Laudator Temporis Acti

Arthur Waley, Yuan Mei: Eighteenth Century Chinese Poet (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1956), p. 95:

In this year [1767] his friend Ch'eng Chin-fang (1718-1784) arranged a collection of Yuan's poems. Ch'eng came of a very rich family of salt-brokers. The other members of the family cared only 'for singing-girls, dogs and horses'. Ch'eng Chin-fang had no taste for any of these things and spent his money exclusively on books, collecting a library of fifty thousand volumes and gathering round him scholars from every part of China, with whom he delighted in discussing learned subjects. But towards the middle of the century the fortunes of the Ch'eng family began to decline, and he was obliged to sell most of his books and take a post at Peking. Here he collected another library, fell heavily into debt and died in far-off Shensi, owing Yuan Mei five thousand ounces of silver. This was in 1784. In 1785 his widow buried him at Nanking, and Yuan Mei burnt the bond of debt. 'The sight of a large bench or table', says Yuan, 'was his particular delight, and in a moment he had strewn books and unwound scrolls allover it, forgetting all other business.'