# Rare Earth/Chapter 4

Chapter IV
And now once more it was spring in Galvey but there was no warmth of spring in the soul of Scobee Trent. The tragedy which he faced now that peace had come to the world was far worse than the tragedy of war. He was confronted by obstacles that were unsurmountable. Sometimes he sat for hours peering into that velvet blackness. How far, how far did it extend? War was a horror, a relentless horror from which there was no escape. And all over the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Austria, Germany there were countless other boys in the same pitiable condition as himself, future ruined, hope blasted, slag from the furnace of war.
​If only he could pierce those curtains of blackness. There had been an instance when for one brief moment as he walked across the fields with Hung Long Tom he had beheld the sky. But it was a fleeting interlude. Then once more he was blind. It was in this little moment of happiness that he and Hung Long Tom had put such great store. But Steinlin had not given the incident much consideration. He was a cold, unsentimental, methodical man of science, so absorbed with the material facts of the war he had scant time for the spiritual. Still he was a world-famous eyesurgeon. One could not totally disregard his opinions.
Had it not been for gentle old Hung Long Tom it would have been impossible for Scobee to face the thought of living. But Hung Long Tom with his softly-modulated voice seemed to take the harsher edge off everything. He had led Scobee around as a baby, watched over him, guided his footsteps. And now once more he was repeating the same tasks.
​Everyone in Galvey loved Hung Long Tom. There were none who did not joy to pause and speak with him. They marvelled at his intellect, at his novel philosophies, at the vagrant bits of folklore he quoted.
Hung Long Tom smiled to himself at their amazement. Because he was a Chinaman they did not expect him to be educated. Few there were who knew that Chinese civilization is the oldest in the world. Once in a conversation with Ezra Lang who was a banker and the most influential citizen of Galvey he had said in reply to Mr. Lang's open comment upon his extraordinary culture, "Great inventors have the Chinese been, of gunpowder, banknotes and block-printing. They even discovered the compass. Such were the mighty gifts they gave unto the world. And now men speak of China's sad decline, that there is no longer advancement. The people spend their lives waiting patiently, entirely satisfied with their lowly lot. But I say my people have paused for the rest of Earth's passengers to come abreast In their very apathy is recorded their ​most treasured discovery—Contentment. They are acquainted with the fact that over-industry accomplishes naught. The Chinese are the most poetic people in the world. Few there are who do not love poetry. They are educated to appreciate the beauties of nature even though there are many who can neither read nor write. To a vast degree the present bad conditions in China are caused by lack of food. When famine grips a land and men starve, their minds grow dim. Feed China and watch her regain her lost grandeur. My people are yellow people because they are people of the sun. There are those who are surprised that I am well educated. There is nothing extraordinary in this. It is mirthprovoking to read novels in which Chinese figure prominently who use pidgin English and have the mental processes of a child of ten. I do not say the counterpart of these characters cannot be found in China very easily. But I do contend that all Chinese characters are not identical as though they had been turned out by a molding machine. The ​Chinese character is the most complex in the world, and the most varied. Yet your books do not suggest this. They may be interesting but for the most part they are untrue. China in intellect must rank with any other nation of the world."
Hung Long Tom had been born in Canton, queerest of all cities. His life from infancy had been romantic to an extreme. His parents had not been poor. On the contrary, in all Canton there were few families so well favored by the gods. His house stood in the center of a mighty garden in which every conceivable type of flower grew. It was close enough to the Pearl River so that he could wander down and watch the sampans and mysteriously silent junks gliding to and fro. His father was a jade-master, though of all precious stones he was a connoisseur. Frequently he journeyed to the far corners of the country in quest of rare gems whose fabulous tales had filtered to his ears. The mother of Hung Long Tom was an artist. She painted enchanting scenes on fans and bits of ivory. All day she worked at a ​window that opened out upon the garden wherein her little boy played and sang. The sound of his baby laughter was the sweetest of all music to her.
The affairs of the household were entrusted to the capable hands of servants while the mistress devoted herself to the art wherein she was a master. In painting she believed that the lines in a picture did not count so much as the lines left out. A single line to denote a mountain, a curved line for the sea. The colors which she used the most were yellow and purple. Yellow because it was the color of the sun. Purple because it was the last color of departing day tinting the sky. Frequently she painted miniatures in which there was no color save yellow blended in a hundred different tones. Yellow magic was in the tip of her brush.
Meanwhile her husband went each day to his jewelry shop in that vast alley where rare jewels are sold, the shop where his father before him had been a jewel merchant. He knew gems absolutely. He read them as if they ​were a secret language which he had studied. He understood their thoughts, interpreted their legends. To him they were living things.
Such was the environment in which the youth of Hung Long Tom had been spent. His education though deep was a sketchy thing. It penetrated and became infused with his very blood but it was without purpose or design. It was directed toward him in an impractical manner. From the four quarters of the world travelers came to his father's garden to talk about jades and jewels and always the father saw to it that some part of the visit was devoted to his son.
Each wayfarer told exciting tales to the little boy, of the countries that fringe China and also of the far places of the earth. Hung Long Tom listened to their stories and marveled. They broadened his vision. They caused him to meditate and dream. They were bringers of rich music to the garden. The little boy could hear symphonies in the stories. And he grew to believe that each one of us marches to strange music which he alone hears. Our ​courses are directed by the music, our happiness measured by the pitch of the drums. Such was the education of Hung Long Tom.
His mother acquainted him with the history of painting, of all the great artists that had brought renown to China and Japan. She was very fond of the pictures of Wang Wei, the artist-poet, who flourished in the eighth century, especially his "Snow Clearing Up on a Mountain by a River." The gorgeous sweep of his paintings has seldom if ever been surpassed, yet he lived and died hundreds of years before the birth of Michelangelo, Raphael, Tiàtoretto or Watteau. Chinese art like Chinese poetry was old when European art was in its infancy. The mother of Hung Long Tom loved Japanese color-prints and in her collection were some of the finest works of Utamaro, Hokusai, Hiroshige, Shunzei and Shunsho. "A picture should be hung upon a wall only for a short time," she used to say, "then if it be upon silk it should be rolled up and put safely away. This keeps it forever new. Flowers do not remain incessantly in a ​garden without change, nor should paintings remain endlessly on a wall."
Hung Long Tom's father taught him the lure and lore of precious stones. How some stones are lucky while others bring disaster. Of the charming evil of black pearls. Of the sinister beauty of opal fires. Of the sweet fragrance of certain jewels. Of the medicinal quality of others. Of the transmutation of jewels and perfume. Perfumes are elixirs to be prescribed in certain illnesses. White violets for the stomach. For the mind vine-leaves, for the heart a rose. The Color of Music, the Fragrance of Jewels and the Music of Color—these were the three prime principles of life which his father taught him. All fine arts are interchangeable.
Hung Long Tom was nobly ancestored. The strain of his blood was pure, the blood of artists and philosophers. It is not odd then that the boy should have turned to poetry as a means of expression. It was in his blood. It is in the very air of China. As the years glided past he wrote some fragrant bits of verse that ​were as finely carved, as full of imagery as his father's jades, as beautifully painted as the brush strokes on the sandalwood fans of his mother.
"The Mind is a Boat That glides On waves of thought, Through cloud mysteries Never ending; Steering a course Quite steadily Into mazes Of colorful Dreams."
Again he wrote a verse of extreme simplicity.
"Consider flowers. Men break them, Drag them from their homes, Trample them into dust And in return They give perfume. Sometimes it seems The very wonder Of fragile flowers Is measured By their capacity for giving."