No. CXX.
Let us continue the story of Chuang-tsze, the great master of magic.
Before many days, as I have stated, Chuang-tsze became suddenly and severely attacked, by some unaccountable disease. The symptoms were full of evil. His devoted wife was ever near her sick husband, sobbing bitterly, and bathing him in tears. “It is but too plain,” said the philosopher, “that I cannot survive—I am upon the bed of death—this very night, perhaps—at farthest, tomorrow—we shall part forever—what a pity, that you should have destroyed that fan—it would have answered so well, for the purpose of drying the earth upon my tomb!”
“For heaven’s sake,” exclaimed the weeping wife, “do not, weak and feeble as you are, harrass yourself, with these horrible fancies. You do me great wrong. Our books I have carefully perused. I know my duties well. You have received my troth—it shall never be another’s. Can you doubt my sincerity! Let me prove it, by dying first. I am ready.” “Enough,” said the philosopher—“I now die in peace—I am satisfied of your constancy. But the world is fading away—the cold hand of death is upon me.” The head of Chuang-tsze fell back—the breath had stopped—the pulse had ceased to beat—he was already with the dead.
If the piercing cries of a despairing, shrieking widow could have raised the dead, Chuang-tsze would have arisen, on the spot. She sprang upon the corpse, and held it long, in her fond embrace. She then arrayed her person in the deepest mourning, a robe of seamless white, and made the air resound with her cries of anguish and despair. She abjured food; abstained from slumber; and refused to be comforted.
Chuang-tsze had the wide-spread fame of an eminent sage—crowds gathered to his obsequies. After their performance, and when the vast assemblage had all, well nigh, departed—a youth of comely face, and elegantly arrayed, was observed, lingering near the spot. He proclaimed himself to be of most honorable descent, and that he had, long before, declared to Chuang-tsze his design of becoming the pupil of that great philosopher. “For that end,” said he, “and that alone, I have come to this place—and behold Chuang-tsze is no more. Great is my misfortune!”
This splendid youth cast off his colored garments, and assumed the robes of lamentation—he bowed himself to the earth, before the coffin of the defunct—four times, he touched the ground with his forehead; and, with an utterance choked by sobs, he exclaimed—“Oh Chuang-tsze, learned and wise, your ill-fated disciple cannot receive wisdom and knowledge from your lips; but he will signify his reverence for your memory, by abiding here an hundred days, to mourn, for one he so truly revered.” He then again bent his forehead, four times, to the earth, and moistened it with his tears.
The youthful disciple, after a few days, desired permission to offer his condolence to the widow, which she, at first declined: but, upon his reference to the ancient rites, which allow a widow to receive the visits of her late husband’s friends, and especially of his disciples, she finally consented. She moved with slow and solemn steps to the hall of reception, where the young gentleman acquitted himself, with infinite grace and propriety, and tendered the usual expressions of consolation.
The elegant address and fine person of this young disciple were not lost upon the widow of Chuang-tsze. She was fascinated. A sentiment of tenderness began to rise in her bosom, whose presence she had scarcely the courage to recognize. She ventured, in a right melancholy way, to suggest a hope, that it was not his purpose immediately to leave the valley of Soong. “I have endured much in the loss of my great master,” he replied. “Precious forever be his memory. It will be grateful to my heart to seek here a brief home, wherein I may pass those hundred days of mourning, which our rites prescribe, and then to take part in the obsequies, which will follow. I may also solace myself the while, by perusing the works of my great master, of whose living instructions I am so unhappily deprived.”