--they who drink water on all occasions and wear a
badge--that a maiden of some authority among them besought my aid for
the purpose of amusing a band which she was desirous of propitiating
into the adoption of this badge. It is possible that in the immature
confidence of former letters this person may already have alluded to
certain maidens with words of courteous esteem, but it is now necessary
to admit finally that in the presence of this same Helena they would
all appear as an uninviting growth of stunted and deformed poppies
surrounding a luxuriant chrysanthemum. At the presumptuous thought of
describing her illimitable excellences my fingers become claw-like in
their confessed inadequacy to hold a sufficiently upright brush; yet
without undue confidence it may be set down that her hands resembled the
two wings of a mandarin drake in their symmetrical and changing motion,
her hair as light and radiant-pointed as the translucent incense cloud
floating before the golden Buddha of Shan-Si, thin white satin stretched
tightly upon polished agate only faintly comparable to her jade cheeks,
while her eyes were more unfathomable than the crystal waters of the
Keng-kiang, and within their depths her pure and magnanimous thoughts
could be dimly seen to glide like the gold and silver carp beneath the
sacred river.

When this insurpassable being approached me with the flattering
petition already alluded to, my gratified emotions clashed together
uncontrollably with the internal feeling of many volcanoes in movement,
and my organs of expression became so entangled at the condescension of
her melodious voice being directly addressed to one so degraded, that
for several minutes I was incapable of further acquiescence than that
conveyed by an adoring silence and an unchanging smile. No formality
appeared worthy to greet her by, no expression of self-contempt
sufficiently offensive to convey to her enlightenment my own sense of
a manifold inferiority, and doubtless I should have remained in a
transfixed attitude until she had at length turned aside, had not your
seasonable reference to a Swatow limb-contorter struck me heavily and
abruptly turned off the source of my agreement. Might not this all-water
entertainment, it occurred to this one, consist in enticing him to drink
a potion made unsuspectedly hot, in projecting him backwards into a vat
of the same liquid, or some similar device for the pleasurable amusement
of those around