Page:Frank Owen - The Scarlett Hill, 1941.djvu/63

RV 58 (PORTRAIT OF AN EMPEROR) variety cast off a warm soft light, lanterns of adventure, mystery and romance. And there was jade of every color and hue, the hardest stone under the canopy of heaven, that miraculously preserves the body from decay. Screens of exquisite lacquer traceries, inlaid with silver and mother of pearl, carved ivory ornaments and paintings on silk and bamboo slips. All the wealth of China seemed gathered together in the Imperial Palace at Changan, with its turquoise, purple, blue, green and amber tiled halls, its stone-paved courtyards, and its myriads of lovely women chosen for their beauty as well as for their scholarship. All the maidens wore flowers twined in their hair, in accordance with the wishes of the Poet-Emperor, who was attuned to the rhythm of beauty whether it was in art, in poetry, in music or in the dancing of a girl with flower petal cheeks. Fantastically, he chose his generals only if they were good poets, and stranger still, the poet-generals scanned the enemy and found little difficulty in bringing them into tune. Understanding easily overcame brute force, as it must always do eventually. And yet Ming Huang hated war. He was weary of conquest.

"Let every man sweep the snow from his own door," he said, "and not trouble himself about the frost on his neighbor's tiles."

Sometimes, when a regiment of his soldiers on horseback left to put down a border uprising, he stood on the crest of the hill upon which was terraced the gardens of the palace and watched the speed at which the horsemen tore their way into the heart of distance. Though RV 58 (58)