Rare Earth
view collections of rich merchants. He was at last an authority whose opinion was not to be taken lightly. He was an artist to his finger tips. Few living men were better versed than he in the curious lore of jades, nephrites, amber, aquamarine, quartz, agate and cornelian.
Another son, Mang, was a lantern-maker. He created wondrous pagoda-shaped lanterns of silk and paper and strips of bamboo. All the colors of the spectrum did he use in his work and countless variations of blended tones. Rose-red, sky-blue, yellow-green, violet, amethyst, cream-pearl. It was his desire to make lanterns so beauteous that men would fall in love with them, even as is told about in an old poem.
"Before me
Lies a silk
And paper lantern.
The table is teakwood
With pearl-inlaid,
The lantern shaped
Like a pagoda.
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