Page 66 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

CHINESE PORCELAIN.
34
with the fan, and all of moisture vanished.
appearance presently
The lady upon this gaily thanked her benefactor, and, taking
a silver bodkin from her hair, presented it to him with her
fan, begging he would accept the same as a small mark of
her gratitude. Chuang-tsze declined the bodkin, but kept the
fan, and the lady retired much satisfied with her adventure."
This the introduction to the on to
is
only tale, which goes
show how the philosopher's wife, on hearing how he became
she would never so behave, and
possessed of the fan, protested
that the woman he had met " must be a monster of insensi-
The to test her
bility." philosopher pretended to be dead,
and seems to have arranged for a very handsome young man
to make love to the supposed widow, who in a few days agreed
to marry him without delay, but on breaking open the philoso-
pher's coffin, intending to take his brain to make medicine,
that the young man said he must have, she found to her horror
that the philosopher was alive. " Unable to survive her
"
shame she hung herself, when the philosopher, setting tire to
the house, burnt her body and the wedding feast that had been
"
prepared. Nothing was saved except the sacred book called
Taou-te-king."
Under this heading we may note that in the procession of a
high mandarin, Doolittle mentions " two men, one carrying a
large official fan and the other a large umbrella of state."
Fans in various as charms, of which these
appear shapes
numbers are the former the form most
examples, seeming
generally employed.
Nos. 14, 15. A sword (keen). These, like the fans, differ
very much in shape, but Leu Tung-pin's seems generally
to be as shown in Nos. 14 and 15, the former
two-edged,
having a charm-bag attached to it.
No. 16. A gourd (hu-lu). That in the hand of Le Tee-kwae
generally has a scroll escaping from the mouth, emblematic
of his power of setting his spirit free from the body.
No. 17. Pair of castanets also Nos. 108, 109).
(pan) (see
No. 18. A flower-basket (hwa-lan).
No. 19. A bamboo tube
(yu-ku) and two rods to beat it.
No. 20. A flute also No.
(tieh) (see 101).
No. 21. A lotus flower It is
(leen-Jnua). generally merely
the that is shown in the hand of Ho Seen-koo, the
seed-pod