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

TOPICS
BOOK IX
His Favorite Disciple's Opinion of Him
on which the Master rarely spoke were—Advantage,
and Destiny, and Duty of man to man.
A man of the village of Tah-hiang exclaimed of him,
" A great man is Confucius !—a man of extensive learning, and
"
yet in nothing has he quite made himself a name !
The Master heard of this, and mentioning it to his disciples
he said, " What then shall I take in hand ? Shall I become a
carriage driver, or an archer ? Let me be a driver !
" The sacrificial cap," he once said, " should, according to the
Rules, be of linen ; but in these days it is of pure silk. How-
ever, as it is economical, I do as all do.
" The Rule says, ' Make your bow when at the lower end of
the hall ' ; but nowadays the bowing is done at the upper part.
This is great freedom ; and I, though I go in opposition to the
crowd, bow when at the lower end."
The Master barred four words :—he would have no " shall's,"
no " must's," no " certainly's," no " I's."
Once, in the town of K'wang fearing that his life was going
to be taken, the Master exclaimed, " King Wan is dead and
gone ; but is not ' zvan''^^ with you here? If Heaven be about
to allow this ' wan ' to perish, then they who survive its decease
will get no benefit from it. But so long as Heaven does not
allow it to perish, what can the men of K'wang do to me? "
A high State oflficial, after questioning Tsz-kung, said,
" Your Master is a sage, then ? How many and what varied
abilities must be his !
"
The disciple replied, " Certainly Heaven is allowing him full
*i " Wan " was the honorary appella- tial talent—the latter being the hontion
of the great sage and ruler, whose orary title of his son and successor,
praise is in the " Shi-King " as one of " Wan " also often stands for literature,
the founders of the Chow dynasty, and and polite accomplishments. Here Conthe
term represented civic talent and fucius simply means, " If you kill me,
virtues, as distinct from Wu, the mar- you kill a sage."
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