alls 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 Sovereign Potentate, that to the
transgressor I dare not grant forgiveness, nor ye