Tsz-kung answered, "Our Master is a man of pleasant manners, and of
probity, courteous, moderate, and unassuming: it is by his being such
that he arrives at the facts. Is not his way of arriving at things
different from that of others?"

A saying of the Master:--

"He who, after three years' observation of the will of his father when
alive, or of his past conduct if dead, does not deviate from that
father's ways, is entitled to be called 'a dutiful son.'"

Sayings of the Scholar Yu:--

"For the practice of the Rules of Propriety,[1] one excellent way is
to be natural. This naturalness became a great grace in the practice
of kings of former times; let everyone, small or great, follow their
example.

"It is not, however, always practicable; and it is not so in the case
of a person who does things naturally, knowing that he should act so,
and yet who neglects to regulate his acts according to the Rules.

"When truth and right are hand in hand, a statement will bear
repetition. When respectfulness and propriety go hand in hand,
disgrace and shame are kept afar-off. Remove all occasion for
alienating those to whom you are bound by close ties, and you have
them still to resort to."

A saying of the Master:--

"The man of greater mind who, when he is eating, craves not to eat to
the full; who has a home, but craves not for comforts in it; who is
active and earnest in his work and careful in his words; who makes
towards men of high principle, and so maintains his own
rectitude--that man may be styled a devoted student."

Tsz-kung asked, "What say you, sir, of the poor who do not cringe and
fawn; and what of the rich who are without pride and haughtiness?" "They
are passable," the Master replied; "yet they are scarcely in the same
category as the poor who are happy, and the rich who love propriety."

"In the 'Book of the Odes,'" Tsz-kung went on to say, "we read of one

Polished, as by the knife and file,
The graving-tool, the smoothing-stone.

Does that coincide with your remark?"

"Ah! such as you," replied the Master, "may well commence a discussion
on the Odes. If one tell you how a thing goes, you know what ought to
come."

"It does not greatly concern me," said the Master, "that men do not
know me; my great concern is, my not knowing them."

[Footnote 1: An important part of a Chinaman's education still. The
text-book, "The Li Ki," contains rules for behavior and propriety for
the whole life, fr