"For a period of years the circumstances of the various persons did
not in any degree change, Quen in the meantime becoming more
pure-souled and inward-seeing with each moon-change, after the manner
of the sublime Lien-ti, who studied to maintain an unmoved endurance
in all varieties of events by placing his body to a greater extent
each day in a vessel of boiling liquid. Nevertheless, the good and
charitable deities to whom Quen unceasingly sacrificed were not
altogether unmindful of his virtues; for a son was born, and an evil
disease which arose from a most undignified display of uncontrollable
emotion on her part ended in his wife being deposited with becoming
ceremony in the Family Temple.
"Upon a certain evening, when Quen sat in his inner chamber
deliberating upon the really beneficent yet somewhat inexplicable
arrangement of the all-seeing ones to whom he was very amiably
disposed in consequence of the unwonted tranquillity which he now
enjoyed, yet who, it appeared to him, could have set out the entire
matter in a much more satisfactory way from the beginning, he was made
aware by the unexpected beating of many gongs, and by other signs of
refined and deferential welcome, that a person of exalted rank was
approaching his residence.
Pages:
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308