Chinese and Arabian Literature - E. Wilson - The Search For Mecca

THE ANALECTS 91
side 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 ofifi'cers. 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 your-
self. 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 'es-
tablishing 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 ? "
!