With the two-sided memories of many other details hanging thickly around his brush, it would not be an achievement to continue to a practically inexhaustible amount.As of the set days when certain things are observed, among which fall the first of the fourth month (but that would disclose another involvement), another when flat cakes are partaken of without due caution, another when rounder cakes are even more incautiously consumed, and that most brightly-illuminated of all when it is permissible to embrace maidens openly, and if discreetly accomplished with no overhanging fear of ensuing forms of law, beneath the emblem of a suspended branch, in memory of the wisdom of certain venerable sages who were doubtless expert in the practice.As of the inconvenient custom when two persons are walking together that they should arrange themselves side by side, to the obvious discomfort of others, the sweeping away of all opportunities for agreeable politeness, and the utter disregard of the time-honoured example of the sagacious water-fowl.As of the inconsistency of refusing, even with contempt, to receive our most intimate form of regard and use this person's lip-cloth after a feast, yet the mulish eagerness in that same youth to drink from a cup previously used by a lesser one.As of the precision (which still remains a cloud of doubt,) with which creatures so intractable as the bull are successfully trained to roar aloud at certain gong-strokes of the day as an agreed signal.As of the streets in movement, the lights at evening, and the voices of those unseen.As of these and as of other matters, so multitudinous that they crowd about this person's mind like the assembling swallows, circling above the deserted millet fields before they turn their beaks to the sea, and droppinghis brush (perchance with an acquiescent sigh), he, also, kow-tows submissively to a blind but appointed destiny, and prepares to seek a passage from an alien land of sojourning.
With the impetuous craving of an affectionate son to behold a revered sire, intensified by the fact that he has reached the innermost lining of his sleeve; with affectionate greetings towards Ning, Hia-Fa, and T'ian Yen, and an assurance that they have never been really absent from his thoughts.
KONG HO.
Ernest Bramah, of whom in his lifetime Who's Who had so little to say, was born in Manchester.At seventeen he chose farming as a profession, but after three years of losing money gave it up to go into journalism.He started as correspondent on a typical provincial paper, then went to London as secretary to Jerome K.Jerome, and worked himself into the editorial side of Jerome's magazine, To-day, where he got the opportunity of meeting the most important literary figures of the day.But he soon left To-day to join a new publishing firm, as editor of a publication called The Minister; finally, after two years of this, he turned to writing as his full-time occupation.He was intensely interested in coins and published a book on the English regal copper coinage.He is, however, best known as the creator of the charming character Kai Lung who appears in Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, Kai Lung's Golden Hours, The Wallet of Kai Lung, Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry Tree, The Mirror of Kong Ho, and The Moon of Much Gladness; he also wrote two one- act plays which are often performed at London variety theatres, and many stories and articles in leading periodicals.He died in 1942.
