Explore "The Tale of the Porcelain-God" by Lafcadio Hearn on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_It is written in the _FONG-HO-CHIN-TCH'OUEN_, that whenever the / artist Thsang-Kong was in doubt, he would look into the fire of the / great oven in which his vases were baking, and question the / Guardian-Spirit dwelling in the flame. And the Spirit of the / Oven-fires so aided him with his counsels, that the porcelains made / by Thsang-Kong were indeed finer and lovelier to look upon than all / other porcelains. And they were baked in the years of / Khang-hi, -- sacredly called Jin Houang-ti._
Who first of men discovered the secret of the _Kao-ling_, of the _Pe-tun-tse_, -- the bones and the flesh, the skeleton and the skin, of the beauteous Vase? Who first discovered the virtue of the curd-white clay? Who first prepared the ice-pure bricks of _tun_: the gathered-hoariness of mountains that have died for age; blanched dust of the rocky bones and the stony flesh of sun-seeking Giants that have ceased to be? Unto whom was it first given to discover the divine art of porcelain?