322 CHINESE LITERATURE
miration for the high literary culture of its inhabitants and their unqualified successes in the arts and sciences, they did not hesitate to stigmatise as unworthy a great people certain usages which appeared to them deserving of the utmost censure. They laughed at the superstitions of Feng-Shui, and wondered how intelligent men could be imposed upon year after year by the mountebank professors of such baseless nonsense. ' If it is true/ said one of them, 'that the selection of an auspicious day and a fitting spot for the burial of one's father or mother is certain to bring prosperity to the survivors, how can you account for the fact that the geomancers themselves are always a low, poverty-stricken lot ? Surely they would begin by appropriating the very best positions them- selves, and so secure whatever good fortune might hap- pen to be in want of an owner.'
" Then again with regard to bandaging women's feet in order to reduce their size. ' We can see no beauty,' said they, 'in such monstrosities as the feet of your ladies. Small noses are usually considered more attrac- tive than large ones ; but what would be said of a man who sliced a piece off his own nose in order to reduce it within proper limits ? '
"And thus the hours slipped pleasantly away until it was time to bid adieu to their new friends and regain their ship."
The Chin Ku Ch'i Kuan, or Marvellous Tales, Ancient and Modern, is a great favourite with the romance-reading Chinaman. It is a collection of forty stories said to have been written towards the close of the Ming dynasty by the members of a society who held meetings for that purpose. Translations of many, if not
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