friend. He will not _put a new string to his guitar_
is, of course, a continuation of the same idea, more coarsely
expressed as _putting on a new coat_. His father has been _gathered to
the west_--a phrase evidently of Buddhistic import--_is no more, has
gone for a stroll, has bid adieu to the world_, may all be employed to
supply the place of the tabooed verb, which is chiefly used of animals
and plants. After a few days' illness _he kicked_, is a vulgar way of
putting it and analogous to the English slang idiom. The Emperor
_becomes a guest on high_, riding up to heaven on the dragon's back,
with flowers of rhetoric ad nauseam; Buddhist priests _revolve into
emptiness_, i.e., are annihilated; the soul of the Taoist priest
_wings its flight away_.

_Only a candle-end left_ is said of an affair which nears completion;
_red_ and _white matters_ are marriages and deaths, so called from the
colour of the clothes worn on these important occasions. A blushing
person _fires up_, or literally, _ups fire_, according to the Chinese
idiom. To be fond of _blowing_ resembles our modern term _gassing_. A
_lose-money-goods_ is a daughter as compared with a son who can go out
in the world and earn money, whereas a daughter must be provided with
a dowry before any one will marry her. A more genuine metaphor is a
_thousand ounces of silver_; it expresses the real affection Chinese
parents have for their daughters as well as their sons. To _let the
dog out_ is the same as our letting the cat out; to _run against a
nail_ is allied to kicking against the pricks. A man of superficial
knowledge is called _half a bottle of vinegar_, though why vinegar, in
preference to anything else, we have not been able to discover. He has
always _got his gun in his hand_ is a reproach launched at the head of
some confirmed opium debauchee, one of those few reckless smokers to
whom opium is indeed a curse. They have _burnt paper together_, makes
it clear to a Chinese mind that the persons spoken of have gone
through the marriage service, part of which ceremony consists in
burning silver paper, made up to resemble lumps of the pure metal. _We
have split_ is one of those happy idioms which lose nothing in
translation, being word for word the same in both languages, and with
exactly the same meaning. _A crooked stick_ is a man whose
eccentricities keep people from associating freely with him; he won't
lie conveniently in a bundle with the other sticks.

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