The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: study of Chinese art I became intimately acquainted with most of
the court painters and knew the character of their work. The head
of this group was Mr. Kuan. I called on him one day, knowing that
he was not well enough to be on duty in the palace, and I found
him hard at work. Like the small boy who told his mother that he
was too sick to go to school but not sick enough to go to bed, so
he assured me that his troubles were not such as to prevent his
working, but only such as make it impossible for him to appear at
court. Incidentally I learned that the drain on his purse from
the squeezes to the eunuchs aggravated his disease.
"When Her Majesty excused me from appearing at the palace," he
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