Some Chinese Ghosts by Lafcadio Hearn
page 57 of 81 (70%)
page 57 of 81 (70%)
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_Tchai-yao_, which no man, howsoever wicked, could find courage to
break, for they charmed the eye like jewels of price;-- And the _Jou-yao_, second in rank among all porcelains, sometimes mocking the aspect and the sonority of bronze, sometimes blue as summer waters, and deluding the sight with mucid appearance of thickly floating spawn of fish;-- And the _Kouan-yao_, which are the Porcelains of Magistrates, and third in rank of merit among all wondrous porcelains, colored with colors of the morning,--skyey blueness, with the rose of a great dawn blushing and bursting through it, and long-limbed marsh-birds flying against the glow; Also the _Ko-yao_,--fourth in rank among perfect porcelains,--of fair, faint, changing colors, like the body of a living fish, or made in the likeness of opal substance, milk mixed with fire; the work of Sing-I, elder of the immortal brothers Tchang; Also the _Ting-yao_,--fifth in rank among all perfect porcelains,--white as the mourning garments of a spouse bereaved, and beautiful with a trickling as of tears,--the porcelains sung of by the poet Son-tong-po; Also the porcelains called _Pi-se-yao_, whose colors are called "hidden," being alternately invisible and visible, like the tints of ice beneath the sun,--the porcelains celebrated by the far-famed singer Sin-in; Also the wondrous _Chu-yao_,--the pallid porcelains that utter a mournful cry when smitten,--the porcelains chanted of by the mighty |
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