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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chinese ghost stories : curious tales of the supernatural / by Lafcadio
Hearn ; foreword by Victoria Cass. – 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-4629-0016-9 (ebook)
1 . Tales–China. 2. Supernatural--Folklore. 3. Ghost stories, Chinese. I.
Title.
GR335.H39 2011
398.20951--dc22
2011002216

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 Contents

Preface 7

Foreword 8

The Soul of the Great Bell 15

The Story of Ming Yi 22

The Legend of Zhi Nü 39

The Return of Yan Zhenjing. 49

The Tradition of the Tea Plant 56

The Tale of the Porcelain God 68

Notes 81

Glossary 86
 To my friend

Henry Edward Krehbiel

THE MUSICIAN

WHO, SPEAKING THE SPEECH OF MELODY UNTO THE

CHILDREN OF TIAN XIA—
UNTO THE WANDERING QING REN, WHOSE SKINS HAVE
THE COLOR OF GOLD—
MOVED THEM TO MAKE STRANGE SOUND UPON THE
SERPENT-BELLIED SAN XIAN;
PERSUADED THEM TO PLAY FOR ME UPON THE SHRIEKING
YA XIAN;
PREVAILED ON THEM TO SING ME A SONG OF THEIR
NATIVE LAND—
THE SONG OF MOLI HUA
THE SONG OF THE JASMINE-FLOWER
 Preface

I THINK that my best apology for the insignificant size of this

volume is the very character of the material composing it.
In preparing the legends I sought especially for weird
beauty; and I could not forget this striking observation in Sir
Walter Scott’s “Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad”:
“The supernatural, though appealing to certain powerful
emotions very widely and deeply sown amongst the human
race, is, nevertheless, a spring which is peculiarly apt to lose
its elasticity by being too much pressed upon.”
Those desirous to familiarize themselves with Chinese
literature as a whole have had the way made smooth for
them by the labors of linguists like Julien, Pavie, Rémusat,
De Rosny, Schlegel, Legge, Hervey-Saint-Denys, Williams,
Biot, Giles, Wylie, Beal, and many other Sinologists. To such
great explorers, indeed, the realm of Cathayan story belongs
by right of discovery and conquest; yet the humbler traveler
who follows wonderingly after them into the vast and
mysterious pleasure-grounds of Chinese fancy may surely be
permitted to cull a few of the marvelous flowers there
growing—a self-luminous hua wang, a black lily, a
phosphoric rose or two—as souvenirs of his curious voyage.

L. H.
NEW ORLEANS, MARCH 15, 1886.
 Foreword

Where got I that truth?

Out of a medium’s mouth,
Out of nothing it came,
Out of the forest loam,
Out of dark night where lay
The crowns of Nineveh.

—Yeats: “Fragments,” The Tower, 1928

Lafcadio Hearn was a thief of myth. Born in 1850, into a time

when the British Empire reached around the globe, he raided
the world’s archives. Epic narratives, sacred recitals,
ancestral prayers: all were fair game for his declared
ambition: “I would give up anything to be a Literary
Columbus.”1 Hearn wanted to recalibrate the literary voices
he knew, to create a “universal literature.” Western
storytelling had ossified, he claimed. “Naturalism”—with its
solid portraiture of the minutiae of daily life—was narrow and
dull. His “universal literature”2 would be a hybrid of Western
realism and “Eastern Literary growths.” 3 “Left to itself,”
Hearn said, “every literature will exhaust its vitality if it is not
refreshed by the contributions of a foreign one.”4
It is unlikely that such a grandiose plan could have been
anticipated for Hearn. Unprepossessing of figure, Hearn was,
if not deformed, then disfigured; blind in one eye, he walked
with a pronounced limp, both injuries suffered on the
unforgiving playing fields of a Victorian childhood. Nor did the
circumstances of his birth and childhood presage such
learned ambitions. The operatic nature of his parentage,
however, may have shaped his intelligence; his parents
yoked the extremes of the British colonial landscape, and his
childhood reads like a ballad.
His mother was a nineteenth century primitive. Rosa
Antonia Kassimati was tribal, illiterate, beautiful and
charismatic, born into a proud Cerigote clan on the Greek
Ionian island of Cerigo. His father was Charles Bush Hearn,
Anglo-Irish, a medical man from Dublin, with a chain of
Protestant ministers in his lineage. He was dispatched as
Surgeon on the British Army Medical Staff to Cerigo, where
he met Rosa. The two fell in love and managed to carry on
an affair. Learning of this injudicious insult to local mores,
the men of Rosa’s clan attempted to murder Charles, but
Rosa nursed him to health. They were married in a
ceremony (one later held inconsequential by the Church of
Ireland), and the romance continued. After two years in
Greece she traveled to Dublin, to live midst her middle class
in-laws. She lasted another two years, and returned alone,
never to see her husband or sons again. From this
cataclysmic mating of two nineteenth century polarities
Patrick Lafcadio Hearn was born.
His life was worthy of fiction. He was a restless fantasist
who lived his life in decades, moving across the globe like a
figure on an antique game board. Born in Greece, taken then
to Dublin, he then journeyed across the Atlantic to middle
America where he stayed for eight years, then almost a
decade in New Orleans: a short move eastward to the West
Indies, and finally on to Meiji Japan, where he spent the last
fourteen years of his life—a span of fifty-four years. He died
in 1904.
After his youth in Dublin, Hearn began the life of a writer;
but he began as any good protagonist does, by being cast
from his family. In his last year of public school when he was
eighteen, his family suffered a catastrophic financial reversal;
and from this solidly middle class arrangement, he was
dispatched to distant connections in the United States, with
hardly a whisper of help from the adult realm. The Cullinan
family—fellow Irishmen, now in America—gave him short
shrift. Handing him a bit of money, they threw him out,
forcing him to survive by his wits: “I was told to go to the
devil, and take care of myself,” recalled Hearn; “I did both.” 5
Hearn then took, perforce, his first step as the “Literary
Columbus;” he became—from Greece, via Dublin—at the age
of nineteen, a journalist in Cincinnati.
The year was 1869, and the docks of this new American
city were bursting with steamship trade, black citizens from
the war ravaged South, and the high-minded rich
engineering a trading hub. Hearn found his métier as a
writer: becoming a literary omnivore, a prodigious author of
anything publishable. He was a reporter, a poet, a fiction
writer, folklorist, historian, travel writer, ethnomusicologist
and essayist; and the borders marking the different forms
were, for him, blurred. He was the Daniel Defoe of
nineteenth century letters. Likewise, for this cacophonous
imagination, no subject was too foreign, too local, too arcane
or too low. Hearn spent eight years in Cincinnati, then ten
years in New Orleans, and landed finally in Japan in 1890.
He never stopped narrating. His accounts of markets,
murders and show trials, fires and dissections, aberrant
rituals and famous priests, folk practice and folk stories, local
cooking, dialect and music—indeed local scenes and local
worthies of every cast and character—are justly famous. “I
have pledged myself to the worship of the Odd, the Queer,
the Strange, the Exotic, the Monstrous.… Enormous and lurid
facts are certainly worthy of more artistic study.” 6 He earned
a living on these “Enormous” facts.
But if he was a man of lurid imaginings he was also a
nineteenth century intellectual. Critics have noted that he
came of age in Dublin, when Yates, Sheridan and Bram
Stoker revived interest in Irish mythologies.7 Nor were they
alone in their interests. British writers—Mary Shelley, Sir
Walter Scott, William Morris, and popular writers such as J.M.
Barrie and later, J.R.R. Tolkien—were enthralled as well.
They staked out myth in its various forms, from medieval
epic and ancient ballad, to Arthurian romance, Celtic
mythologies and Persian legend.8 It was something of a club,
in fact; for as exotic as Hearn’s experiments were, they were
familiar to the connoisseur. Hearn himself wrote a letter to
Keats concerning Keats’s poem about fairy legend, “Host of
the Air.” 9 And one critic compared one of the tales in this
book—“The Story of Ming Yi”—to Keats’s treatment of the
Lamia myth.10 Hearn was part of an informal circle of
Victorian writers who retrieved the mythic from outside the
orthodoxies of the age.
And thus he landed in the world of this small collection of
tales, Chinese Ghost Stories [a.k.a. Some Chinese Ghosts].
Like other Victorians, Hearn was dedicated to the exotic. He
wished to create a “weird beauty,” citing the expression of
his intellectual ally, Sir Walter Scott. With this collection
Hearn took an early step in his eastward explorations.11 This
literary landscape is clearly for him an exotic world; the tales
have the feel of an experiment, bookish in style, arch in
language, based on material he referred to as “curious.” For
unlike the reportage of New Orleans life, and the accounts of
folk practice he will ultimately write in Japan, he was a world
away from his subject. Two of the tales are extraordinary
fusions: “The Tradition of the Tea Plant” mixes oracular
meditative prayer with a Gothic sexual encounter. “The Tale
of the Porcelain God” blends filial piety with European notions
of the madness of genius.
It is not surprising he was experimenting on the margins,
however. From his outpost in New Orleans gaining
knowledge of “Chinese ghosts” would have been perplexing.
He had his “tolerably extensive library of exotic poetry and
legend;”12 but it could hardly have been very extensive.
These were early days, when even the romanization system
was not stabilized. Early Sinology tended to follow hard on
the establishment of foreign trade and colonial outposts, with
the Dutch and French most active. Hearn—fluent in French—
could use the translations of romantic fiction and accounts of
ceramic artisans by Stanislas Julien and Hervey Saint-Denis;
and he located an account of the Taiping rebellion by the
early Jesuit Missionary, Pere D’Entrecolles. Harper’s Bazaar
supplied him with another of his sources. This popular
magazine published the early work of the translator Herbert
Giles, then in China, just beginning his career. Hearn in
these tales is like them, hard at work: the intrepid explorer.
Hearn attempted to colonize the sounds of Chinese stories
as well. Remarkably, he included in the tales transliterations
of Chinese syllables: lines of poetry, lines of scripture, lists of
ceramic types, song lines, multiple phases, etc. These
sounds could only be read as noise, for it is only in his notes
that he provides translations. But this was part of his high
experiment, for his readers’ benefit, whether they liked it or
not. “Why should people not be forcibly introduced to foreign
words?” he retorted pedantically. 13 He argued further that,
with the sounds themselves, the reader could sense: “the
whispering of words, the rustling of the procession of letters,
… the raging and racketing and rioting of words.” Not that he
was alone in this fascination. J. R. R. Tolkien found an
incantatory charm in the orality of Faerie destinations. “ ‘The
bridge to Platform 4’ is—to me—” said Tolkien, “less
interesting than ‘Bifrøst guarded by Heimdall with the
Gjallarhorn.’ ”14 These intellectuals sent out their literary roots
into a Library of Babel.
Experiments aside, however, these tales were not just from
the laboratory. Hearn loved Chinese ghosts. Four of his
Chinese ghost stories detail personal sacrifice and the deep
sense of pious awe for ancestors, family and emperor.
Ancestral voices became increasingly of interest to Hearn. He
observed later when he lived in Japan:
In this nineteenth century the Occidental family is almost
disintegrated.… The Oriental family means not only parents and their
blood-kindred, but grandparents and their kindred, and great-
grandparents, and all the dead behind them. This idea of the family .…
may extend, as in Japan, to many groups and sub-groups of living
families,… to the whole nation as one great family: a feeling much deeper
than what we call patriotism. As a religious emotion the feeling is infinitely
extended to all the past.…15
As exotic and distant as they were, these ghosts had for
Hearn a personal resonance: “The mystery of the universe is
now weighing upon us,” claimed Hearn,
and it is especially a ghostly mystery.… That is why I say that all great
art has something ghostly in it. It touches something within us which
relates to infinity.16
In 1890 Hearn landed in Japan. He married Setsu Koizumi,
the daughter of an old samurai family and, per custom, he
was adopted by his wife’s family. They had three sons and a
daughter and all lived together, three generations under one
roof. He taught English literature and dedicated the last
fourteen years of his life to essays, folktale and fiction;
Kwaidan, Stories and Studies of Strange Things is his most
famous. In these stories he shed the voice of bookish
foreigner, for he was among his subjects. No longer confined
to his library for sources, he had family rituals, ancestral
ghosts and local demons spread out before him. His
accounts became direct and simple, suggesting not the Irish
intellectual, but the Irish story-teller. 17 The narrator for these
tales is the fresh persona of a charmed innocent, an alarmed
believer, a boy.
His best source for stories was his wife, Setsu. She
described her role as Hearn’s informant:
When I tell him stories I always told him at first the mere skeleton of
the story. If it is interesting, he puts it down in his note-book and makes
me repeat and repeat several times. He instantly becomes exceedingly
serious; the color of his face changes; his eyes wear the look of fearful
enthusiasm. His face gradually changed pale; his eyes were fixed; I felt a
sudden awe. When I finished the narrative he… asked me several
questions regarding the situations, actions, etc., involved in the story.…
‘What do you think of the sound of “geta” (clopping of footsteps) at that
time? How was the night? I think so and so. What do you think?’ etc.
Thus he consulted me about various things besides the original story.… If
anyone happened to see us talking from outside, he would surely think
that we were mad.18
Footnote:
1 Beongcheon Yu, An Ape of Gods: The Art and Thought of Lafcadio
Hearn, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1964, p. 100.
2 Beongcheon Yu, Ibid., p. 177.
3 Beongcheon Yu, Ibid., p. 176.
4 Beongcheon Yu, Ibid., p 174–5.
5 Paul Murray, p. 25.
6 W. K. McNeil, “Lafcadio Hearn, American Folklorist,” Journal of American
 Folklore, Vol. 91, Oct–Dec. p. 949.
7 Paul Murray, Lafcadio Hearn: A Fantastic Journey, The Life and Literature
of Lafcadio Hearn, Japan Library, Folkstone, Kent, 1993, p. 31–33.
8 Also see Paul Murray, pp. 32–33 for discussion of contemporaneous
interest in folklore and legend.
9 Paul Murray, p. 34.
10 Paul Murray, p. 82.
11 His first collection of non-European material was Stray Leaves from
Strange Literature, published in 1884—also while he was in New Orleans.
12 Beongcheon Yu, p. 292.
13 Letter to Chamberlain, in Jonathan Cott, Wandering Ghost, p. 372.
14 J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy-Stories,” Tree and Leaf , Boston, Houghton
Mifflin, 1965, p. 62.
15 Lafcadio Hearn, “Some Thoughts About Ancestor Worship,” Kokoro:
Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life, p. 290.
16 Jonathan Cott, p. 345.
17 Sukehiro Hirakawa, “Introduction: Lafcadio Hearn: Towards an Irish
Interpretation: in Paul Murray, pp. 5–8.
18 W. K. McNeil, “Lafcadio Hearn, American Folklorist,” Journal of American
Folklore, vol. 91, No. 362, Oct–Dec. p 962.

Victoria Cass
Baltimore, Maryland
 The Soul of the Great Bell

She hath spoken, and her words still resound in his ears.
HAO QIU ZHUAN: C.IX.

HE WATER-CLOCK marks the hour in the Da Zhongsi

T —in the Tower of the Great Bell: now the mallet is

lifted to smite the lips of the metal monster—the vast
lips inscribed with Buddhist texts from the sacred
Fahua jing, from the chapters of the holy Lingyan jing! Hear
the great bell responding! How mighty her voice, though
tongueless! GE-AI! All the little dragons on the high-tilted
eaves of the green roofs shiver to the tips of their gilded tails
under that deep wave of sound; all the porcelain gargoyles
tremble on their carven perches; all the hundred little bells of
the pagodas quiver with desire to speak. GE-AI! All the
green-and-gold tiles of the temple are vibrating; the wooden
goldfish above them are writhing against the sky; the
uplifted finger of Fo shakes high over the heads of the
worshippers through the blue fog of incense! GE-AI! What a
thunder tone was that! All the lacquered goblins on the
palace cornices wriggle their fire-colored tongues! And after
each huge shock, how wondrous the multiple echo and the
great golden moan and, at last, the sudden sibilant sobbing
in the ears when the immense tone faints away in broken
whispers of silver—as though a woman should whisper,
“Xie!” Even so the great bell hath sounded every day for
well-nigh five hundred years—Ge-ai: first with stupendous
clang, then with immeasurable moan of gold, then with silver
murmuring of “Xie!” And there is not a child in all the many-
colored ways of the old Chinese city who does not know the
story of the great bell, who cannot tell you why the great bell
says Ge-ai and Xie!
Now, this is the story of the great bell in the Da Zhongsi, as
the same is related in the Baixiaodu shou, written by the
learned Yu Baochen, of the City of Guanzhoufu.
Nearly five hundred years ago the Celestially August, the
Son of Heaven, Yongluo, of the “Illustrious,” or Ming,
dynasty, commanded the worthy official Guanyu that he
should have a bell made of such size that the sound thereof
might be heard for one hundred li.19 And he further ordained
that the voice of the bell should be strengthened with brass,
and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver; and that
the face and the great lips of it should be graven with
blessed sayings from the sacred books, and that it should be
suspended in the center of the imperial capital, to sound
through all the many-colored ways of the city of Beijing.
Therefore the worthy mandarin Guanyu assembled the
master-molders and the renowned bellsmiths of the empire,
and all men of great repute and cunning in foundry work;
and they measured the materials for the alloy, and treated
them skillfully, and prepared the molds, the fires, the
instruments, and the monstrous melting-pot for fusing the
metal. And they labored exceedingly, like giants—neglecting
only rest and sleep and the comforts of life; toiling both night
and day in obedience to Guanyu, and striving in all things to
do the behest of the Son of Heaven.
But when the metal had been cast, and the earthen mold
separated from the glowing casting, it was discovered that,
despite their great labor and ceaseless care, the result was
void of worth; for the metals had rebelled one against the
other—the gold had scorned alliance with the brass, the
silver would not mingle with the molten iron. Therefore the
molds had to be once more prepared, and the fires rekindled,
and the metal re-melted, and all the work tediously and
toilsomely repeated. The Son of Heaven heard, and was
angry, but spoke nothing.
A second time the bell was cast, and the result was even
worse. Still the metals obstinately refused to blend one with
the other; and there was no uniformity in the bell, and the
sides of it were cracked and fissured, and the lips of it were
slagged and split asunder; so that all the labor had to be
repeated even a third time, to the great dismay of Guanyu.
And when the Son of Heaven heard these things, he was
angrier than before; and sent his messenger to Guanyu with
a letter, written upon lemon-colored silk, and sealed with the
seal of the Dragon, containing these words:
From the Mighty Yongluo, the Sublime Taizong, the Celestial and
August—whose reign is called “Ming”—to Guanyu the Fuyin: Twice thou
hast betrayed the trust we have deigned graciously to place in thee; if
thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head shall be severed
from thy neck. Tremble, and obey!
 Now, Guanyu had a daughter of dazzling loveliness, whose
name—Ge-ai—was ever in the mouths of poets, and whose
heart was even more beautiful than her face. Ge-ai loved her
father with such love that she had refused a hundred worthy
suitors rather than make his home desolate by her absence;
and when she had seen the awful yellow missive, sealed
with the Dragon-Seal, she fainted away with fear for her
father’s sake. And when her senses and her strength
returned to her, she could not rest or sleep for thinking of
her parent’s danger, until she had secretly sold some of her
jewels, and with the money so obtained had hastened to an
astrologer, and paid him a great price to advise her by what
means her father might be saved from the peril impending
over him. So the astrologer made observations of the
heavens, and marked the aspect of the Silver Stream (which
we call the Milky Way), and examined the signs of the Zodiac
—the Huang Dao, or Yellow Road—and consulted the table of
the Five Xing, or Principles of the Universe, and the mystical
books of the alchemists. And after a long silence, he made
answer to her, saying: “Gold and brass will never meet in
wedlock, silver and iron never will embrace, until the flesh of
a maiden be melted in the crucible; until the blood of a virgin
be mixed with the metals in their fusion.” So Ge-ai returned
home sorrowful at heart; but she kept secret all that she had
heard, and told no one what she had done.
At last came the awful day when the third and last effort to
cast the great bell was to be made; and Ge-ai, together with
her waiting-woman, accompanied her father to the foundry,
and they took their places upon a platform overlooking the
toiling of the molders and the lava of liquefied metal. All the
workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no sound
heard but the muttering of the fires. And the muttering
deepened into a roar like the roar of typhoons approaching,
and the blood-red lake of metal slowly brightened like the
vermilion of a sunrise, and the vermilion was transmuted
into a radiant glow of gold, and the gold whitened blindingly,
like the silver face of a full moon. Then the workers ceased
to feed the raving flame, and all fixed their eyes upon the
eyes of Guanyu; and Guanyu prepared to give the signal to
cast.
But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn
his head; and all heard the voice of Ge-ai sounding sharply
sweet as a bird’s song above the great thunder of the fires
—“For thy sake, O my Father!” And even as she cried, she
leaped into the white flood of metal; and the lava of the
furnace roared to receive her, and spattered monstrous
flakes of flame to the roof, and burst over the verge of the
earthen crater, and cast up a whirling fountain of many-
colored fires, and subsided quakingly, with lightnings and
with thunders and with mutterings.
Then the father of Ge-ai, wild with his grief, would have
leaped in after her, but that strong men held him back and
kept firm grasp upon him until he had fainted away and they
could bear him like one dead to his home. And the serving-
woman of Ge-ai, dizzy and speechless for pain, stood before
the furnace, still holding in her hands a shoe, a tiny, dainty
shoe, with embroidery of pearls and flowers—the shoe of her
beautiful mistress that was. For she had sought to grasp Ge-
ai by the foot as she leaped, but had only been able to clutch
the shoe, and the pretty shoe came off in her hand; and she
continued to stare at it like one gone mad.
But in spite of all these things, the command of the
Celestial and August had to be obeyed, and the work of the
molders to be finished, hopeless as the result might be. Yet
the glow of the metal seemed purer and whiter than before;
and there was no sign of the beautiful body that had been
entombed therein. So the ponderous casting was made; and
lo! when the metal had become cool, it was found that the
bell was beautiful to look upon, and perfect in form, and
wonderful in color above all other bells. Nor was there any
trace found of the body of Ge-ai; for it had been totally
absorbed by the precious alloy, and blended with the well-
blended brass and gold, with the intermingling of the silver
and the iron. And when they sounded the bell, its tones were
found to be deeper and mellower and mightier than the
tones of any other bell, reaching even beyond the distance
of one hundred li, like a pealing of summer thunder; and yet
also like some vast voice uttering a name, a woman’s name
—the name of Ge-ai!
And still, between each mighty stroke there is a long low
moaning heard; and ever the moaning ends with a sound of
sobbing and of complaining, as though a weeping woman
should murmur, “ Xie!” And still, when the people hear that
great golden moan they keep silence; but when the sharp,
sweet shuddering comes in the air, and the sobbing of “ Xie!”
then, indeed, do all the Chinese mothers in all the many-
colored ways of Beijing whisper to their little ones: “Listen!
that is Ge-ai crying for her shoe! That is Ge-ai calling for her
shoe!”

Footnote:
19 The definition of this measure of distance has evolved over time, but by
today’s standards, one hundred li is equivalent to about 30 miles.
 The Story of Ming Yi

THE ANCIENT WORDS OF GUI—MASTER OF MUSICIANS IN THE COURTS OF

THE EMPEROR YAO:

When ye make to resound the stone melodious, the Ming Qiu—

When ye touch the lyre that is called Qin, or the guitar that is
called Si—
Accompanying their sound with song—
Then do the grandfather and the father return;
Then do the ghosts of the ancestors come to hear.

SANG THE POET QING GU:

“Surely the Peach-Flowers blossom over the tomb of Xue Tao.”

O you ask me who she was, the beautiful Xue Tao?

D For a thousand years and more the trees have been

whispering above her bed of stone. And the syllables
of her name come to the listener with the lisping of
the leaves; with the quivering of many-fingered boughs; with
the fluttering of lights and shadows; with the breath, sweet
as a woman’s presence, of numberless savage flowers, Xue
Tao. But, saving the whispering of her name, what the trees
say cannot be understood; and they alone remember the
years of Xue Tao. Something about her you might,
nevertheless, learn from any of those Jianggu ren, those
famous Chinese story-tellers, who nightly narrate to listening
crowds, in consideration of a few qian, the legends of the
past. Something concerning her you may also find in the
book entitled Jinguji guan, which signifies in our tongue:
“The Marvelous Happenings of Ancient and of Recent
Times.” And perhaps of all things therein written, the most
marvelous is this memory of Xue Tao:
Five hundred years ago, in the reign of the Emperor Hong
wu, whose dynasty was Ming, there lived in the city of
Guangzhoufu a man celebrated for his learning and for his
piety, named Tian Bailu. This Tian Bailu had one son, a
beautiful boy, who for scholarship and for bodily grace and
for polite accomplishments had no superior among the
youths of his age. And his name was Ming Yi.
Now when the lad was in his eighteenth summer, it came
to pass that Bailu, his father, was appointed Inspector of
Public Instruction at the city of Qingdu; and Ming Yi
accompanied his parents thither. Near the city of Qingdu
lived a rich man of rank, a high commissioner of the
government, whose name was Zhang, and who wanted to
find a worthy teacher for his children. On hearing of the
arrival of the new Inspector of Public Instruction, the noble
Zhang visited him to obtain advice in this matter; and
happening to meet and converse with Bailu’s accomplished
son, immediately engaged Ming Yi as a private tutor for his
family.
Now as the house of this Lord Zhang was situated several
miles from town, it was deemed best that Ming Yi should
abide in the house of his employer. Accordingly the youth
made ready all things necessary for his new sojourn; and his
parents, bidding him farewell, counseled him wisely, and
cited to him the words of Laozi and of the ancient sages:
By a beautiful face the world is filled with love; but Heaven may never
be deceived thereby. Shouldst thou behold a woman coming from the
East, look thou to the West; shouldst thou perceive a maiden
approaching from the West, turn thine eyes to the East.
If Ming Yi did not heed this counsel in after days, it was
only because of his youth and the thoughtlessness of a
naturally joyous heart.
And he departed to abide in the house of Lord Zhang, while
the autumn passed, and the winter also.
When the time of the second moon of spring was drawing
near, and that happy day which the Chinese call Hua zhao,
or, “The Birthday of a Hundred Flowers,” a longing came
upon Ming Yi to see his parents; and he opened his heart to
the good Zhang, who not only gave him the permission he
desired, but also pressed into his hand a silver gift of two
ounces, thinking that the lad might wish to bring some little
memento to his father and mother. For it is the Chinese
custom, on the feast of Hua zhao, to make presents to
friends and relations.
That day all the air was drowsy with blossom perfume, and
vibrant with the droning of bees. It seemed to Ming Yi that
the path he followed had not been trodden by any other for
many long years; the grass was tall upon it; vast trees on
either side interlocked their mighty and moss-grown arms
above him, beshadowing the way; but the leafy obscurities
quivered with bird-song, and the deep vistas of the wood
were glorified by vapors of gold, and odorous with flower-
breathings as a temple with incense. The dreamy joy of the
day entered into the heart of Ming Yi; and he sat him down
among the young blossoms, under the branches swaying
against the violet sky, to drink in the perfume and the light,
and to enjoy the great sweet silence. Even while thus
reposing, a sound caused him to turn his eyes toward a
shady place where wild peach-trees were in bloom; and he
beheld a young woman, beautiful as the pinkening blossoms
themselves, trying to hide among them. Though he looked
for a moment only, Ming Yi could not avoid discerning the
loveliness of her face, the golden purity of her complexion,
and the brightness of her long eyes, that sparkled under a
pair of brows as daintily curved as the wings of the silkworm
butterfly outspread. Ming Yi at once turned his gaze away,
and, rising quickly, proceeded on his journey. But so much
embarrassed did he feel at the idea of those charming eyes
peeping at him through the leaves, that he suffered the
money he had been carrying in his sleeve to fall, without
being aware of it. A few moments later he heard the patter
of light feet running behind him, and a woman’s voice calling
him by name. Turning his face in great surprise, he saw a
comely servant-maid, who said to him, “Sir, my mistress
bade me pick up and return you this silver which you
dropped upon the road.” Ming Yi thanked the girl gracefully,
and requested her to convey his compliments to her
mistress. Then he proceeded on his way through the
perfumed silence, athwart the shadows that dreamed along
the forgotten path, dreaming himself also, and feeling his
heart beating with strange quickness at the thought of the
beautiful being that he had seen.
It was just such another day when Ming Yi, returning by
the same path, paused once more at the spot where the
gracious figure had momentarily appeared before him. But
this time he was surprised to perceive, through a long vista
of immense trees, a dwelling that had previously escaped his
notice—a country residence, not large, yet elegant to an
unusual degree. The bright blue tiles of its curved and
serrated double roof, rising above the foliage, seemed to
blend their color with the luminous azure of the day; the
green-and-gold designs of its carven porticos were exquisite
artistic mockeries of leaves and flowers bathed in sunshine.
And at the summit of terrace-steps before it, guarded by
great porcelain tortoises, Ming Yi saw standing the mistress
of the mansion—the idol of his passionate fancy—
accompanied by the same waiting-maid who had borne to
her his message of gratitude. While Ming Yi looked, he
perceived that their eyes were upon him; they smiled and
conversed together as if speaking about him; and, shy
though he was, the youth found courage to salute the fair
one from a distance. To his astonishment, the young servant
beckoned him to approach; and opening a rustic gate half
veiled by trailing plants bearing crimson flowers, Ming Yi
advanced along the verdant alley leading to the terrace, with
mingled feelings of surprise and timid joy. As he drew near,
the beautiful lady withdrew from sight; but the maid waited
at the broad steps to receive him, and said as he ascended:
“Sir, my mistress understands you wish to thank her for the
trifling service she recently bade me do you, and requests
that you will enter the house, as she knows you already by
repute, and desires to have the pleasure of bidding you
good-day.”
Ming Yi entered bashfully, his feet making no sound upon a
matting elastically soft as forest moss, and found himself in a
reception-chamber vast, cool, and fragrant with scent of
blossoms freshly gathered. A delicious quiet pervaded the
mansion; shadows of flying birds passed over the bands of
light that fell through the half-blinds of bamboo; great
butterflies, with pinions of fiery color, found their way in, to
hover a moment about the painted vases, and pass out
again into the mysterious woods. And noiselessly as they,
the young mistress of the mansion entered by another door,
and kindly greeted the boy, who lifted his hands to his breast
and bowed low in salutation. She was taller than he had
deemed her, and supplely-slender as a beauteous lily; her
black hair was interwoven with the creamy blossoms of the
chu-sha-kih; her robes of pale silk took shifting tints when
she moved, as vapors change hue with the changing of the
light.
“If I be not mistaken,” she said, when both had seated
themselves after having exchanged the customary
formalities of politeness, “my honored visitor is none other
than Tianshou, surnamed Ming Yi, educator of the children
of my respected relative, the High Commissioner Zhang. As
the family of Lord Zhang is my family also, I cannot but
consider the teacher of his children as one of my own kin.”
“Lady,” replied Ming Yi, not a little astonished, “may I dare
to inquire the name of your honored family, and to ask the
relation which you hold to my noble patron?”
“The name of my poor family,” responded the comely lady,
“is Bing—an ancient family of the city of Qingdu. I am the
daughter of a certain Xue of Wenhao; Xue is my name,
likewise; and I was married to a young man of the Bing
family, whose name was Kang. By this marriage I became
related to your excellent patron; but my husband died soon
after our wedding, and I have chosen this solitary place to
reside in during the period of my widowhood.”
There was a drowsy music in her voice, as of the melody of
brooks, the murmurings of spring; and such a strange grace
in the manner of her speech as Ming Yi had never heard
before. Yet, on learning that she was a widow, the youth
would not have presumed to remain long in her presence
without a formal invitation; and after having sipped the cup
of rich tea presented to him, he arose to depart. Xue would
not suffer him to go so quickly.
 “Nay, friend,” she said; “stay yet a little while in my house,
I pray you; for, should your honored patron ever learn that
you had been here, and that I had not treated you as a
respected guest, and regaled you even as I would him, I
know that he would be greatly angered. Remain at least to
supper.”
So Ming Yi remained, rejoicing secretly in his heart, for Xue
seemed to him the fairest and sweetest being he had ever
known, and he felt that he loved her even more than his
father and his mother. And while they talked the long
shadows of the evening slowly blended into one violet
darkness; the great citron-light of the sunset faded out; and
those starry beings that are called the Three Councilors, who
preside over life and death and the destinies of men, opened
their cold bright eyes in the northern sky. Within the
mansion of Xue the painted lanterns were lighted; the table
was laid for the evening repast; and Ming Yi took his place at
it, feeling little inclination to eat, and thinking only of the
charming face before him. Observing that he scarcely tasted
the dainties laid upon his plate, Xue pressed her young guest
to partake of wine; and they drank several cups together. It
was a purple wine, so cool that the cup into which it was
poured became covered with vapory dew; yet it seemed to
warm the veins with strange fire. To Ming Yi, as he drank, all
things became more luminous as by enchantment; the walls
of the chamber appeared to recede, and the roof to
heighten; the lamps glowed like stars in their chains, and the
voice of Xue floated to the boy’s ears like some far melody
heard through the spaces of a drowsy night. His heart
swelled; his tongue loosened; and words flitted from his lips
that he had fancied he could never dare to utter. Yet Xue
sought not to restrain him; her lips gave no smile; but her
long bright eyes seemed to laugh with pleasure at his words
of praise, and to return his gaze of passionate admiration
with affectionate interest.
“I have heard,” she said, “of your rare talent, and of your
many elegant accomplishments. I know how to sing a little,
although I cannot claim to possess any musical learning; and
now that I have the honor of finding myself in the society of
a musical professor, I will venture to lay modesty aside, and
beg you to sing a few songs with me. I should deem it no
small gratification if you would condescend to examine my
musical compositions.”
“The honor and the gratification, dear lady,” replied Ming Yi,
“will be mine; and I feel helpless to express the gratitude
which the offer of so rare a favor deserves.”
The serving-maid, obedient to the summons of a little silver
gong, brought in the music and retired. Ming Yi took the
manuscripts, and began to examine them with eager delight.
The paper upon which they were written had a pale yellow
tint, and was light as a fabric of gossamer; but the
characters were antiquely beautiful, as though they had
been traced by the brush of Heisong Shezhe himself—that
divine Genius of Ink, who is no bigger than a fly; and the
signatures attached to the compositions were the signatures
of Yuan Zhen, Gao Bian, and Du Mu—mighty poets and
musicians of the dynasty of Tang! Ming Yi could not repress
a scream of delight at the sight of treasures so inestimable
and so unique; scarcely could he summon resolution enough
to permit them to leave his hands even for a moment.
“O Lady!” he cried, “these are veritably priceless things,
surpassing in worth the treasures of all kings. This indeed is
the handwriting of those great masters who sang five
hundred years before our birth. How marvelously it has been
preserved! Is not this the wondrous ink of which it was
written: Bo nian ru shi, yi tian ru ji—‘After centuries I remain
firm as stone, and the letters that I make like lacquer’? And
how divine the charm of this composition!—the song of Gao
Bian, prince of poets, and Governor of Sichuan five hundred
years ago!”
“Gao Bian! darling Gao Bian!” murmured Xue, with a
singular light in her eyes. “Gao Bian is also my favorite. Dear
Ming Yi, let us chant his verses together, to the melody of
old—the music of those grand years when men were nobler
and wiser than today.”
And their voices rose through the perfumed night like the
voices of the wonder-birds—of the Fenghuang—blending
together in liquid sweetness. Yet a moment, and Ming Yi,
overcome by the witchery of his companion’s voice, could
only listen in speechless ecstasy, while the lights of the
chamber swam dim before his sight, and tears of pleasure
trickled down his cheeks.
So the ninth hour passed; and they continued to converse,
and to drink the cool purple wine, and to sing the songs of
the years of Tang, until far into the night. More than once
Ming Yi thought of departing; but each time Xue would
begin, in that silver-sweet voice of hers, so wondrous a story
of the great poets of the past, and of the women whom they
loved, that he became as one entranced; or she would sing
for him a song so strange that all his senses seemed to die
except that of hearing. And at last, as she paused to pledge
him in a cup of wine, Ming Yi could not restrain himself from
putting his arm about her round neck and drawing her dainty
head closer to him, and kissing the lips that were so much
ruddier and sweeter than the wine. Then their lips separated
no more; the night grew old, and they knew it not.
The birds awakened, the flowers opened their eyes to the
rising sun, and Ming Yi found himself at last compelled to bid
his lovely enchantress farewell. Xue, accompanying him to
the terrace, kissed him fondly and said, “Dear boy, come
hither as often as you are able, as often as your heart
whispers you to come. I know that you are not of those
without faith and truth, who betray secrets; yet, being so
young, you might also be sometimes thoughtless; and I pray
you never to forget that only the stars have been the
witnesses of our love. Speak of it to no living person,
dearest; and take with you this little souvenir of our happy
night.”
And she presented him with an exquisite and curious little
thing—a paper-weight in likeness of a couchant lion, wrought
from a jade-stone yellow as that created by a rainbow in
honor of Kongfuzi. Tenderly the boy kissed the gift and the
beautiful hand that gave it. “May the Spirits punish me,” he
vowed, “if ever I knowingly give you cause to reproach me,
sweetheart!” And they separated with mutual vows.
That morning, on returning to the house of Lord Zhang,
Ming Yi told the first falsehood which had ever passed his
lips. He averred that his mother had requested him
thenceforward to pass his nights at home, now that the
weather had become so pleasant; for, though the way was
somewhat long, he was strong and active, and needed both
air and healthy exercise. Zhang believed all Ming Yi said, and
offered no objection. Accordingly the lad found himself
enabled to pass all his evenings at the house of the beautiful
Xue. Each night they devoted to the same pleasures which
had made their first acquaintance so charming: they sang
and conversed by turns; they played at chess—the learned
game invented by Wu Wang, which is an imitation of war;
they composed pieces of eighty rhymes upon the flowers,
the trees, the clouds, the streams, the birds, the bees. But in
all accomplishments Xue far excelled her young sweetheart.
Whenever they played at chess, it was always Ming Yi’s
general, Ming Yi’s j i a n g , who was surrounded and
vanquished; when they composed verses, Xue’s poems were
ever superior to his in harmony of word-coloring, in elegance
of form, in classic loftiness of thought. And the themes they
selected were always the most difficult—those of the poets
of the Tang dynasty; the songs they sang were also the
songs of five hundred years before—the songs of Yuan
Zhen, of Du Mu, of Gao Bian above all, high poet and ruler of
the province of Sichuan.
 So the summer waxed and waned upon their love, and the
luminous autumn came, with its vapors of phantom gold, its
shadows of magical purple.
Then it unexpectedly happened that the father of Ming Yi,
meeting his son’s employer at Qingdu, was asked by him:
“Why must your boy continue to travel every evening to the
city, now that the winter is approaching? The way is long,
and when he returns in the morning he looks fordone with
weariness. Why not permit him to slumber in my house
during the season of snow?” And the father of Ming Yi,
greatly astonished, responded: “Sir, my son has not visited
the city, nor has he been to our house all this summer. I
fear that he must have acquired wicked habits, and that he
passes his nights in evil company—perhaps in gaming, or in
drinking with the women of the flower-boats.” But the High
Commissioner returned: “Nay! that is not to be thought of. I
have never found any evil in the boy, and there are no
taverns nor flower-boats nor any places of dissipation in our
neighborhood. No doubt Ming Yi has found some amiable
youth of his own age with whom to spend his evenings, and
only told me an untruth for fear that I would not otherwise
permit him to leave my residence. I beg that you will say
nothing to him until I shall have sought to discover this
mystery; and this very evening I shall send my servant to
follow after him, and to watch whither he goes.”
Bailu readily assented to this proposal, and promising to
visit Zhang the following morning, returned to his home. In
the evening, when Ming Yi left the house of Zhang, a
servant followed him unobserved at a distance. But on
reaching the most obscure portion of the road, the boy
disappeared from sight as suddenly as though the earth had
swallowed him. After having long sought after him in vain,
the domestic returned in great bewilderment to the house,
and related what had taken place. Zhang immediately sent a
messenger to Bailu.
In the meantime Ming Yi, entering the chamber of his
beloved, was surprised and deeply pained to find her in
tears. “Sweetheart,” she sobbed, wreathing her arms around
his neck, “we are about to be separated forever, because of
reasons which I cannot tell you. From the very first I knew
this must come to pass; and nevertheless it seemed to me
for the moment so cruelly sudden a loss, so unexpected a
misfortune, that I could not prevent myself from weeping!
After this night we shall never see each other again, beloved,
and I know that you will not be able to forget me while you
live; but I know also that you will become a great scholar,
and that honors and riches will be showered upon you, and
that some beautiful and loving woman will console you for
my loss. And now let us speak no more of grief; but let us
pass this last evening joyously, so that your recollection of
me may not be a painful one, and that you may remember
my laughter rather than my tears.”
She brushed the bright drops away, and brought wine and
music and the melodious qin of seven silken strings, and
would not suffer Ming Yi to speak for one moment of the
coming separation. And she sang him an ancient song about
the calmness of summer lakes reflecting the blue of heaven
only, and the calmness of the heart also, before the clouds
of care and of grief and of weariness darken its little world.
Soon they forgot their sorrow in the joy of song and wine;
and those last hours seemed to Ming Yi more celestial than
even the hours of their first bliss.
But when the yellow beauty of morning came their sadness
returned, and they wept. Once more Xue accompanied her
lover to the terrace-steps; and as she kissed him farewell,
she pressed into his hand a parting gift—a little brush-case
of agate, wonderfully chiseled, and worthy the table of a
great poet. And they separated forever, shedding many
tears.
Still Ming Yi could not believe it was an eternal parting.
“No!” he thought, “I shall visit her tomorrow; for I cannot
now live without her, and I feel assured that she cannot
refuse to receive me.” Such were the thoughts that filled his
mind as he reached the house of Zhang, to find his father
and his patron standing on the porch awaiting him. Ere he
could speak a word, Bailu demanded: “Son, in what place
have you been passing your nights?”
Seeing that his falsehood had been discovered, Ming Yi
dared not make any reply, and remained abashed and silent,
with bowed head, in the presence of his father. Then Bailu,
striking the boy violently with his staff, commanded him to
divulge the secret; and at last, partly through fear of his
parent, and partly through fear of the law which ordains that
“the son refusing to obey his father shall be punished with
one hundred blows of the bamboo,” Ming Yi faltered out the
history of his love.
Zhang changed color at the boy’s tale. “Child,” exclaimed
the High Commissioner, “I have no relative of the name of
Bing; I have never heard of the woman you describe; I have
never heard even of the house which you speak of. But I
know also that you cannot dare to lie to Bailu, your honored
father; there is some strange delusion in all this affair.”
Then Ming Yi produced the gifts that Xue had given him—
the lion of yellow jade, the brush-case of carven agate, also
some original compositions made by the beautiful lady
herself. The astonishment of Zhang was now shared by
Bailu. Both observed that the brush-case of agate and the
lion of jade bore the appearance of objects that had lain
buried in the earth for centuries, and were of a workmanship
beyond the power of living man to imitate; while the
compositions proved to be veritable master-pieces of poetry,
written in the style of the poets of the dynasty of Tang.
“Friend Bailu,” cried the High Commissioner, “let us
immediately accompany the boy to the place where he
obtained these miraculous things, and apply the testimony of
our senses to this mystery. The boy is no doubt telling the
truth; yet his story passes my understanding.” And all three
proceeded toward the place of the habitation of Xue.
But when they had arrived at the shadiest part of the road,
where the perfumes were most sweet and the mosses were
greenest, and the fruits of the wild peach flushed most
pinkly, Ming Yi, gazing through the groves, uttered a cry of
dismay. Where the azure-tiled roof had risen against the sky,
there was now only the blue emptiness of air; where the
green-and-gold facade had been, there was visible only the
flickering of leaves under the aureate autumn light; and
where the broad terrace had extended, could be discerned
only a ruin—a tomb so ancient, so deeply gnawed by moss,
that the name graven upon it was no longer decipherable.
The home of Xue had disappeared!
All of a sudden the High Commissioner smote his forehead
with his hand, and turning to Bailu, recited the well-known
verse of the ancient poet Qing Gu:
“Surely the peach-flowers blossom over the tomb of XUE
TAO.”
“Friend Bailu,” continued Zhang, “the beauty who bewitched
your son was no other than she whose tomb stands there in
ruin before us! Did she not say she was wedded to Bing
Kang? There is no family of that name, but Bing Kang is
indeed the name of a broad alley in the city near. There was
a dark riddle in all that she said. She called herself Xue of
Wen Xiao: there is no person of that name; there is no
street of that name; but the Chinese characters We n and
Xiao, placed together, form the character ‘Jiao.’ Listen! The
alley Bing Kang, situated in the Jiao district, was the place
where dwelt the great courtesans of the dynasty of Tang!
Did she not sing the songs of Gao Bian? And upon the
brush-case and the paperweight she gave your son, are
there not characters which read, ‘Pure object of art
belonging to Gao, of the city of Pohai’? That city no longer
exists; but the memory of Gao Bian remains, for he was
governor of the province of Sichuan, and a mighty poet. And
when he dwelt in the land of Shu, was not his favorite the
beautiful wanton Xue—Xue Tao, unmatched for grace among
all the women of her day? It was he who made her a gift of
those manuscripts of song; it was he who gave her those
objects of rare art. Xue Tao died not as other women die.
Her limbs may have crumbled to dust; yet something of her
still lives in this deep wood—her Shadow still haunts this
shadowy place.”
Zhang ceased to speak. A vague fear fell upon the three.
The thin mists of the morning made dim the distances of
green, and deepened the ghostly beauty of the woods. A
faint breeze passed by, leaving a trail of blossom-scent—a
last odor of dying flowers—thin as that which clings to the
silk of a forgotten robe; and, as it passed, the trees seemed
to whisper across the silence, “Xue Tao.”
Fearing greatly for his son, Bailu sent the lad away at once
to the city of Guangzhoufu. And there, in after years, Ming Yi
obtained high dignities and honors by reason of his talents
and his learning; and he married the daughter of an
illustrious house, by whom he became the father of sons and
daughters famous for their virtues and their
accomplishments. Never could he forget Xue Tao; and yet it
is said that he never spoke of her—not even when his
children begged him to tell them the story of two beautiful
objects that always lay upon his writing-table: a lion of
yellow jade, and a brush-case of carven agate.
 The Legend of Zhi Nü

A SOUND OF GONGS, A SOUND OF SONG—THE SONG OF THE BUILDERS

BUILDING THE DWELLINGS OF THE DEAD:

Qiu zhi ying-ying.

Du zhi huang-huang.
Zhe zhi dong-dong.
Xiu liu bing-bing.

N the quaint commentary accompanying the text of that

I holy book of Laozi called Ganyingbian may be found a

little story so old that the name of the one who first told
it has been forgotten for a thousand years, yet so
beautiful that it lives still in the memory of four hundred
millions of people, like a prayer that, once learned, is forever
remembered. The Chinese writer makes no mention of any
city nor of any province, although even in the relation of the
most ancient traditions such an omission is rare; we are only
told that the name of the hero of the legend was Dong Yong,
and that he lived in the years of the great dynasty of Han,
some twenty centuries ago.
Dong Yong’s mother had died while he was yet an infant;
and when he became a youth of nineteen years his father
also passed away, leaving him utterly alone in the world, and
without resources of any sort; for, being a very poor man,
Dong’s father had put himself to great straits to educate the
lad, and had not been able to lay by even one copper coin of
his earnings. And Dong lamented greatly to find himself so
destitute that he could not honor the memory of that good
father by having the customary rites of burial performed, and
a carven tomb erected upon a propitious site, The poor only
are friends of the poor; and among all those whom Dong
knew, there was no one able to assist him in defraying the
expenses of the funeral. In one way only could the youth
obtain money—by selling himself as a slave to some rich
cultivator; and this he at last decided to do. In vain his
friends did their utmost to dissuade him; and to no purpose
did they attempt to delay the accomplishment of his sacrifice
by beguiling promises of future aid. Dong only replied that he
would sell his freedom a hundred times, if it were possible,
rather than suffer his father’s memory to remain dishonored
even for a brief season. And furthermore, confiding in his
youth and strength, he determined to put a high price upon
his servitude—a price which would enable him to build a
handsome tomb, but which it would be well-nigh impossible
for him ever to repay.
Accordingly he repaired to the broad public place where
slaves and debtors were exposed for sale, and seated
himself upon a bench of stone, having affixed to his
shoulders a placard inscribed with the terms of his servitude
and the list of his qualifications as a laborer. Many who read
the characters upon the placard smiled disdainfully at the
price asked, and passed on without a word; others lingered
only to question him out of simple curiosity; some
commended him with hollow praise; some openly mocked
his unselfishness, and laughed at his childish piety. Thus
many hours wearily passed, and Dong had almost despaired
of finding a master, when there rode up a high official of the
province—a grave and handsome man, lord of a thousand
slaves, and owner of vast estates. Reining in his Tartar
horse, the official halted to read the placard and to consider
the value of the slave. He did not smile, or advise, or ask any
questions; but having observed the price asked, and the fine
strong limbs of the youth, purchased him without further
ado, merely ordering his attendant to pay the sum and to
see that the necessary papers were made out.
Thus Dong found himself enabled to fulfill the wish of his
heart, and to have a monument built which, although of
small size, was destined to delight the eyes of all who beheld
it, being designed by cunning artists and executed by skilful
sculptors. And while it was yet designed only, the pious rites
were performed, the silver coin was placed in the mouth of
the dead, the white lanterns were hung at the door, the holy
prayers were recited, and paper shapes of all things the
departed might need in the land of the Genii were consumed
in consecrated fire. And after the geomancers and the
necromancers had chosen a burial-spot which no unlucky
star could shine upon, a place of rest which no demon or
dragon might ever disturb, the beautiful shi was built. Then
was the phantom money strewn along the way; the funeral
procession departed from the dwelling of the dead, and with
prayers and lamentation the mortal remains of Dong’s good
father were borne to the tomb.
Then Dong entered as a slave into the service of his
purchaser, who allotted him a little hut to dwell in; and
thither Dong carried with him those wooden tablets, bearing
the ancestral names, before which filial piety must daily burn
the incense of prayer, and perform the tender duties of
family worship.
Thrice had spring perfumed the breast of the land with
flowers, and thrice had been celebrated that festival of the
dead which is called Xiu fan di, and thrice had Dong swept
and garnished his father’s tomb and presented his fivefold
offering of fruits and meats. The period of mourning had
passed, yet he had not ceased to mourn for his parent. The
years revolved with their moons, bringing him no hour of joy,
no day of happy rest; yet he never lamented his servitude,
or failed to perform the rites of ancestral worship—until at
last the fever of the rice-fields laid strong hold upon him, and
he could not arise from his couch; and his fellow-laborers
thought him destined to die. There was no one to wait upon
him, no one to care for his needs, inasmuch as slaves and
servants were wholly busied with the duties of the household
or the labor of the fields—all departing to toil at sunrise and
returning weary only after the sundown.
Now, while the sick youth slumbered the fitful slumber of
exhaustion one sultry noon, he dreamed that a strange and
beautiful woman stood by him, and bent above him and
touched his forehead with the long, fine fingers of her
shapely hand. And at her cool touch a weird sweet shock
passed through him, and all his veins tingled as if thrilled by
new life. Opening his eyes in wonder, he saw verily bending
over him the charming being of whom he had dreamed, and
he knew that her lithe hand really caressed his throbbing
forehead. But the flame of the fever was gone, a delicious
coolness now penetrated every fiber of his body, and the
thrill of which he had dreamed still tingled in his blood like a
great joy. Even at the same moment the eyes of the gentle
visitor met his own, and he saw they were singularly
beautiful, and shone like splendid black jewels under brows
curved like the wings of the swallow. Yet their calm gaze
seemed to pass through him as light through crystal; and a
vague awe came upon him, so that the question which had
risen to his lips found no utterance. Then she, still caressing
him, smiled and said: “I have come to restore thy strength
and to be thy wife. Arise and worship with me.”
Her clear voice had tones melodious as a bird’s song; but in
her gaze there was an imperious power which Dong felt he
dare not resist. Rising from his couch, he was astounded to
find his strength wholly restored; but the cool, slender hand
which held his own led him away so swiftly that he had little
time for amazement. He would have given years of existence
for courage to speak of his misery, to declare his utter
inability to maintain a wife; but something irresistible in the
long dark eyes of his companion forbade him to speak; and
as though his inmost thought had been discerned by that
wondrous gaze, she said to him, in the same clear voice, “I
will provide.” Then shame made him blush at the thought of
his wretched aspect and tattered apparel; but he observed
that she also was poorly attired, like a woman of the people
—wearing no ornament of any sort, nor even shoes upon
her feet. And before he had yet spoken to her, they came
before the ancestral tablets; and there she knelt with him
and prayed, and pledged him in a cup of wine—brought he
knew not from whence—and together they worshipped
Heaven and Earth. Thus she became his wife.
A mysterious marriage it seemed, for neither on that day
nor at any future time could Dong venture to ask his wife
the name of her family, or of the place whence she came,
and he could not answer any of the curious questions which
his fellow-laborers put to him concerning her; and she,
moreover, never uttered a word about herself, except to say
that her name was Zhi. But although Dong had such awe of
her that while her eyes were upon him he was as one
having no will of his own, he loved her unspeakably; and the
thought of his serfdom ceased to weigh upon him from the
hour of his marriage. As through magic the little dwelling had
become transformed: its misery was masked with charming
paper devices—with dainty decorations created out of
nothing by that pretty jugglery of which woman only knows
the secret.
Each morning at dawn the young husband found a well-
prepared and ample repast awaiting him, and each evening
also upon his return; but the wife all day sat at her loom,
weaving silk after a fashion unlike anything which had ever
been seen before in that province. For as she wove, the silk
flowed from the loom like a slow current of glossy gold,
bearing upon its undulations strange forms of violet and
crimson and jewel-green: shapes of ghostly horsemen riding
upon horses, and of phantom chariots dragon-drawn, and of
standards of trailing cloud. In every dragon’s beard
glimmered the mystic pearl; in every rider’s helmet sparkled
the gem of rank. And each day Zhi would weave a great
piece of such figured silk; and the fame of her weaving
spread abroad. From far and near people thronged to see
the marvelous work; and the silk-merchants of great cities
heard of it, and they sent messengers to Zhi, asking her that
she should weave for them and teach them her secret. Then
she wove for them, as they desired, in return for the silver
cubes which they brought her; but when they prayed her to
teach them, she laughed and said, “Assuredly I could never
teach you, for no one among you has fingers like mine.” And
indeed no man could discern her fingers when she wove,
any more than he might behold the wings of a bee vibrating
in swift flight.
The seasons passed, and Dong never knew want, so well
did his beautiful wife fulfill her promise—“I will provide”; and
the cubes of bright silver brought by the silk-merchants were
piled up higher and higher in the great carven chest which
Zhi had bought for the storage of the household goods.
One morning, at last, when Dong, having finished his
repast, was about to depart to the fields, Zhi unexpectedly
bade him remain; and opening the great chest, she took out
of it and gave him a document written in the official
characters called li shu. And Dong, looking at it, cried out and
leaped in his joy, for it was the certificate of his
manumission. Zhi had secretly purchased her husband’s
freedom with the price of her wondrous silks!
“Thou shalt labor no more for any master,” she said, “but
for thine own sake only. And I have also bought this
dwelling, with all which is therein, and the tea-fields to the
south, and the mulberry groves hard by—all of which are
thine.”
Then Dong, beside himself for gratefulness, would have
prostrated himself in worship before her, but that she would
not suffer it.
Thus he was made free; and prosperity came to him with
his freedom; and whatsoever he gave to the sacred earth
was returned to him centupled; and his servants loved him
and blessed the beautiful Zhi, so silent and yet so kindly to
all about her. But the silk-loom soon remained untouched,
for Zhi gave birth to a son—a boy so beautiful that Dong
wept with delight when he looked upon him. And thereafter
the wife devoted herself wholly to the care of the child.
Now it soon became manifest that the boy was not less
wonderful than his wonderful mother. In the third month of
his age he could speak; in the seventh month he could
repeat by heart the proverbs of the sages, and recite the
holy prayers; before the eleventh month he could use the
writing-brush with skill, and copy in shapely characters the
precepts of Laozi. And the priests of the temples came to
behold him and to converse with him, and they marveled at
the charm of the child and the wisdom of what he said; and
they blessed Dong, saying: Surely this son of thine is a gift
from the Master of Heaven, a sign that the immortals love
thee. May thine eyes behold a hundred happy summers!
It was in the Period of the Eleventh Moon: the flowers had
passed away, the perfume of the summer had flown, the
winds were growing chill, and in Dong’s home the evening
fires were lighted. Long the husband and wife sat in the
mellow glow—he speaking much of his hopes and joys, and
of his son that was to be so grand a man, and of many
paternal projects; while she, speaking little, listened to his
words, and often turned her wonderful eyes upon him with
an answering smile. Never had she seemed so beautiful
before; and Dong, watching her face, marked not how the
night waned, nor how the fire sank low, nor how the wind
sang in the leafless trees without.
All suddenly Zhi arose without speaking, and took his hand
in hers and led him, gently as on that strange wedding-
morning, to the cradle where their boy slumbered, faintly
smiling in his dreams. And in that moment there came upon
Dong the same strange fear that he knew when Zhi’s eyes
had first met his own—the vague fear that love and trust
had calmed, but never wholly cast out, like unto the fear of
the gods. And all unknowingly, like one yielding to the
pressure of mighty invisible hands, he bowed himself low
before her, kneeling as to a divinity. Now, when he lifted his
eyes again to her face, he closed them forthwith in awe; for
she towered before him taller than any mortal woman, and
there was a glow about her as of sunbeams, and the light of
her limbs shone through her garments. But her sweet voice
came to him with all the tenderness of other hours, saying:
“Lo! my beloved, the moment has come in which I must
forsake thee; for I was never of mortal born, and the
Invisible may incarnate themselves for a time only. Yet I
leave with thee the pledge of our love—this fair son, who
shall ever be to thee as faithful and as fond as thou thyself
hast been. Know, my beloved, that I was sent to thee even
by the Master of Heaven, in reward of thy filial piety, and
that I must now return to the glory of His house: I am the
Goddess Zhi Nü.”
Even as she ceased to speak, the great glow faded; and
Dong, re-opening his eyes, knew that she had passed away
forever—mysteriously as pass the winds of heaven,
irrevocably as the light of a flame blown out. Yet all the
doors were barred, all the windows unopened. Still the child
slept, smiling in his sleep. Outside, the darkness was
breaking; the sky was brightening swiftly; the night was
past. With splendid majesty the East threw open high gates
of gold for the coming of the sun; and, illuminated by the
glory of his coming, the vapors of morning wrought
themselves into marvelous shapes of shifting color—into
forms weirdly beautiful as the silken dreams woven in the
loom of Zhi Nü.
 The Return of Yan Zhenjing

Before me ran, as a herald runneth, the Leader of the Moon;

And the Spirit of the Wind followed after me—quickening his
flight.
LI SAO

N the thirty-eighth chapter of the holy book,

I Ganyingpian, wherein the Recompense of Immortality is

considered, may be found the legend of Yan Zhenjing. A
thousand years have passed since the passing of the
good Zhenjing; for it was in the period of the greatness of
Tang that he lived and died.
Now, in those days when Yan Zhenjing was Supreme Judge
of one of the Six August Tribunals, one Li Xilie, a soldier
mighty for evil, lifted the black banner of revolt, and drew
after him, as a tide of destruction, the millions of the
northern provinces.
And learning of these things, and knowing also that Xilie
was the most ferocious of men, who respected nothing on
earth save fearlessness, the Son of Heaven commanded
Zhenjing that he should visit Xilie and strive to recall the
rebel to duty, and read unto the people who followed after
him in revolt the Emperor’s letter of reproof and warning. For
Zhenjing was famed throughout the provinces for his
wisdom, his rectitude, and his fearlessness; and the Son of
Heaven believed that if Xilie would listen to the words of any
living man steadfast in loyalty and virtue, he would listen to
the words of Zhenjing. So Zhenjing arrayed himself in his
robes of office, and set his house in order; and, having
embraced his wife and his children, mounted his horse and
rode away alone to the roaring camp of the rebels, bearing
the Emperor’s letter in his bosom. “I shall return; fear not!”
were his last words to the gray servant who watched him
from the terrace as he rode.
And Zhenjing at last descended from his horse, and entered
into the rebel camp, and, passing through that huge
gathering of war, stood in the presence of Xilie. High sat the
rebel among his chiefs, encircled by the wave-lightning of
swords and the thunders of ten thousand gongs: above him
undulated the silken folds of the Black Dragon, while a vast
fire rose bickering before him. Also Zhenjing saw that the
tongues of that fire were licking human bones, and that
skulls of men lay blackening among the ashes. Yet he was
not afraid to look upon the fire, nor into the eyes of Xilie; but
drawing from his bosom the roll of perfumed yellow silk upon
which the words of the Emperor were written, and kissing it,
he made ready to read, while the multitude became silent.
Then, in a strong, clear voice he began:
The words of the Celestial and August, the Son of Heaven, the Divine
Gezu Qin Yaodi, unto the rebel Li Xilie and those that follow him.
And a roar went up like the roar of the sea—a roar of rage,
and the hideous battle-moan, like the moan of a forest in
storm—“Hoo! hoo-oo-oo-oo!”—and the sword-lightnings
brake loose, and the thunder of the gongs moved the ground
beneath the messenger’s feet. But Xilie waved his gilded
wand, and again there was silence. “Nay!” spake the rebel
chief; “let the dog bark!” So Zhenjing spake on:
Knowest thou not, O most rash and foolish of men, that thou leadest
the people only into the mouth of the Dragon of Destruction? Knowest
thou not, also, that the people of my kingdom are the first-born of the
Master of Heaven? So it hath been written that he who doth needlessly
subject the people to wounds and death shall not be suffered by Heaven
to live! Thou who wouldst subvert those laws founded by the wise—those
laws in obedience to which may happiness and prosperity alone be found
—thou art committing the greatest of all crimes—the crime that is never
forgiven!
O my people, think not that I your Emperor, I your Father, seek your
destruction. I desire only your happiness, your prosperity, your greatness;
let not your folly provoke the severity of your Celestial Parent. Follow not
after madness and blind rage; hearken rather to the wise words of my
messenger.

“Hoo! hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo!” roared the people, gathering fury.

“Hoo! hoo-oo-oo-oo!”—until the mountains rolled back the
cry like the rolling of a typhoon; and once more the pealing
of the gongs paralyzed voice and hearing. Then Zhenjing,
looking at Xilie, saw that he laughed, and that the words of
the letter would not again be listened to. Therefore he read
on to the end without looking about him, resolved to perform
his mission in so far as lay in his power. And having read all,
he would have given the letter to Xilie; but Xilie would not
extend his hand to take it. Therefore Zhenjing replaced it in
his bosom, and folding his arms, looked Xilie calmly in the
face, and waited. Again Xilie waved his gilded wand; and the
roaring ceased, and the booming of the gongs, until nothing
save the fluttering of the Dragon-banner could be heard.
Then spake Xilie, with an evil smile:
“Zhenjing, O son of a dog! if thou dost not now take the
oath of fealty, and bow thyself before me, and salute me
with the salutation of Emperors—even with the lu gao, the
triple prostration—into that fire thou shalt be thrown.”
But Zhenjing, turning his back upon the usurper, bowed
himself a moment in worship to Heaven and Earth; and then
rising suddenly, ere any man could lay hand upon him, he
leaped into the towering flame, and stood there, with folded
arms, like a God.
Then Xilie leaped to his feet in amazement, and shouted to
his men; and they snatched Zhenjing from the fire, and
wrung the flames from his robes with their naked hands, and
extolled him, and praised him to his face. And even Xilie
himself descended from his seat, and spoke fair words to
him, saying: “O Zhenjing, I see thou art indeed a brave man
and true, and worthy of all honor; be seated among us, I
pray thee, and partake of whatever it is in our power to
bestow!”
But Zhenjing, looking upon him unswervingly, replied in a
voice clear as the voice of a great bell:
“Never, O Xilie, shall I accept aught from thy hand, save
death, so long as thou shalt continue in the path of wrath
and folly. And never shall it be said that Zhenjing sat him
down among rebels and traitors, among murderers and
robbers.”
Then Xilie, in sudden fury, smote him with his sword; and
Zhenjing fell to the earth and died, striving even in his death
to bow his head toward the South—toward the place of the
Emperor’s palace—toward the presence of his beloved
Master.
Even at the same hour the Son of Heaven, alone in the
inner chamber of his palace, became aware of a Shape
prostrate before his feet; and when he spake, the Shape
arose and stood before him, and he saw that it was
Zhenjing. And the Emperor would have questioned him; yet
ere he could question, the familiar voice spake, saying:
“Son of Heaven, the mission confided to me I have
performed; and thy command hath been accomplished to
the extent of thy humble servant’s feeble power. But even
now must I depart, that I may enter the service of another
Master.”
And looking, the Emperor perceived that the Golden Tigers
upon the wall were visible through the form of Zhenjing; and
a strange coldness, like a winter wind, passed through the
chamber; and the figure faded out. Then the Emperor knew
that the Master of whom his faithful servant had spoken was
none other than the Master of Heaven.
Also at the same hour the gray servant of Zhenjing’s house
beheld him passing through the apartments, smiling as he
was wont to smile when he saw that all things were as he
desired. “Is it well with thee, my lord?” questioned the aged
man. And a voice answered him: “It is well”; but the
presence of Zhenjing had passed away before the answer
came.
So the armies of the Son of Heaven strove with the rebels.
But the land was soaked with blood and blackened with fire;
and the corpses of whole populations were carried by the
rivers to feed the fishes of the sea; and still the war
prevailed through many a long red year. Then came to aid
the Son of Heaven the hordes that dwell in the desolations
of the West and North—horsemen born, a nation of wild
archers, each mighty to bend a two-hundred-pound bow
until the ears should meet. And as a whirlwind they came
against rebellion, raining raven-feathered arrows in a storm
of death; and they prevailed against Xilie and his people.
Then those that survived destruction and defeat submitted,
and promised allegiance; and once more was the law of
righteousness restored. But Zhenjing had been dead for
many summers.
And the Son of Heaven sent word to his victorious generals
that they should bring back with them the bones of his
faithful servant, to be laid with honor in a mausoleum
erected by imperial decree. So the generals of the Celestial
and August sought after the nameless grave and found it,
and had the earth taken up, and made ready to remove the
coffin.
But the coffin crumbled into dust before their eyes; for the
worms had gnawed it, and the hungry earth had devoured
its substance, leaving only a phantom shell that vanished at
touch of the light. And lo! as it vanished, all beheld lying
there the perfect form and features of the good Zhenjing.
Corruption had not touched him, nor had the worms
disturbed his rest, nor had the bloom of life departed from
his face. And he seemed to dream only—comely to see as
upon the morning of his bridal, and smiling as the holy
images smile, with eyelids closed, in the twilight of the great
pagodas.
Then spoke a priest, standing by the grave: “O my children,
this is indeed a Sign from the Master of Heaven; in such
wise do the Powers Celestial preserve them that are chosen
to be numbered with the Immortals. Death may not prevail
over them, neither may corruption come nigh them. Verily
the blessed Zhenjing hath taken his place among the
divinities of Heaven!”
Then they bore Zhenjing back to his native place, and laid
him with highest honors in the mausoleum which the
Emperor had commanded; and there he sleeps, incorruptible
forever, arrayed in his robes of state. Upon his tomb are
sculptured the emblems of his greatness and his wisdom and
his virtue, and the signs of his office, and the Four Precious
Things and the monsters which are holy symbols mount
giant guard in stone about it; and the weird Dogs of Fo keep
watch before it, as before the temples of the gods.
 The Tradition of the Tea Plant

SANG A CHINESE HEART FOURTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO:

There is Somebody of whom I am thinking.

Far away there is Somebody of whom I am thinking.
A hundred leagues of mountains lie between us:
Yet the same Moon shines upon us, and the passing Wind breathes
upon us both.

“ GOOD IS THE CONTINENCE OF THE EYE;

GOOD IT THE CONTINENCE OF THE EAR;

GOOD IS THE CONTINENCE OF THE NOS TRILS ;

GOOD IS THE CONTINENCE OF THE TONGUE;

GOOD IS THE CONTINENCE OF THE BODY;

GOOD IS THE CONTINENCE OF S PEECH;

GOOD IS ALL.…”
 GAIN the Vulture of Temptation soared to the highest

A heaven of his contemplation, bringing his soul down,

down, reeling and fluttering, back to the World of
Illusion. Again the memory made dizzy his thought,
like the perfume of some venomous flower. Yet he had seen
the bayadere for an instant only, when passing through Kasí
upon his way to China—to the vast empire of souls that
thirsted after the refreshment of Buddha’s law, as sun-
parched fields thirst for the life-giving rain. When she called
him, and dropped her little gift into his mendicant’s bowl, he
had indeed lifted his fan before his face, yet not quickly
enough; and the penalty of that fault had followed him a
thousand leagues—pursued after him even into the strange
land to which he had come to bear the words of the
Universal Teacher. Accursed beauty! surely framed by the
Tempter of tempters, by Mara himself, for the perdition of
the just! Wisely had Bhagavat warned his disciples:
O ye Çramanas, women are not to be looked upon! And if ye chance
to meet women, ye must not suffer your eyes to dwell upon them; but,
maintaining holy reserve, speak not to them at all. Then fail not to
whisper unto your own hearts, “Lo, we are Çramanas, whose duty it is to
remain uncontaminated by the corruptions of this world, even as the
Lotus, which suffereth no vileness to cling unto its leaves, though it
blossom amid the refuse of the wayside ditch.”
Then also came to his memory, but with a new and terrible
meaning, the words of the Twentieth-and-Third of the
Admonitions:
Of all attachments unto objects of desire, the strongest indeed is the
attachment to form. Happily, this passion is unique; for were there any
 other like unto it, then to enter the Perfect Way were impossible.

How, indeed, thus haunted by the illusion of form, was he

to fulfill the vow that he had made to pass a night and a day
in perfect and unbroken meditation? Already the night was
beginning! Assuredly, for sickness of the soul, for fever of
the spirit, there was no physic save prayer. The sunset was
swiftly fading out. He strove to pray:
“O the Jewel in the Lotus!
“Even as the tortoise withdraweth its extremities into its
shell, let me, O Blessed One, withdraw my senses wholly
into meditation!
“O the Jewel in the Lotus!
“For even as rain penetrateth the broken roof of a dwelling
long uninhabited, so may passion enter the soul uninhabited
by meditation.
“O the Jewel in the Lotus!
“Even as still water that hath deposited all its slime, so let
my soul, O Tathâgata, be made pure! Give me strong power
to rise above the world, O Master, even as the wild bird rises
from its marsh to follow the pathway of the Sun!
“O the Jewel in the Lotus!
“By day shineth the sun, by night shineth the moon;
shineth also the warrior in harness of war; shineth likewise
in meditations the Çramana. But the Buddha at all times, by
night or by day, shineth ever the same; illuminating the
world.
“O the Jewel in the Lotus!
“Let me cease, O thou Perfectly Awakened, to remain as an
Ape in the World-forest, forever ascending and descending in
search of the fruits of folly. Swift as the twining of serpents,
vast as the growth of lianas in a forest, are the all-encircling
growths of the Plant of Desire.
“O the Jewel in the Lotus!”
Vain his prayer, alas! vain also his invocation! The mystic
meaning of the holy text—the sense of the Lotus, the sense
of the Jewel—had evaporated from the words, and their
monotonous utterance now served only to lend more
dangerous definition to the memory that tempted and
tortured him. O the jewel in her ear! What lotus-bud more
dainty than the folded flower of flesh, with its dripping of
diamond-fire! Again he saw it, and the curve of the cheek
beyond, luscious to look upon as beautiful brown fruit. How
true the Two Hundred and Eighty-Fourth verse of the
Admonitions!
So long as a man shall not have torn from his heart even the smallest
rootlet of that liana of desire that draweth his thought toward women,
even so long shall his soul remain fettered.
And there came to his mind also the Three Hundred and
Forty-Fifth verse of the same blessed book, regarding
fetters:
In bonds of rope, wise teachers have said, there is no strength; nor in
fetters of wood, nor yet in fetters of iron. Much stronger than any of these
 is the fetter of concern for the jeweled earrings of women.

“Omniscient Gotama!” he cried, “all-seeing Tathâgata! How

multiform the consolation of Thy Word! How marvelous Thy
understanding of the human heart! Was this also one of Thy
temptations?—one of the myriad illusions marshaled before
Thee by Mara in that night when the earth rocked as a
chariot, and the sacred trembling passed from sun to sun,
from system to system, from universe to universe, from
eternity to eternity?”
O the jewel in her ear! The vision would not go! Nay, each
time it hovered before his thought it seemed to take a
warmer life, a fonder look, a fairer form; to develop with his
weakness; to gain force from his enervation. He saw the
eyes, large, limpid, soft, and black as a deer’s; the pearls in
the dark hair, and the pearls in the pink mouth; the lips
curling to a kiss, a flower-kiss; and a fragrance seemed to
float to his senses, sweet, strange, soporific—a perfume of
youth, an odor of woman. Rising to his feet, with strong
resolve he pronounced again the sacred invocation; and he
recited the holy words of the “Chapter of Impermanency”:
Gazing upon the heavens and upon the earth ye must say, These are
not permanent. Gazing upon the mountains and the rivers, ye must say,
These are not permanent. Gazing upon the forms and upon the faces of
exterior beings, and beholding their growth and their development, ye
must say, These are not permanent.
And nevertheless! how sweet illusion! The illusion of the
great sun; the illusion of the shadow-casting hills; the illusion
of waters, formless and multiform; the illusion of—Nay, nay!
what impious fancy! Accursed girl! yet, yet! why should he
curse her? Had she ever done aught to merit the malediction
of an ascetic? Never, never! Only her form, the memory of
her, the beautiful phantom of her, the accursed phantom of
her! What was she? An illusion creating illusions, a mockery,
a dream, a shadow, a vanity, a vexation of spirit! The fault,
the sin, was in himself, in his rebellious thought, in his
untamed memory. Though mobile as water, intangible as
vapor, Thought, nevertheless, may be tamed by the Will,
may be harnessed to the chariot of Wisdom—must be!—that
happiness be found. And he recited the blessed verses of the
“Book of the Way of the Law”:
All forms are only temporary. When this great truth is fully
comprehended by any one, then is he delivered from all pain. This is the
Way of Purification.
All forms are subject unto pain. When this great truth is fully
comprehended by any one, then is he delivered from all pain. This is the
Way of Purification.
All forms are without substantial reality. When this great truth is fully
comprehended by any one, then is he delivered from all pain. This is the
way of...

Her form, too, unsubstantial, unreal, an illusion only, though

comeliest of illusions? She had given him alms! Was the
merit of the giver illusive also—illusive like the grace of the
supple fingers that gave? Assuredly there were mysteries in
the Abhidharma impenetrable, incomprehensible!… It was a
golden coin, stamped with the symbol of an elephant—not
more of an illusion, indeed, than the gifts of Kings to the
Buddha! Gold upon her bosom also, less fine than the gold of
her skin. Naked between the silken sash and the narrow
breast-corslet, her young waist curved glossy and pliant as a
bow. Richer the silver in her voice than in the hollow pagals
that made a moonlight about her ankles! But her smile!—the
little teeth like flower-stamens in the perfumed blossom of
her mouth!
O weakness! O shame! How had the strong Charioteer of
Resolve thus lost his control over the wild team of fancy!
Was this languor of the Will a signal of coming peril, the peril
of slumber? So strangely vivid those fancies were, so brightly
definite, as about to take visible form, to move with factitious
life, to play some unholy drama upon the stage of dreams!
“O Thou Fully Awakened!” he cried aloud, “help now thy
humble disciple to obtain the blessed wakefulness of perfect
contemplation! let him find force to fulfill his vow! suffer not
Mara to prevail against him!” And he recited the eternal
verses of the “Chapter of Wakefulness”:
Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!
Unceasingly, by day and night, their thoughts are fixed upon the Law.
Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!
Unceasingly, by day and night, their thoughts are fixed upon the
Community.
Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!
Unceasingly, by day and night, their thoughts are fixed upon the Body.
Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!
Unceasingly, by day and night, their minds know the sweetness of perfect
peace.
Completely and eternally awake are the disciples of Gotama!
 Unceasingly, by day and night, their minds enjoy the deep peace of
meditation.
There came a murmur to his ears; a murmuring of many
voices, smothering the utterances of his own, like a tumult of
waters. The stars went out before his sight; the heavens
darkened their infinities: all things became viewless, became
blackness; and the great murmur deepened, like the murmur
of a rising tide; and the earth seemed to sink from beneath
him. His feet no longer touched the ground; a sense of
supernatural buoyancy pervaded every fiber of his body: he
felt himself floating in obscurity; then sinking softly, slowly,
like a feather dropped from the pinnacle of a temple. Was
this death? Nay, for all suddenly, as transported by the Sixth
Supernatural Power, he stood again in light—a perfumed,
sleepy light, vapory, beautiful—that bathed the marvelous
streets of some Indian city. Now the nature of the murmur
became manifest to him; for he moved with a mighty throng,
a people of pilgrims, a nation of worshippers. But these were
not of his faith; they bore upon their foreheads the smeared
symbols of obscene gods! Still, he could not escape from
their midst; the mile-broad human torrent bore him
irresistibly with it, as a leaf is swept by the waters of the
Ganges. Rajahs were there with their trains, and princes
riding upon elephants, and Brahmins robed in their
vestments, and swarms of voluptuous dancing-girls, moving
to chant of kabit and damâri. But whither, whither? Out of
the city into the sun they passed, between avenues of
banyan, down colonnades of palm. But whither, whither?
Blue-distant, a mountain of carven stone appeared before
them—the Temple, lifting to heaven its wilderness of chiseled
pinnacles, flinging to the sky the golden spray of its
decoration. Higher it grew with approach, the blue tones
changed to gray, the outlines sharpened in the light. Then
each detail became visible: the elephants of the pedestals
standing upon tortoises of rock; the great grim faces of the
capitals; the serpents and monsters writhing among the
friezes; the many-headed gods of basalt in their galleries of
fretted niches, tier above tier; the pictured foulnesses, the
painted lusts, the divinities of abomination. And, yawning in
the sloping precipice of sculpture, beneath a frenzied
swarming of gods and Gopia—a beetling pyramid of limbs
and bodies interlocked—the Gate, cavernous and shadowy as
the mouth of Siva, devoured the living multitude.
The eddy of the throng whirled him with it to the vastness
of the interior. None seemed to note his yellow robe, none
even to observe his presence. Giant aisles intercrossed their
heights above him; myriads of mighty pillars, fantastically
carven, filed away to invisibility behind the yellow illumination
of torch-fires. Strange images, weirdly sensuous, loomed up
through haze of incense. Colossal figures, that at a distance
assumed the form of elephants or garuda-birds, changed
aspect when approached, and revealed as the secret of their
design an interplaiting of the bodies of women; while one
divinity rode all the monstrous allegories—one divinity or
demon, eternally the same in the repetition of the sculptor,
universally visible as though self-multiplied. The huge pillars
themselves were symbols, figures, carnalities; the orgiastic
spirit of that worship lived and writhed in the contorted
bronze of the lamps, the twisted gold of the cups, the
chiseled marble of the tanks.…
How far had he proceeded? He knew not; the journey
among those countless columns, past those armies of
petrified gods, down lanes of flickering lights, seemed longer
than the voyage of a caravan, longer than his pilgrimage to
China! But suddenly, inexplicably, there came a silence as of
cemeteries; the living ocean seemed to have ebbed away
from about him, to have been engulfed within abysses of
subterranean architecture! He found himself alone in some
strange crypt before a basin, shell-shaped and shallow,
bearing in its center a rounded column of less than human
height, whose smooth and spherical summit was wreathed
with flowers. Lamps similarly formed, and fed with oil of
palm, hung above it. There was no other graven image, no
visible divinity. Flowers of countless varieties lay heaped
upon the pavement; they covered its surface like a carpet,
thick, soft; they exhaled their ghosts beneath his feet. The
perfume seemed to penetrate his brain—a perfume
sensuous, intoxicating, unholy; an unconquerable languor
mastered his will, and he sank to rest upon the floral
offerings.
The sound of a tread, light as a whisper, approached
through the heavy stillness, with a drowsy tinkling of pagals,
a tintinnabulation of anklets. All suddenly he felt glide about
his neck the tepid smoothness of a woman’s arm. She, she!
his Illusion, his Temptation; but how transformed,
transfigured!—preternatural in her loveliness,
incomprehensible in her charm! Delicate as a jasmine-petal
the cheek that touched his own; deep as night, sweet as
summer, the eyes that watched him. “ Heart’s-thief,” her
flower-lips whispered—“heart’s-thief, how have I sought for
thee! How have I found thee! Sweets I bring thee, my
beloved; lips and bosom; fruit and blossom. Hast thirst?
Drink from the well of mine eyes! Wouldst sacrifice? I am
thine altar! Wouldst pray? I am thy God!”
Their lips touched; her kiss seemed to change the cells of
his blood to flame. For a moment Illusion triumphed; Mara
prevailed!… With a shock of resolve the dreamer awoke in
the night—under the stars of the Chinese sky.
Only a mockery of sleep! But the vow had been violated,
the sacred purpose unfulfilled! Humiliated, penitent, but
resolved, the ascetic drew from his girdle a keen knife, and
with unfaltering hands severed his eyelids from his eyes, and
flung them from him. “O Thou Perfectly Awakened!” he
prayed, “thy disciple hath not been overcome save through
the feebleness of the body; and his vow hath been renewed.
Here shall he linger, without food or drink, until the moment
of its fulfillment.” And having assumed the hieratic posture—
seated himself with his lower limbs folded beneath him, and
the palms of his hands upward, the right upon the left, the
left resting upon the sole of his upturned foot—he resumed
his meditation.
Dawn blushed; day brightened. The sun shortened all the
shadows of the land, and lengthened them again, and sank
at last upon his funeral pyre of crimson-burning cloud. Night
came and glittered and passed. But Mara had tempted in
vain. This time the vow had been fulfilled, the holy purpose
accomplished.
And again the sun arose to fill the world with laughter of
light; flowers opened their hearts to him; birds sang their
morning hymn of fire worship; the deep forest trembled with
delight; and far upon the plain, the eaves of many-storied
temples and the peaked caps of the city-towers caught
aureate glory. Strong in the holiness of his accomplished
vow, the Indian pilgrim arose in the morning glow. He
started for amazement as he lifted his hands to his eyes.
What! was everything a dream? Impossible! Yet now his
eyes felt no pain; neither were they lidless; not even so
much as one of their lashes was lacking. What marvel had
been wrought? In vain he looked for the severed lids that he
had flung upon the ground; they had mysteriously vanished.
But lo! there where he had cast them two wondrous shrubs
were growing, with dainty leaflets eyelid-shaped, and snowy
buds just opening to the East.
Then, by virtue of the supernatural power acquired in that
mighty meditation, it was given the holy missionary to know
the secret of that newly created plant—the subtle virtue of
its leaves. And he named it, in the language of the nation to
whom he brought the Lotus of the Good Law, “TE”; and he
spoke to it, saying:
“Blessed be thou, sweet plant, beneficent, life-giving,
formed by the spirit of virtuous resolve! Lo! the fame of thee
shall yet spread unto the ends of the earth; and the perfume
of thy life be borne unto the uttermost parts by all the winds
of heaven! Verily, for all time to come men who drink of thy
sap shall find such refreshment that weariness may not
overcome them nor languor seize upon them;—neither shall
they know the confusion of drowsiness, nor any desire for
slumber in the hour of duty or of prayer. Blessed be thou!”
And still, as a mist of incense, as a smoke of universal
sacrifice, perpetually ascends to heaven from all the lands of
earth the pleasant vapor of TE, created for the refreshment
of mankind by the power of a holy vow, the virtue of a pious
atonement.
 The Tale of the Porcelain God

It is written in the Fonghoshin chuan, that whenever

the artist Cang Gong was in doubt, he would look into
the fire of the great oven in which his vases were
baking, and question the Guardian-Spirit dwelling in
the flame. And the Spirit of the Oven-fires so aided
him with his counsels, that the porcelains made by
Cang Gong were indeed finer and lovelier to look
upon than all other porcelains. And they were baked
in the years of Kangxi—sacredly called Ren Huangdi.

HO first of men discovered the secret of the

W Gaoling, of the Baidunzi—the bones and the flesh,

the skeleton and the skin, of the beauteous Vase?
Who first discovered the virtue of the curd-white
clay? Who first prepared the ice-pure bricks of du n : the
gathered-hoariness of mountains that have died for age;
blanched dust of the rocky bones and the stony flesh of sun-
seeking Giants that have ceased to be? Unto whom was it
first given to discover the divine art of porcelain?
Unto Bu, once a man, now a god, before whose snowy
statues bow the myriad populations enrolled in the guilds of
the potteries. But the place of his birth we know not;
perhaps the tradition of it may have been effaced from
remembrance by that awful war which in our own day
consumed the lives of twenty millions of the Black-haired
Race, and obliterated from the face of the world even the
wonderful City of Porcelain itself—the City of Jingdezhen,
that of old shone like a jewel of fire in the blue mountain-
girdle of Fouliang.
Before his time indeed the Spirit of the Furnace had being;
had issued from the Infinite Vitality; had become manifest as
an emanation of the Supreme Tao. For Huangdi, nearly five
thousand years ago, taught men to make good vessels of
baked clay; and in his time all potters had learned to know
the God of Oven-fires, and turned their wheels to the
murmuring of prayer. But Huangdi had been gathered unto
his fathers for thrice ten hundred years before that man was
born destined by the Master of Heaven to become the
Porcelain God.
And his divine ghost, ever hovering above the smoking and
the toiling of the potteries, still gives power to the thought of
the shaper, grace to the genius of the designer, luminosity to
the touch of the enamelist. For by his heaven-taught wisdom
was the art of porcelain created; by his inspiration were
accomplished all the miracles of Taoyu, maker of the Jiayuji,
and all the marvels made by those who followed after him:
All the azure porcelains called Yuguo Tianjing; brilliant as a
mirror, thin as paper of rice, sonorous as the melodious
stone Qing, and colored, in obedience to the mandate of the
Emperor Shizong, “blue as the sky is after rain, when viewed
through the rifts of the clouds.” These were indeed, the first
of all porcelains, likewise called Zhaiyao, which no man
howsoever wicked, could find courage to break, for they
charmed the eye like jewels of price;
And the Ru ya o, second in the among all porcelains,
sometimes mocking the aspect and the sonority of bronze,
sometimes blue as summer waters, and deluding the sight
with mucid appearance of thickly floating spawn of fish;
And the Guanyao, which are the Porcelains of Magistrates,
and third in rank of merit among all wondrous porcelains,
colored with colors of the morning—sky blueness, with the
rose of a great dawn blushing and bursting through it, and
long-limbed marsh-birds flying against the glow;
Also the Geyao, fourth in rank among perfect porcelains, of
fair, faint, changing colors, like the body of a living fish, or
made in the likeness of opal substance, milk mixed with fire;
the work of Xing Yi, elder of the immortal brothers Zhang;
Also the Dingyao, fifth in rank among all perfect porcelains
—white as the mourning garments of a spouse bereaved,
and beautiful with a trickling as of tears—the porcelains sung
of by the poet Son Dongbo;
Also the porcelains called Biseyao, whose colors are called
“hidden,” being alternately invisible and visible, like the tints
of ice beneath the sun—the porcelains celebrated by the far-
famed singer Xin Yin;
Also the wondrous Shuyao, the pallid porcelains that utter a
mournful cry, when smitten—the porcelains chanted of by
the mighty chanter, Tushao Ling;
 Also the porcelains called Qinyao, white or blue, surface-
wrinkled as the face of water by the fluttering of many fins.
… And ye can see the fish!
Also the vases called Jihongqi, red as sunset after a rain;
and the Totaiqi, fragile as the wings of the silkworm-moth,
lighter than the shell of an egg;
Also the Jiajing, fair cups pearl white when empty, yet, by
some incomprehensible witchcraft of construction seeming to
swarm with purple fish the moment they are filled with
water;
Also the porcelains called Yaopian , whose tints are
transmuted by the alchemy of fire; for they enter blood-
crimson into the heat, and change there to lizard-green, and
at last come forth azure as the cheek of the sky;
Also the Jizhouyao, which are all violet as a summer’s
night; and the Xingyao that sparkle with the sparklings of
mingled silver and snow;
Also the Xuanyao, some ruddy as iron in the furnace, some
diaphanous and ruby-red, some granulated and yellow as the
rind of an orange, some softly flushed as the skin of a
peach;
Also the Zuiqiyao, crackled and green as ancient ice is; and
the Zhoufuyao, which are the Porcelains of Emperors, with
dragons wriggling and snarling in gold; and those yao that
are pink-ribbed and have their angles serrated as the claws
of crabs are;
 Also the Wuniyao, black as the pupil of the eve, and as
lustrous; and the Hutianyao, darkly yellow as the faces of
men of India; and the Wugongyao, whose color is the dead-
gold of autumn-leaves;
Also the Longgangyao, green as the seedling of a pea, but
bearing also paintings of sun-silvered cloud, and of the
Dragons of Heaven;
Also the Jinghuayao, pictured with the amber bloom of
grapes and the verdure of vine-leaves and the blossoming of
poppies, or decorated in relief with figures of fighting
crickets;
Also the Kangxi Niancangyao, celestial azure sown with
star-dust of gold; and the Qianlong Niantangyao, splendid in
sable and silver as a fervid night that is flashed with
lightnings.
Not indeed the Longwangyao, painted with the lascivious
B ix i, with the obscene Nannü sixie, with the shameful
Zhunhua, or “Pictures of Spring”; abominations created by
command of the wicked Emperor Muzong, though the Spirit
of the Furnace hid his face and fled away;
But all other vases of startling form and substance,
magically articulated, and ornamented with figures in relief,
in cameo, in transparency—the vases with orifices belled like
the cups of flowers, or cleft like the bills of birds, or fanged
like the jaws of serpents, or pink-lipped as the mouth of a
girl; the vases flesh-colored and purple-veined and dimpled,
with ears and with earrings; the vases in likeness of
mushrooms, of lotus-flowers, of lizards, of horse-footed
dragons woman-faced; the vases strangely translucid, that
simulate the white glimmering of grains of prepared rice, that
counterfeit the vapory lace-work of frost, that imitate the
efflorescences of coral;
Also the statues in porcelain of divinities: the Genius of the
Hearth; the Longping who are the Twelve Deities of Ink; the
blessed Laozi, born with silver hair; Kongfuzi, grasping the
scroll of written wisdom; Guanyin, sweetest Goddess of
Mercy, standing snowy-footed upon the heart of her golden
lily; Shinong, the god who taught men how to cook; Fo, with
long eyes closed in meditation, and lips smiling the
mysterious smile of Supreme Beatitude; Shoulao, god of
Longevity, bestriding his aerial steed, the white-winged stork;
Putai, Lord of Contentment and of Wealth, obese and
dreamy; and that fairest Goddess of Talent, from whose
beneficent hands eternally streams the iridescent rain of
pearls.
And though many a secret of that matchless art that Bu
bequeathed unto men may indeed have been forgotten and
lost forever, the story of the Porcelain-God is remembered;
and I doubt not that any of the aged Rouyan liaogong, any
one of the old blind men of the great potteries, who sit all
day grinding colors in the sun, could tell you Bu was once a
humble Chinese workman, who grew to be a great artist by
dint of tireless study and patience and by the inspiration of
Heaven. So famed he became that some deemed him an
alchemist, who possessed the secret called White-and-
Yellow, by which stones might be turned into gold; and
others thought him a magician, having the ghastly power of
murdering men with horror of nightmare, by hiding charmed
effigies of them under the tiles of their own roofs; and
others, again, averred that he was an astrologer who had
discovered the mystery of those Five Xing which influence all
things—those Powers that move even in the currents of the
star-drift, in the milky Tianhe, or River of the Sky. Thus, at
least, the ignorant spoke of him; but even those who stood
about the Son of Heaven, those whose hearts had been
strengthened by the acquisition of wisdom, wildly praised the
marvels of his handicraft, and asked each other if there
might be any imaginable form of beauty which Bu could not
evoke from that beauteous substance so docile to the touch
of his cunning hand.
And one day it came to pass that Bu sent a priceless gift to
the Celestial and August: a vase imitating the substance of
ore-rock, all aflame with pyritic scintillation—a shape of
glittering splendor with chameleons sprawling over it;
chameleons of porcelain that shifted color as often as the
beholder changed his position. And the Emperor, wondering
exceedingly at the splendor of the work, questioned the
princes and the mandarins concerning him that made it. And
t h e princes and the mandarins answered that he was a
workman named Bu, and that he was without equal among
potters, knowing secrets that seemed to have been inspired
either by gods or by demons. Whereupon the Son of Heaven
sent his officers to Bu with a noble gift, and summoned him
unto his presence.
 So the humble artisan entered before the Emperor, and
having performed the supreme prostration—thrice kneeling,
and thrice nine times touching the ground with his forehead
—awaited the command of the August.
And the Emperor spake to him, saying: “Son, thy gracious
gift hath found high favor in our sight; and for the charm of
that offering we have bestowed upon thee a reward of five
thousand silver liang. But thrice that sum shall be awarded
thee so soon as thou shalt have fulfilled our behest.
Hearken, therefore, O matchless artificer! it is now our will
that thou make for us a vase having the tint and the aspect
of living flesh, but—mark well our desire!—of flesh made to
creep by the utterance of such words as poets utter—flesh
moved by an Idea, flesh horripilated by a Thought! Obey,
and answer not! We have spoken.”
Now Bu was the most cunning of all the Peisegong—the
men who marry colors together; of all the Huayanggong,
who draw the shapes of vase-decoration; of all the
Huisigong, who paint in enamel; of all the Tiancaigong, who
brighten color; of all the Shaolugong, who watch the
furnace-fires and the porcelain-ovens. But he went away
sorrowing from the Palace of the Son of Heaven,
notwithstanding the gift of five thousand silver liang which
had been given to him. For he thought to himself: “Surely
the mystery of the comeliness of flesh, and the mystery of
that by which it is moved, are the secrets of the Supreme
Dao. How shall man lend the aspect of sentient life to dead
clay? Who save the Infinite can give soul?”
 Now Bu had discovered those witchcrafts of color, those
surprises of grace, that make the art of the ceramist. He had
found the secret of the fenhong, the wizard flush of the
Rose; of the huahong, the delicious incarnadine; of the
mountain-green called shanlü; of the pale soft yellow termed
xiaohuangyou; and of the huangjin, which is the blazing
beauty of gold. He had found those eel-tints, those serpent-
greens, those pansy-violets, those furnace-crimsons, those
carminates and lilacs, subtle as spirit-flame, which our
enamelists of the Occident long sought without success to
reproduce. But he trembled at the task assigned him, as he
returned to the toil of his studio, saying: “How shall any
miserable man render in clay the quivering of flesh to an
Idea—the inexplicable horripilation of a Thought? Shall a man
venture to mock the magic of that Eternal Molder by whose
infinite power a million suns are shaped more readily than
one small jar might be rounded upon my wheel?”
Yet the command of the Celestial and August might never
be disobeyed; and the patient workman strove with all his
power to fulfill the Son of Heaven’s desire. But vainly for
days, for weeks, for months, for season after season, did he
strive; vainly also he prayed unto the gods to aid him; vainly
he besought the Spirit of the Furnace, crying: “O thou Spirit
of Fire, hear me, heed me, help me! How shall I—a
miserable man, unable to breathe into clay a living soul—
how shall I render in this inanimate substance the aspect of
flesh made to creep by the utterance of a Word, sentient to
the horripilation of a Thought?”
 For the Spirit of the Furnace made strange answer to him
with whispering of fire: “Vast thy faith, weird thy prayer! Has
Thought feet, that man may perceive the trace of its
passing? Canst thou measure me the blast of the Wind?”
Nevertheless, with purpose unmoved, nine-and-forty times
did Bu seek to fulfill the Emperor’s command; nine-and-forty
times he strove to obey the behest of the Son of Heaven.
Vainly, alas! did he consume his substance; vainly did he
expend his strength; vainly did he exhaust his knowledge:
success smiled not upon him; and Evil visited his home, and
Poverty sat in his dwelling, and Misery shivered at his hearth.
Sometimes, when the hour of trial came, it was found that
the colors had become strangely transmuted in the firing, or
had faded into ashen pallor, or had darkened into the
fuliginous hue of forest-mould. And Bu, beholding these
misfortunes, made wail to the Spirit of the Furnace, praying:
“O thou Spirit of Fire, how shall I render the likeness of
lustrous flesh, the warm glow of living color, unless thou aid
me?”
And the Spirit of the Furnace mysteriously answered him
with murmuring of fire: “Canst thou learn the art of that
Infinite Enameler who hath made beautiful the Arch of
Heaven—whose brush is Light; whose paints are the Colors
of the Evening?”
Sometimes, again, even when the tints had not changed,
after the pricked and labored surface had seemed about to
quicken in the heat, to assume the of living skin—even at
the last hour all the labor of the workers proved to have
been wasted; for the fickle substance rebelled against their
efforts, producing only crinklings grotesque as those upon
the rind of a withered fruit, or granulations like those upon
the skin of a dead bird from which the feathers have been
rudely plucked. And Bu wept, and cried out unto the Spirit of
the Furnace: “O thou Spirit of Flame, how shall I be able to
imitate the thrill of flesh touched by a Thought, unless thou
wilt vouchsafe to lend me thine aid?”
And the Spirit of the Furnace mysteriously answered him
with muttering of fire: “Canst thou give ghost unto a stone?
Canst thou thrill with a Thought the entrails of the granite
hills?”
Sometimes it was found that all the work indeed had not
failed; for the color seemed good, and all faultless the matter
of the vase appeared to be, having neither crack nor
wrinkling nor crinkling; but the pliant softness of warm skin
did not meet the eye; the flesh-tinted surface offered only
the harsh aspect and hard glimmer of metal. All their
exquisite toil to mock the pulpiness of sentient substance
had left no trace; had been brought to nought by the breath
of the furnace. And Bu, in his despair, shrieked to the Spirit
of the Furnace: “O thou merciless divinity! O thou most
pitiless god!—thou whom I have worshipped with ten
thousand sacrifices!—for what fault hast thou abandoned
me? for what error hast thou forsaken me? How may I, most
wretched of men! ever render the aspect of flesh made to
creep with the utterance of a Word, sentient to the titillation
of a Thought, if thou wilt not aid me?”
And the Spirit of the Furnace made answer unto him with
roaring of fire: “Canst thou divide a Soul? Nay! . . . Thy life
for the life of thy work!—thy soul for the soul of thy Vase!”
And hearing these words Bu arose with a terrible resolve
swelling at his heart, and made ready for the last and fiftieth
time to fashion his work for the oven.
One hundred times did he sift the clay and the quartz, the
gaoling and the dun; one hundred times did he purify them
in clearest water; one hundred times with tireless hands did
he knead the creamy paste, mingling it at last with colors
known only to himself. Then was the vase shapen and
reshapen, and touched and retouched by the hands of Bu,
until its blandness seemed to live, until it appeared to quiver
and to palpitate, as with vitality from within, as with the
quiver of rounded muscle undulating beneath the
integument. For the hues of life were upon it and infiltrated
throughout its innermost substance, imitating the carnation
of blood-bright tissue, and the reticulated purple of the veins;
and over all was laid the envelope of sun-colored baijiahe,
the lucid and glossy enamel, half diaphanous, even like the
substance that it counterfeited—the polished skin of a
woman. Never since the making of the world had any work
comparable to this been wrought by the skill of man.
Then Bu bade those who aided him that they should feed
the furnace well with wood of cha; but he told his resolve
unto none. Yet after the oven began to glow, and he saw the
work of his hands blossoming and blushing in the heat, he
bowed himself before the Spirit of Flame, and murmured: “O
thou Spirit and Master of Fire, I know the truth of thy words!
I know that a Soul may never be divided! Therefore my life
for the life of my work!—my soul for the soul of my Vase!”
And for nine days and for eight nights the furnaces were
fed unceasingly with wood of cha; for nine days and for
eight nights men watched the wondrous vase crystallizing
into being, rose-lighted by the breath of the flame. Now upon
the coming of the ninth night, Bu bade all his weary
comrades retire to rest, for that the work was well-nigh
done, and the success assured. “If you find me not here at
sunrise,” he said, “fear not to take forth the vase; for I know
that the task will have been accomplished according to the
command of the August.” So they departed.
But in that same ninth night Bu entered the flame, and
yielded up his ghost in the embrace of the Spirit of the
Furnace, giving his life for the life of his work—his soul for
the soul of his Vase.
And when the workmen came upon the tenth morning to
take forth the porcelain marvel, even the bones of Bu had
ceased to he; but lo! the Vase lived as they looked upon it:
seeming to be flesh moved by the utterance of a Word,
creeping to the titillation of a Thought. And whenever tapped
by the finger it uttered a voice and a name—the voice of its
maker, the name of its creator: BU.
And the Son of Heaven, hearing of these things, and
viewing the miracle of the vase, said unto those about him:
“Verily, the Impossible hath been wrought by the strength of
faith, by the force of obedience! Yet never was it our desire
that so cruel a sacrifice should have been; we sought only to
know whether the skill of the matchless artificer came from
the Divinities or from the Demons—from heaven or from
hell. Now, indeed, we discern that Bu hath taken his place
among the gods.” And the Emperor mourned exceedingly for
his faithful servant. But he ordained that god-like honors
should be paid unto the spirit of the marvelous artist, and
that his memory should be revered forevermore, and that
fair statues of him should be set up in all the cities of the
Celestial Empire, and above all the toiling of the potteries,
that the multitude of workers might unceasingly call upon his
name and invoke his benediction upon their labors.
 Notes

“The Soul of the Great Bell”—The story of Ge-ai is one of

the collection entitled Baixiaodu shou, o r A Hundred
Examples of Filial Piety. It is very simply told by the Chinese
narrator. The scholarly French consul, P. Dabry de Thiersant,
translated and published in 1877 a portion of the book,
including the legend of the Bell. His translation is enriched
with a number of Chinese drawings; and there is a quaint
little picture of Ge-ai leaping into the molten metal.
“The Story of Ming Yi”—The singular phantom-tale upon
which my work is based forms the thirty-fourth story of the
famous collection Jinguqiguan, and was first translated under
the title, La Bachelière du Pays de Chu, by the learned
Gustave Schlegel, as an introduction to his publication
(accompanied by a French version) of the curious and
obscene Mai-yu-lang-toú-tchen-hoa-koueï (Leyden, 1877),
which itself forms the seventh recital of the same work.
Schlegel, Julien, Gardner, Birch, D’Entrecolles, Rémusat,
Pavie, Olyphant, Grisebach, Hervey-Saint-Denys, and others,
have given the Western world translations of eighteen stories
from the Jingujiguan; namely, Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14,
19, 20, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 34, 35, and 39. The Chinese work
itself dates back to the thirteenth century; but as it forms
only a collection of the most popular tales of that epoch,
many of the stories selected by the Chinese editor may have
had a much more ancient origin. There are forty tales in the
Jingujiguan.
“The Legend of Zhi Nü”—My authority for this tale is the
following legend from the thirty-fourth chapter of the
Ganyingpian, or Book of Rewards and Punishments—a work
attributed to Laozi, which contains some four hundred
anecdotes and traditions of the most curious kind:
Dong Yong, who lived under the Han dynasty, was reduced to a state
of extreme poverty. Having lost his father, he sold himself in order to
obtain … the wherewithal to bury him and to build him a tomb. The
Master of Heaven took pity on him, and sent the Goddess Zhi Nü to him
to become his wife. She wove a piece of silk for him every day until she
was able to buy his freedom, after which she gave him a son, and went
back to heaven.—Julien’s French Translation, p. 119.
Lest the reader should suppose, however, that I have
drawn wholly upon my own imagination for the details of the
apparition, the cure, the marriage ceremony, etc., I refer him
to No. 96 of Giles’s Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio ,
entitled, “A Supernatural Wife,” in which he will find that my
narrative is at least conformable to Chinese ideas. (This story
first appeared in “Harper’s Bazaar,” and is republished here
by permission.)
“The Return of Yan Zhenjing”—There may be an
involuntary anachronism in my version of this legend, which
is very pithily narrated in the Ganyingpian. No emperor’s
name is cited by the homilist; and the date of the revolt
seems to have been left wholly to conjecture. Baber, in his
Memoirs, mentions one of his Mongol archers as able to
bend a two-hundred-pound bow until the ears met.
 “The Tradition of the Tea Plant ”—My authority for this bit of
folklore is the brief statement published by Bretschneider in
the “Chinese Recorder” for 1871:
A Japanese legend says that about a.d. 519, a Buddhist priest came
to China, and, in order to dedicate his soul entirely to God, he made a
vow to pass the day and night in an uninterrupted and unbroken
meditation. After many years of this continual watching, he was at length
so tired that he fell asleep. On awaking the following morning, he was so
sorry he had broken his vow that he cut off both his eyelids and threw
them upon the ground. Returning to the same place the following day he
observed that each eyelid had become a shrub. This was the tea-shrub,
unknown until that time.
Bretschneider adds that the legend in question seems not
to be known to the Chinese; yet in view of the fact that
Buddhism itself, with all its marvelous legends, was received
by the Japanese from China, it is certainly probable this
legend had a Chinese origin—subsequently disguised by
Japanese chronology. My Buddhist texts were drawn from
Fernand Hu’s translation of the Dhammapada, and from
Leon Feer’s translation from the Tibetan of the Sutra in
Forty-two Articles. A scholar of Eastern subjects who should
condescend in a rare leisure-moment to glance at my work
might also discover that I had borrowed an idea or two from
the Sanskrit poet, Bhâminî-Vilâsa.
“The Tale of the Porcelain God ”—The good Père
D’Entrecolles, who first gave to Europe the secrets of
Chinese porcelain-manufacture, wrote one hundred and sixty
years ago:
The Emperors of China are, during their lifetime, the most redoubted
 of divinities; and they believe that nothing should ever stand in the way
of their desires.…
It is related that once upon a time a certain Emperor insisted that
some porcelains should be made for him according to a model which he
gave. It was answered that the thing was simply impossible: but all such
remonstrances only served to excite his desire more and more.… The
officer charged by the demigod to supervise and hasten the work treated
the workmen with great harshness. The poor wretches spent all their
money, took exceeding pains, and received only blows in return. One of
them, in a fit of despair, leaped into the blazing furnace, and was
instantly burnt to ashes. But the porcelain that was being baked there at
the time came out, they say, perfectly beautiful and to the satisfaction of
the Emperor. . . . From that time, the unfortunate workman was regarded
as a hero; and his image was made the idol which presides over the
manufacture of porcelain.
It appears that D’Entrecolles mistook the statue of Putai,
God of Comfort, for that of the real porcelain deity, as
Jacquemart and others observe. This error does not,
however, destroy the beauty of the myth; and there is no
good reason to doubt that D’Entrecolles related it as it had
been told him by some of his Chinese friends at Jingdezhen.
The researches of Stanislas Julien and others have only
tended to confirm the trustworthiness of the Catholic
missionary’s statements in other respects; and both Julien
and Salvétat, in their admirable French rendering of the
Jingdezhen taolu, or History of the Porcelains of King-te-chin
(a work which has been of the greatest service to me in the
preparation of my little story), quote from his letters at
considerable length, and award him the highest praise as a
conscientious investigator. So far as I have been able to
learn, D’Entrecolles remains the sole authority for the myth;
but his affirmations in regard to other matters have
withstood the severe tests of time astonishingly well; and
since the Taiping rebellion destroyed Jingdezhen and
paralyzed its noble industry, the value of the French
missionary’s documents and testimony has become widely
recognized. In lieu of any other name for the hero of the
legend, I have been obliged to retain that of Pu, or Bu—only
using it without the affix “tai”—so as to distinguish it from
the deity of comfort and repose.
 Glossary

ABHIDHARMA—The metaphysics of Buddhism. Buddhist

literature is classed into three great divisions, or “baskets”;
the highest of these is the Abhidharma.… According to a
passage in Spence Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism,” the full
comprehension of the Abhidharma is possible only for a
Buddha to acquire.

CHU-SHA-KIH—The mandarin-orange.

ÇRAMANA—An ascetic; one who has subdued his senses. For

an interesting history of this term, see Burnouf
—Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme Indien.

DA ZHONGSI—Literally, “Temple of the Bell.” The building at

Beijing so named covers probably the largest suspended
bell in the world, cast in the reign of Yongluo, about 1406
ce, and weighing upwards of 120,000 pounds.

DAMÂRI—A peculiar chant, of somewhat licentious character,

most commonly sung during the period of the Indian
carnival. For an account, at once brief and entertaining, of
popular Hindu songs and hymns, see Garcin de Tassy
 —Chants populaires de l’Inde.

DAO—The infinite being, or Universal Life, whence all forms

proceed: Literally, “the Way,” in the sense of the First
Cause. Laozi uses the term in other ways; but that primal
and most important philosophical sense which he gave to it
is well explained in the celebrated Chapter XXV. of the
Daodejing.… The difference between the great Chinese
thinker’s conception of the First Cause—the Unknowable—
and the theories of other famous metaphysicians, Eastern
and Western, is set forth with some definiteness in
Stanislas Julien’s introduction to the Daodejing, pp. x–xv.
(Le Livre de la Voie et de la Vertu. Paris, 1842.)

DOGS OF FO—The Dog of Fo is one of those fabulous monsters

in the sculptural representation of which Chinese art has
found its most grotesque expression. It is really an
exaggerated lion; and the symbolic relation of the lion to
Buddhism is well known. Statues of these mythical animals
—sometimes of a grandiose and colossal execution—are
placed in pairs before the entrances of temples, palaces,
and tombs, as tokens of honor, and as emblems of divine
protection.

FENGHUANG—This allegorical bird, corresponding to the Arabian

phoenix in some respects, is described as being five cubits
high, having feathers of five different colors, and singing in
 five modulations.… The female is said to sing in imperfect
tones; the male in perfect tones. The fenghuang figures
largely in Chinese musical myths and legends.

FO—Buddha is called Fo, Fu, Fudu, Hu, Fat, in various

Chinese dialects. The name is thought to be a corruption of
the Hindu Bodh, or “Truth,” due to the imperfect articulation
of the Chinese. ... It is a curious fact that the Chinese
Buddhist liturgy is Sanskrit transliterated into Chinese
characters, and that the priests have lost all recollection of
the antique tongue—repeating the texts without the least
comprehension of their meaning.

FUYIN—A Chinese official holding a position corresponding to

that of mayor in the West.

GAOLING—Literally, “the High Ridge,” and originally the name

of a hilly range which furnished the best quality of clay to
the porcelain-makers. Subsequently the term applied by
long custom to designate the material itself became
corrupted into the word now familiar in all countries—kaolin.
In the language of the Chinese potters, the gaolin, or clay,
was poetically termed the “bones,” and the dun, or quartz,
the “flesh” of the porcelain; while the prepared bricks of the
combined substances were known as baidun yise. Both
substances, the infusible and the fusible, are productions of
the same geological formation—decomposed feldspathic
 rock.

GOPIA (o r Gopis)—Daughters and wives of the cowherds of

Vrindavana, among whom Krishna was brought up after his
incarnation as the eighth avatar of Vishnu. Krishna’s
amours with the shepherdesses, or Gopia, form the subject
of various celebrated mystical writings, especially the Prem-
Ságar, o r Ocean of Love (translated by East-wick and by
others); and the sensuous Gita-Govinda of the Bengalese
lyric poet Jayadeva (translated into French prose by
Hippolyte Fauche, and chastely rendered into English verse
by Edwin Arnold in the Indian Song of Songs). See also
Burnouf’s partial translation of the Bhagavata Purana, and
Théodore Pavie’s Kriçhna et sa doctrine.… The same theme
has inspired some of the strangest productions of Hindu
art: for examples, see plates 65 and 66 of Moor’s Hindi
Pantheon (edition of 1861). For accounts of the erotic
mysticism connected with the worship of Krishna and the
Gopia, the reader may also be referred to authorities cited
in Barth’s Religions of India; De Tassy’s Chants populaires
de l’Inde; and Lamairesse’s Poésies populaires du Sud de
l’lnde.

GUANGZHOUFU—Literally, “The Broad City”—formerly known in

the West as Canton. It is also called “The City of Genii.”

GUI—Gui, musician to the Emperor Yao, must have held his

 office between 2357 and 2277 bce. The extract selected
from one of his songs, which I have given at the beginning
of the “Story of Ming Yi,” is therefore more than four
thousand years old. The same chant contains another
remarkable fancy, evidencing Chinese faith in musical
magic:
When I unite my [musical] stone— Be it gently, be it strongly— Then
do the fiercest beasts of prey leap high for joy, And the chiefs among the
public officials do agree among themselves.

HAOQIU ZHUAN—This celebrated Chinese novel was translated

into French by M. Guillard d’Arcy in 1842, and appeared
under the title, Hao-Khieou-Tchouan; ou, La Femme
Accomplie. The first translation of the romance into any
European tongue was a Portuguese rendering; and the
English version of Percy is based upon the Portuguese text.
The work is rich in poetical quotations.

HEISONG SHEZHE—“One day when the Emperor Hiuan-tsong of

the Thang dynasty,” says the Daojiabingyashe, “was at
work in his study, a tiny Taoist priest, no bigger than a fly,
rose out of the inkstand lying upon his table, and said to
him: ‘I am the Genie of ink; my name is Heisong shezhe
[Envoy of the Black Fir]; and I have come to tell you that
whenever a true sage shall sit down to write, the Twelve
Divinities of Ink [Longping] will appear upon the surface of
the ink he uses.’ ” See L’Encre de Chine , by Maurice
Jametel. Paris, 1882.
HUA ZHAO—The “Birthday of a Hundred Flowers” falls upon the
fifteenth of the second spring-moon.

JADE—Jade, or nephrite, a variety of jasper—called by the

Chinese yu—has always been highly valued by them as
artistic material. ... In the Book of Rewards and
Punishments, there is a curious legend to the effect that
Confucius, after the completion of his Xiao jing (Book of
Filial Piety), having addressed himself to Heaven, a crimson
rainbow fell from the sky, and changed itself at his feet into
a piece of yellow jade. See Stanislas Julien’s translation, p.
495.

JIA—“House”; but especially the house of the dead—a tomb.

JIANGGU REN—Literally, the “tell-old-story-men.” For a brief

account of Chinese professional story-tellers, the reader
may consult Schlegel’s entertaining introduction to the
Maiyu langdu zhenhua gui.

KABIT—A POETICAL FORM MUCH IN FAVOR WITH COMPOSERS OF HINDI

RELIGIOUS CHANTS: THE KABIT ALWAYS CONSISTS OF FOUR VERSES.

KASÍ (o r Varanasi)—Ancient name of Benares, the “Sacred

City,” believed to have been founded by the gods. It is also
called “The Lotus of the World.” Barth terms it “the
 Jerusalem of all the sects both of ancient and modern
India.” It still boasts two thousand shrines, and half a
million images of divinities. See also Sherring’s Sacred City
of the Hindus.

LÍ—A measure of distance. The length of the l í has varied

considerably in ancient and in modern times. The present
estimation of a lí is approximately 1,640 feet.

LI SAO—The Dissipation of Grief, one of the most celebrated

Chinese poems of the classic period. It is said to have been
written about 314 bce, by Yuan Jiubing, minister to the King
of Zu. Finding himself the victim of a base court-intrigue,
Jiubing wrote the Li Sao as a vindication of his character,
and as a rebuke to the malice of his enemies, after which
he committed suicide by drowning. ... A fine French
translation of the Li Sao has been made by the Marquis
Hervey de Saint-Denys (Paris, 1870).

LI SHU—The second of the six styles of Chinese writing, for

an account of which see William’s Middle Kingdom.…
According to various Taoist legends, the decrees of Heaven
are recorded in the “Seal-character,” the oldest of all; and
marks upon the bodies of persons killed by lightning have
been interpreted as judgments written in it. The following
extraordinary tale from the Ganyingpian affords a good
example of the superstition in question:
 Wu Zhangzhun was Minister of State under the reign of Huizong, of
the Song dynasty. He occupied himself wholly in weaving perfidious plots.
He died in exile at Muzhou. Some time after, while the Emperor was
hunting, there fell a heavy rain, which obliged him to seek shelter in a
poor man’s hut. The thunder rolled with violence; and the lightning killed
a man, a woman, and a little boy. On the backs of the man and woman
were found red characters, which could not be deciphered; but on the
back of the little boy the following six words could be read, written in
Zhuan (antique) characters: Zi chin Zhangzhun zhen—which mean:
“Child of the issue of Zhangzhun, who was a rebellious subject.”— Le Livre
des Recompenses et des Peines, traduit par Stanislas Julien, p. 446.

PAGAL—The ankle-ring commonly worn by Hindi women; it is

also called nupur. It is hollow, and contains loose bits of
metal, which tinkle when the foot is moved.

QIAN—The well-known Chinese copper coin, with a square

hole in the middle for stringing, is thus named. According to
quality of metal it takes from 900 to 1,800 qian to make one
silver dollar.

QIN—The most perfect of Chinese musical instruments, also

called “the Scholar’s Lute.” The word qin also means “to
prohibit”; and this name is said to have been given to the
instrument because music, according to Chinese belief,
“restrains evil passions, and corrects the human heart.” See
Williams’s Middle Kingdom.

QING REN—“Men of Qing.” From very ancient times the

Chinese have been wont to call themselves by the names
 of their famous dynasties—Han ren, “the men of Han”;
Tang ren, “the men of Tang,” etc. Da Qing Guo (“Great
Pure Kingdom”) is the name given by the present dynasty
to China—according to which the people might call
themselves Qing ren, or “men of Qing.” Williams, however,
remarks that they will not yet accept the appellation.

SAN XIAN—A three-stringed Chinese guitar. Its belly is usually

covered with snake-skin.

TANG—The Dynasty of Tang, which flourished between 620

and 907 ce, encouraged literature and art, and gave to
China its most brilliant period. The three poets of the Tang
dynasty mentioned in the second story flourished between
779 and 852 ce.

“THREE COUNCILLORS”—Six stars of the Great-Bear constellation (

), as apparently arranged in pairs, are thus called by
the Chinese astrologers and mythologists. The three
couples are further distinguished as the Superior Councilor,
Middle Councilor, and Inferior Councilor; and, together with
the Genius of the Northern Heaven, form a celestial
tribunal, presiding over the duration of human life, and
deciding the course of mortal destiny. (Note by Stanislas
Julien in Le Livre des Recompenses et des Peines.)
TIAN XIA—Literally, “Under-Heaven,” or “Beneath-the-Sky”—
one of the most ancient of those many names given by the
Chinese to China. The name “China” itself is never applied
by the Black-haired Race to their own country, and is
supposed to have had its origin in the fame of the first Qin
dynasty, whose founder, Qin Shi Huangdi, built the Great,
or “Myriad-Mile,” Wall, twenty-two and a half degrees of
latitude in length.… See Williams regarding occurrence of
the name “China” in Sanskrit literature.

VERSES (CHINESE)—The verses preceding “The Legend of Zhi

Nü” afford some remarkable examples of Chinese
onomatopoeia. They occur in the sixth strophe of Mian
mian, which is the third chant of the first section of Da ya,
the Third Book of the Shi jing. (See G. Pauthier’s French
version.) Dr. Legge translates the strophe thus:
… Crowds brought the earth in baskets; they threw it with shouts into
the frames; they beat it with responsive blows; they pared the walls
repeatedly [until] they sounded strong—Sacred Books of the East; Vol.
III., The She-King, p. 384.
Pauthier translates the verses somewhat differently; preserving the
onomatopoeia in three of the lines. Huang-huang are the sounds heard in
the timber-yards where the wood is being measured; from the workshops
of the builders respond the sounds of dong-dong; and the solid walls,
when fully finished off, give out the sound of bing-bing.

XIU FAN DI—Literally, “the Sweeping of the Tombs”—the day of

the general worship of ancestors; the Chinese “All-Souls’.”
It falls in the early part of April, the period called qingming.
YAO—“Porcelain.” The reader who desires detailed
information respecting the technology, history, or legends of
Chinese porcelain-manufacture should consult Stanislas
Julien’s admirable Histoire de la Porcelaine Chinoise (Paris,
1856). With some trifling exceptions, the names of the
various porcelains cited in my “Tale of the Porcelain-God”
were selected from Julien’s work. Though oddly musical and
otherwise attractive in Chinese, these names lose interest
by translation. The majority of them merely refer to centers
of manufacture or famous potteries: Zhouyao, “porcelains
of Zhou”; Hongzhouyao, “porcelains of Hongzhou”; Ruyao,
“porcelains of Ruzhou”; Dingyao, “porcelains of Dingzhou”;
Geyao, “porcelains of the Elder Brother [Cang]”; Kangxi
niancangyao, “porcelains of Cang made in the reign of
Kangxi.” Some porcelains were distinguished by the names
of dynasties, or the titles of civic office holders; such as the
celebrated Chaiyao, “the porcelains of Chai” (which was the
name of the family of the Emperor Shizong); and the
Guanyao, or “Porcelains of Magistrates.” Much more rarely
the names refer directly to the material or artistic peculiarity
of porcelains—as Wuniyao, the “black-paste porcelains,” or
Biseyao, the “porcelains of hidden color.” The word qi,
sometimes substituted for yao in these compound names,
means “vases”; as Ruqi, “vases of Ruzhou”; Guanqi, “vases
for Magistrates.”