up rhymes too great an exertion. Next, he would be a moral philosopher,
and commenced a work, to be completed in sixty volumes, on the Whole
Duty of Chinamen; but he never got beyond the elementary principles he
had imbibed from Kei-ying. Again, he would become a great painter; but,
having in an unguarded moment permitted the claims of perspective to be
recognized, he was discouraged from this attempt by a deputation of the
first artists of the empire, who waited upon him, and with great respect
laid before him the appalling effects that would inevitably follow any
public recognition of perspective in painting. Finally, he renounced
all ambition but that of ruling his fellow-creatures with a rod more
tyrannical than that of political authority, and more respected than the
sceptre of government itself.


II.


Satiated with success, Mien-yaun at length became weary of the ceaseless
round of flattering triumphs, and began to lament that no higher step on
the social staircase remained for him to achieve. Alas that discontent
should so soon follow the realization of our brightest hopes! What, in
this world, is enough? More than we have! Mien-yaun felt all the pangs
of anxious aspiration, without knowing how to alleviate them. He was
only conscious of a deep desolation, for which none of the elementary
principles he had learned from Kei-ying afforded the slightest
consolation. He now avoided publicity from inclination, rather than from
any systematic plan of action. He dressed mostly in blue, a sufficient
sign of a perturbed spirit. He discarded the peacock's feather, as
an idle vanity, and always came forth among the world arrayed in
ultramarine gowns and cerulean petticoats. His stockings, especially,