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Page 63
"'O Kai Lung,' exclaimed the lovely Tiao, when this person had made an
end of speaking, 'how expertly and in what a proficient manner do you
express yourself, uttering even the sentiments which this person has
felt inwardly, but for which she has no words. Why, indeed, do you not
inscribe them in a book?'
"Under her elevating influence it had already occurred to this
illiterate individual that it would be a more dignified and, perhaps,
even a more profitable course for him to write out and dispose of, to
those who print such matters, the versatile and high-minded
expressions which now continually formed his thoughts, rather than be
dependent upon the concise sentence for which, indeed, he was indebted
to the wisdom of a remote ancestor. Tiao's spoken word fully settled
his determination, so that without delay he set himself to the task of
composing a story which should omit the usual sentence, but should
contain instead a large number of his most graceful and diamond-like
thoughts. So engrossed did this near-sighted and superficial person
become in the task (which daily seemed to increase rather than lessen
as new and still more sublime images arose within his mind) that many
months passed before the matter was complete. In the end, instead of a
story, it had assumed the proportions of an important and many-volumed
book; while Tiao had in the meantime accepted the wedding gifts of an
objectionable and excessively round-bodied individual, who had amassed
an inconceivable number of taels by inducing persons to take part in
what at first sight appeared to be an ingenious but very easy
competition connected with the order in which certain horses should
arrive at a given and clearly defined spot. By that time, however,
this unduly sanguine story-teller had become completely entranced in
his work, and merely regarded Tiao-Ts'un as a Heaven-sent but no
longer necessary incentive to his success. With every hope, therefore,
he went forth to dispose of his written leaves, confident of finding
some very wealthy person who would be in a condition to pay him the
correct value of the work.
"At the end of two years this somewhat disillusionized but still
undaunted person chanced to hear of a benevolent and unassuming body
of men who made a habit of issuing works in which they discerned
merit, but which, nevertheless, others were unanimous in describing as
'of no good.' Here this person was received with gracious effusion,
and being in a position to impress those with whom he was dealing with
his undoubted knowledge of the subject, he finally succeeded in making
a very advantageous arrangement by which he was to pay one-half of the
number of taels expended in producing the work, and to receive in
return all the profits which should result from the undertaking. Those
who were concerned in the matter were so engagingly impressed with the
incomparable literary merit displayed in the production that they
counselled a great number of copies being made ready in order, as they
said, that this person should not lose by there being any delay when
once the accomplishment became the one topic of conversation in
tea-houses and yamens. From this cause it came about that the matter
of taels to be expended was much greater than had been anticipated at
the beginning, so that when the day arrived on which the volumes were
to be sent forth this person found that almost his last piece of money
had disappeared.
"Alas! how small a share has a person in the work of controlling his
own destiny. Had only the necessarily penurious and now almost
degraded Kai Lung been born a brief span before the great writer Lo
Kuan Chang, his name would have been received with every mark of
esteem from one end of the Empire to the other, while taels and
honourable decorations would have been showered upon him. For the
truth, which could no longer be concealed, revealed the fact that this
inopportune individual possessed a mind framed in such a manner that
his thoughts had already been the thoughts of the inspired Lo Kuan,
who, as this person would not be so presumptuous as to inform this
ornamental and well-informed gathering, was the most ingenious and
versatile-minded composer of written words that this Empire--and
therefore the entire world--has seen, as, indeed, his honourable title
of 'The Many-hued Mandarin Duck of the Yang-tse' plainly indicates.
"Although this self-opinionated person had frequently been greatly
surprised himself during the writing of his long work by the
brilliance and manysidedness of the thoughts and metaphors which arose
in his mind without conscious effort, it was not until the appearance
of the printed leaves which make a custom of warning persons against
being persuaded into buying certain books that he definitely
understood how all these things had been fully expressed many
dynasties ago by the all-knowing Lo Kuan Chang, and formed, indeed,
the great national standard of unapproachable excellence.
Unfortunately, this person had been so deeply engrossed all his life
in literary pursuits that he had never found an opportunity to glance
at the works in question, or he would have escaped the embarrassing
position in which he now found himself.
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