Arrangement under Categories is the favourite method, and it is employed
in the following way:—

A number of such words as Heaven, Earth, Time, Man, Plants, Beasts,
Birds, Fishes, Minerals, and others are chosen, and the subjects are
grouped under these headings. Thus, Eclipses would come under Heaven,
Geomancy under Earth, the Passions under Man, though all classification
is not quite so simple as these specimens, and search is often prolonged
by failing to hit upon the right Category. Even when the Category is the
right one, many pages of Index have frequently to be turned over; but
once fix the reference in the Index, and the rest is easy, the
catch-word in each case being printed on the margin of each page, just
where the finger comes when turning the pages rapidly over.

The Chinese are very fond of collections of reprints, published in
uniform editions and often extending to several hundred volumes. My
earliest acquaintance with literature is associated with such a
collection in English. It was called _The Family Library_, and ran to
over a hundred volumes, if I recollect rightly, and included the works
of Washington Irving and the immortal story of _Rip Van Winkle_. There
is also a Chinese Rip Van Winkle, a tale of a man who, wandering one day
in the mountains, came upon two boys playing checkers; and after
watching them for some time, and eating some dates they gave him, he
discovered that the handle of an axe he was carrying had mouldered into
dust. Returning home, he found, as the Chinese poet puts it,

"City and suburb as of old,
But hearts that loved him long since cold."

Seven generations had passed away in the interim.