"That which does not speak by speech, but by which speech is
expressed: That alone shalt thou know as Brahman, not that which
they here adore.
"That which does not think by mind, but by which mind is itself
thought: That alone shalt thou know as Brahman, not that which
they here adore."
And so it continues of each of the sense-functions.
After this, Liehtse for the most wanders from story to story; he
taught in parables; and sometimes we have to listen hard to
catch the meaning of them, he rarely insists on it, or drives it
well home, or brings it down to levels of plain-spokenness at
which it should declare itself to a westem mind. Here, again, is
the Chinese characteristic: the touch is lighter; more is left
to the intuition of the reader; the lines are less heavily
drawn. They rely on a kind of intelligence in the readers, akin
to the writers', to see those points at a glance, which we must
search for carefully. Where each word has to be drawn, a
little picture taking time and care, you are in no danger of
overlavishness; you do not spill and squander your words,
"intoxicated," as they say, "with the exuberance of your
verbosity." Style was forced on the Chinese; ideograms
are a grand preventive against pombundle.--I shall follow
Liehtse's method, and go from story to story at random; perhaps
interpreting a little by the way.
We saw how Confucius insisted on balance: egging on Jan Yu, who
was bashful, and holding back Tse Lu, who had the pluck of two;--
declaring that Shih was not a better man than Shang, because too
far is not better than not far enough. The whole Chinese idea is
that this balance of the faculties is the first and grand
essential. Your lobsided man can make no progress really;--he
must learn balance first. An outstanding virtue, talent, or
aptitude, is a deterrent, unless the rest of the nature is
evolved up to it;--that is why the Greatest Men are rarely the
most striking men; why a Napoleon catches the eye much more
quickly than a Confucius; something stands out in the one,--and
compels attention; but all is even in the other. You had much
better not have genius, if you are morally weak; or a very
strong will, if you are a born fool. For the morally weak genius
will end in moral wreck; and the strong-willed fool--a plague
upon him! This is the truth, knowledge of which has made China
so stable; and ignorance of which has kept the West so brilliant
and fickle,--of duality such poles apart,--so lobsided and, I
think, in a true sense, so little progressive. For see how many
centuries we have had to wait while ignorance, bigotry, wrong
ideas, and persecution, have prevented the establishment on any
large scale of a Theosophical Movement--and be not too ready
to accept a whirl of political changes, experiment after
experiment,--and latterly a spurt of mechanical inventions,--for
True Progress: which I take to mean, rightly considered, the
growth of human egos, and freedom and an atmosphere in which they
may grow. But these they had in China abundantly while China was
in manvantara; do not think I am urging as our example the
fallen China of these pralayic times. Balance was the truth
Confucius impressed on the Chinese mentality: the saving Truth
of truths, I may say; and it is perhaps the truth which most of
all will stand connected with the name of Katherine Tingley in
the ages to come:--the saving Truth of truths, which will make
a new and better world for us. You must have it, if you are to
build solidly; it is the foundation of any true social order;
the bedrock on which alone a veritable civilization can be built.
Oh, your unbalanced genius can produce things of startling
beauty; and they have their value, heaven knows. The Soul
watches for its chances, and leaps in at surprising moments: the
arm clothed in white samite may reach forth out of the bosom of
all sorts of curious quagmires; and when it does, should be held
in reverence as still and always a proof of the underlying
divinity of man. But--there where the basis of things is not
firmly set: where that mystic, wonderful reaching out is not
from the clear lake, but from turbidity and festering waters--
where the grand balance has not been acquired:--You must look to
come on tragedy. The world has gained something from the speech
of the Soul there; but the man through whom It spoke;--it has
proved too much for him. The vibrations were too strong, and
shattered him. Think of Keats . . . and of thousands of others,
poets, musicians, artists. Where you get the grand creations,
the unfitful shining,--there you get evidence of a balance: with
genius--the daimonic force--no greater than, perhaps not so keen
as, that of those others, you find a strong moral will. Dante
and Milton suffered no less than others from those perils to
which all creative artists are subject: both complain bitterly
of inner assailments and torment; but they had, to balance their
genius, the strong moral urge to fight their weaknesses all
through life. It could not save their personalities from
suffering; but it gave the Soul in each of them a basis on which
to build the grand steadfast creations.--All of which Chinese
Liehtse tells you without comment, and with an air of being too
childish-foolish for this world, in the following story:--
Kung-hu and Chi-ying fell ill, and sought the services of the
renowned doctor, Pien-chiao. He cured them with his drugs; then
told them they were also suffering from diseases no drugs could
reach, born with them at their birth, and that had grown up with
them through life. "Would you have me grapple with these?" said
he.--"Yes," said they; but wished first to hear the diagnosis.--
"You," he said to kung-hu, "have strong mental powers, but are
weak in character; so, though fruitful in plans, you are weak in
decision." "You," he said to Chi-ying, "are stong of will,
though stupid; so there is a narrowness in your aims and a want
of foresight. Now if I can effect an exchange of hearts between
you, the good will be equally balanced in both."
They agreed at once: Kung-hu, with the weaker will, was to get
the smaller mental powers to match it; Chi-ying was to get a
mentality equal to his firm will. We should think Kung-hu got
very much the worst of the bargain; but he, and Dr. Pien-chiao,
and Liehtse, and perhaps Chinamen generally, thought and would
think nothing of the kind. To them, to have balanced faculties
was far better than to have an intellect too big for one's
will-power; because such balance would afford a firm basis from
which will and intellect might go forward in progress harmoniously.
So Pien-chiao put both under a strong anaesthetic, took out their
hearts, and made the exchange (the heart being, with the Chinese,
the seat of mentality); and after that the health of both was
perfect.--You may laugh; but after all there is a grandeur in
the recognition implied, that the intellect is not the man,
but only one of his possessions. The story is profoundly
characteristic: like Ah Sin's smile in the poem, "childlike and
bland"; but hiding wonderful depths of philosophy beneath.
Laotse showed his deep Occult wisdom when he said that the Man of
Tao "does difficult things while they are still easy." Liehtse
tells you the story of the Assitant to the Keeper of the Wild
Beasts at Loyang. His name was Lian yang, and his fame went
abroad for having a wonderful way with the creatures in his
charge. Hsuan Wang, the Chow king, heard of it; and sent orders
to the Chief Keeper to get the secret from Liang, lest it should
die with him.--"How is it," said the Keeper, "that when you feed
them, the tigers, wolves, eagles, and ospreys all are tame and
tractable? That they roam at large in the park, yet never claw
and bite one another? That they propagate their species
freely, as if they were wild? His Majesty bids you reveal to
me the secret."
A touch of nature here: all zoologists know how difficult it is
to get wild beasts to breed in captivity.
Lian Yang answered: "I am only a humble servant, and have really
no secret to tell. I fear the king has led you to expect
something mysterious. As to the tigers: all I can say is that,
like men, when yielded to they are pleased and when opposed they
are angry. Nothing gives way either to pleasure or to anger
without a cause; and anger, by reaction, will follow pleasure,
and pleasure anger. I do not excite the tigers' joy by giving
them live creatures to kill, or whole carcasses to tear up. I
neither rouse their anger by opposing them, nor humor them to
make them pleased. I time their periods of hunger and anticipate
them. It is my aim to be neither antagonistic nor compliant; so
they look upon me as one of themselves. Hence they walk about
the parks without regretting the tall forests and broad marshes,
and rest in the enclosure without yearning for lonely mountain or
dark vale. It is merely using common sense."
And there Liehtse leaves it in all its simplicity; but I shall
venture to put my spoke in, and add that he has really given you
a perfect philosophy for the conduct of life: for the government
of that other and inner tiger, the lower nature, especially; it
is always that, you will remember, for which the Tiger stands in
Chinese symbology;--and also for education, the government of
nations--everything. Balance,--Middle lines,--Avoidance of
Extremes,--Lines of Least Resistance:--by whom are we hearing
these things inculcated daily? Did they not teach Raja-Yoga in
ancient China? Have not our school and its principles a Chinese
smack about them? Well; it was these principles made China
supremely great; and kept her alive and strong when all her
contemporaries had long passed into death; and, I hope, have
ingrained something into her soul and hidden being, which will
make her rise to wonderful heights again.
You can hear Laotse in them; it is the practical application of
Laotse's doctrine. But can you not equally hear the voice of
Confucius: "too far is not better than not far enough"? Western
ethical teaching has tended towards inculcating imitation of the
soul's action: this Chinese teaching takes the Soul for granted;
says very little about it; but shows you how to provide the soul
with the conditions through and in which it may act. "Love your
enemies;"--yes; that is fine; it is what the Soul, the Divine
Part of us, does;--but we are not in the least likely to do it
while suffering from the reaction from an outburst of emotion;
ethics grow rather meaningless to us when, for example, we have
toppled over from our balance into pleasure, eaten not wisely but
too well, say; and then toppled back into the dumps with an
indigestion. But where the balance is kept you need few ethical
injunctions; the soul is there, and may speak; and sees to
all that.
Hu-Chiu Tzu-lin, we read, taught Liehtse these things. Said he:
"You must familiarize yourself with the Theory of Consequents
before you can talk of regulating conduct." Liehtse said:--"Will
you explain what you mean by the Theory of Consequents?" "Look at
your shadow," said his teacher; "and you will know." Liehtse
turned his head and looked at his shadow. When his body was bent
the shadow was crooked; when upright, it was straight. Thus it
appeared that the attributes of straightness and crookedness were
not inherent in the shadow, but corresponded to certain positions
in the body . . . . "Holding this Theory of Consequents,"
says Liehtse, "is to be at home in the antecedent." Now the
antecedent of the personality is the Soul; the antecedent of the
action is the motive; the antecedent of the conduct of life is
the relation in which the component faculties of our being stand
to each other and to the Soul. If the body is straight, so is
the shadow; if the inner harmony or balance is attained and held
to--well; you see the point. "The relative agrees with its
antecedent," say the grammar books, very wisely. It is karma
again: the effect flowing from the cause. "You may consider the
virtues of Shennung and Yuyen," says Liehtse; "you may examine
the books of Yu, Kia, Shang, and Chow,"--that is, the whole of
history;--"you may weight the utterances of the great Teachers
and Sages; but you will find no instance of preservation or
destruction, fulness or decay, which has not obeyed this supreme
Law of Causality."
Where are you to say that Liehtse's Confucianism ends, and his
Taoism begins? It is very difficult to draw a line. Confucius,
remember, gave _"As-the-heart"_ for the single character that
should express his whole doctrine. Liehtse is leading you
inward, to see how the conduct of life depends upon Balance,
which also is a word that may translate _Tao._ Where the balance
is, there we come into relations with the great Tao. There is
nothing supra-Confucian here; though soon we may see an
insistence upon the Inner which, it may be supposed, later
Confucianism, drifting toxards externalism, would hardly have
enjoyed.--A man in Sung carved a mulberry-leaf in jade for his
prince. It took three years to complete, and was so well done,
so realistic in its down and glossiness, that if placed in a heap
of real mulberry-leaves, it could not be distinguished from them.
The State pensioned him as a reward; but Liehtse, hearing of it,
said: "If God Almighty took three years to complete a leaf,
there would be very few trees with leaves on them. The Sage will
rely less on human skill and science, than on the evolution
of Tao."
Lung Shu came to the great doctor Wen Chih, and said to him:
"You are the master of cunning arts. I have a disease; can you
cure it, Sir?" "So far," said Wen Chih, "you have only made
known your desire. Please let me know the symptoms of your
disease." They were, utter indifference to the things and events
of the world. "I hold it no honor to be praised in my own
village, nor disgrace to be decried in my native State. Gain
brings me no joy, loss no sorrow. I dwell in my home as if it
were a mere caravanserai, and regard my native district as though
it were one of the barbarian kingdoms. Honors and rewards fail
to rouse me, pains and penalties to overawe me, good or bad
fortune to influence me; joy or grief to move me. What disease
is this? What remedy will cure it?" *
------
* I may say here that though I am quoting the speeches more or
less directly from Dr. Lionel Giles' translation, too many
liberties are being taken, verbally, with the narative parts of
these stories, to allow quotation marks and small type. One
contracts and expands (sparingly, the latter); but gives
the story.
------
Wen Chih examined his heart under X-rays;--really and truly that
is in effect what Liehtse says.--"Ah," said he, "I see that a
good square inch of your heart is hollow; you are within a
little of being a true Sage. Six of the orifices are open and
clear, and only the seventh is blocked up. This last is
doubtless due to the fact that you are mistaking for a disease
what is in reality an approach to divine enlightenment. It is a
case in which my shallow art is of no avail."
I tell this tale, as also that other about the exchange of
hearts, partly to suggest that Liehtse's China may have had the
actuality, or at least a reminiscence, of scientific knowledge
since lost there, and only discovered in Europe recently. In the
same way one finds references to automatic oxen, self-moving
chariots, traveling by air, and a number of other things which,
as we read of them, sound just like superstitious nonsense.
There are old Chinese drawings of pterodactyls, and suchlike
unchancey antediluvian wild fowl. _Argal,_ (you would say) the
Chinese knew of these once; although Ptero and his friends have
been extinct quite a few million years, one supposes. Or was it
superstition again? Then why was it not superstition in
Professor So-and-so, who found the bones and reconstructed the
beastie for holiday crowds to gaze upon at the Crystal Palace
or the Metropolitan Museum? Knowledge does die away into
reminiscence, and then into oblivion; and the chances are that
Liehtse's time retained reminiscences which have since become
oblivion-hidden;--then rediscovered in the West.--But I tell the
tale also for a certain divergence marked in it, between Taoist
and Confucian thought. Laotse would have chuckled over it, who
brooded much on 'self-emptiness' as the first step towards
illumination. Confucius would have allowed it; but it would not
have occurred to him, unsuggested.
Now here is something still further from Confucianism; something
prophetic of later Taoist developments, though it still contains
Laotse's thought, and--be it said--deep wisdom.
Fan Tsu Hua was a bully and a charlatan, who by his trickery
had won such hold over the king of Tsin that anyone he might
recommend was surely advanced to office, and anyone he cried down
would lose his all. So it was said he had magic to make the rich
poor and the poor rich. He had many disciples, who were the
terror of the peaceably disposed.
One day they saw an old weak man approaching, 'with weather-beaten
face and clothes of no particular cut.' A chance for sport
not to be neglected, they thought; and began to hustle him
about in their usual fashion, 'slapping him on the back, and what
not.' But he--Shang Ch'iu K'ai was his name--seemed only full of
joy and serenity, and heeded nothing. Growing tired of their fun
at last, they would make an end of it; and led him to the top of
a high cliff. "Whoever dares throw himself over," said one of
them, "will find a hundred ounces of silver," which certainly he
had not had with him at the top, and none of them had put there.
It was a wonder; and still more a wonder his being unhurt; but
you can make chance account for most things, and they meant to
get rid of him. So they brought him to the banks of the river,
saying: "A pearl of great price is here, to be had for the
diving." In he went without a word, and disappeared duly; and
so, thought they, their fun had come to a happy end. But no: as
they turned to go, up he came, serene and smiling, and scrambled
out. "Well; did you find the pearl?" they asked. "Oh yes,"
said Shang; "it was just as your honors said." He showed it to
them; and it was indeed a pearl of great price.
Here was something beyond them; the old man, clearly, was a
favorite of Fortune; Fan their master himself must deal with
him. So they sent word ahead, and brought him to the palace of
Fan. Who understood well the limitations of quack magic: if he
was to be beaten at these tricks, where would his influence be?
So he heaped up riches in the courtyard, and made a great fire
all round.--"Anyone can have those things," he announced, "who
will go in and get them." Shang quietly walked through the
flames, and came out with his arms full; not a hair of his head
was singed.
And now they were filled with consternation; they had been
making a mock of Tao these years; and here evidently was a real
Master of Tao, come to expose them.--"Sir," they said, "we did
not know that you posessed the Secret, and were playing you
tricks. We insulted you, unaware that you were a divine man.
But you have leaped from the cliff, dived into the Yellow River,
and walked through the flames without injury; you have shown us
our stupidity, blindness, and deafness. We pray you to forgive
us, and to reveal to us the Secret."
He looked at them in blank amazement.--"What is this you are
telling me?" said he. "I am only old Shang Ch'iu K'ai the
peasant. I heard that you, Sir, by your magic could make the
poor rich. I wanted to be rich, so I came to you. I believed in
you absolutely, and in all your disciples said; and so my mind
was made one; I forgot my body; I saw nothing of cliffs or fire
or water. But now you say you were decieving me, my soul returns
to its perplexity, and my eyes and ears to their sight and
hearing. What terrible dangers I have escaped! My limbs freeze
with horror to think of them."
Tsai Wo, continues Liehtse, told this story to Confucius.--"Is
this so strange to you?" said the latter. "The man of perfect
faith can move heaven and earth, and fly to the six cardinal
points without hindrance. His powers are not confined to walking
in perilous places and passing through water and fire. If Shang
Ch'iu K'ai, whose motive was greed and whose belief was false,
found no obstacle in external things, how much more certainly
will it be so when the motive is pure and both parties sincere?"
I will finish it with what is really another of Liehtse's
stories,--also dealing with a man who walked through fire
uninjured, unconscious of it because of the one-pointedness of
his mind.
The incident came to the ears of Marquis Wen of Wei, who spoke to
Tsu Hsia, a disciple of Confucius, about it.--"From what I have
heard the Master say," said Tsu Hsia, "the man who achieves
harmony with Tao enters into close relations with outer objects,
and none of them has power to harm or hinder him."--"Why, my
friend," said the Marquis, "cannot you do all these marvels?"--"I
have not yet succeeded," said Tsu Hsia, "in cleansing my heart
from impurities and discarding brainmind wisdom."--"And why,"
said the Marquis, "cannot the Master himself" (Confucius, of course)
"perform such feats?"--"The Master," said Tsu Hsia, "is able to
perform them; but _he is also able to refrain from performing
them."_--which, again, he was. Here is another example:
Hui Yang went to visit Prince K'ang of Sung. The prince,
however, stamped his foot, rasped his throat, and said angrily:--
"The things I like are courage and strength. I am not fond of
your good and virtuous people. What can a stranger like you have
to teach me?"
"I have a secret," said Hui Yang, "whereby my opponent,
however brave or strong, can be prevented from harming me
either by thrust or blow. Would not Your Highness care to
know that secret?"
"Capital!" said the Prince; "that is certainly something I
should like to hear about."
"True," said Hui yang, "when you render his stabs or blows
ineffectual, you cover your opponent with shame. But my secret
will make him, however brave or strong, afraid to stab or strike
at all."
"Better still," said the Prince; "let me hear about it."
"It is all very well for him to be afraid to do it." said Hui
Yang; "but that does not imply he has no will to do it. Now, my
secret would deprive him even of the will."
"Better and better," said Prince K'ang; "I beseech you to reveal
it to me."
"Yes," said Hui Yang; "but this not having the will to injure
does not necessarily connote a desire to love and do good. But
my secret is one whereby every man, woman, and child in the
empire shall be inspired with the friendly desire to love and do
good to each other. This is much better than the possession of
mere courage and strength. Has Your Highness no mind to acquire
such a secret as this?"
The Prince confessed that, on the contray, he was most anxious to
learn it.
"It is nothing else than the teachings of Confucius and Mo Ti,"
said Hui Yang.
A main idea of Taoism--one with which the Confucius of orthodox
Confucianism did not concern himself--is the possibility of
creating within one's outer and mortal an inner and immortal
self; by subduing desire, by sublimating away all impurities, by
concentration. The seed of that Immortality is hidden in us;
the seed of mastery of the inner and outer worlds. Faith is the
key. Shang Ch'iu K'ai, whose "faith had made him whole," walked
through fire. "Whoso hath faith as a grain of mustard-seed,"
said Jesus, can move mountains. It sounds as if he had been
reading the _Book of Liehtse;_ which is at pains to show how the
thing is done. T'ai-hsing and Wang-wu, the mountains, stood not
where they stand now, but in the south of the Chi district and
north of Ho-yang. I like the tale well, and shall tell it for
its naive Chinesity. The Simpleton of the North Mountain, an old
man of ninety, dwelt opposite to them, and was vexed in spirit
because their northern flanks blocked the way for travelers, who
had to go round. So he called his family together and broached a
plan.--"Let us put forth our utmost strength and clear away this
obstacle," said he; "let us cut right through the mountains
till we come to Han-yin." All agreed except his wife. "My
goodman," said she, "has not the strength to sweep away a
dung-hill, let alone such mountains as T'ai-hsing and Wang-wu.
Besides, where will you put the earth and stones?" They answered
that they would throw them on the promontory of P'o-hai. So the
old man, followed by his son and grandson, sallied forth with
their pickaxes, and began hewing away at the rocks and cutting up
the soil, and carting it away in baskets to the promontory. A
widow who lived near by had a little boy who, though he was only
just shedding his milk-teeth, came skipping along to give them
what help he could. Engrossed in their toil they never went home
except once at the turn of the season.
The Wise Old Man of the River-bend burst out laughing and urged
them to stop. "Great indeed is your witlessness!" said he.
"With the poor remaining strength of your declining years you
will not succeed in removing a hair's-breadth of the mountains,
much less the whole vast mass of rock and soil." With a sigh the
Simpleton of the North Mountain answered:--"Surely it is you who
are narrow-minded and unreasonable. You are not to be compared
with the widow's son, despite his puny strength. Though I myself
must die, I shall leave my son behind me, and he his son. My
grandson will beget sons in his turn, and those sons also will
have sons and grandsons. With all this posterity my line will
not die out; while on the other hand the mountains will receive
no increment or addition. Why then should I despair of leveling
them to the ground at last?"--The Wise Old Man of the River-bend
had nothing to say in reply.
Chinese! Chinese!--From whatever angle you look at it, it smacks
of the nation that saw Babylon fall, and Rome, and may yet--
But look now, at what happened. There was something about the
project and character of the Simpleton of the North Mountain,
that attracted the attention of the Serpent-Brandishing deities.
They reported the matter to Almighty God; who was interested;
and perhaps was less patient than the simpleton.--I do not quite
know who this person translated 'Almighty God' may be; I think
he figures in the Taoist hierarchy somewhere below Laotse and the
other Adepts. At any rate he was in a position to order the two
sons of K'ua O--and I do not know who K'ua O and his sons were--
to expedite matters. So the one of them took up T'ai-hsing, and
the other Wu-wang, and transported them to the positions where
they remain to this day to prove the truth of Liehtse's story.
Further proof:--the region between Ts'i in the north and Han in
the south--that is to say, northern Homan--is still and has been
ever since, an unbroken plain.
And perhaps, behind this naive Chinesity, lie grand enunciations
of occult law. . . .
I will end with what is probably Liehtse's most famous story--
and, from a purely literary standpoint, his best. It is worthy
of Chwangtse himself; and I tell it less for its philosophy than
for its fun.
One morning a fuel-gatherer--we may call him Li for convenience,
though Liehtse leaves him nameless--killed a deer in the forest;
and to keep the carcass safe till he went home in the evening,
hid it under a pile of brushwood. His work during the day took
him far and when he looked for the deer again, he could not find
it. "I must have dreamed the whole thing," he said;--and
satisfied himself with that explanation. He made a verse about
it as he trudged home through the woods, and went crooning:
At dawn in the hollow, beside the stream,
I hid the deer I killed in the dream;
At eve I sought for it far and near;
And found 'twas a dream that I killed the deer.
He passed the cottage of Yen the woodman--Yen we may call him,
though Liehtse calls him nothing.--who heard the song, and
pondered. "One might as well take a look at the place," thought
he; it seemed to him it might be such and such a hollow, by such
and such a stream. Thither he went, and found the pile of
brushwood; It looked to him a likely place enough to hide a deer
under. He made search, and there the carcass was.
He took it home and explained the matter to his wife. "Once upon
a time," said he, "a fuel-gatherer dreamed he had killed a deer
and forgotten where he had hidden it. Now I have got the deer,
and here it is; so his dream came true, in a way."--"Rubbish!"
she answered. "It was you must have dreamed the fuel-gatherer
and his dreim. You must have killed the deer yourself, since you
have it there; but where is your fuel-gatherer?"
That night Li dreamed again; and in his dream saw Yen fetch the
deer from its hiding-place and bring it home. So in the morning
he went to Yen's house and there, sure enough, the deer was.
They argued the matter out, but to no purpose. Then they took it
before the magistrate, who gave judgment as follows:
"The plaintiff began with a real deer and an alleged dream; and
now comes forward with a real dream and an alleged deer. The
defendant has the deer the plaintiff dreamed, and wants to keep
it. According to his wife, however, the plaintiff and the deer
are both but figments of the defendant's dream. Meanwhile, there
is the deer; which you had better divide between you."
The case was reported to the Prince of Cheng, whose opinion was
that the magistrate had dreamed the whole story, himself. But
his Prime Minister said: "If you want to distinguish between
dream and waking, you would have to go back to the Yellow Emperor
or Confucius. As both are dead, you had better uphold the
magistrate's decision." *
------
* The tale is told both in Dr. Lionel Giles's translation
mentioned above, and also, with verbal differences, in Dr. H. A.
Giles's work on _Chinese Literature._ The present telling
follows now one, now the other version, now goes its own way;--
and pleads guilty to adding the verse the woodman crooned.
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