“‘Who are you?’ cried the sleeper, again awakened from his dreams.
“‘’Tis I, the God of Luck.’
“The man of letters sprang out of bed, and received the visitor with open arms in the dark cabin. The excellent god then wrote something with the tip of his finger on the poor man’s forehead and then disappeared.
“The cottager had hardly time to get back to bed when the God of Wealth again announced himself.
“This time, he was received in the most cordial manner, and at once placed in the poor man’s hand treasures of great value. He then asked the poor man to tell him why, after having at first refused to receive him, he now gave him so cordial a reception.
“‘Oh, it’s simple enough. Now I have got luck, which I hadn’t a short while ago. I knew that you always follow the God of Luck, and so it was him that I waited for.’”
It is evident that this means that without luck, fortune itself is worth nothing.
The God of Wealth, whose good works we have just related, is nowhere more fêted than in the town of Canton. Every evening, after the shops are closed, candles are lighted and incense is burned before his altars, which are fitted in niches on the outside of the shops. The whole town is illuminated and perfumed. This is an universal adoration to which no inhabitant of the Chinese empire gives himself up more fervently than the Cantonese, who are the most commercial of the Chinese. Now, the God of Wealth is also the God of Commerce, and that is as it should be, for commerce is money after all; at least, money is the object of trade and of traders. Plutus is the complement of Mercury.
The spring equinox, which we call the beginning of spring, often falls on the first days of the new year. Then, there is a great fête.