Page:Strange stories from a Chinese studio.djvu/19

xiv ease," —such was always his enthusiastic strain. "For ever indulging in liberal thought," —thus he spoke openly without restraint. Were men like these to open my book, I should be a laughing-stock to them indeed. At the cross-road^^ men will not listen to me, and yet I have some knowledge of the three states of existence ^^ spoken of beneath the cliff ; ^® neither should the words I utter be set aside because of him that utters them.^^ When the bow ^^ was hung at my father's door, he dreamed that a sickly- looking Buddhist priest, but half covered by his stole, entered the chamber. On one of his breasts was a round piece of plaster like a cash ; ^^ and my father, waking from sleep, found that I, just bom, had a similar black patch on my body. As a child, I was thin and constantly ailing, and unable to hold my own in the battle of life. Our own home was chill and desolate as a monastery ; and working there for my livelihood with my pen,^ I was as poor as a priest with his alms-bowl.^^ Often and often I put my hand to my head 2* and exclaimed, "Surely he who sat with his

The cross-road of the "Five Fathers" is here mentioned, which the commentator tells us is merely the name of the place.

The past, present, and future life of the Buddhist system of metempsychosis.

A certain man, who was staying at a temple, dreamt that an old priest appeared to him beneath a jade-stone cliff, and, pointing to a stick of burning incense, said to him, " That incense represents a vow to be fulfilled; but I say unto you, that ere its smoke shall have curled away, your three states of existence will have been already accomplished." The meaning is that time on earth is as nothing to the Gods.

This remark occurs in the fifteenth chapter of the Analects or Confucian Gospels.

The birth of a boy was formerly signalled by hanging a bow at the door; that of a girl, by displaying a small towel—vindicative of the parts that each would hereaiiter play in the drama of life.

See Note 2 to No. II.

Literally, "ploughing with my pen."

The patra or bowl, used by Buddhist mendicants, in imitation of the celebrated alms-dish of Shâkyamuni Buddha.

Literally, "scratched my head," as is often done by the Chinese in perplexity or doubt.