VENERATED SIRE,--Your gem-adorned letter containing a thousand
burnished words of profuse reproach has entered my diminished soul in
the form of an equal number of rusty barbs. Can it be that the
incapable person whom, as you truly say, you sent, "to observe the
philosophical subtleties of the barbarians, to study their dynastical
records and to associate liberally with the venerable and dignified,"
has, in your own unapproachable felicity of ceremonial expression,
"according to a discreet whisper from many sources, chiefly affected
the society of tea-house maidens, the immature of both sexes, doubtful
characters of all classes, and criminals awaiting trial; has evinced
an unswerving affinity towards light amusement and entertainments of a
no-class kind; and in place of a wise aloofness, befitting a wearer of
the third Gold Button and the Horn Belt-clasp, in situations of
critical perplexity, seems by his own ingenuous showing to have
maintained an unparalleled aptitude for behaving either with the
crystalline simplicity of a Kan-su earth-tiller, or the misplaced
buffoonery of a seventh-grade body-writher taking the least
significant part in an ill-equipped Swatow one-cash Hall of Varied
Melodies." Assuredly, if your striking and well-chosen metaphors were
not more unbalanced than the ungainly attitude of a one-legged
hunchback crossing a raging torrent by means of a slippery plank on a
stormy night, they would cause the very acutest bitterness to the
throat of a dutiful and always high-stepping son. There is an apt
saying, however, "A quarrel between two soldiers in the market-place
becomes a rebellion in the outskirts," and when this person remembers
that many thousand li of mixed elements flow between him and his
usually correct and dispassionate sire, he is impelled to take a mild
and tolerant attitude towards the momentary injustice brought about by
the weakness of approaching old age, the vile-intentioned mendacity of