son, in unbroken line for ten generations, has such a
custom been observed," he said, "for the course of events is not to be
lightly entered upon. At the commencement of that cycle, which period is
now fully fifteen score years ago, a very wise person chanced to incur
the displeasure of the Emperor of that time, and being in consequence
driven out of the capital, he fled to the mountains. There his subtle
discernment and the pure and solitary existence which he led resulted in
his becoming endowed with faculties beyond those possessed by ordinary
beings. When he felt the end of his earthly career to be at hand he
descended into the plain, where, in a state of great destitution and
bodily anguish, he was discovered by the one whom this person has
referred to as the first of the line of ancestors. In return for the
care and hospitality with which he was unhesitatingly received,
the admittedly inspired hermit spent the remainder of his days in
determining the destinies of his rescuer's family and posterity. It
is an undoubted fact that he predicted how one would, by well-directed
enterprise and adventure, rise to a position of such eminence in the
land that he counselled the details to be kept secret, lest the envy
and hostility of the ambitious and unworthy should be raised. From this
cause it has been customary to reveal the matter fully from father
to son, at stated periods, and the setting out of the particulars in
written words has been severely discouraged. Wise as this precaution
certainly was, it has resulted in a very inconvenient state of things;
for a remote ancestor--the fifth in line from the beginning--experienced
such vicissitudes that he returned from his travels in a state of most
abandoned idiocy, and when the time arrived that he should, in turn,
communicate to his son, he was only able to repeat over and over again
the name of the pious hermit to whom the family was so greatly indebted,
coupling it each time with a new and markedly offensive epithet. The
essential details of the undertaking having in this manner passed beyond
recall, succeeding generations, which were merely acquainted with the
fact that a very prosperous future awaited the one who fulfilled the
conditions, have in vain attempted to conform to them. It is not an
alluring undertaking, inasmuch as nothing of the method to be pursued
can be learned, except that it was the custom of the early ones, who
held the full knowledge, to set out fro