Various authors

“ Whittly stared at him, and his mother and Helene stood very still just beyond. On his forehead! What a star! Whittly went on slowly:
"You've done your work. The world knows you for the greatest of the great."
"Every man's greatness must be measured by the quantity of his contribution," Saul answered, his voice deep with exaltation. "It seemed a big thing at first—now it seems so little. I've got to go on giving!"
"To the great all things are small," breathed Mrs. Blauvette, smiling into Helene's shining eyes.
"He will go on forever. You can not stay a star!" ”

“ Clarendon's eyes flashed dangerously.
"Humanity! What the deuce is humanity? Science! Dolts! Just individuals over and over again! Humanity is made for preachers to whom it means the blindly credulous. Humanity is made for the predatory rich to whom it speaks in terms of dollars and cents. Humanity is made for the politician to whom it signifies collective power to be used to his advantage. What is humanity? Nothing! Thank God that crude illusion doesn't last! What a grown man worships is truth—knowledge—science—light—the rending of the veil and the pushing back of the shadow. ”

“ He painted on silk, on bamboo slips and on the walls of the Imperial Palace of the Emperor Ming Huang. The paintings of Wu Tao-tzu were three dimensional.
Tang Ling, on porcelain, had solved this three dimensional quality of Wu. His figures lived and breathed and appeared about to speak. No doubt had he that the slim, flowerlike girl he had painted with his own magic brush was a living pulsating being. Her exquisite tender smile was for him only. Her eyes followed him about the room.
He could hardly wait for that glorious moment when he could join her on the vase. ”

“ Loo Siang extended his arms. The trees were all in the same relative positions that they had held in the Mandarin's garden. When the march of the trees had ended, each tree had dug its feet once more into the soil for a long, long period of rest.
"I shall have your life for this!" cried the Mandarin. "In this land my power is absolute. You shall be destroyed."
Loo Siang gazed at the choleric Mandarin and smiled. The gods were on his side. His friends were the trees, the flowers, the sun, the soil and the wind. ”

“ With a savage snarl, the big dog leaped suddenly to its feet, every hair bristling. Moira made one last attempt to clutch at the ledge, and the dog sprang. Recoiling, she lost her grasp.
"Charles!" she screamed again, and knew it was no use. There was only Jet, and Jet had won again. Once more Jet would have Charles to herself.
In the sharp clarity of imminent death it all became plain to her. As she felt herself sinking, she looked again, with a detached and wondering vision, at that black featureless outline between the rocks. ”

“ As the first gaunt fingers of dawn reached through the open window of his sleeping room, Tang Ling rose wearily to his feet. Within a few hours he had become a dried up old man. He felt as if his flesh had been burned away and only bleached bones remained. Moaning slightly, he crept through the garden. He longed to hurry so that he might be free of this dreadful ordeal but speed was impossible. Though he fell twice, somehow he reached the baking-oven. With great effort he drew the beloved vase from it and placed it gently on the ground. ”

“ Usually the love which a Chinese has for his wife is something precious which he keeps within the walls of his garden. Truly written are the words, "A woman's hair draws more than a team of oxen."
One day when Lin Mie had been working long hours in the fields, she stopped for a moment to rest beneath a willow tree. A misty rain was falling, the soft, gentle rain of China that is unlike any other rain the world over. The air was fragrantly cool, and very silent, as though all nature were poised on tip-toe. ”

“ Love is a poem, but poems can be repeated to many people. My love is a color, pale pink like the blush of the morning, pink like the cheek of a happy woman, pink like the sky when day is dying. Your reward will be great if you win me; mine must be great by proportion."
Tsang Kee Foo returned to his house. He locked himself in his workroom for days seeking the secret of that wondrous color. His enthusiasm was great, but no greater than that of Lu Chau even though Lu Chau was not so adept at concentration. While pining for the wondrous Mei-Mei he was not blind to the charms of other women. ”

“ Ives Cranston lifted the fragile cup to his lips and sipped the tea. It was odd, slightly sweet in taste but not unpleasant. As Cranston slowly consumed the beverage Chang Kien plunged into a discussion of literature which was distinctly charming. His enunciation was perfect and the tone of his voice was like rare music. He talked of the charm of single words, of groups of words and tiny verses and quoted snatches of songs from old Chinese poets.
The wind blows. The inn is filled with the scent of willow flowers.
She sits all night by the cold lamp until the moon melts into the dawn. ”

“ He had found the world a juicy plum and it had not been hard to bite into it. Among thieves, Ming Ti was an emperor; that is why he had the colossal effrontery to assume the name of one of the most illustrious of all Chinese emperors. But then Ming Ti held nothing sacred. He was tall, handsome. No emperor had ever had better features, nor had there been one whose face more truly resembled that of a full moon. And his skin was of a fine golden texture, like the color of the young moon rising. ”

“ But everything in the clinic must go. Everything without exception, dead or alive or—otherwise. All the plagues of hell are in those bottles on the shelves. Burn them—burn it all—if one thing escapes, Surama will spread black death throughout the world. And above all burn Surama! That—that thing—must not breathe the wholesome air of heaven. You know now—what I told you—you know why such an entity can't be allowed on earth. It won't be murder—Surama isn't human—if you're as pious as you used to be, James, I shan't have to urge you. ”

“ Ah Chow pleaded. "Must we sit here and do nothing?"
"Nothing?" reflected Dr. Shen Fu. "Nothing? Truly a strange term to use when you are dying. How, then, could you be more gainfully employed?"
Dr. Shen Fu gazed at his guests through half-closed eyes, as though they were beetles in some weird experiment. It was interesting to watch their reactions. Now perhaps the feast was salted with regret. Too late they realized that they were unwise when they perpetrated frauds on the eminent doctor.
"Death is the only exalted place we attain without effort," he mused. "It is man's supreme destiny. ”

“ Perhaps it was Yoshida anticipating his own actions, with a knife equally as sharp as any the doctor might use in his operations. He shook his head, and closed his eyes. Angered he was at the thought that thought of death should terrify him. In these hours of torture for China, with women and children being blown to pieces by bombs and aged, wounded people, with blind eyes groping along furrows that once were roads, death was more precious than life and a deal kinder. Let Yoshida strike, it would not matter. ”

“ Then Georgina tried another mode of cheering, and told him that surely the prison board would send for him again if the fever did not abate, or if it broke out with increased force. But even this was ineffective, and Clarendon answered only in a string of bitter, ironic, and half-meaningless little sentences whose tone showed all too clearly how deeply despair and resentment had bitten.
"Abate? Break out again? Oh, it'll abate all right! At least, they'll think it has abated. They'd think anything, no matter what happens! Ignorant eyes see nothing, and bunglers are never discoverers. ”

“ So to it I made my way at once, and there, after a most exhaustive search, which included the moving away from the walls of tiers of shelves, some still with ancient jars of preserved fruit and vegetables on them, I discovered a hidden passageway which led out of the cellar into a cave-like tunnel, down part of which I walked. I did not go far, before the dampness of the earth underfoot, and the wavering of my light, forced me to return—but not before I had seen the disquieting whiteness of scattered bones, embedded in that earth. ”

“ He must get Jasmine away from this enchanted prison. Not for a moment did Ming Ti think of all the comfort he would be surrendering by leaving the garden to go into an exile of poverty. Jasmine would go with him. Therefore nothing else mattered. Having Jasmine, he would have everything. At last Ming Ti had become as profound as any of the sages of old China. All that is worthwhile in life is reflected in the smile of a beloved woman. ”

“ I can swim, you know!"
Silent, indifferent, the dog followed.
When Moira had squeezed through the twin rocks that held the entrance to the cove, Jet sat down between them, her body blocking the passage. The overcast sky, fiercely lit by an angry sun, was red.
Moira slid into the water, gasping at the coldness of it. The surf was rougher and stronger than she had expected, but she found it exhilarating and rolled over in the water, gasping with delight. The little pool was quite deep, the tide still coming in fast. ”

“ Science is what must be served—science—the austere cause of human knowledge. I'm like the monkeys and birds and guinea-pigs I use—just a cog in the machine, to be used to the advantage of the whole. They had to be killed—I may have to be killed—what of it? Isn't the cause we serve worth that and more?"
Georgina sighed. For a moment she wondered whether, after all, this ceaseless round of slaughter really, was worth while.
"But are you absolutely sure your discovery will be enough of a boon to humanity to warant these sacrifices?" ”

“ Tsang Kee Foo smiled. There was more provocation for mirth in the thought than in any of the witticisms of Lu Chau.
"Now we are rivals," mused Tsang Kee Foo. "Perhaps one of us will attain to the hand of Mei-Mei. And because I wish to put no obstacle in your way I offer to you the privilege of using my bakeovens for your experiments. Let us be rivals but not enemies. If it comes to pass that you discover the pale pink color before I do, then will I bow my head and pray to the spirits and the dragons to bestow happiness upon you and to guard your footsteps well." ”

“ The future had taken on a rosy hue, somewhat akin to that pale pink color of Chinese porcelain for which Mei-Mei yearned.
Until the moon rose that night he remained in his garden, until the soft flush of sunset had blended into the purpling folds of night. The scent of lotuses sweetened, the breeze intensified, the stars bloomed out like wondrous lanterns hanging in the sky. The world was suffused in a riot of beauty. Tsang Kee Foo rose to his feet. ”

“ But these horrors took him only to the edge of reality, and were not of the true dream country he had known in youth; so that at fifty he despaired of any rest or contentment in a world grown too busy for beauty and too shrewd for dream.
Having perceived at last the hollowness and futility of real things, Carter spent his days in retirement, and in wistful disjointed memories of his dream-filled youth. He thought it rather silly that he bother to keep on living at all, and got from a South American acquaintance a very curious liquid to take him to oblivion without suffering. ”

“ In all China, no sage is more profound, no doctor more deeply versed in alchemy."
There was honey in the words of Ah Chow, the porcelain monarch, but in his eyes were sharp swords. Dr. Shen Fu smiled but he was in no way deceived by the words that the eyes contradicted.
"You mean 'The Golden Pill of Immortality?'"
"You are acquainted with it?" Ah Chow fought a losing battle to suppress his eagerness.
"A drug shop that has blossomed for a thousand years must naturally have solved many of nature's mysteries. Still it is a question whether Immortality for man would be a blessing or a curse. ”

“ Wearing such a robe Tang Ling was indeed Emperor of Porcelain, the Son of Heaven. In such raiment would he paint his own portrait on the vase.
And so he set to work. If he could achieve his desire, the slender graceful girl would be his. That the object he had set for himself could only be accomplished' by alchemy and a large measure of magic was of little purport. Had not the great Wu Tao-tzu in the golden age of Tang painted with such skill that scores of legends have grown up about him. ”