The Story of Ming-Y by Lafcadio Hearn — Read

_Sang the Poet Tching-Kou: "Surely the Peach-Flowers blossom over / the tomb of Sie-Thao. "_

Do you ask me who she was, -- the beautiful Sie-Thao? For a thousand years and more the trees have been whispering above her bed of stone. And the syllables of her name come to the listener with the lisping of the leaves; with the quivering of many-fingered boughs; with the fluttering of lights and shadows; with the breath, sweet as a woman's presence, of numberless savage flowers, -- _Sie-Thao_. But, saving the whispering of her name, what the trees say cannot be understood; and they alone remember the years of Sie-Thao. Something about her you might, nevertheless, learn from any of those _Kiang-kou-jin_, -- those famous Chinese story-tellers, who nightly narrate to listening crowds, in consideration of a few _tsien_, the legends of the past. Something concerning her you may also find in the book entitled "Kin-Kou-Ki-Koan," which signifies in our tongue: "The Marvellous Happenings of Ancient and of Recent Times. " And perhaps of all things therein written, the most marvellous is this memory of Sie-Thao: --