he had been unable to remain in the same room with the
+commanding Helena’s high-spirited indignation, and anticipating that in
+consequence there would now be no obstacle to her full-faced benignity,
+I drew near with an appropriate smile.
+
+It is somewhere officially recorded, “There is only one man who knew
+with accurate certainty what a maiden’s next attitude would be, and he
+died young of surprise.” As I approached I had the sensation of passing
+into so severe an atmosphere of rigid disfavour, that the ingratiating
+lines upon my face became frozen in its intensity, despite the ineptness
+of their expression. Unable to penetrate the cause of my offence, I
+made a variety of agreeable remarks, until finding that nothing tended
+towards a becoming reconciliation, I gradually withdrew in despair, and
+again turned my face in the direction of that same accommodation which I
+had already found beneath the sign of an Encompassed Goat. Here, by the
+sarcasm of destiny, I encountered the person who had drawn the slighting
+analogy between this one’s pig-tail and his ability as a story-teller.
+For a brief space of time the ultimate development of the venture
+was doubtfully poised, but recognising in each other’s features the
+overhanging cloud of an allied pang, the one before me expressed a
+becoming contrition for the jest, together with a proffered cup. Not to
+appear out-classed I replied in a suitable vein, involving the supply
+of more vessels; whereupon there succeeded many more vessels, called for
+both singly and in harmonious unison, and the reappearance of numerous
+bright images, accompanied by a universal scintillation of meteor-like
+iridescence. In this genial and greatly-enlarged spirit we returned
+affably together to the hall, and entered unperceived at the moment when
+the one who made the announcements was crying aloud, “According to the
+programme the next item should have been a Chinese poem, but as Mr. Kong
+Ho appears to have left the building, we shall pass him over--”
+
+“What Ho?” exclaimed the somewhat impetuous one by my side, stepping
+forward indignantly and mounting the platform in his affectionate zeal.
+“No one shall pass over my old and valued friend--this Ho--while I have
+a paw to raise. Step forward, Mandarin, and let them behold the inventor
+and sole user of the justly far-famed G. R. Ko-Ho hair restorer--sent in
+five guinea bottles to any address on receipt of four penny stamps--as
+he appeared in his celebrated impersonation of the human-faced Swan at
+Doll and Edgar’s. Come on, oh, Ho!”
+
+“Assuredly,” I replied, striving to follow him, “yet with the wary
+greeting, ‘Slowly, slowly; walk slowly,’ engraved upon my mind, for the
+barrier of these convoluted stairs--” but at this word a band of maidens
+passed out hastily, and in the tumult I reached the dais and began
+Weng Chi’s immortal verses, entitled “The Meandering Flight,” which had
+occupied me three complete days and nights in the detail of rendering
+the allusions into well-balanced similitudes and at the same time
+preserving the skilful evasion of all conventional rules which raises
+the original to so sublime a height.
+
+   The voice of one singing at the dawn;
+   The seven harmonious colours in the sky;
+   The meeting by the fountain;
+   The exchange of gifts, and the sound of the processional drum;
+   The emotion of satisfaction in each created being;
+   This is the all-prominent indication of the Spring.
+   
+   The general disinclination to engage in laborious tasks;
+   The general readiness to consume voluminous potions on any pretext.
+   The deserted appearance of the city and the absence of the come-in motion at every door;
+   The sportiveness of maidens, and even those of maturer age, ethereally clad, upon the shore.
+   The avowed willingness of merchants to dispose of their wares for half the original sum.
+   This undoubtedly is the Summer.
+   
+   The yellow tea leaf circling as it falls;
+   The futile wheeling of the storm-tossed swan;
+   The note of the marble lute at evening by the pool;
+   The immobile cypress seen against the sun.
+   The unnecessarily difficult examination paper.
+   All these things are suggestive of the Autumn.
+   
+   The growing attraction of a well-lined couch.
+   The obsequious demeanour of message-bearers, charioteers, and the club-armed keepers of peace.
+   The explosion of innumerable fire-crackers round the convivial shrines,
+   The gathering together of relations who at all other times shun each other markedly.
+   The obtrusive recollection of a great many things contrary to a spoken vow, and the inflexible purpose to be more resolute in future.
+   These in turn invariably attend each Winter.
+
+It certainly had not presented itself to me before that the words
+“invariably attend” are ill-chosen, but as I would have uttered them
+their inelegance became plain, and this person made eight conscientious
+attempts to soften down their harsh modulation by various interchanges.
+He was still persevering hopefully when he of chief authority approached
+and requested that the one who was thus employed and that same other
+would leave the hall tranquilly, as the all-water entertainment was
+at an end, and an attending slave was in readiness to extinguish the
+lanterns.
+
+“Yet,” I protested unassumingly, “that which has so far been expressed
+is only in the semblance of an introductory ode. There follow--”
+
+“You must not argue with the Chair,” exclaimed another interposing his
+voice. “Whatever the Chair rules must be accepted.”
+
+“The innuendo is flat-witted,” I replied with imperturbable dignity, but
+still retaining my hold upon the rail. “When this person so far loses
+his sense of proportion as to contend with an irrational object, devoid
+of faculties, let the barb be cast. After that introduction dealing with
+the four seasons, the twelve gong-strokes of the day are reviewed in a
+like fashion. These in turn give place to the days of the month, then
+the moons of the year, and finally the years of the cycle.”
+
+“That’s fair,” exclaimed the perverse though well-meaning youth, whom I
+was beginning to recognise as the cause of some misunderstanding among
+us. “If you don’t want any more of his poem--and I don’t blame you--my
+pal Ho, who is one of the popular Flip-Flap Troupe, offers to do some
+trick cycle-riding on his ears. What more can you expect?”
+
+“We expect a policeman very soon,” replied another severely. “He has
+already been sent for.”
+
+“In that case,” said the one who had so persistently claimed me as
+an ally, “perhaps I can do you a service by directing him here”; and
+leaving this person to extricate himself by means of a reassuring
+silence and some of the larger silver pieces of the Island, he vanished
+hastily.
+
+With some doubt whether or not this deviation into the society of the
+professedly virtuous, ending as it admittedly does in an involvement,
+may not be deemed ill-starred; yet hopeful.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+ THE THREE GIFTS
+
+
+ Related by Kong Ho on the occasion of the all-water
+ disportment, under the circumstances previously set forth.
+
+BEYOND the limits of the township of Yang-chow there dwelt a rich
+astrologer named Wei. Reading by his skilful interpretation of the
+planets that he would shortly Pass Above, he called his sons Chu, Shan,
+and Hing to his side and distributed his wealth impartially among them.
+To Chu he gave his house containing a gold couch; to Shan a river with
+a boat; to Hing a field in which grew a prolific orange-tree. “Thus
+provided for,” he continued, “you will be able to live together in
+comfort, the resources of each supplying the wants of the others in
+addition to his own requirements. Therefore when I have departed let it
+be your first care to sacrifice everything else I leave, so that I also,
+in the Upper Air, may not be left destitute.”
+
+Now in addition to these three sons Wei also had another, the youngest,
+but one of so docile, respectful, and self-effacing a disposition that
+he was frequently overlooked to the advantage of his subtle, ambitious,
+and ingratiating brothers. This youth, Kao, thinking that the occasion
+certainly called for a momentary relaxation of his usual diffidence,
+now approached his father modestly, and begged that he also might be
+included to some trivial degree in his bounty.
+
+This reasonable petition involved Wei in an embarrassing perplexity.
+Although he had forgotten Kao completely in the division, he had now
+definitely concluded the arrangement; nor, to his failing powers, did it
+appear possible to make a just allotment on any other lines. “How can a
+person profitably cut up an orange-tree, a boat, an inlaid couch, or
+a house?” he demanded. “Who can divide a flowing river, or what but
+unending strife can arise from regarding an open field in anything
+but its entirety? Assuredly six cohesive objects cannot be apportioned
+between four persons.” Yet he could not evade the justice of Kao’s
+implied rebuke, so drawing to his side a jade cabinet he opened it, and
+from among the contents he selected an ebony staff, a paper umbrella,
+and a fan inscribed with a mystical sentence. These three objects he
+placed in Kao’s hands, and with his last breath signified that he should
+use them discreetly as the necessity arose.
+
+When the funeral ceremonies were over, Chu, Shan, and Hing came
+together, and soon moulded their covetous thoughts into an agreed
+conspiracy. “Of what avail would be a boat or a river if this person
+sacrificed the nets and appliances by which the fish are ensnared?”
+ asked Shan. “How little profit would lie in an orange-tree and a field
+without cattle and the implements of husbandry!” cried Hing. “One cannot
+occupy a gold couch in an empty house both by day and night,” remarked
+Chu stubbornly. “How inadequate, therefore, would such a provision be
+for three.”
+
+When Kao understood that his three brothers had resolved to act in this
+outrageous manner he did not hesitate to reproach them; but not being
+able to contend against him honourably, they met him with ridicule.
+“Do not attempt to rule us with your wooden staff,” they cried
+contemptuously. “Sacrifice IT if your inside is really sincere. And,
+in the meanwhile, go and sit under your paper umbrella and wield
+your inscribed fan, while we attend to our couch, our boat, and our
+orange-tree.”
+
+“Truly,” thought Kao to himself when they had departed, “their words
+were irrationally offensive, but among them there may stand out a
+pointed edge. Our magnanimous father is now bereft of both comforts
+and necessities, and although an ebony rod is certainly not much in the
+circumstances, if this person is really humanely-intentioned he will not
+withhold it.” With this charitable design Kao build a fire before the
+couch (being desirous, out of his forgiving nature, to associate his
+eldest brother in the offering), and without hesitation sacrificed the
+most substantial of his three possessions.
+
+It here becomes necessary to explain that in addition to being an expert
+astrologer, Wei was a far-seeing magician. The rod of unimpressionable
+solidity was in reality a charm against decay, and its hidden virtues
+being thus destroyed, a contrary state of things naturally arose, so
+that the next morning it was found that during the night the gold couch
+had crumbled away into a worthless dust.
+
+Even this manifestation did not move the three brothers, although the
+geniality of Shan and Hing’s countenances froze somewhat towards Chu.
+Nevertheless Chu still possessed a house, and by pointing out that they
+could live as luxuriantly as before on the resources of the river and
+the field and the tree, he succeeded in maintaining his position among
+them.
+
+After seven days Kao reflected again. “This avaricious person still has
+two objects, both of which he owes to his revered father’s imperishable
+influence,” he admitted conscience-stricken, “while the being in
+question has only one.” Without delay he took the paper umbrella and
+ceremoniously burned it, scattering the ashes this time upon Shan’s
+river. Like the rod the umbrella also possessed secret virtues, its
+particular excellence being a curse against clouds, wind demons,
+thunderbolts and the like, so that during the night a great storm raged,
+and by the morning Shan’s boat had been washed away.
+
+This new calamity found the three brothers more obstinately perverse
+than ever. It cannot be denied that Hing would have withdrawn from the
+guilty confederacy, but they were as two to one, and prevailed, pointing
+out that the house still afforded shelter, the river yielded some of the
+simpler and inferior fish which could be captured from the banks, and
+the fruitfulness of the orange-tree was undiminished.
+
+At the end of seven more days Kao became afflicted with doubt. “There is
+no such thing as a fixed proportion or a set reckoning between a dutiful
+son and an embarrassed sire,” he confessed penitently. “How incredibly
+profane has been this person’s behaviour in not seeing the obligation in
+its unswerving necessity before.” With this scrupulous resolve Kao took
+his last possession, and carrying it into the field he consumed it
+with fire beneath Hing’s orange-tree. The fan, in turn, also had hidden
+properties, its written sentence being a spell against drought, hot
+winds, and the demons which suck the nourishment from all crops. In
+consequence of the act these forces were called into action, and before
+another day Hing’s tree had withered away.
+
+It is said with reason, “During the earthquake men speak the truth.” At
+this last disaster the impious fortitude of the three brothers suddenly
+gave way, and cheerfully admitting their mistake, each committed
+suicide, Chu disembowelling himself among the ashes of his couch, Shan
+sinking beneath the waters of his river, and Hing hanging by a rope
+among the branches of his own effete orange-tree.
+
+When they had thus fittingly atoned for their faults the imprecation was
+lifted from off their possessions. The couch was restored by magic
+art to its former condition, the boat was returned by a justice-loving
+person into whose hands it had fallen lower down the river, and
+the orange-tree put out new branches. Kao therefore passed into an
+undiminished inheritance. He married three wives, to commemorate the
+number of his brothers, and had three sons, whom he called Chu, Shan,
+and Hing, for a like purpose. These three all attained to high office in
+the State, and by their enlightened morals succeeded in wiping all the
+discreditable references to others bearing the same names from off the
+domestic tablets.
+
+From this story it will be seen that by acting virtuously, yet with an
+observing discretion, on all occasions, it is generally possible not
+only to rise to an assured position, but at the same time unsuspectedly
+to involve those who stand in our way in a just destruction.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII
+
+
+ Concerning a state of necessity; the arisings engendered
+ thereby, and the turned-away face of those ruling the
+ literary quarter of the city towards one possessing a style.
+ This foreign manner of feigning representations, and
+ concerning my dignified portrayal of two.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--It is now more than three thousand years ago that the
+sublime moralist Tcheng How, on being condemned by a resentful official
+to a lengthy imprisonment in a very inadequate oil jar, imperturbably
+replied, “As the snail fits his impliant shell, so can the wise adapt
+themselves to any necessity,” and at once coiled himself up in the
+restricted space with unsuspected agility. In times of adversity this
+incomparable reply has often shone as a steadfast lantern before my
+feet, but recently it struck my senses with a heavier force, for
+upon presenting myself on the last occasion at the place of exchange
+frequented by those who hitherto have carried out your spoken promise
+with obliging exactitude, and at certain stated intervals freely granted
+to this person a sufficiency of pieces of gold, merely requiring
+in return an inscribed and signet-bearing record of the fact, I was
+received with no diminution of sympathetic urbanity, indeed, but with
+hands quite devoid of outstretched fulness.
+
+In a small inner chamber, to which I was led upon uttering courteous
+protests, one of solitary authority explained how the deficiency had
+arisen, but owing to the skill with which he entwined the most intricate
+terms in unbroken fluency, the only impression left upon my superficial
+mind was, that the person before me was imputing the scheme for
+my despoilment less to any mercenary instinct on the part of his
+confederates, than to a want of timely precision maintained by one who
+seemed to bear an agreeable-sounding name somewhat similar to your own,
+and who, from the difficulty of reaching his immediate ear, might be
+regarded as dwelling in a distant land. Encouraged by this conciliatory
+profession (and seeing no likelihood of gaining my end otherwise), I
+thereupon declared my willingness that the difference lying between us
+should be submitted to the pronouncement of dispassionate omens, either
+passing birds, flat and round sticks, the seeds of two oranges, wood and
+fire, water poured out upon the ground or any equally reliable sign as
+he himself might decide. However, in spite of his honourable assurances,
+he was doubtless more deeply implicated in the adventure than he
+would admit, for at this scrupulous proposal the benignant mask of his
+expression receded abruptly, and, striking a hidden bell, he waved his
+hands and stood up to signify that further justice was denied me.
+
+In this manner a state of destitution calling for the fullest acceptance
+of Tcheng How’s impassive philosophy was created, nor had many
+hours faded before the first insidious temptation to depart from his
+uncompromising acquiescence presented itself.
+
+At that time there was no one in whom I reposed a larger-sized piece
+of confidence (in no way involving sums of money,) than one officially
+styled William Beveledge Greyson, although, profiting by our own custom,
+it is unusual for those really intimate with his society to address him
+fully, unless the occasion should be one of marked ceremony. Forming a
+resolution, I now approached this obliging person, and revealing to him
+the cause of the emergency, I prayed that he would advise me, as one
+abandoned on a strange Island, by what handicraft or exercise of skill I
+might the readiest secure for the time a frugal competence.
+
+“Why, look here, aged man,” at once replied the lavish William Greyson,
+“don’t worry yourself about that. I can easily let you have a few pounds
+to tide you over. You will probably hear from the bank in the course
+of a few days or weeks, and it’s hardly worth while doing anything
+eccentric in the meantime.”
+
+At this delicately-worded proposal I was about to shake hands with
+myself in agreement, when the memory of Tcheng How’s resolute submission
+again possessed me, and seeing that this would be an unworthy betrayal
+of destiny I turned aside the action, and replying evasively that the
+world was too small to hold himself and another equally magnanimous, I
+again sought his advice.
+
+“Now what silly upside-down idea is it that you’ve got into that Chinese
+puzzle you call your head, Kong?” he replied; for this same William was
+one who habitually gilded unpalatable truths into the semblance of
+a flattering jest. “Whenever you turn off what you are saying into
+a willow-pattern compliment and bow seventeen times like an animated
+mandarin, I know that you are keeping something back. Be a man and
+a brother, and out with it,” and he struck me heavily upon the left
+shoulder, which among the barbarians is a proof of cordiality to be
+esteemed much above the mere wagging of each other’s hands.
+
+“In the matter of guidance,” I replied, “this person is ready to sit
+unreservedly on your well-polished feet. But touching the borrowing of
+money, obligations to restore with an added sum after a certain period,
+initial-bearing papers of doubtful import, and the like, I have read too
+deeply the pointed records of your own printed sheets not to prefer
+an existence devoted to the scraping together of dust at the street
+corners, rather than a momentary affluence which in the end would betray
+me into the tiger-like voracity of a native money-lender.”
+
+“Well, you do me proud, Kong,” said William Beveledge, after regarding
+me fixedly for a moment. “If I didn’t remember that you are a
+flat-faced, slant-eyed, top-side-under, pig-tailed old heathen, I should
+be really annoyed at your unwarrantable personalities. Do you take ME
+for what you call a ‘native money-lender’?”
+
+“The pronouncements of destiny are written in iron,” I replied
+inoffensively, “and it is as truly said that one fated to end his life
+in a cave cannot live for ever on the top of a pagoda. Undoubtedly as
+one born and residing here you are native, and as inexorably it succeeds
+that if you lend me pieces of gold you become a money-lender. Therefore,
+though honourably inspired at the first, you would equally be drawn into
+the entanglement of circumstance, and the unevadible end must inevitably
+be that against which your printed papers consistently warn one.”
+
+“And what is that?” asked Beveledge Greyson, still regarding me closely,
+as though I were a creature of another part.
+
+“At first,” I replied, “there would be an alluring snare of graceful
+words, tea, and the consuming of paper-rolled herbs, and the matter
+would be lightly spoken of as capable of an easy adjustment; which,
+indeed, it cannot be denied, is how the detail stands at present. The
+next position would be that this person, finding himself unable to
+gather together the equivalent of return within the stated time, would
+greet you with a very supple neck and pray for a further extension,
+which would be permitted on the understanding that in the event of
+failure his garments and personal charms should be held in bondage. To
+escape so humiliating a necessity, as the time drew near I would address
+myself to another, one calling himself William, perchance, and dwelling
+in a northern province, to whom I would be compelled to assign my
+peach-orchard at Yuen-ping. Then by varying degrees of infamy I would
+in turn be driven to visit a certain Bevel of the Middle Lands, a person
+Edge carrying on his insatiable traffic on the southern coast, one Grey
+elsewhere, and a Mr. Son, of the west, who might make an honourable
+profession of lending money without any security whatever, but who in
+the end would possess himself of my ancestral tablets, wives, and inlaid
+coffin, and probably also obtain a lien upon my services and prosperity
+in the Upper Air. Then, when I had parted from all comfort in this
+life, and every hope of affluence in the Beyond, it would presently
+be disclosed that all these were in reality as one person who had
+unceasingly plotted to my destruction, and William Beveledge Greyson
+would stand revealed in the guise of a malevolent vampire. Truly that
+development has at this moment an appearance of unreality, and worthy
+even of pooh-pooh, but thus is the warning spread by your own printed
+papers and the records of your Halls of Justice, and it would be an
+unseemly presumption for one of my immature experience to ignore the
+outstretched and warning finger of authority.”
+
+“Well, Kong,” he said at length, after considering my words attentively,
+“I always thought that your mental outlook was a hash of Black Art,
+paper lanterns, blank verse, twilight, and delirium tremens, but hang me
+if you aren’t sound on finance, and I only wish that you’d get some of
+my friends to look at the matter of borrowing in your own reasonable,
+broad-minded light. The question is, what next?”
+
+I replied that I leaned heavily against his sagacious insight, adding,
+however, that even among a nation of barbarians one who could repeat
+the three hundred and eleven poems comprising the Book of Odes from
+beginning to end, and claim the degree “Assured Genius” would ever be
+certain of a place.
+
+“Yes,” replied William Greyson,--“in the workhouse. Put your degree in
+your inside pocket, Kong, and don’t mention it. You’ll have far more
+chance as a distressed mariner. The casual wards are full of B.A.’s,
+but the navy can’t get enough A.B.’s at any price. What do you say to
+an organ, by the way? Mysterious musicians generally go down well, and
+I dare say there’s room for a change from veiled ladies, persecuted
+captains and indigent earls. You ought to make a sensation.”
+
+“Is it in the nature of melodious sounds upon winding a handle?” I
+asked, not at the moment grasping with certainty to what organ he
+referred.
+
+“Well, some call them that,” he admitted, “others don’t. I suppose, now,
+you wouldn’t care to walk to Brighton with your feet tied together,
+or your hair in curl papers, and then get on at a music hall? Or would
+there be any chance of your Legation kidnapping you if it was properly
+worked? ‘Kong Ho, the great Chinese Reformer, tells the Story of his
+Life,’--there ought to be money in it. Are you a reformer or the leader
+of a secret society, Kong?”
+
+“On the contrary,” I replied, “we of our Line have ever been unflinching
+in our loyalty to the dynasty of Tsing.”
+
+“You ought to have known better, then. It’s a poor business being that
+in your country nowadays. Pity there are no bye-elections on the African
+Labour Question, or you’d be snapped up for a procession.”
+
+To this I replied that although the idea of moving in a processional
+triumph would readily ensnare the minds of the light and fantastic, I
+should prefer some more literary occupation, submissively adding that in
+such a case I would not stiffen my joints against the most menial lot,
+even that of blending my voice in a laudatory chorus, or of carrying
+official pronouncements about the walls of the city, for it is said with
+justice, “The starving man does not peel his melon, nor do the parched
+first wipe round the edges of the proffered cup.”
+
+“If you’ve set your mind on something literary,” said Beveledge
+confidently, “you have every chance of finishing up in a chorus or
+carrying printed placards about the streets, certainly. When it comes
+to that, look me up in Eastcheap.” With this encouraging assurance of
+my ultimate success he left me, and rejoicing that I had not fallen into
+the snare of opposing a written destiny, I sought the literary quarters
+of the city.
+
+
+When this person has been able to write of any custom or facet of
+existence here in a strain of conscientious esteem, he has not hesitated
+to dip his brush deeply into the inkpot. Reverting backwards, this
+barbarian enactment of not permitting those who from any cause have
+decided upon spending the night in a philosophical abstraction to repose
+upon the public seats about the swards and open spaces is not conceived
+in a mood of affable toleration. Nevertheless there are deserted places
+beyond the furthest limits of the city where a more amiable full-face
+is shown. On the eleventh day of this one’s determination to sustain
+himself by the exercise of his literary style, he was journeying about
+sunset towards one of these spots, subduing the grosser instincts of
+mankind by reviewing the wisdom of the sublime Lao Ch’un, who decided
+that heat and cold, pain and fatigue, and mental distress, have no real
+existence, and are therefore amenable to logical disproof, while the
+cravings of hunger and thirst are merely the superfluous attributes of
+a former and lower state of existence, when a passer-by, who for some
+distance had been alternately advancing before and remaining behind,
+matched his footsteps into mine.
+
+“Whichee way walk-go, John, eh?” said this unfortunate being, who
+appeared to be suffering from a laborious deformity of speech. “Allee
+samee load me. Chin-chin.”
+
+Filled with compassion for one who evidently found himself alone in a
+strange land, in the absence of his more highly-accomplished companion,
+unable to indicate his wants and requirements to those about him, I
+regretfully admitted that I had not chanced to encounter that John
+whose wandering footsteps he sought; and to indicate, by not leaving him
+abruptly, that I maintained a sympathetic concern over his welfare, I
+pointed out to him the exceptional brilliance of the approaching night,
+adding that I myself was then directing a course towards a certain
+spacious Heath, a few li distant in the north.
+
+“Sing-dance tomollow, then?” he said, with a condensed air of general
+disappointment. “Chop-chop in a pay look-see show on Ham--Hamstl--oh
+damme! on ‘Ampstead ‘Eath? Booked up, eh, John?”
+
+Gradually convinced that it was becoming necessary to readjust the
+significance of the incident, I replied that I had no intention of
+partaking of chops or food of any variety in an erected tent, but merely
+of passing the night in an intellectual seclusion.
+
+“Oh,” said the one who was walking by my side, regarding my garments
+with engaging attention, and at the same time appearing to regain an
+unruffled speech as though the other had been an assumed device, “I
+understand--the Blue Sky Hotel. Well, I’ve stayed there once or twice
+myself. A bit down on your uppers, eh?”
+
+“Assuredly this person may perchance lay his upper parts down for a
+short space of time,” I admitted, when I had traced out the symbolism of
+the words. “As it is humanely written in The Books, ‘Sleep and suicide
+are the free refuges equally of the innocent and the guilty.’”
+
+“Oh, come now, don’t,” exclaimed the energetic person, striking himself
+together by means of his two hands. “It’s sinful to talk about suicide
+the day before bank holiday. Why, my only Somali warrior has vamoosed
+with his full make-up, and the Magnetic Girl too, and I never thought of
+suicide--only whether to turn my old woman into a Veiled Beauty of the
+Harem or a Hairy Lama from Tibet.”
+
+Not absolutely grasping the emergency, yet in a spirit of inoffensive
+cordiality I remarked that the alternative was insufferably perplexing,
+while he continued.
+
+“Then I spotted you, and in a flash I got an idea that ought to take and
+turn out really great if you’ll come in. Now follow this: Missionary’s
+tent in the wilds of Pekin. Domestic interior by lamp-light. Missionary
+(me) reading evening paper; missionary’s wife (the missus) making tea,
+and between times singing to keep the small pet goat quiet (small goat,
+a pillow, horsecloth, and pocket-handkerchief). Breaks down singing,
+sobs, and says she feels a strange all-over presentiment. Missionary
+admits being a bit fluffed himself, and lets out about a notice signed
+in blood that he’s seen in the city.”
+
+“Carried upon a pole?” this person demanded, feeling that something of a
+literary nature might yet be wrested into the incident.
+
+“On a flagstaff if you like,” conceded the other one magnanimously. “A
+notice to the effect that it is the duty of every jack mother’s son of
+them to douse the foreign devils, man, woman, and child, and especially
+the talk-book pass-hat-round men. Also that he has had several
+brick-ends heaved at him on his way back. Then stops suddenly, hits
+his upper crust, and says that it’s like his blamed fat-headedness
+to frighten her; while she clutches at herself three times and faints
+away.”
+
+“Amid the voluminous burning of blue lights?” suggested this person
+resourcefully.
+
+“By rights there should be,” admitted the one who was devising the
+representation; “but it will hardly run to it. Anyway, it costs nothing
+to turn the lamp down--saves a bit in fact, and gives an effect. Then
+outside, in the distance at first you understand, you begin to work up
+the sound of the advancing mob--rattles, shouts, tum-tums, groans, tin
+plates and all that one mortal man can do with hands, feet and mouth.”
+
+“With the interspersal of an occasional cracker and the stirring notes
+produced by striking a hollow wooden fish repeatedly?” I cried; for let
+it be confessed that amid the portrayal of the scene my imagination had
+taken an allotted part.
+
+“If you like to provide them, and don’t set the bally show on fire,” he
+replied. “Anyhow, these two aren’t supposed to notice anything even when
+the row gets louder. Then it drops and you are heard outside talking in
+whispers to the others--words of command and telling them to keep back
+half-a-mo, and so on. See?”
+
+“Doubtless introducing a spoken charm and repeating the words of an
+incantation against omens, treachery, and other matters.”
+
+“Next a flap of the tent down on the floor is raised, and you
+reconnoitre, looking your very worst and holding a knife between your
+teeth and another in each hand. Wave a hand to your followers to keep
+back--or come on: it makes no difference. Then you crawl in on your
+stomach, give a terrific howl, and stab me in the back. That rolls
+me under the curtain, and so lets me out. The missus ups with the
+wood-chopper and stands before the cradle, while you yell and dance
+round with the knives. That ought to be made ‘the moment’ of the whole
+piece. The great thing is to make enough noise. If you can yell louder
+than the talking-machine outfit on the next pitch we ought to turn money
+away. While you are at it I start a fresh row outside--shouts, cheers,
+groans, words of command and a paper bag or two. Seeing that the game
+is up you make a rush at the old woman; she downs you with the chopper,
+turns the lamp up full, shakes out a Union Jack over the sleeping
+infant, and finally stands in her finest attitude with one hand pointing
+impressively upwards and the other contemptuously downwards just as Rule
+Britannia is played on the cornet outside and I appear at the door in a
+general’s full uniform and let down the curtain.”
+
+For acting in the manner designated--as touching the noises both inside
+and out, the set dance with upraised knives, the casting to earth of
+himself, and being myself in turn vanquished by the aged female, with
+an added compact that from time to time I should be led by a chain
+and shown to the people from a raised platform--we agreed upon a daily
+reward of two pieces of silver, an adequacy of food, and a certain
+ambiguously-referred-to share of the gain. It need not be denied that
+with so favourable an opportunity of introducing passages from the
+Classics a much less sum would have been accepted, but having obtained
+this without a struggle, the one now recounting the facts raised the
+opportune suggestion of an inscribed placard, in order to fulfil the
+portent foreshadowed by William Greyson.
+
+“Oh, we’ll star you, never fear,” assented the accommodating personage,
+and having by this time reached that spot upon the Heath where his
+Domestic Altar had been raised, we entered.
+
+“All the most distinguished actors in this country take another
+name,” he said reflectively, when he had drawn forth a parchment of
+praiseworthy dimensions and ink of three colours, “and though I have
+nothing to say against Kong Ho Tsin Cheng Quank Paik T’chun Li Yuen
+Nung for quiet unostentatious dignity, it doesn’t have just the grip
+and shudder that we want. Now how does ‘Fang’ strike you?” and upon my
+courteous acquiescence that this indeed united within it those qualities
+which he required, he traced its characters in red ink upon a lavish
+scale.
+
+“‘Fang Hung Sin’ about fits the idea of snap and bloodthirstiness, I
+should say,” he continued, and using the brush and all the colours
+with an expert proficiency which would infallibly gain him an early
+recognition at any of our competitive examinations, he presently laid
+before me the following gracefully-composed notice, which was suspended
+from a conspicuous pole about the door of the tent on the following day.
+
+ FANG HUNG SIN
+ The Captured Boxer Chieftain.
+
+ Under a strong guard, and by arrangement with the British and
+ Chinese authorities concerned,
+
+ FANG HUNG SIN
+
+ Will positively reënact the GORY SCENES of CARNAGE in which
+ he took a LEADING and SANGUINARY PART during the LATE RISING.
+
+ ALONE IN PEKIN
+ Or, What a Woman can do.
+
+ PANEL I. PEACE: The Missionary’s Tent by Night--All’s Well--
+ The Dread Warning--“I am by your side, Beloved.”
+
+ PANEL II. ALARM: The Signal--The Spy--The Mob Outside--
+ Treachery--“Save Yourself, my Darling”--“And Leave
+ You? Never!”
+
+ PANEL III. REVENGE: The Attack--The Blow Falls--Who Can Save
+ Her Now?--“Back, Renegade Viper!”--The English Guns
+ --“Rule Britannia!”
+
+ FANG HUNG SIN, The Desperado.
+ There is only one FANG, and he must be seen.
+ FANG! FANG!! FANG!!!
+
+I will not upon this occasion, esteemed one, delay myself with an
+account of this barbarian Festival of Lanterns; or, as their language
+would convey it, Feast of Cocoa-nuts, beyond admitting that with
+the possible exception of an important provincial capital during the
+triennial examinations I doubt whether our own unapproachable Empire
+could show a more impressively-extended gathering, either in the diverse
+and ornamental efflorescence of head garb, in the affectionate display
+openly lavished by persons of one sex towards those of the other, or
+even one more successful in our own pre-eminent art of producing the
+multitudinous harmony of conflicting sounds.
+
+At the appointed hour this person submitted himself to be heavily
+shackled, and being led out before the assembled crowd, endeavoured by
+a smiling benignity of manner and by reassuring signs of welcome, to
+produce a favourable impression upon their sympathies and to allure
+them within. This pacific face was undoubtedly successful, however
+offensively the ill-conditioned one who stood by was inspired to express
+himself behind his teeth, for the space of the tent was very quickly
+occupied and the actions of simulation were to begin.
+
+Without doubt it might have been better if this person had first made
+himself more fully acquainted with the barbarian manner of acting. The
+fact that this imagined play, which even in one of our inferior theatres
+would have filled the time pleasantly for two or three months, was to
+be compressed into the narrow limits of seven minutes and a half, should
+reasonably have warned him that amid the ensuing rapidity of word and
+action, most of the leisurely courtesies and all the subtle range of
+concealed emotion which embellish our own wood pavement must be ignored.
+But it is well and suggestively written, “The person who deliberates
+sufficiently before taking every step will spend his life standing
+upon one leg.” In the past this one had not found himself to be grossly
+inadequate on any arising emergency, and he now drew aside the hanging
+drapery and prepared to carry out a preconcerted part with intrepid
+self-reliance.
+
+It has already been expressed, that the reason and incentive urging me
+to a ready agreement lay in the opportunities by which suitable passages
+from the high Classics could be discreetly woven into the fabric of the
+plot, and the occupation thereby permeated with an honourable literary
+flavour. In accordance with this resolve I blended together many
+imperishable sayings of the wisest philosophers to present the cries and
+turmoil of the approaching mob, but it was not until I protruded my
+head beneath the hanging canopy in the guise of one observing that an
+opportunity arose of a really well-sustained effort. In this position I
+recited Yung Ki’s stimulating address to his troops when in sight of an
+overwhelming foe, and, in spite of the continually back-thrust foot
+of the undiscriminating one before me, I successfully accomplished the
+seventy-five lines of the poem without a stumble. Then entering fully,
+with many deprecatory bows and expressions of self-abasement at taking
+part in so seemingly detestable an action, I treacherously, yet with
+inoffensive tact, struck the one wearing an all-round collar delicately
+upon the back. Not recognising the movement, or being in some other way
+obtuse, the person in question instead of sinking to the ground turned
+hastily to me in the form of an inquiry, leaving me no other reasonable
+course than to display the knife openly to him, and to assure him that
+the fatal blow had already been inflicted. Undoubtedly his immoderate
+retorts were inept at such a moment, nor was his ensuing strategy of
+turning completely round three times, striking himself about the head
+and body, and uttering ceremonious curses before he fell devoid of
+life--as though the earlier remarks had been part of the ordained
+scheme--to any degree convincing, and the cries of disapproval from the
+onlookers proved that they also regarded this one as the victim of an
+unworthy rebuke.
+
+“Not if the benches were filled at half a guinea a head would I take
+on another performance like that,” exclaimed the one with whom I was
+associated, when it was over. “Besides the dead loss of lasting three
+quarters of an hour it’s tempting providence when the seats are movable.
+I suppose it isn’t your fault, Kong, you poor creature, but you haven’t
+got no glare and glitter. There’s only one thing for it: you must be the
+Rev. Mr. Walker and I’ll take Fang.” He then robed himself in my attire,
+guided me among the intricacies of the all-round collar and outer
+garments in exchange, hung a slender rope about his back, and after
+completing the artifice by a skilful device of massing coloured inks
+upon our faces, he commanded me to lead him out by a chain and observe
+intelligently how a captive Boxer chief should disport himself.
+
+No sooner had we reached the platform than the one whom I controlled
+leapt high into the air, dragged me to the edge of the erection, showed
+his teeth towards the assembly and waved his arms menacingly at them;
+then turning upon this person, he inflamed his face with passion,
+rattled his chain furiously, and uttered such vengeance-laden cries
+that, unable to subdue the emotion of fear, I abandoned all pretence,
+and dropping the chain, fled to the furthest recess of the tent,
+followed by the still threatening Fang.
+
+There is an expression among us, “Cheng-hu was too considerate: he tried
+to drive nails with a cucumber.” Cheng-hu would certainly have quickly
+found the necessity of a weapon of three-times hardened steel if he had
+lived among these barbarians, who are insensible to the higher forms of
+politeness, in addition to acting in a contrary and illogical manner
+on all occasions. Instead of being repelled and discouraged by Fang’s
+outrageous behaviour, they clamoured to be admitted into the tent more
+vehemently than before, and so successfully established the venture that
+the one to whom I must now allude throughout as Fang signified to me his
+covetous intention of reducing the performance by a further two and a
+half minutes in order to reap an added profit and to garner all his rice
+before the Hoang Ho rose.
+
+As for myself, revered, it would be immature to hold the gauze screen of
+prevarication between your all-discerning mind and my own trepidation.
+From the moment when I first saw the expression of utterly depraved
+malignity and deep-seared hate which he had cunningly engraved upon his
+face by means of the coloured inks, I was far from being comfortably
+settled within myself. Even the society of the not inelegant being of
+the inner chamber, whom it was now my part to console with alluring
+words and movements, could not for some time retain my face from a
+back-way instinct at every sound; but when the detail was reached that
+she sank into my grasp bereft of all energy, and for the first time I
+was just succeeding in forgetting the unpropitious surroundings, the
+one Fang, who had entered with unseemly stealth, suddenly hurled his
+soul-freezing battle-cry upon my ear and leapt forward with uplifted
+knife. Perceiving the action from an angle of my eye even as he
+propelled himself through the air, I could not restrain an ignoble wail
+of despair, and not scrupling to forsake the maiden, I would have taken
+refuge beneath a couch had he not seized my outer robe and hurled me
+to the ground. From this point to the close of the entertainment
+the vigorous person in question did not cease from raising cries and
+challenges in an unfaltering and many-fathomed stream, while at the same
+time he continued to spring from one extremity of the stage to the other
+surrounded by every external attribute of an insatiable tiger-like rage.
+It is circumstantially related that the one near at hand, who has been
+referred to as possessing a voiced machine, became demented, and bearing
+the contrivance to a certain tent erected by the charitable, entreated
+them to remove the impediment from its speech so that it might be heard
+again and his livelihood restored. When the action of brandishing
+a profusion of knives before the lesser one’s eyes was reached, so
+nerve-shattering was the impression which Fang created that the back of
+the tent had to be removed in order to let out those who no longer had
+possession of themselves, and to let in those--to a ten-fold
+degree--who strove for admission on the rumour spreading that something
+exceptionally repellent was progressing within.
+
+With what attenuated organs of repose this person would have reached
+the end of so strenuous an occupation had he been compelled to twelve
+enactments each hour throughout the gong-strokes of the day without any
+literary relief, it is not enticing to dwell upon. This evil was averted
+by a timely intervention, for upon proceeding to the outer air for the
+third time I at once perceived among the foremost throng the engaging
+full-face of William Beveledge Greyson. This really painstaking
+individual had learned, as he afterwards explained, that the chiefs of
+exchange (those who in the first case had opposed me resolutely,) had
+received a written omen, and now in contrition were expressing their
+willingness to hold out a full restitution. With this assurance he
+had set forth in an unremitting search, and guided by street-watchers,
+removers of superfluous earth, families propelling themselves forward
+upon one foot, astrologers, two-wheeled charioteers, and others who move
+early and secretly by night, he had traced my description to this same
+Heath. Here he had been attracted by the displayed placard (remembering
+my honourable boast), and approaching nearer, he had plainly recognised
+my voice within. But in spite of this the successful disentanglement was
+by no means yet accomplished.
+
+Not expecting so involved a reversal of things, and being short-eyed by
+nature, William Greyson did not wait for a fuller assurance than to
+be satisfied that the one before him wore my robes and conformed in a
+general outline, before he addressed him.
+
+“Kong Ho,” he said pleasantly, “what the Chief Evil Spirit are you doing
+up there?” adding persuasively, “Come down, there’s a good fellow. I
+have something important to tell you.”
+
+Thus appealed to, the one Fang hesitated in doubt, seeing on the one
+hand a certain loss of face if he declined the conversation, and on the
+other hand having no clear perception of what was required from him.
+Therefore he entered upon a course of evasion and somewhat incapably
+replied, “Chow Chop Wei Hai Wei Lung Tung Togo Kuroki Jim Jam Beri
+Beri.”
+
+“Don’t act the horned sheep,” said Beveledge, who was both resolute and
+one easily set into violent motion by an opposing stream. “Come down,
+or I’ll come up and fetch you.” And not being satisfied with Fang’s
+ill-advised attempt to express himself equivocally, those around took up
+the apt similitude of a self-opinionated animal, and began to suggest a
+comparison to other creatures no less degraded.
+
+“Rats yourselves!” exclaimed the easily-inflamed person at my side,
+losing the inefficient cords of his prudence beneath the sting. “Who’s
+a rabbit? For two guinea-pigs I’d mow all the grass between here and
+the Spaniards with your own left ears,” and not permitting me sufficient
+preparation to withhold the chain more firmly, he abruptly cast himself
+down among them, amid a scene of the most untamed confusion.
+
+“Oh, affectionately-disposed brethren,” I exclaimed, moving forward and
+raising my hand in refined disapproval, “the sublime Confucius, in the
+twenty-third chapter of the book called ‘The Great Learning,’ warns us
+against--” but before I could formulate the allusion Beveledge
+Greyson, who at the sound of my conciliatory words had gazed first in
+astonishment and then in a self-convulsed position, drew himself up to
+my side, and taking a firm grasp upon the all-round collar, projected me
+without a pause through the tent, and only halting for a moment to point
+significantly back to the varied and animated scene behind, where, amid
+a very profuse display of contending passions, the erected stage was
+already being dragged to the ground, and a band of the official watch
+was in the act of converging from every side, he led me through more
+deserted paths to the scene of a final extrication.
+
+With a well-gratified sense of having held an unswerving course along
+the convoluted outline of Destiny’s decree, to whatever tending.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV
+
+
+ Concerning a pressing invitation from an ever benevolently-
+ disposed father to a prosaic but dutifully-inclined son. The
+ recording of certain matters of no particular moment.
+ Concerning that ultimate end which is symbolic of the
+ inexorable wheels of a larger Destiny.
+
+
+Venerated Sire,--It is not for the earthworm to say when and in what
+exact position the iron-shod boot shall descend, and this person, being
+an even inferior creature for the purpose of the comparison, bows an
+acquiescent neck to your very explicit command that he shall return to
+Yuen-ping without delay. He cannot put away from his mind a clinging
+suspicion that this arising is the result of some imperfection in
+his deplorable style of correspondence, whereby you have formed an
+impression quite opposed to that which it had been the intention to
+convey, and that, perchance, you even have a secret doubt whether upon
+some specified occasion he may not have conducted the enterprise to an
+ignoble, or at least not markedly successful, end. However, the saying
+runs, “The stone-cutter always has the last word,” and you equally, by
+intimating with your usual unanswerable and clear-sighted gift of
+logic that no further allowance of taels will be sent for this one’s
+dispersal, diplomatically impose upon an ever-yearning son the most
+feverish anxiety once more to behold your large and open-handed face.
+
+Standing thus poised, as it may be said, for a returning flight across
+the elements of separation, it is not inopportune for this person to let
+himself dwell gracefully upon those lighter points of recollection which
+have engraved themselves from time to time upon his mind without leading
+to any more substantial adventure worthy to record. Many of the things
+which seemed strange and incomprehensible when he first came among
+this powerful though admittedly barbarian people, are now revealed at
+a proper angle; others, to which he formerly imagined he had found the
+disclosing key, are, on the other hand, plunged into a distorting haze;
+while between these lie a multitude of details in every possible stage
+of disentanglement and doubt. As a final and painstaking pronouncement,
+this person has no hesitation in declaring that this country is
+not--as practically all our former travellers have declared--completely
+down-side-up as compared with our own manners and customs, but at the
+same time it is very materially sideways.
+
+Thus, instead of white, black robes are the indication of mourning; but
+as, for the generality, the same colour is also used for occasions of
+commerce, ceremony, religion, and the ordinary affairs of life, the
+matter remains exactly as it was before. Yet with obtuse inconsistency
+the garments usually white--in which a change would be really
+noticeable--remain white throughout the most poignant grief. How much
+more markedly expressed would be the symbolism if during such a period
+they wore white outer robes and black body garments. Nevertheless it
+cannot be said that they are unmindful of the emblematic influence of
+colour, for, unlike the reasonable conviction that red is red and blue
+is blue, which has satisfied our great nation from the days of the
+legendary Shun, these pale-eyed foreigners have diverged into countless
+trifling imaginings, so that when the one who is now expressing his
+contempt for the development required a robe of a certain hue, he had to
+bend his mouth, before he could be exactly understood, to the degrading
+necessity of asking for “Drowned-rat brown,” “Sunstroke magenta,”
+ “Billingsgate purple,” “London milk azure,” “Settling-day green,” or the
+like. In the other signs of mourning they do not come within measurable
+distance of our pure and uncomfortable standard. “If you are really
+sincere in your regret for the one who has Passed Beyond, why do you not
+sit upon the floor for seven days and nights, take up all food with your
+fingers, and allow your nails to grow untrimmed for three years?” was
+a question which I at first instinctively put to lesser ones in their
+affliction. In every case save one I received answers of evasive
+purport, and even the one stated reason, “Because although I am a poor
+widder I ain’t a pig,” I deemed shallow.
+
+I have already dipped a revealing brush into the subject of names.
+Were the practice of applying names in a wrong and illogical sequence
+maintained throughout it might indeed raise a dignified smile, but
+it would not appear contemptible; but what can be urged when upon an
+occasion one name appears first, upon another occasion last? A dignity
+is conferred in old age, and it is placed before the family designation
+borne by an honoured father and a direct line of seventeen revered
+ancestors. Another title is bestowed, and eats up the former like a
+revengeful dragon. New distinctions follow, some at one end, others at
+another, until a very successful person may be suitably compared to
+the ringed oleander snake, which has the power of growing equally
+from either the head or the tail. To express the matter by a definite
+allusion, how much more graceful and orchideous, even in a condensed
+fashion, would appear the designation of this selected one, if instead
+of the usual form of the country it was habitually set forth in the
+following logical and thoroughly Chinese style:--Chamberlain Joseph,
+Master, Mr., Thrice Wearer of the Robes and Golden Collar, One of the
+Just Peacemakers, Esquire, Member of the House of Law-givers, Leader
+in the Council of Commerce, Presider over the Tables of Provincial
+Government, Uprightly Honourable Secretary of the Outlying Parts.
+
+Among the notes which at various times I have inscribed in a book
+for future guidance I find it written on an early page, “They do not
+hesitate to express their fathers’ names openly,” but to this assertion
+there stands a warning sign which was added after the following
+incident. “Is it true, Mr. Kong,” asked a lesser one, who is spoken of
+as vastly rich but discontented with her previous lot, of this person
+upon an occasion, “is it really true that your countrymen to not
+consider it right to speak of their fathers’ names, even in this
+enlightened age?” To this I replied that the matter was as she had
+eloquently expressed it, and, encouraged by her amiable condescension,
+I asked after the memory of her paternal grandsire, whose name I had
+frequently heard whispered in connection with her own. To my inelegant
+confusion she regarded me for a period as though I had the virtue of
+having become transparent, and then passed on in a most overwhelming
+excess of disconcertingly-arranged silence.
+
+“You’ve done it now, Kong,” said one who stood by (or, as we would
+express the same thought, “You have succeeded in accomplishing the
+undesirable”); “don’t you know that the old man was in the tripe and
+trotter line?”
+
+“To no degree,” I replied truly. “Yet,” I continued, matching his idiom
+with another equally facile, “wherein was this person’s screw loose? Are
+they not openly referred to--those of the Line of Tripe and Trotter--by
+their descendants?”
+
+“Not in most cases,” he said, with a concentration that indicated
+a lurking sting among his words. “Generally speaking, they aren’t
+mentioned or taken into any account whatever. While they are alive they
+are kept in the background and invited to treat themselves to the Tower
+when nice people are expected; when dead they are fastened up in the
+family back cupboard by a score of ten-inch nails and three-trick Yale
+locks, so to speak. And in the meantime all the splash is being made on
+their muddy oof. See?”
+
+I nodded agreeably, though, had the opportunity been more favourable, I
+would have made the feint to learn somewhat more of this secret practice
+of burying in the enclosed space beneath the stairs. Thus is it set
+forth why, after the statement, “They do not hesitate to express their
+fathers’ names openly,” it is further written, “Walk slowly! Engrave
+well upon your discreet remembrance the unmentionable Line of Tripe and
+Trotter.”
+
+Another point of comparison which the superficial have failed to record
+is to be found in the frequent encouragements to regard The Virtues
+which are to be seen, like our own Confucian extracts, freely inscribed
+on every wall and suitable place about the city. These for the most part
+counsel moderation in taking false oaths, in stepping heedlessly upon
+the unknown ground, in following paths which lead to doubtful ends, and
+other timely warnings. “Beware a smoke-breathing demon,” is frequently
+cast across one’s path upon a barrier, and this person has never failed
+to accept the omen and to retrace his steps hastily without looking to
+the right or the left. Even our own national caution is not forgotten,
+although to conform to barbarian indolence it is written, “Slowly,
+slowly; drive slowly.” “Keep to the Right” (or, “Abandon that which is
+evil,” as the analogy holds,) is perhaps the most frequently displayed
+of all, and doubtless many charitable persons obtain an ever-accruing
+merit by hanging the sign bearing these words upon every available post.
+Others are of a stern and threatening nature, designed to make the most
+hardened ill-doer pause, as--in their own tongue--“Rubbish may be shot
+here”; which we should render, “At any moment, and in such a place
+as this, a just doom and extinction may overtake the worthless.” This
+inscription is never to be seen except in waste expanses, where it
+points its significance with a multiplied force. There is another
+definite threat which is lavishly set out, and so thoroughly that it may
+be encountered in the least frequented and almost inaccessible spots.
+This, as it may be translated, reads, “Trespass not the forbidden. The
+profligate may flourish like the gourd for a season, but in the
+end assuredly they will be detected, and justice meted out with the
+relentless fury of the written law.”
+
+In a converse position, the wide difference in the ceremonial forms of
+retaliatory invective has practically disarmed this usually eloquent
+person, and he long since abandoned every hope of expressing himself
+with any satisfaction in encounters of however acrimonious a trend.
+At first, with an urbane smile and gestures of dignified contempt, he
+impugned the authenticity of the Ancestral Tablets of those with whom
+he strove, in an unbroken stream of most bitter contumely. Finding them
+silent under this reproach, he next lightly traced their origin back
+through generations of afflicted lepers, deformed ape-beings, and
+Nameless Things, to a race of primitive ghouls, and then went on in
+relentless fluency to predict an early return in their descendants to
+the condition of a similar state. For some time he had a well-gratified
+assurance that those whom he assailed were so overwhelmed as to be
+incapable of retort, and in this belief he never failed to call upon
+passers-by to witness his triumph; but on the fourth occasion a young
+man whom I had thus publicly denounced for a sufficient though forgotten
+reason, after listening courteously to my venomous accusations, bestowed
+a two-cash piece upon me and passed on, remarking that it was hard,
+and those around, also, would have added from their stores had it
+been permitted. From this time onward I did not attempt to make myself
+disagreeable either in public or to those whom I esteemed privately. On
+the other hand, the barbarian manner of retort did not find me endowed
+by nature to parry it successfully. Quite lacking in measured periods,
+it aims, by an extreme rapidity of thrust and an insincerity of
+sequence, to entangle the one who is assailed in a complication of
+arising doubts and emotions. “Who are you,--no one but yourself,”
+ exclaimed a hireling of hung-dog expression who claimed to have
+exchanged pledging gifts with a certain maiden who stood, as it were,
+between us, and falling into the snare, I protested warmly against the
+insult, and strove to disprove the inference before the paralogism lay
+revealed. Throughout the whole range of the Odes, the Histories, the
+Analects, and the Rites what recognised formula of rejoinder is there to
+the taunt, “Oh, go and put your feet in mustard and cress”; or how
+can one, however skilled in the highest Classics, parry the subtle
+inconsistencies of the reproach, “You’re a nice bit of orl right, aren’t
+you? Not arf, I don’t think.”
+
+Among the arts of this country that of painting upon canvas is held in
+repute, but to a person associated with the masterpieces of the Ma epoch
+these native attempts would be gravity-dispelling if they were not too
+reminiscent of the torture chamber. It is rarely, indeed, that even the
+most highly-esteemed picture-makers succeed in depicting every portion
+of a human body submitted to their brush, and not infrequently half
+of the face is left out. Once, when asked by a paint-applier who was
+entitled to append two signs of exceptional distinction behind his name,
+to express an opinion upon a finished work, I diffidently called his
+attention to the fact that he had forgotten to introduce a certain
+exalted one’s left ear. “Not at all, Mr. Kong,” he replied, with an
+expression of ill-merited self-satisfaction, “but it is hidden by the
+face.” “Yet it exists,” I contended; “why not, therefore, press it to
+the front at all hazard, rather than send so great a statesman down
+into the annals of posterity as deformed to that extent?” “It certainly
+exists,” he admitted, “and one takes that for granted; but in my picture
+it cannot be seen.” I bowed complaisantly, content to let so damaging
+an admission point its own despair. A moment later I continued, “In the
+great Circular Hall of the Palace of Envoys there is a picture of
+two camels, foot-tethered, as it fortunately chanced, to iron rings.
+Formerly there were a drove of eight--the others being free--so
+exquisitely outlined in all their parts that one night, when the door
+had been left incautiously open, they stepped down from the wall and
+escaped to the woods. How deplorable would have been the plight of these
+unfortunate beings, if upon passing into the state of a living existence
+they had found that as a result of the limited vision of their creator
+they only possessed twelve legs and three whole bodies among them.”
+
+Perchance this tactfully-related story, so applicable to his own
+deficiencies, may sink into the imagination of the one for whom it was
+inoffensively unfolded. Yet doubt remains. Our own picture-judgers
+take up a position at the side of work when they with to examine its
+qualities, retiring to an ever-diminishing angle in order to bring out
+the more delicate effects, until a very expert and conscientious critic
+will not infrequently stand really behind the picture he is considering
+before he delivers a final pronouncement. Not until these native artists
+are able to regard their crude attempts from the other side of the
+canvas can they hope to become equally proficient. To this fatal
+shortcoming must be added that of insatiable ambition, which prompts
+the young to the portrayal of widely differing subjects. Into the
+picture-room of one who might thus be described this person was recently
+conducted, to pass an opinion upon a scene in which were depicted
+seven men of varying nationalities and appropriately garbed, one of the
+opposing sex carrying a lighted torch, an elephant reclining beneath a
+fruitful vine, and the President of a Republic. For a period this person
+resisted the efforts of those who would have questioned him, withdrawing
+their attention to the harmonious lights upon the river mist floating
+far below, but presently, being definitely called upon, he replied as
+follows: “Mih Ying, who was perhaps the greatest of his time, spent his
+whole life in painting green and yellow beetles in the act of concealing
+themselves beneath dead maple leaves upon the approach of day. At the
+age of seventy-five he burst into tears, and upon being approached for
+a cause he exclaimed, ‘Alas, if only this person had resisted the
+temptation to be diffuse, and had confined himself to green beetles
+alone, he might now, instead of contemplating a misspent career, have
+been really great.’ How much less,” I continued, “can a person of
+immature moustaches hope to depict two such conflicting objects as a
+recumbent elephant and the President of a Republic standing beneath a
+banner?”
+
+Upon the temptation to deal critically with the religious instincts of
+the islanders this person draws an obliterating brush. As practically
+every traveller who has honoured our unattractive land with his
+effusive presence has subsequently left it in a printed record that
+our ceremonies are grotesque, our priesthood ignorant and depraved,
+our monasteries and sacred places spots of plague upon an otherwise
+flower-adorned landscape, and our beliefs and sacrifices only worthy to
+exist for the purpose of being made into jest-origins by more refined
+communities, the omission on this one’s part may appear uncivil and
+perhaps even intentionally discourteous. To this, as a burner of
+joss-sticks and an irregular person, he can only reply by a deprecatory
+waving of both hands and a reassuring smile.
+
+With the two-sided memories of many other details hanging thickly around
+his brush, it would not be an achievement to continue to a practically
+inexhaustible amount. As of the set days when certain things are
+observed, among which fall the first of the fourth month (but that would
+disclose another involvement), another when flat cakes are partaken
+of without due caution, another when rounder cakes are even more
+incautiously consumed, and that most brightly-illuminated of all when it
+is permissible to embrace maidens openly, and if discreetly accomplished
+with no overhanging fear of ensuing forms of law, beneath the emblem of
+a suspended branch, in memory of the wisdom of certain venerable sages
+who were doubtless expert in the practice. As of the inconvenient
+custom when two persons are walking together that they should arrange
+themselves side by side, to the obvious discomfort of others, the
+sweeping away of all opportunities for agreeable politeness, and
+the utter disregard of the time-honoured example of the sagacious
+water-fowl. As of the inconsistency of refusing, even with contempt, to
+receive our most intimate form of regard and use this person’s lip-cloth
+after a feast, yet the mulish eagerness in that same youth to drink from
+a cup previously used by a lesser one. As of the precision (which still
+remains a cloud of doubt,) with which creatures so intractable as the
+bull are successfully trained to roar aloud at certain gong-strokes of
+the day as an agreed signal. As of the streets in movement, the lights
+at evening, and the voices of those unseen. As of these and as of other
+matters, so multitudinous that they crowd about this person’s mind
+like the assembling swallows, circling above the deserted millet
+fields before they turn their beaks to the sea, and dropping his brush
+(perchance with an acquiescent sigh), he, also, kow-tows submissively
+to a blind but appointed destiny, and prepares to seek a passage from an
+alien land of sojourning.
+
+With the impetuous craving of an affectionate son to behold a revered
+sire, intensified by the fact that he has reached the innermost lining
+of his sleeve; with affectionate greetings towards Ning, Hia-Fa, and
+T’ian Yen, and an assurance that they have never been really absent from
+his thoughts.
+
+                                     KONG HO.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1077 ***