red: 'Had I charge of sixty or seventy square
miles, or from fifty to sixty, in three years' time I would give
the people plenty. As for courtesy, music and the like, they
could wait for these for the rise of a Princely Man.'"

"'And what wouldst thou do, Chih?' said the Master."

"Kung-hsi Hua answered: 'I would speak of the things I fain
would learn, not of what I can do. At service in the Ancestral
Temple, or at the Grand Audience, clad in black robe and cap, I
fain would fill a small part.'"

"'And thou, Tien?' said the Master."

"Tseng Hsi stopped playing, pushed away his still sounding lute,
rose up, and made answer: 'My choice would be unlike those of
the other three.'"

"'What harm in that?' said the Master. 'Each but speaks his mind.'"

"Tseng Hsi said: 'In the last days of Spring, and clad for the
season, with five or six grown men and six or seven lads, I would
bathe in the waters of Yi, all fanned by the breeze in the Rain
God's Glade, and wander home with song.'"

"The Master sighed.--'I hold with Tien,' said he."

Very, very human, I say; very Chinese. But here is that which
was not human but divine: he never turned from his path to
satisfy these so human and Chinese longings; the breeze in the
Rain God's Glade never blew for him. It is just as well to
remember, when you read of the ceremonies, the body bent under
the load of the scepter, the carefully chosen (as it may seem)
and habitually worn expression of face on passing or approaching
the throne, the "elbows spread like wings":--all the formal round
of proprieties;--that it was the last days of Spring, and the
waters of Yi, and the breeze in the Rain God's Glade, that were
calling to his Chinese heart.

Yes; he was very human; listen to this:--Yuan Jang awaited the
Master squatting on the ground. "The Master said:--'Unruly when
young, unmentioned as man, undying when old,--this spells
_Good-for-nothing';_ and hit him on the leg with his staff."

Which brings one naturally to his sense of humor.

Once he was passing through a by-street when a man of the
district shouted:--"Great is Confucius the Philosopher! Yet for
all his wide learning he has nothing which can bring him fame!"
The Master turned to his disciples and said:--"What shall I take
up? Shall I take up charioteering?--or archery?--I must certainly
take up charioteering!"

His disciples once were expecting him at the city of Ch'ing; and
Tse Kung asked a man who was