the Duke of Chow, more dishonored in the breach than honored
in the observance.... For the rest, you might as well look for
the Eleusinia in Chicago. Who could believe in religion, those
days?--Well; it was the pride of some of the little duchies and
marquisates to keep up a reputa-tion for orthodoxy: there
was Lu in Shantung, for example,-very strict.* (As strictness
went, we may say.) And if you wished to study ritual, you
went up to Honanfu to do so; where, too, was the National
or Royal Library, where profitable years might be spent. But
who, except enthusiasts, was to treat religion seriously?
--when one saw the doddering Head of Religion yearly flouted,
kicked about and hustled in his own capital by his Barbarian
Highness the 'King'--so he must now style himself and be
styled, where in better days 'Count Palatine' or 'Lord Marcher'
would have served his turn well enough--of Ts'in or Tsin
or Ts'i or Ts'u, who would come thundering down with his
chariots when he pleased, and without with-your-leave or
by-your-leave, march past the very gates of Honanfu;--and
lucky if he did march past, and not come in and stay awhile;
--on his way to attacking his Barbarian Highness the 'King'
of somewhere else. The God that is to be sincerely worshiped
must, as this world goes, be able now and then to do some
little thing for his vicegerent on earth; and Heaven did
precious little in those days for the weakling King-pontiff
puppets at Honanfu. A mad world, my masters!

------
* _Ancient China Simplified:_ E. Harper Parker;--also much
drawn on.
------

Wherein, too, we had our symbols:--the Dragon, the Sky-wanderer,
with something heavenly to say; but alas! the Dragon had been
little visible in our skies of Chu Hia these many years or
centuries;--the Tiger, brute muscularity, lithe terrible limbs,
fearful claws and teeth,--we knew him much better! This, heaven
knew, was the day of the Tiger of earthly strength and passions;
were there not those three great tigers up north, Ts'in, Tsin,
and Ts'i; and as many more southward; and all hungry and
strong?--And also, some little less thought of perhaps, the
Phoenix, Secular Bird, that bums itself at the end of each cycle,
and arises from its ashes young and dazzling again: the Phoenix
--but little thought of, these days; for was not the world old
and outworn, and toppling down towards a final crash? The days
of Chu Hia were gone, its future all in the long past; no one
dared d