Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/367

 only bearable position in which he could lie. Chang now told him what he had seen in Purgatory, at which the priest was so terrified that he at once gave up taking wine and meat, and devoted himself entirely to religious exercises. In a fortnight he was well, and was known ever afterwards as a most exemplary priest."

Snatches of verse are to be found scattered about the pages of these stories, enough to give a taste of the writer's quality without too much boring the reader. These lines are much admired:—

But we have seen perhaps enough of P'u Sung-ling. "If," as Han Yü exclaimed, "there is knowledge after death," the profound and widespread esteem in which this work is held by the literati of China must indeed prove a soothing balm to the wounded spirit of the Last of the Immortals.

The Hung Lou Mêng, conveniently but erroneously known as "The Dream of the Red Chamber," is the work referred to already as touching the highest point of development reached by the Chinese novel. It was probably composed during the latter half of the seventeenth century. The name of its author is unknown. It is usually published in 24 vols. octavo, containing 120 chapters, which average at the least 30 pages each, making a grand total of about 4000 pages. No fewer than 400 personages of more or less importance are introduced first and last into the story, the plot of which is worked out with a completeness worthy of Fielding,