' Thereupon I followed him into his shop,
where he began to harangue on the manners, customs, and
peculiarities of the Chinese, especially their manner of preparing
tea, not forgetting to tell me that the only genuine Chinese tea
ever imported into England was to be found in his shop. 'With
respect to those marks,' said he, 'on the bowl and chests, they are
nothing more nor less than Chinese writing expressing something,
though what I can't exactly tell you. Allow me to sell you this
pound of tea,' he added, showing me a paper parcel. 'On the
envelope there is a printed account of the Chinese system of
writing, extracted from authors of the most established reputation.
These things I print, principally with the hope of, in some degree,
removing the worse than Gothic ignorance prevalent amongst natives
of these parts. I am from London myself. With respect to all that
relates to the Chinese real imperial tea, I assure you sir, that--'
Well, to make short of what you doubtless consider a very tiresome
story, I purchased the tea and carried it home. The tea proved
imperially bad, but the paper envelope really contained some
information on the Chinese language and writing, amounting to about
as much as you gained from me the other day. On learning that the
marks on the teapot expressed words, I felt my interest with
respect to them considerably increased, and returned to the task of
inspecting them with greater zeal than before, hoping, by
continually looking at them, to be able eventually to understand
their meaning, in which hope you may easily believe I was
disappointed, though my desire to understand what they represented
continued on the increase.
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