Herbert Allen Giles

“ When I was a little boy, I went one day to the fair. There were crowds of people there, and the noise, with everyone talking at the top of their voices, drums beating, and music playing, was enough to make a man deaf. In the middle of it all, I saw a man suddenly walk into an open space. He was leading a boy by the hand, and cried out that he would do any trick anyone asked him to do. Now it was a cold day, with snow lying on the ground, and when one of the crowd asked him to get some peaches, the magician didn't seem to like the idea at all. ”

“ This was more than Chai could bear, and in an instant he had kicked it as hard as he could. But there was something queer about the ball too. It was as light as a feather, and as soft as rice-paper, and Chai's foot went right through it. Still, he sent it up into the sky, many-coloured lights streaming from the hole he had made, until at last down it fell in a big curve like a comet, touched the water, fizzed, and then went out. "Ho! ho!" cried the players in a rage, "Who is this miserable man who dares to meddle in our game?" "Well kicked, well kicked indeed!" ”

“ Wang's wife rushed forward, and threw herself on the ground at his feet, crying "Pray, pray, help me! Bring my husband back to life!" The priest looked at her and said, "I can't help you, I'm sorry to say. I can't make a dead man live again, but I know someone who can. Only he must be asked properly." Mrs. Wang, weeping all the time, said she was ready to do anything. So the priest said, "Down in the worst part of the town, there lives a madman. He spends all his time rolling about in the mud. ”

“ People can't choose their own colours; clouds striped like a rainbow are the best; yellow are the second best, and black are the worst of all." Thanking the old man, they passed on and among those who were riding on clouds of green, red, blue and other colours, they saw a dirty beggar riding on a striped cloud. They were much astonished at this because the old priest had told them that the striped cloud was the best. "I see why that was," said Tang, "the old rascal had a striped cloud himself." ”

“ While he was weeping over this loss he suddenly saw the young lady of the red clothes standing beside him, and wiping away her tears. "Alas!" she said, "that my dear sister should be thus torn away from me; but the tears, sir, which you have shed may perhaps be the means of restoring her to us." That night he dreamt that the red girl came to him again and said that she also was in trouble, begging him to try to rescue her. ”

“ At first she was only a foot high; but on reaching the ground, she became as tall as an ordinary woman. She sang a pretty song, with a voice like a flute, and when she had finished she danced round and round, and at last jumped up on the table, where to the astonishment of everybody she became a chopstick again. ”

“ If you will be good enough to do so, I feel sure we should conquer him." The Lord Buddha promised to do his best, and the two went together to the cloud palace of the Lord of the Sky, where they found the stone monkey misbehaving himself, and insulting everybody who dared to interfere with him. The Lord Buddha stepped forward, and in a quiet voice said to him, "What do you want?" "I want," answered the stone monkey, "to be Lord of the Sky. I could manage things much better than they are managed now. See how I can jump!" Then the stone monkey jumped a big jump. ”

“ But the other players only got twice as angry when they heard this, and cried out, "You old wretch, how dare you joke when we have just had our game spoilt? Look out for yourself, or you'll get a touch of the bamboo. Go at once, and take the boy with you, and bring back this man, or it will be the worse for you!" Now when Chai heard these words, and saw the two coming for him, with swords in their hands, he didn't feel a scrap frightened, but picked up his sword and stood ready for them in the very middle of the boat. ”

“ Hundreds of years ago, there were a great many learned men in China, who were always trying to find out something which would make them live for ever. They mixed up all kinds of things together, and boiled them for a long time over the fire, and then drank the juice. Some of them were soon poisoned, while all the rest made themselves very ill, and did not live any longer than other people. One man sent a bottle of his mixture to the king, only it never reached his Majesty, because it was stolen and drunk up by the door-keeper of the palace. ”

“ Wang was walking about in the town, he met a priest, who looked at him very hard indeed "What have you met?" asked the priest. "Nothing in particular," answered Mr, Wang, "What do you mean?" "Why," the priest replied, "you are in the power of a witch; fancy telling me you have met nothing!" And away he walked, not listening to Mr. Wang, but only saying, "What a fool! what a fool! He doesn't know how close he is to dying." Mr. Wang felt frightened when he heard this, and then he remembered the strange girl at his home ”

“ Then there was the country of tall men, where everybody was about twenty feet in height; the country of dwarfs where the people were only one foot in height, and their funny little children were not more than four inches. In another place, the people all had large holes in the middle of their bodies; and rich persons were carried about by servants who pushed long sticks through the holes. After a time, they came to a land which they were told was the Country of Gentlemen. ”

“ Many years ago, there was a man named Sung, who was not very fond of work but longed to be a magician and do all kinds of wonderful tricks. So one day off he went to a temple on a mountain, and there he found an old priest, with long hair flowing down his back, and sitting on a rush mat. Making a low bow, Sung asked the priest if he would be kind enough to teach him magic. "Ah," replied the priest, "I am afraid you are not strong enough for that." Sung begged the priest to let him try ”

“ She thought she was powerful enough to do anything. One day, she even gave orders that every kind of flower throughout the country was to be out in full bloom on a certain day. Being a woman herself, she thought that women would govern the empire much better than men; so she actually had examinations for women and gave them all the important posts. This made a great many men extremely angry; especially a young man named Tang, who was very clever and had taken many prizes. He said he couldn't live in such a country any more ”

“ You must go to him, and kneel before him, and ask him to help you. Don't mind how rude he is, don't mind what he tells you to do; above all things, don't lose your temper." With these words, he went out of the gate, and was soon out of sight. ”

“ They visited many extraordinary nations; in one of which, the people all had heads of dogs; in another, they flew about like birds; in another, they had enormously long arms with which they reached down into the water to catch fish. ”

“ You can go home to-morrow." "Sir," said Sung, "I have worked for you a long time; please teach me some little trick that I may not have come all this long way for nothing." "What trick would you like to learn?" asked the priest. "Well," answeied Sung, "I have noticed that whenever you walk about anywhere, you are not stopped by walls; you walk through them. Teach me this, and I shall be satisfied." The priest laughed and told him to say, Hobbery jibbery snobbery snoo, at the same time walking through the wall. Sung walked up to the wall, but couldn't get through it ”

“ Up out of the lake came five men carrying a huge mat, which they spread on the top of the water. Next they brought up bowls of food, and wine in kettles,—they could scarcely have been ordinary bowls and kettles, because when the men knocked them together there was no sound of crockery or metal, but a funny, wooden-like sound difficult to describe. When the food was all spread on the mat, three of the men sat down to eat, while the other two, one a grown man and the other a boy, handed the dishes round. ”

“ The shopkeeper replied, "Excuse me, sir, I am already very much ashamed at having asked you so much for these goods; they really are not worth more than half. If you insist upon paying such a high price, I must really beg you, with all possible respect, to go and buy in some other shop." At this, the man who wanted to buy got rather angry, and said that trade could not be carried on at all if all the profit was on one side and all the loss on the other, adding that the shopkeeper was not going to catch him in a trap like that. ”

“ This post he accepted at once, having indeed already thrown out hints that he thought himself quite fit to rule over them.
Soon after this, he determined to travel in search of wisdom, and to see the world. He went down the mountain, until he came to the sea-shore, where he made himself a raft, and sailed away. ”

“ But the countryman, who was very mean and very nasty-tempered, wouldn't hear of giving him any, and as the priest didn't seem inclined to move on, he began calling him all the bad names he could think of. "Good sir," said the priest, "you have got hundreds of pears on your barrow. I only ask you for one. You would never even know you had lost one. Really, you needn't get angry."
"Give him a pear that is going bad; that will make him happy," said one of the crowd. "The old man is quite right ”

“ The father picked it up with a smiling face, and was just showing the men nearest him that it was a real peach, and inviting them to taste it, when down came the rope with a run, and fell, yards and yards of it, on the ground close to him. ”

“ It is very interesting to compare the tales in the two volumes. They are equally quaint and delightful, but the national spirit of the Chinese is very different from that of the Japanese, both being reflected in the stories in a thoroughly characteristic manner. ”

“ When the young man put his head down towards the pillow, one of the openings seemed so large and bright inside that he got in, and soon found himself at his own home. Shortly afterwards he married a beautiful girl, and began to make money. ”

“ High up on a mountain there was a place where many beautiful flowers grew, mostly peonies and camellias, often to a height of ten or twenty feet. A young man named Hwang, who wanted to study, built himself a little house near by ”

“ These artistically got up little books are uniform in size with Gowans's Art Books, and will be found of absorbing interest by every student of Art.
FIRST SERIES.—Containing Sixty reproductions of Drawings by famous Artists in the Albertina Gallery, Vienna. ”

“ He was in great pain all day but at night he managed to get off to sleep, and then he dreamt that a man appeared to him and said, "You are being punished for stealing that duck; and you will never get well until you go to Mr. ”