CONFUCIUS.
The Odes have it thus:―“We may gaze up to the mountain’s brow: we may travel along the great road;” signifying that although we cannot hope to reach the goal, still we may push on thitherwards in spirit.
While reading the works of Confucius, I have always fancied I could see the man as he was in life; and when I went to Shantung I actually beheld his carriage, his robes, and the material parts of his ceremonial usages. There were his descendants practising the old rites in their ancestral home;―and I lingered on, unable to tear myself away. Many are the princes and prophets that the world has seen in its time; glorious in life, forgotten in death. But Confucius, though only a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses, remains among us after many generations. He is the model for such as would be wise. By all, from the Son of Heaven down to the meanest student, the supremacy of his principles is fully and freely admitted. He may indeed be pronounced the divinest of men.
COURAGE.
He who will face death at the call of duty must necessarily be brave. There is no difficulty in merely dying: the difficulty lies in dying at fitting junctures only.
When Hsiang-ju carried in the jewel,[1] and with haughty gesture cursed right and left of the Prince of Ch'in, death was the worst he had to fear; yet few would have been bold enough to act as he did. His courageous attitude commanded the admiration even of an enemy; and when on his return he forbore to risk death in a wrong cause, he gained for himself a name which shall endure for ever.
Verily, wisdom and courage were well combined in that man!
- ↑ A remarkable stone in the possession of the Prince of Chao, from whom it had been demanded by the Prince of Ch'in, in exchange for fifteen cities, which however were never intended to be handed over. Hsiang-ju managed to out-manœuvre the enemy, and bore back the stone in triumph to his master.
