LIU LING.
3rd Century a.d.
[One of seven hard-drinking poets of the day who formed themselves into a club, known as the Bamboo Grove. He was always accompanied by a servant carrying a wine-flask; and he gave orders that if he fell dead in his cups he should be buried where he lay. In this respect, he was perhaps out-Heroded by another famous tippler, who left instructions that he should be buried in a potter’s field, so that, “when time into clay might resolve him again,” he would have a chance of re-appearing among men under the form of a wine-jug.]
THE GENIUS OF WINE.
AN old gentleman, a friend of mine (sc. himself), regards eternity as but a single day, and whole centuries as but an instant of time. The sun and moon are the windows of his house; the cardinal points are the boundaries of his domain. He wanders unrestrained and free; he dwells within no walls. The canopy of Heaven is his roof; his resting-place is the lap of Earth. He follows his fancy in all things. He is never for a moment without a wine-flask in one hand, a goblet in the other. His only thought is wine: he knows of naught beyond.
Two respectable philanthropists, hearing of my friend’s weakness, proceeded to tax him on the subject; and with many gestures of disapprobation, fierce scowls, and gnashing of teeth, preached him quite a sermon on the rules of propriety, and sent his faults buzzing round his head like a swarm of bees.
When they began, the old gentleman filled himself another bumper; and sitting down, quietly stroked his beard and sipped his wine by turns, until at length he lapsed into a semi-inebriate state of placid enjoyment, varied by intervals of absolute unconsciousness or of partial return to mental lucidity. His ears were beyond the reach of thunder; he could not have seen a mountain. Heat and cold existed for him no more. He knew not even the workings of his own mind. To him, the affairs of this world appeared but as so much duckweed on a river; while the two philanthropists at his side looked like two wasps trying to convert a caterpillar (into a wasp, as the Chinese believe is done).
