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.
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