of Sicily: a less open opposition, and one harder to meet.

He did not solve the problem till near the end of his reign. In
213 he called a great meeting in the Hall of Audience at Changan.
See the squat burly figure enthroned in grand splendor; the
twelve weighty statues arranged around; the chief civil and
military officers of the empire, thorough Taoists like himself,
gathered on one side; the Academies and Censorates, all the
leaders of the literati, on the other. The place was big enough
for a largish meeting. Minister Li Ssu rises to describe the
work of the Emperor; whereafter the latter calls for expressions
of opinion. A member of his household opines that he "surpasses
the very greatest of his predecessors": which causes a subdued
sneer to run through the ranks of scholars. One of them takes
the floor and begins to speak. Deprecates flattery guardedly, as
bad for any sovereign; considers who the greatest of these
predecessors were:--Yao, Shun, and Yu, 'Tang the Completer, Wu
Wang; and--implies a good deal. Warms to his work at last, and
grows bitter; almost openly pooh poohs all modern achievements;
respectfully--or perhaps not too respectfully--advocates a return
to the feudal--

"Silence!" roars Attila-Napoleon from his throne; and motions Li
Ssu to make answer. The answer was predetermined, one imagines.
It was an order that five hundred of the chief literati present
should retire and be beheaded, and that thousands more should be
banished. And that all books should be burned. Attila-Napoleon's
orders had a way of being carried out. This was one.

He had meanwhile been busy with the great material monument of
his reign: the Wall of China; and with cautious campaigns
yearly to the north of it; and with personal supervision of the
Commissariat Department of all his armies everywhere; and with
daily long _hikes_ to keep himself in trim. Now the Wall came in
useful. To stretch its fifteen hundred miles of length over wild
mountains and valleys in that bleak north of the world, some
little labor was needed; and scholars and academicians were
many and, for most purposes, useless; and they needed to be
brought into touch with physical realities to round out their
characters;--then let them go and build the wall. He buried
enough of them--alive, it is to be feared: an ugly Ts'in
custom, not a Chinese,--to make melons ripen in mid-winter
over their common grave; the rest he sentenced to four y