The scholar-artist Mi Fu was an eccentric of the eleventh century, and one of the four great calligraphers of the Song dynasty. It was well-known that he had a peculiar admiration for certain rocks. In this period, men of culture collected and placed in their gardens rare and unusual rocks from Lake Tai, which had become pitted and worn by the actions of wind and waves over many centuries. Mi Fu believed that some these rocks had their own souls and he was in the habit of paying them his respects, by bowing before them as if they were venerable old gentlemen.

— Chester Beatty Library