The Feast of Lanterns
Louise Jordan Miln
Paperback
(Forgotten Books, Aug. 9, 2012)
Chinese lack them but for centuries it had suffered from one outstanding disadvantage: prolific in its marriages, those nuptials rarely had resulted in the birth of a girl. The gods had been besought and bribed, offerings made lavishly, vows proffered, temples built, but all to scant avail, for still the wives of the family brought forth men children only. Since a girl must be dowered, the Chinese poor pray for a preponderance of sons, but for a great and ridi noble to be daughterless is to be afflicted and pitied. A lady of the Ch engs had invented China ssweetest wind instrument, and composed three of the great classic love-songs, and at a time of sharp peril had won back to their allegiance the revolting aborigines by her diplomacy, her beauty and her playing of the flute. A nother had invented an imperid glaze, one had improved the telescope, and discovered a constellation, another had excelled all the other court ladies at embroidering, another sl poetess of the Tang dynasty had enriched Chinese literature, one when a decadence of classical learning threatened opened a school, and, lecturing from behind a crimson curtain, to some hundred men and youths, averted the catastrophe, and one had eaten the peaches of immortality that grew in the garden of Hsi Wang Mu, the lady of the West, and that ripen but once in three thousand years, and is now a god with the gods. But these were Ch engs but by marriage, and had been all but barren of daughters; and the few girls bom to the family had been ordinary, in appearance and in gifts; none of the few had achieved distinction, done China or her own clan a great service or made an imperial marriage.(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)About the Publisher Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.Forg