To take another specimen, this time with a dash of humour in it. A certain man, named Wang (anglicè Smith), decided to study Tao—in other words, the black art—at a temple of the Taoist persuasion. The priest, who seems to have had a touch of Squeers in his composition, warned Wang that he would probably not be able to stand the training; but on the latter insisting, the priest allowed him to join the other novices, and then sent him to chop wood. He was kept at this task so long that, although he managed to witness several extraordinary feats of magical skill performed by the priest, he scarcely felt that he was making progress himself.
“After a time he could not stand it any longer; and as the priest taught him no magical arts, he determined not to wait, but went to him and said, ‘Sir, I travelled many long miles for the benefit of your instruction. If you will not teach me the secret of immortality, let me, at any rate, learn some trifling trick, and thus soothe my cravings for a knowledge of your art. I have now been here two or three months, doing nothing but chop firewood, out in the morning and back at night, work to which I was never accustomed in my own home.’ ‘Did I not tell you,’ replied the priest, ‘that you would never support the fatigue? To-morrow I will start you on your way home.’ ‘Sir,’ said Wang, ‘I have worked for you a long time. Teach me some small art, that my coming here may not have been wholly in vain.’ ‘What art?’ asked the priest. ‘Well,’ answered Wang, ‘I have noticed that whenever you walk about anywhere, walls and so on are no obstacle to you. Teach me this, and I’ll be satisfied.’ The priest laughingly assented, and taught Wang a formula which he bade him recite. When he had done so he told him to walk through the wall; but Wang, seeing the wall in front of him, didn’t like to walk at it. As, however, the priest bade him try, he walked quietly up to it and was there stopped. The priest here called out, ‘Don’t go so slowly. Put your head down and rush at it.’ So Wang stepped back a few paces and went at it full speed; and the wall yielding to him as he passed, in a moment he found himself outside. Delighted at this, he went in to thank the priest, who told him to be careful in the use of his power, or otherwise there would be no response, handing him at the same time some money for his expenses on the way. When Wang got home, he went about bragging of his Taoist friends and his contempt for walls in general; but as his wife disbelieved his story, he set about going through the performance as before. Stepping back from the wall, he rushed at it full speed with his head down; but coming in contact with the hard bricks, finished up in a heap on the floor. His wife picked him up and found he had a bump on his forehead as big as a large egg, at which she roared with laughter; but Wang was overwhelmed with rage and shame, and cursed the old priest for his base ingratitude.”
Episodes with a familiar ring about them are often to be found embedded in this collection. For instance:—
“She then became a dense column of smoke curling up from the ground, when the priest took an uncorked gourd and threw it right into the midst of the smoke. A sucking noise was heard, and the whole column was drawn into the gourd; after which the priest corked it up closely and put it in his pouch.”
Of such points the following story contains another good example:—
“A countryman was one day selling his pears in the market. They were unusually sweet and fine flavoured, and the price he asked was high. A Taoist priest in rags and tatters stopped at the barrow and begged one of them. The countryman told him to go away, but as he did not do so, he began to curse and swear at him. The priest said, ‘You have several hundred pears on your barrow; I ask for a single one, the loss of which, sir, you would not feel. Why then get angry?’ The lookers-on told the countryman to give him an inferior one and let him go; but this he obstinately refused to do. Thereupon the beadle of the place, finding the commotion too great, purchased a pear and handed it to the priest. The latter received it with a bow, and turning to the crowd said, ‘We who have left our homes and given up all that is dear to us, are at a loss to understand selfish, niggardly conduct in others. Now I have some exquisite pears which I shall do myself the honour to put before you.’ Here somebody asked, ‘Since you have pears yourself why don’t you eat those?’ ‘Because,’ replied the priest, ‘I wanted one of these pips to grow them from.’ So saying he munched up the pear; and when he had finished took a pip in his hand, unstrapped a pick from his back, and proceeded to make a hole in the ground several inches deep, wherein he deposited the pip, filling in the earth as before. He then asked the bystanders for a little hot water to water it with, and one among them who loved a joke fetched him some boiling water from a neighbouring shop. The priest poured this over the place where he had made the hole, and every eye was fixed upon him when sprouts were seen shooting up, and gradually growing larger and larger. By and by there was a tree with branches sparsely covered with leaves; then flowers, and last of all fine, large, sweet-smelling pears hanging in great profusion. These the priest picked and handed round to the assembled crowd until all were gone, when he took his pick and hacked away for a long time at the tree, finally cutting it down. This he shouldered, leaves and all, and sauntered quietly away. Now from the very beginning our friend the countryman had been amongst the crowd, straining his neck to see what was going on, and forgetting all about his business. At the departure of the priest he turned round and discovered that every one of his pears was gone. He then knew that those the old fellow had been giving away so freely were really his own pears. Looking more closely at the barrow, he also found that one of the handles was missing, evidently having been newly cut off. Boiling with rage, he set out in pursuit of the priest, and just as he turned the corner he saw the lost barrow-handle lying under the wall, being, in fact, the very pear-tree that the priest had cut down. But there were no traces of the priest, much to the amusement of the crowd in the market-place.”
Here again is a scene, the latter part of which would almost justify the belief that Mr. W. S. Gilbert was a student of Chinese, and had borrowed some of his best points in “Sweethearts” from the author of the Liao Chai:—