At home, abroad, a close companion thou,
Stirring at every move the grateful gale.
And yet I fear, ah, me! that autumn chills,
Cooling the dying summer’s torrid rage,
Will see thee laid neglected on the shelf,
All thought of by-gone days, like them, by-gone.”
[290] Signifying that it would be impossible for him to enter.
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[291] The result of A-ch‘ien’s depredations as a rat.
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[292] I have already discussed the subject of drunkenness in China (Chinese Sketches, pp. 113, 114), and shall not return to it here, further than to quote a single sentence, to which I adhere as firmly now as when the book in question was published:—“Who ever sees in China a tipsy man reeling about a crowded thoroughfare, or lying with his head in a ditch by the side of some country road?”