Kai Lung’s Golden Hours - Ernest Bramah (the reading strategies book .TXT) 📗

essentially diverse. To this should be subjoined the apophthegm that that which we are eager to obtain may be that which we have striven to avoid.”

“It suffices,” agreed Hwa-mei. “Bear well your part.”

“Still,” suggested Kai Lung, hoping to detain her retiring footsteps for yet another span, “were it not better that I should fall short at the test, thus to enlarge your word before your fellows?”

“And in so doing demean yourself, darken the face of Shan Tien’s present regard, and alienate all those who stand around! O most obtuse Kai Lung!”

“I will then bare my throat,” confessed Kai Lung. “The barbed thought had assailed my mind that perchance the rings of precious jade lay coiled around your heart. Thus and thus I spoke.”

“Thus also will I speak,” replied Hwa-mei, and her uplifted eyes held Kai Lung by the inner fibre of his being. “Did I value them as I do, and were they a single hair of my superfluous head, the whole head were freely offered to a like result.”

With these noticeable words, which plainly testified the strength of her emotion, the maiden turned and hastened on her way, leaving Kai Lung gazing from the shutter in a very complicated state of disquietude.

The Story of Chang Tao, Melodious Vision and the Dragon

After Chang Tao had reached the age of manhood his grandfather took him apart one day and spoke of a certain matter, speaking as a philosopher whose mind has at length overflowed.

“Behold!” he said, when they were at a discreet distance aside, “your years are now thus and thus, but there are still empty chairs where there should be occupied cradles in your inner chamber, and the only upraised voice heard in this spacious residence is that of your esteemed father repeating the Analects. The prolific portion of the tree of our illustrious House consists of its roots; its existence onwards narrows down to a single branch which as yet has put forth no blossoms.”

“The loftiest tower rises from the ground,” remarked Chang Tao evasively, not wishing to implicate himself on either side as yet.

“Doubtless; and as an obedient son it is commendable that you should close your ears, but as a discriminating father there is no reason why I should not open my mouth,” continued the venerable Chang in a voice from which every sympathetic modulation was withdrawn. “It is admittedly a meritorious resolve to devote one’s existence to explaining the meaning of a single obscure passage of one of the Odes, but if the detachment necessary to the achievement results in a hitherto carefully-preserved line coming to an incapable end, it would have been more satisfactory to the dependent shades of our revered ancestors that the one in question should have collected street garbage rather than literary instances, or turned somersaults in place of the pages of the Classics, had he but given his first care to providing you with a wife and thereby safeguarding our unbroken continuity.”

“My father is all-wise,” ventured Chang Tao dutifully, but observing the nature of the other’s expression he hastened to add considerately, “but my father’s father is even wiser.”

“Inevitably,” assented the one referred to; “not merely because he is the more mature by a generation, but also in that he is thereby nearer to the inspired ancients in whom the Cardinal Principles reside.”

“Yet, assuredly, there must be occasional exceptions to this rule of progressive deterioration?” suggested Chang Tao, feeling that the process was not without a definite application to himself.

“Not in our pure and orthodox line,” replied the other person firmly. “To suggest otherwise is to admit the possibility of a son being the superior of his own father, and to what a discordant state of things would that contention lead! However immaturely you may think at present, you will see the position at its true angle when you have sons of your own.”

“The contingency is not an overhanging one,” said Chang Tao. “On the last occasion when I reminded my venerated father of my age and unmarried state, he remarked that, whether he looked backwards or forwards, extinction seemed to be the kindest destiny to which our House could be subjected.”

“Originality, carried to the length of eccentricity, is a censurable accomplishment in one of official rank,” remarked the elder Chang coldly. “Plainly it is time that I should lengthen the authority of my own arm very perceptibly. If a father is so neglectful of his duty, it is fitting that a grandfather should supply his place. This person will himself procure a bride for you without delay.”

“The function might perhaps seem an unusual one,” suggested Chang Tao, who secretly feared the outcome of an enterprise conducted under these auspices.

“So, admittedly, are the circumstances. What suitable maiden suggests herself to your doubtless better-informed mind? Is there one of the house of Tung?”

“There are eleven,” replied Chang Tao, with a gesture of despair, “all reputed to be untiring with their needle, skilled in the frugal manipulation of cold rice, devout, discreet in the lines of their attire, and so sombre of feature as to be collectively known to the available manhood of the city as the Terror that Lurks for the Unwary. Suffer not your discriminating footsteps to pause before that house, O father of my father! Now had you spoken of Golden Eyebrows, daughter of Kuo Wang⁠—”

“It would be as well to open a paper umbrella in a thunderstorm as to seek profit from an alliance with Kuo Wang. Crafty and ambitious, he is already deep in questionable ventures, and high as he carries his head at present, there will assuredly come a day when Kuo Wang will appear in public with his feet held even higher than his crown.”

“The rod!” exclaimed Chang Tao in astonishment. “Can it really be that one who is so invariably polite to me is not in every way immaculate?”

“Either bamboo will greet his feet or hemp adorn his neck,” persisted the other, with a significant movement of his hands in the proximity