So immersed did I become
in the achievement of a high perfection that, to my never-ending
self-reproach, I failed to notice a supernatural visitation of
undoubted authenticity; for the next morning it was widely admitted
that a certain familiar demon of the house, which only manifests its
presence on occasions of tragic omen, had been heard throughout the
night in warning, not only beating its head and body against the walls
and doors in despair, but raising from time to time a wailing cry of
soul-benumbing bitterness.
With every assurance that the next letter, though equally distorted in
style and immature in expression, will contain the record of a
deteriorated but ever upward-striving son's ultimate triumph.
KONG HO.
LETTER XI
Concerning the game which we should call "Locusts," and the
deeper significance of its acts. The solicitous warning of one
passing inwards and the complication occasioned by his ill-
chosen words. Concerning that victory already dimly foreshadowed.
VENERATED SIRE,--This barbarian game of agile grass-hoppers is not
conducted in the best spirit of a really well-balanced display, and
although the one now inscribing his emotions certainly achieved a wide
popularity, and wore his fig leaves with becoming modesty, he has
never since been quite free from an overhanging doubt that the
compliments and genial remarks with which he was assailed owed their
modulation to an unsubstantial atmosphere of two-edged significance
which for a period enveloped all whom he approached; as in the faces
of maidens concealed behind fans when he passed, the down-drawn lips
and up-raised eyes of those of fuller maturity, the practice in most
of his own kind of turning aside, pressing their hands about their
middle parts, and bending forward into a swollen attitude devoid of
grace, on the spur of a sudden remembrance, and in the auspicious but
undeniably embarrassing manner in which all the unfledged ones of the
village clustered about his retiring footsteps, saluting him
continually as one "James," upon whom had been conferred the
gratifying title of "Sunny.
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