With a well-gratified sense of having held an unswerving course along
the convoluted outline of Destiny's decree, to whatever tending.
KONG HO.
LETTER XIV
Concerning a pressing invitation from an ever benevolently-
disposed father to a prosaic but dutifully-inclined son. The
recording of certain matters of no particular moment.
Concerning that ultimate end which is symbolic of the
inexorable wheels of a larger Destiny.
VENERATED SIRE,--It is not for the earthworm to say when and in what
exact position the iron-shod boot shall descend, and this person,
being an even inferior creature for the purpose of the comparison,
bows an acquiescent neck to your very explicit command that he shall
return to Yuen-ping without delay. He cannot put away from his mind a
clinging suspicion that this arising is the result of some
imperfection in his deplorable style of correspondence, whereby you
have formed an impression quite opposed to that which it had been the
intention to convey, and that, perchance, you even have a secret doubt
whether upon some specified occasion he may not have conducted the
enterprise to an ignoble, or at least not markedly successful, end.
However, the saying runs, "The stone-cutter always has the last word,"
and you equally, by intimating with your usual unanswerable and
clear-sighted gift of logic that no further allowance of taels will be
sent for this one's dispersal, diplomatically impose upon an
ever-yearning son the most feverish anxiety once more to behold your
large and open-handed face.
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