Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/159

 brought to the capital of China by ambassadors from abroad. It would be deemed curious by those who have studied native literature and systems of thought if the peach had not been laid under contribution by the poets and mystics of the country. As a fact, it plays a prominent part in both poetry and philosophy. By some writers it is regarded as an emblem of longevity and marriage. Of course this does not mean that it is the only emblem of either which exists. Longevity is also symbolised by the stork, and conjugal harmony by the music of lutes and bells, the strings of a guitar, and other figures of a like fanciful description. It is the well-known Ode on the Princess's Marriage in the Book of Poetry, according to Dr. Legge's translation, which seems to have originated the metaphor that has been so great a favourite ever since:—

The Taoists, too, attribute occult virtues to the peach. Mr. Mayers, quoting from the Huang Ti Shu, or books of the imperial magician known as the Yellow Emperor, himself a disciple of the still more mystical Kuang Ch'êng-tzŭ, tells us that on one occasion two brothers, named respectively T'u Yu and Yu Liu, who had power over disembodied spirits, passed the ghostly legions in review beneath a peach-tree, and having bound all those who worked evil against mankind with scarlet withes, threw them as food to tigers. In memory of this it was customary for officials on the last day of the year to have figures cut in peach-wood mounted upon reeds, and to paint the likeness of a