Learning:
The Journey of a Lifetime
A Cloud Chamber of the Mind

2006 Literature Notebook

Bao-yu. [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17] The Stone.

Jia Zhen (Cousin Zhen). [3, 10, 11, 16, 17] Son of Jia Jing, acting head of the senior (Ning-guo) branch of the Jia family.

Jia Zheng. [3, 9, 17] second surviving male, studious & hard working, now has important post of Under Secretary, married a Miss Wang. He is Bao-yu's father.

Lin Dai-yu. [2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 16, 17] Young daughter of Lin Ru-hai. She received tutoring from Jai Yu-cun but now she is being brought up by the Jias of Rong-guo mansion.

Bao-yu is despondent over the death of his friend Qin Zhong, "But grief cannot mend our losses, and a day did at last arrive when he had ceased to mourn." [p. 324]

Cousin Zhen & Jia Zheng review the new garden that is being prepared for Yuan-chun's visit. Jia Zheng asks Bao-yu to accompany them so he may test him on his studies.

After viewing the garden, Bao-yu returns to his room and is visited by Dai-yu and they engage in some friendly banter.

This is a beautiful chapter as the prose goes on for almost 20 pages describing the new facilities.

"... even the rocks and trees and flowers will seem somehow incomplete without that touch of poetry which only the written word can lend a scene." [p. 324 - 325]. The idea of adding the written word to supplement nature is new to me, but it does remind me of the numerous posters that we now market that combine some quote with a striking photograph.

"In my youth I had at best only indifferent skill in the art of writing verses about natural objects - birds and flowers and scenery and the like; and now that I am older and have to devote all my energies to official documents and government papers, I am even more out of touch with this sort of thing than I was then; so that even if I were to try a hand at it, I fear that my efforts would be rather dull and pedantic ones. Instead of enhancing the interest and beauty of the garden, they would probably have a deadening effect upon both." [p. 325]

" 'I remeber reading in some old book,' said Bao-yu, 'that "to recall old things is better than to invent new ones; and to recut an ancient text is better than to engrave a modern". ' " [p. 328]

"... it is to be something which implies that this is merely a first step towards more important things ahead. I suggest we call it 'Pathway to Mysteries' ..." [p. 328] This would make another sub-title for these web pages!