ck to that other side of
him again: the Man of Action.

The task that lay before him was to reform the state of Lu.
Something was rotten in it; it needed some reforming.--The
rotten thing, to begin with, was Marquis Ting himself; who was
of such stuff as Confucius referred to when he said: "You cannot
carve rotten wood." But brittle and crumbling as it was, it
would serve his turn for the moment; it would give him the
chance to show twenty-five Chinese centuries the likeness of an
Adept at the head of a state. So it should be proved to them
that Such a One--they call him _Such a One_ generally, I
believe, to avoid the light repetition of a name grown sacred--is
no impractical idealist merely, but a Master of Splendid
Successes here in this world: that the Way of Heaven is the way
that succeeds on earth--if only it be honestly tried.

Ting was by no means master in his own marquisate. As in England
under Stephen, bold bad robber barons had fortified their castles
everywhere, and from these strongholds defied the government.
The mightiest magnate of all was the Chief of Clan Chi, who
ordered things over his royal master's head, and was very much a
power for the new Minister of Crime to reckon with. A clash came
before long. Ex-marquis Chao--he that had been driven into
exile--died in Ts'i; and his body was sent home for burial with
his ancestors. Chi, who had been chief among those responsible
for the dead man's exile, by way of insulting the corpse, gave
orders that it should be buried outside the royal cemetery; and
his orders were carried out. Confucius heard of it, and was
indignant. To have had the corpse exhumed and reburied would
have been a new indignity, I suppose; therefore he gave orders
that the cemetery should be enlarged so as to include the grave;
--and went down and saw it done.--"I have done this on your
behalf," he informed Chi, "to hide the shame of your disloyalty.
To insult the memory of a dead prince is against all decency."
The great man gnashed his teeth; but the Minister of Crime's
action stood.

He turned his attention to the robber-barons, and reduced them.
I do not know how; he was entirely against war; but it is
certain that in a very short time those castles were leveled with
the ground, and the writ of the Marquis ran through Lu. He
hated capital punishment; but signed the death warrant for the
worst of the offenders;--and that despite the protest of some of
his disciples