ent and informed Tsz-kung of this remark.

Tsz-kung said, "Take by way of comparison the walls outside our houses.
My wall is shoulder-high, and you may look over it and see what the
house and its contents are worth. My Master's wall is tens of feet high,
and unless you should effect an entrance by the door, you would fail to
behold the beauty of the ancestral hall and the rich array of all its
officers. And they who effect an entrance by the door, methinks, are
few! Was it not, however, just like him--that remark of the Chief?"

Shuh-sun Wu-shuh had been casting a slur on the character of Confucius.

"No use doing that," said Tsz-kung; "he is irreproachable. The wisdom
and worth of other men are little hills and mounds of earth:
traversible. He is the sun, or the moon, impossible to reach and pass.
And what harm, I ask, can a man do to the sun or the moon, by wishing to
intercept himself from either? It all shows that he knows not how to
gauge capacity."

Tsz-k'in, addressing Tsz-kung, said, "You depreciate yourself. Confucius
is surely not a greater worthy than yourself."

Tsz-kung replied, "In the use of words one ought never to be
incautious; because a gentleman for one single utterance of his is apt
to be considered a wise man, and for a single utterance may be accounted
unwise. No more might one think of attaining to the Master's perfections
than think of going upstairs to Heaven! Were it ever his fortune to be
at the head of the government of a country, then that which is spoken of
as 'establishing the country' would be establishment indeed; he would be
its guide and it would follow him, he would tranquillize it and it would
render its willing homage: he would give forward impulses to it to which
it would harmoniously respond. In his life he would be its glory, at his
death there would be great lamentation. How indeed could such as he be
equalled?"

BOOK XX

Extracts from the Book of History

The Emperor Yau said to Shun, "Ah, upon you, upon your person, lies the
Heaven-appointed order of succession! Faithfully hold to it, without any
deflection; for if within the four seas necessity and want befall the
people, your own revenue will forever come to an end."

Shun also used the same language in handing down the appointment to Yu.

The Emperor T'ang in his prayer, said, "I, the child Li, presume to
avail me of an ox of dusky hue, and presume to manifestly announce to
Thee, O God, the most high and