Excerpt from Translations From the Chinese So my Mandarin gradually became a very real Familiar, and sometimes I see him peering out of a pigeon-hole, mocking me in his suave fashion. The odd thing is that his scofl-ing fre quently changes into moods of pity or ecstasy that are even more disconcerting. In spite of his great age and his disillusion, he has mo ments that are truly boyish. We all like to say, of a man we admire greatly, that he has the heart of a child. Certainly there is a naif appealing youthfulness in some of my Man darin's simplicities. Occasionally, late in a winter afternoon, when I have been (after a whole day of random interruptions) trying to get a few hurried paragraphs written for the newspaper, I have quietly become aware of him standing by the window at my elbow. He looks out at that astounding vista of great buildings, terraced in golden tiers, one above another into the transparent dusk. Why don't you get some of that into your writing? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.