Intermediate Record." Kwan is the character spoken of in the preceding notice; Kien is the symbol for the space between two things, suggesting the idea of distinction or difference. Kǎng Hsüan says that "the name has reference to the distinctions suitably made in mourning, according as it was lighter or more important."
However we translate or explain the name, we find the Book occupied with the manifestations of grief in the bearing of the mourners; in the modulation of their voices; in their eating and drinking; in their places; in the texture of their dress; and in the various changes which were made in it till it was finally put off. Some points in it are difficult to understand at this distance of time, and while we are still imperfectly acquainted with the mourning usages of the people at the present day.
Book XXXV. San Nien Wǎn.
The "Questions about the Mourning for three years" is occupied principally with the mourning for parents for that period, but it touches on all the other periods of mourning as well, explaining why one period differs in its duration from the others.
Mourning, it is said, is the outcome of the relative feeling proper to man; the materials of the dress, the duration of the rites, and other forms are from the ancient sages and legislators, to regulate and direct the expression of the feeling.
What is said in paragraph 4 about the mourning of birds and beasts is interesting, but fantastical. Though the mourning for a parent is said to last for three years, the western reader is not to suppose that it continues to the end of that time, but simply that it extends into the third year. Virtually it terminates with the twenty-fifth month, and positively with the twenty-seventh. It is the eastern mode in speaking of time to say that it lasts for three years. Similarly, I have often been told that a child, evidently not more than six months, was two years old, when a little
cross-questioning has brought out the fact that it had been born
