He brings a certain affliction upon him, the agony of which produces that terrible whirling of the brain which, unless it is stopped in time, produces madness; he suffers indescribable misery for a period, until one morning his attention is arrested, and his curiosity is aroused, by certain Chinese letters on a teapot; his curiosity increases more and more, and, of course, in proportion as his curiosity is increased with respect to the Chinese marks, the misery in his brain, produced by his mental affliction, decreases.

He sets about learning Chinese, and after the lapse of many years, during which his mind subsides into a certain state of tranquillity, he acquires sufficient knowledge of Chinese to be able to translate with ease the inscriptions to be found on its singular crockery.

Yes, the laziest of human beings, through the providence of God, a being too of rather inferior capacity, acquires the written part of a language so difficult that, as Lavengro said on a former occasion, none but the cleverest people in Europe, the French, are able to acquire it.

But God did not intend that man should merely acquire Chinese.

He intended that he should be of use to his species, and by the instrumentality of the first Chinese inscription which he translates, the one which first arrested his curiosity, he is taught the duties of hospitality; yes, by means of an inscription in the language of a people who have scarcely an idea of hospitality themselves, God causes the slothful man to play a useful and beneficent part in the world, relieving distressed wanderers, and, amongst others, Lavengro himself.