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It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.
In our common parlance we speak of the man "with no tea" in him, when he is insusceptible to the serio-comic interests of the personal drama.
It has not the arrogance of wine, the self- consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innocence of cocoa.
the dualism of love--two souls rolling through space and never at rest until they join together to complete the universe. Everyone has to build anew his sky of hope and peace.
There is no single recipe for making the perfect tea, as there are no rules for producing a Titian or a Sesson.
Each preparation of the leaves has its individuality, its special affinity with water and heat, its own method of telling a story.
Lichilai, a Sung poet, has sadly remarked that there were three most deplorable things in the world: the spoiling of fine youths through false education, the degradation of fine art through vulgar admiration, and the utter waste of fine tea through incompetent manipulation.
For life is an expression, our unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought.
Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade,--all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design.
