" My only wish is that men in the world below may sometimes pick up this tale when they are recovering from sleep or drunkenness, or when they wish to escape from business worries or a fit of the dumps, and in doing so find not only mental refreshment but even perhaps, if they will heed its lesson and abandon their vain and frivolous pursuits, some small arrest in the deterioration of their vital forces. What "

― Cao Xueqin , The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber, Vol. 1: The Golden Days (Chapters 1-26)