Chia Cheng tugged at his moustache and gave way to meditation. He was just about also to suggest a stanza, when, upon suddenly raising his head, he espied Pao-yü standing by his side, too timid to give vent to a single sound.
"How is it," he purposely exclaimed, "that when you should speak, you contrariwise don't? Is it likely that you expect some one to request you to confer upon us the favour of your instruction?"
"In this place," Pao-yü rejoined at these words, "there are no such things as orchids, musk, resplendent moon or islands; and were one to begin quoting such specimens of allusions, to scenery, two hundred couplets could be readily given without, even then, having been able to exhaust the supply!"
"Who presses your head down," Chia Cheng urged, "and uses force that you must come out with all these remarks?"
"Well, in that case," added Pao-yü, "there are no fitter words to put on the tablet than the four representing: 'The fragrance pure of the ligularia and iris.' While the device on the scroll might be:
"Sung is the nutmeg song, but beauteous still is the sonnet!
Near the T'u Mei to sleep, makes e'en a dream with fragrance full!"
"This is," laughed Chia Cheng sneeringly, "an imitation of the line:
"A book when it is made of plaintain leaves, the writing green is also bound to be!
"So that there's nothing remarkable about it."
"Li T'ai-po, in his work on the Phoenix Terrace," protested the whole party, "copied, in every point, the Huang Hua Lou. But what's essential is a faultless imitation. Now were we to begin to criticise minutely the couplet just cited, we would indeed find it to be, as compared with the line 'A book when it is made of plantain leaves,' still more elegant and of wider application!"