Six Records of a Floating Life (Chapter two: Relaxation of Leisure 06)

    To burn incense in a quiet room is one of the cultivated pleasures of a leisurely life. Yun used to burn aloes-wood and shuhsiang （a kind of fragrant wood from Cambodia）. She used to steam the wood first in a cauldron thoroughly, and then place it on a copper wire net over a stove, about half an inch from the fire. Under the action of the slow fire, the wood would give out a kind of subtle fragrance without any visible smoke.

    Another thing, the "buddha's fingers" [a variety of citron] should not be smelt by a drunken man, or it would easily rot. It is also bad for the quince to perspire (as under atmospheric changes), and when it does so, one should wash it with water.

    The citron alone is easy to take care of, because it is not afraid of handling. There are different ways of taking care of the “buddha's fingers" and the quince which cannot be expressed in so many words.

    I have seen people who take one of these things, which have been properly kept, and handle or smell it in any old way and put it down again roughly, which shows that they do not know the art of preserving these things.

    In my home I always had a vase of flowers on my desk. "You know very well about arranging flowers in vases for all kinds of weather, "said Yun to me one day. "I think you have really understood the art, but there is a type of painting commonly called 'insects on grass blades,' which you haven't applied yet. Why don't you try?" "I'm afraid," I replied, "that I cannot hold the insect's legs still. What can I do?" "I know a way, except that I am afraid it would be too cruel," said Yun. "Tell me about it," I asked.

    "You know that an insect does not change its colour after death. You can find a mantis or cicada or a butterfly; kill it with a pin and use a fine wire to tie its neck to the flowers, arranging its legs so that they either hold on to the stem or rest on the leaves. It would then look like a live one. Don't you think it is very good?"

    I was quite delighted and did as she suggested, and many of our friends thought it very wonderful. I am afraid it is difficult to find ladies nowadays who show such an understanding of things.

    When I was staying with my friend Mr. Hua at Hsishan with Yun, Mrs. Hua used to ask Yun to teach her two daughters reading. In that country house, the yard was wide open and the glare of the summer sun was very oppressive. Yun taught them a method of making movable screens of growing flowers.

    Every screen consisted of a single piece. She took two little pieces of wood about four or five inches long, and laid them parallel like a low stool, with the hollow top filled by four horizontal bars over a foot long. At the four corners, she made little round holes on which she stuck a trellis-work made of bamboo.

    The trellis was six or seven feet high and on its bottom was placed a pot of peas which would then grow up and entwine round the bamboo trellis. This could be easily moved by two persons.