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The Floating Press - Ernest Bramah

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99 pages

English

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British author Ernest Bramah was a solitary man who did not relish the fame his writing brought him. Over the course of his career, Bramah explored a number of different genres, excelling in many of them. A touchstone of his career was his abiding love of Asian culture, which he explores in The Mirror of Kong Ho, a collection of slyly hilarious stories told in letters home from Kong Ho, a Chinese national who is visiting London.

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Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)

Fantasy

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juin 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775459736
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE MIRROR OF KONG HO
* * *
ERNEST BRAMAH

*
The Mirror of Kong Ho First published in 1905 ISBN 978-1-77545-973-6 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Introduction Letter I Letter II Letter III Letter IV Letter V Letter VI Letter VII Letter VIII Letter IX Letter X Letter XI Letter XII The Three Gifts Letter XIII Letter XIV Endnotes
*
THE MIRROR OF KONG HO
By Ernest Bramah
A lively and amusing collection of letters on western living written by Kong Ho, a Chinese gentleman. These addressed to his homeland, refer to the Westerners in London as barbarians and many of the aids to life in our society give Kong Ho endless food for thought. These are things such as the motor car and the piano; unknown in China at this time.
Introduction
*
ESTIMABLE BARBARIAN,—Your opportune suggestion that I should permit theletters, wherein I have described with undeviating fidelity the customsand manner of behaving of your accomplished race, to be set forth inthe form of printed leaves for all to behold, is doubtlessgracefully-intentioned, and this person will raise no barrier of dissentagainst it.
In this he is inspired by the benevolent hope that his immaturecompositions may to one extent become a model and a by-word to those whoin turn visit his own land of Fragrant Purity; for with exacting carehe has set down no detail that has not come under his direct observation(although it is not to be denied that here or there he may, perchance,have misunderstood an involved allusion or failed to grasp the innersignificance of an act), so that Impartiality necessarily sways hisbrush, and Truth lurks within his inkpot.
In an entirely contrary manner some, who of recent years have gratifiedus with their magnanimous presence, have returned to their own countriesnot only with the internal fittings of many of our palaces (which,being for the most part of a replaceable nature, need be only triviallyreferred to, the incident, indeed, being generally regarded as a mostcordial and pressing variety of foreign politeness), but also—inthe lack of highly-spiced actuality—with subtly-imagined and trulyobjectionable instances. These calumnies they have not hesitated tocommit to the form of printed books, which, falling into the handsof the ignorant and undiscriminating, may even suggest to theirill-balanced minds a doubt whether we of the Celestial Empire really arethe wisest, bravest, purest, and most enlightened people in existence.
As a parting, it only remains to be said that, in order to maintainunimpaired the quaint-sounding brevity and archaic construction of yourprepossessing language, I have engraved most of the remarks upon thereceptive tablets of my mind as they were uttered. To one who can repeatthe Five Classics without stumbling this is a contemptible achievement.Let it be an imposed obligation, therefore, that you retain theseportions unchanged as a test and a proof to all who may read. Of myown deficient words, I can only in truest courtesy maintain that anyalteration must of necessity make them less offensively commonplace thanat present they are.
The Sign and immutable Thumb-mark of, Kong Ho
By a sure hand to the House of one Ernest Bramah.
Letter I
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Concerning the journey. The unlawful demons invoked by certain of the barbarians; their power and the manner of their suppression. Suppression. The incredible obtuseness of those who attend within tea-houses. The harmonious attitude of a person of commerce.
VENERATED SIRE (at whose virtuous and well-established feet an unworthyson now prostrates himself in spirit repeatedly),—
Having at length reached the summit of my journey, that London of whichthe merchants from Canton spoke so many strange and incredible things, Inow send you filial salutations three times increased, and in accordancewith your explicit command I shall write all things to you with anunvarnished brush, well assured that your versatile object in committingme to so questionable an enterprise was, above all, to learn thetruth of these matters in an undeviating and yet open-headed spirit ofaccuracy and toleration.
Of the perils incurred while travelling in the awe-inspiring devices bywhich I was transferred from shore to shore and yet further inland,of the utter absence of all leisurely dignity on the part ofthose controlling their movements, and of the almost unnaturalself-opinionatedness which led them to persist in starting at a statedand prearranged time, even when this person had courteously pointedout to them by irrefutable omens that neither the day nor the hour wassuitable for the venture, I have already written. It is enough to assertthat a similar want of prudence was maintained on every occasion, and,as a result, when actually within sight of the walls of this city, wewere involved for upwards of an hour in a very evilly-arranged yellowdarkness, which, had we but delayed for a day, as I strenuously advisedthose in authority after consulting the Sacred Flat and Round Sticks, weshould certainly have avoided.
Concerning the real nature of the devices by which the ships arepropelled at sea and the carriages on land, I must still unroll a blankmind until I can secretly, and without undue hazard, examine them moreclosely. If, as you maintain, it is the work of captive demons hiddenaway among their most inside parts, it must be admitted that theseusually intractable beings are admirably trained and controlled, andI am wide-headed enough to think that in this respect wemight—not-withstanding our nine thousand years of civilisedrefinement—learn something of the methods of these barbarians. Thesecret, however, is jealously guarded, and they deny the existence ofany supernatural forces; but their protests may be ignored, for thereis undoubtedly a powerful demon used in a similar way by some of theboldest of them, although its employment is unlawful. A certain kind ofchariot is used for the occupation of this demon, and those who wishto invoke it conceal their faces within masks of terrifying design, andcover their hands and bodies with specially prepared garments, withoutwhich it would be fatal to encounter these very powerful spirits.While yet among the habitations of men, and in crowded places, they areconstrained to use less powerful demons, which are lawful, but whenthey reach the unfrequented paths they throw aside all restraint, and,calling to their aid the forbidden spirit (which they do by secretmovements of the hands), they are carried forward by its agency at aspeed unattainable by merely human means. By day the demon looks forthfrom three white eyes, which at night have a penetrating brillianceequal to the fiercest glances of the Sacred Dragon in anger. If anyperson incautiously stands in its way it utters a warning cry ofintolerable rage, and should the presumptuous one neglect to escape tothe roadside and there prostrate himself reverentially before it, itseizes him by the body part and contemptuously hurls him bruised andunrecognisable into the boundless space of the around. Frequentlythe demon causes the chariot to rise into the air, and it is crediblyasserted by discriminating witnesses (although this person only setsdown as incapable of denial that which he has actually beheld) thatsome have maintained an unceasing flight through the middle air for adistance of many li. Occasionally the captive demon escapes from thebondage of those who have invoked it, through some incautious gestureor heretical remark on their part, and then it never fails to use themgrievously, casting them to the ground wounded, consuming the chariotwith fire, and passing away in the midst of an exceedingly debasedodour, by which it is always accompanied after the manner of our ownearth spirits.
This being, as this person has already set forth, an unlawful demon onaccount of its power when once called up, and the admitted uncertaintyof its movements, those in authority maintain a stern and inexorableface towards the practice. To entrap the unwary certain persons (chosenon account of their massive outlines, and further protected from evilinfluences by their pure and consistent habits) keep an unceasing watch.When one of them, himself lying concealed, detects the approach of sucha being, he closely observes the position of the sun, and signals tothe other a message of warning. Then the second one, shielded by thesanctity of his life and rendered inviolable by the nature of hisgarments—his sandals alone being capable of overturning any demon fromhis path should it encounter them—boldly steps forth into the road andholds out before him certain sacred emblems. So powerful are thesethat at the sight the unlawful demon confesses itself vanquished, andalthough its whole body trembles with ill-contained rage, and the airaround is poisoned by its discreditable exhalation, it is devoid offurther resistance. Those in the chariot are thereupon commanded todismiss it, and being bound in chains they are led into the presence ofcertain lesser mandarins who administer justice from a raised dais.
"Behold!" exclaims the chief of the captors, when the prisoners havebeen placed in obsequious attitudes before the lesser mandarins, "thusthe matter chanced: The honourable Wang, although disguised under thesemblance of an applewoman, had discreetly concealed himself by theroadside, all but his head being underneath a stream of stagnant water,when, at the eighth hour of th