Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/369

 my friend, you are not wanting in spirituality," said the Buddhist priest to the stone, as he picked it up and laughingly held it forth upon the palm of his hand. " But we cannot be certain that you will ever prove to be of any real use ; and, moreover, you lack an inscrip- tion, without which your destiny must necessarily remain unfulfilled." Thereupon he put the stone in his sleeve and rose to proceed on his journey.

"And what, if I may ask," inquired his companion, "do you intend to do with the stone you are thus carrying away ?"

" I mean," replied the other, " to send it down tq earth, to play its allotted part in the fortunes of a certain family now anxiously expecting its arrival. You see, when the Goddess of Works rejected this stone, it used to fill up its time by roaming about the heavens, until chance brought it alongside of a lovely crimson flower. Being struck with the great beauty of this flower, the stone remained there for some time, tending its protegee with the most loving care, and daily moistening its roots with the choicest nectar of the sky, until at length, yielding to the influence of disinterested love, the flower changed its form and became a most beautiful girl.

" ' Dear stone,' cried the girl, in her new-found ecstasy of life, 'the moisture thou hast bestowed upon me here I will repay thee in our future state with my tears ! ' "

Ages afterwards, another priest, in search of light, saw this self-same stone lying in its old place, but with a record inscribed upon it a record of how it had not been used to repair the heavens, and how it subsequently vent down into the world of mortals, with a full descrip- tion of all it did, and saw, and heard while in that state.

" Brother Stone," said the priest, "your record is not

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