Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes 1 and 2)

hobgoblins of the age. [9] I am but the dust in the sunbeam, a fit laughing-stock for devils. [10] For my talents are not those of Yü Pao, [11] elegant explorer of the records of the Gods; I am rather animated by the Spirit of Su Tung-p‘o, [12] who loved to hear men speak of the supernatural. I get people to commit what they tell me to writing, and subsequently I dress it up in the form of a story; and thus in the lapse of time my friends from all quarters have supplied me with quantities of material, which, from my habit of collecting, has grown into a vast pile. [13] “Human beings, I would point out, are not beyond the pale of fixed laws, and yet there are more remarkable phenomena in their midst than in the country of those who crop their hair; [14] antiquity is unrolled before us, and many tales are to be found therein stranger than that of the nation of Flying Heads. [15] ‘Irrepressible bursts, and luxurious ease,’ [16] —such was always his enthusiastic strain. ‘For ever indulging in liberal thought,’ [17] —thus he spoke openly without restraint. Were men like these to open my book, I should be a laughing-stock to them indeed. At the cross-roads [18] men will not listen to me, and yet I have some knowledge of the three states of existence [19] spoken of beneath the cliff; [20] neither should the words I utter be set aside because of him that utters them. [21] When the bow [22] was hung at my father’s door, he dreamed that a sickly-looking Buddhist priest, but half-covered by his stole, entered the chamber. On one of his breasts was a round piece of plaster like a cash; [23] and my father, waking from sleep, found that I, just born, had a similar black patch on my body. As a child, I was thin and constantly ailing, and unable to hold my own in the battle of life. Our home was chill and desolate as a monastery; and working there for my livelihood with my pen, [24] I was as poor as a priest with his alms-bowl. [25] Often and often I put my hand to my head [26] and exclaimed, ‘Surely he who sat with his face to the wall [27] was myself in a previous state of existence;’ and thus I…