In the Preface Hearn says that while preparing these legends he sought for "weird beauty." The era of fierce passions and horror is waning, and in these six perfect tales there is a new-found restraint, a firmer handling of the brush in more normal colours.
One of the earliest reviews of his work remarks:—
"In his treatment of the legend lore of the Celestial Empire, Mr. Hearn has, if possible, been even more delicate and charming than in the stories which go to make the previous volume, so much so, indeed, that one is persuaded to full belief in the beauty and witchery of the almond-eyed heroines of his pages." (322.)
The opening story is of the beautiful Ko-Ngai, daughter of Kouan-Yu, whose divine loyalty to her father never faltered even at a hideous death. He was a great bellmaker, and the Mandarin ordered that he should make a bell of such size that it would be heard for one hundred li, and further that the bell "should be strengthened with brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with silver." But the metals refused to mingle. Again the bell was cast, but the result was even worse, and the Son of Heaven was very angry; and this word was sent to Kouan-Yu:—
"If thou fail a third time in fulfilling our command, thy head shall be severed from thy neck."
When the lovely Ko-Ngai heard this, she sold her jewels, and paid a great price to an astrologer, and it was told to her:—
Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock, silver and iron never will embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be melted in the crucible; until the blood of a virgin be mingled with the metals in their fusion.
Ko-Ngai told no one what she had heard. The awful hour for the heroic effort of the final casting arrived.
All the workmen wrought their tasks in silence; there was no sound heard but the muttering of the fires. And the muttering deepened into a roar of typhoons approaching, and the blood-red lake of metal slowly brightened like the vermilion of a sunrise, and the vermilion was transmuted into a radiant glow of gold, and the gold whitened blindingly, like the silver face of a full moon. Then the workers ceased to feed the raving flame, and all fixed their eyes upon the eyes of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu prepared to give the signal to cast.
But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his head; and all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet as a bird's song above the great thunder of the fires,—"For thy sake, O my Father!" And even as she cried, she leaped into the white flood of metal; and the lava of the furnace roared to receive her, and spattered monstrous flakes of flame to the roof, and burst over the verge of the earthen crater, and cast up a whirling fountain of many-coloured fires, and subsided quakingly, with lightnings and with thunders and with mutterings.
Of the lovely Ko-Ngai no trace remained save a little shoe, which was left in the hand of the faithful serving-woman who had striven to catch her as she leaped into the flame.