[76] In Book V. of Mencius’ works we read that Shun, the perfect man, stood with his face to the south, while the Emperor Yao (see No. VIII., [note 63]) and his nobles faced the north. This arrangement is said to have been adopted in deference to Shun’s virtue; for in modern times the Emperor always sits facing the south.
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[77] Name of a celebrated play.
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[78] These are about as big as a cheese-plate and attached to a short stick, from which hangs suspended a small button of metal in such a manner as to clash against the face of the gong at every turn of the hand. The names and descriptions of various instruments employed by costermongers in China would fill a good-sized volume.
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[79] See No. XXIII., [note 154].
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[80] A famous official who lived in the reign of Hung Wu, first Emperor of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368–1399). I have not been able to discover what was the particular act for which he has been celebrated as “loyal to the death.”
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[81] See No. II., [note 42].
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[82] The Chinese, fond as they are of introducing water, under the form of miniature lakes, into their gardens and pleasure-grounds, do not approve of a running stream near the dwelling-house. I myself knew a case of a man, provided with a pretty little house, rent free, alongside of which ran a mountain-rill, who left the place and paid for lodgings out of his own pocket rather than live so close to a stream which he averred carried all his good luck away. Yet this man was a fair scholar and a graduate to boot.
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[83] That Chinaman thinks his a hard lot who cannot “eat till he is full.” It may be noticed here that the Chinese seem not so much to enjoy the process of eating as the subsequent state of repletion. As a rule, they bolt their food, and get their enjoyment out of it afterwards.
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[84] The full explanation and origin of this saying I have failed to elucidate. Dragons are often represented with pearls before their mouths; and these they are supposed to spit out or swallow as fancy may take them. The pearl, too, is said to be the essence of the dragon’s nature, without which it would be powerless; but this is all I know about the subject.
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[85] Such is the common belief in China at the present day. There is a God of Thunder who punishes wicked people; the lightning is merely a mirror, by the aid of which he singles out his victims.
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