Ko-Ko

“ Like Ko-Ko he has risen from humble beginnings. But whereas our Japanese hero attains fortune by trusting himself boldly and joyfully to life, letting the currents carry him whither they will, like Byron, like Peer Gynt, and like Captain Hobson, the Lord High Chancellor's rise is the result of painful concentration and steadfast plodding. Ko-Ko is at various times the statesman, the poet, the lover, the man of the world (as when he is tripped up by the Mikado's umbrella-carrier) . The Lord High Chancellor is always the lawyer. ”

“ An old witch changed me into a monster and put me on this island, where no one could reach me, and the only way I can be restored to my original form is for some one to wish it."
"I wish it," said Ko-Ko.
"You have had your wish," said the monster, "and I can talk; but for me to become a man some one else must wish it."
The monster and Ko-Ko lived for a long time on the island. He took Ko-Ko for long rides on his back, and when the waves were too high and Ko-Ko was afraid the monster would open his mouth and Ko-Ko would crawl inside and be brought back safe to the island. ”

“ Being engaged to Ko-Ko, you know!
Nank. Being engaged to Ko-Ko!
DUET.— Yum-Yum and Nanki-Poo.
Nank. Were you not to Ko-Ko plighted,
I would say in tender tone,
"Loved one, let us be united—
Let us be each other's own!"
I would merge all rank and station,
Worldly sneers are nought to us,
And, to mark my admiration,
I would kiss you fondly thus— (Kisses her.)
Both. I/He would kiss you/me fondly thus- (Kiss.) ”

“ One night, after a storm, Ko-Ko saw something floating on the water, and he jumped on the monster's back and they swam out to it.
It proved to be a little girl, about Ko-Ko's age, who had been on one of the wrecked vessels, and they brought her to the island.
At first she was afraid of the monster, but when she learned that he had saved Ko-Ko as well as her and brought them all their food she became as fond of him as Ko-Ko was.
"I wish he were a man," she said one day, as she sat on his back with Ko-Ko, ready for a sail. ”

“ A party of hunters passing that way after several days, found Ko-ko sitting among the bushes, looking greatly bewildered; and when they inquired of him how he had succeeded with the wicked father at the lodge, he answered that he had demolished the whole establishment, but that his name was not Ko-ko, but Onwee Bahmondang; saying which, he ran away into the woods, and was never seen more. [Pg 207]
XVII. HE OF THE LITTLE SHELL.
Once upon a time, all the people of a certain country had died, excepting two helpless children, a baby boy and a little girl. ”

“ Judge of my delight when I heard, a month ago, that Ko-Ko had been condemned to death for flirting! I hurried back at once, in the hope of finding Yum-Yum at liberty to listen to my protestations.
Pish. It is true that Ko-Ko was condemned to death for flirting, but he was reprieved at the last moment, and raised to the exalted rank of Lord High Executioner under the following remarkable circumstances:—
SONG.—Pish-Tush and Chorus.
Our great Mikado, virtuous man,
When he to rule our land began,
Resolved to try
A plan whereby
Young men might best be steadied. ”

“ Ko. (aside to girls) . Don't laugh at him, he can't help it— he's under treatment for it. (Aside to Pooh-Bah.) Never mind them, they don't understand the delicacy of your position.
Pooh. We know how delicate it is, don't we?
Ko. I should think we did ! How a nobleman of your importance can do it at all is a thing I never can, never shall understand.
(Ko-Ko retires up and goes off.)
QUARTET and CHORUS of GIRLS.
Yum-Yum, Peep-Bo, Pitti-Sing, and Pooh-Bah. ”

“ Then Kotick roared to the seals: “I’ve done my best for you these five seasons past. I’ve found you the island where you’ll be safe, but unless your heads are dragged off your silly necks you won’t believe. I’m going to teach you now. Look out for yourselves!” ”

“ At a certain time, among the Nyōgos, the Kouis - concubines in the emperor's harem, there was a lady Koui not of the highest rank of the aristocrats whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. ”

“ Thus the day comes to modern Tokyo, which the old folks still call Yeddo.
On such a midsummer dawn, not many years ago, old Kano Indara, sleeping in his darkened chamber, felt the summons of an approaching joy. Beauty tugged at his dreams. Smiling, as a child that is led by love, he rose, drew aside softly the shoji, then the amado of his room, and then, with face uplifted, stepped down into his garden. The beauty of the ebbing night caught at his sleeve, but the dawn held him back. ”

“ Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long words like Encyclopædia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn't listening. ”

“ He had been shot through and through. Cocked rifles swept the bush with nervous apprehension. But there was no rustle, no movement; nothing but the humid oppressive silence.
“Bushmen he no stop,” Binu Charley called out, the sound of his voice startling more than one of them. “Allee same damn funny business. That fella Koogoo no look ’m eye belong him. He no savvee little bit.”
Koogoo’s arms had crumpled under him, and he lay quivering where he had fallen. Even as Binu Charley came to the front the stricken black’s breath passed from him, and with a final convulsive stir he lay still.
“Right through the heart,” ”

“ I remember that a Korak once brought to me an old tattered fashion-plate from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper containing three or four full-length figures of imaginary ladies, in the widest expansion of crinoline which fashion at that time prescribed. The poor Korak said he had often wondered what those curious objects could be; and now, as I was an American, perhaps I could tell him. He evidently had not the most remote suspicion that they were intended to represent human beings. I told him that those curious objects, as he called them, were American women. ”

“ I had had to discard my rifle before I commenced the rapid descent of the cliff, so that now I was armed only with a hunting knife, and this I whipped from its scabbard as Kho leaped toward me. He was a mighty beast, mightily muscled, and the urge that has made males fight since the dawn of life on earth filled him with the blood-lust and the thirst to slay; but not one whit less did it fill me with the same primal passions. ”

“ We have met and hated, fought and died before—you and I. You were a certain Garan, Marshall of the air fleet of Yu-Lac on a vanished world, and I was Lord of Koom. ”

“ And Kotick curled up his mustache (it was a beauty) and said, “I am the only white seal that has ever been born on the beaches, and I am the only seal, black or white, who ever thought of looking for new islands.” ”

“ Asiatic youths are flocking to Western colleges for the equipment of modern education. Our insight does not penetrate your culture deeply, but at least we are willing to learn. Some of my compatriots have adopted too much of your customs and too much of your etiquette, in the delusion that the acquisition of stiff collars and tall silk hats comprised the attainment of your civilisation. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations are, they evince our willingness to approach the West on our knees. ”

“ Queequeg was a native of Kokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are. ”

“ with considerable suspicion of its president’s brilliant theory of vending his wares direct to the people—was perhaps the only one who had suspicions. He had once written a brilliant criticism to some inquirer, in which he had said that no enterprise of such magnitude as the Northern Pacific had ever before been entirely dependent upon one house, or rather upon one man, and that he did not like it. “I am not sure that the lands through which the road runs are so unparalleled in climate, soil, timber, minerals, etc., as Mr. Cooke and his friends would have us believe. ”

“ "Her shining tresses, divided in two parts, encircle the harmonious contour of her white and delicate cheeks, brilliant in their glow and freshness. Her ebony brows have the form and charm of the bow of Kama, the god of love, and beneath her long silken lashes the purest reflections and a celestial light swim, as in the sacred lakes of Himalaya, in the black pupils of her great clear eyes. Her teeth, fine, equal, and white, glitter between her smiling lips like dewdrops in a passion-flower's half-enveloped breast. ”

“ Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was the right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was the right, then the other one was the left, but he never could remember how to begin. ”

“ There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; ”

“ "I'm giving this to Eeyore," he explained, "as a present. What are you going to give?"
"Couldn't I give it too?" said Piglet. "From both of us?"
"No," said Pooh. "That would not be a good plan." ”

“ He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagaina came nearer and nearer to it, till at last, while Rikki-tikki was drawing breath, she caught it in her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like an arrow down the path, with Rikki-tikki behind her. When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like a whip-lash flicked across a horse’s neck. ”

“ "Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!" exclaimed Infadoos regretfully.
But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the chance of seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man. Henceforward they had to satisfy their aesthetic longings with his one whisker, his transparent eye, and his movable teeth. ”

“ But it is also told that Niuka forgot to fill two tiny crevices in the blue firmament. Thus began the dualism of love—two souls rolling through space and never at rest until they join together to complete the universe. Everyone has to build anew his sky of hope and peace. ”

“ "I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit.
"No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it on the way." ”

“ Now it happened that Kanga had felt rather motherly that morning, and Wanting to Count Things—like Roo's vests, and how many pieces of soap there were left, and the two clean spots in Tigger's feeder; ”

“ You can do anything and smash anything in the world with a kopeck.' After giving his son this advice, the father parted from him and was dragged home again by the magpie, and he never saw the boy again; ”

“ The king, enraged at this delay, hastily demanded the name of the bold man that had married a woman of her degree without his consent. Imoinda, seeing his eyes fierce, and his hands tremble (whether with age or anger, I know not, but she fancied the last) , almost repented she had said so much, for now she feared the storm would fall on the prince; she therefore said a thousand things to appease the raging of his flame, and to prepare him to hear who it was with calmness: ”

“ “The inimitable stories of Tong-king never have any real ending, and this one, being in his most elevated style, has even less end than most of them. But the whole narrative is permeated with the odour of joss-sticks and honourable high-mindedness, and the two characters are both of noble birth.” ”

“ it seems to me that of the two of us it's you they make the most of, and yet you do all the grumbling.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
A dog's logic, that! The more one gives the more I demand.
TOBY-DOG
That's wrong. It's indiscreet.
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
Not at all. I have a right to everything.
TOBY-DOG
To everything? And I?
KIKI-THE-DEMURE
I don't imagine you lack anything, do you?
TOBY-DOG
Ah, I don't know. Sometimes in my very happiest moments, I feel like crying. My eyes grow dim, my heart seems to choke me. I would like to be sure, in such times of anguish, that everybody loves me; ”

“ This is the great world, and I am only Kim. Who is Kim?” He considered his own identity, a thing he had never done before, till his head swam. He was one insignificant person in all this roaring whirl of India, going southward to he knew not what fate. ”

“ "Lucky we know the Forest so well, or we might get lost," said Rabbit half an hour later, and he gave the careless laugh which you give when you know the Forest so well that you can't get lost.
Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
"Pooh!" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you." ”

“ The tea-master, Kobori-Enshiu, himself a daimyo, has left to us these memorable words: "Approach a great painting as thou wouldst approach a great prince." ”

“ masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions. Chang Yü relates the following anecdote of Kao Tsu, the first Han Emperor: “Wishing to crush the Hsiung-nu, he sent out spies to report on their condition. ”