religious, in which the aims of the writers are on a sufficiently high
level to keep them clear of what is popularly known as pornography or
pig-writing; still, when all is said and done, there remains a balance
of writing curiously in contrast with the great bulk of Chinese
literature proper. As to the novel, the long story with a worked-out
plot, this is not really a local product. It seems to have come along
with the Mongols from Central Asia, when they conquered China in the
thirteenth century, and established their short-lived dynasty. Some
novels, in spite of their low moral tone, are exceedingly well written
and clever, graphic in description, and dramatic in episode; but it is
curious that no writer of the first rank has ever attached his name to
a novel, and that the authorship of all the cleverest is a matter of
entire uncertainty.

The low-class novel is purposely pitched in a style that will be
easily understood; but even so, there is a great deal of word- and
phrase-skipping to be done by many illiterate readers, who are quite
satisfied if they can extract the general sense as they go along.
The book-language, as cultivated by the best writers, is to be freely
understood only by those who have stocked their minds well with the
extensive phraseology which has been gradually created by eminent
men during the past twenty-five centuries, and with historical and
biographical allusions and references of all sorts and things. A word or
two, suggesting some apposite allusion, will often greatly enhance the
beauty of a composition for the connoisseur, but will fall flat on
the ears of those to whom the quotation is unknown. Simple objects in
everyday life often receive quaint names, as handed down in literature,
with which it is necessary to be familiar. For instance, a "fairy
umbrella" means a mushroom; a "gentleman of the beam" is a burglar,
because a burglar was once caught sitting on one of the open beams