Page:A history of Chinese literature - Giles.djvu/228

 216 CHINESE LITERATURE

steel, and its symbol is a sharp sword. It is the avenging angel, riding upon an atmosphere of death. As spring is the epoch of growth, so autumn is the epoch of maturity. And sad is the hour when maturity is passed, for that which passes its prime must die.

" ' Still, what is this to plants and trees, which fade away in their due season ? . . . But stay ; there is man, man the divinest of all things. A hundred cares wreck his heart, countless anxieties trace their wrinkles on his brow, until his inmost self is bowed beneath the burden of life. And swifter still he hurries to decay when vainly striving to attain the unattainable, or grieving over his ignorance of that which can never be known. Then comes the whitening hair and why not ? Has man an adamantine frame, that he should outlast the trees of the field ? Yet, after all, who is it, save himself, that steals his strength away ? Tell me, O boy, what right has man to accuse his autumn blast ? '

" My boy made no answer. He was fast asleep. No sound reached me save that of the cricket chirping its response to my dirge."

The other leading historian of this period was SUNG CH'I (998-1061), who began his career by beating his elder brother at the graduates' examination. He was, however, placed tenth, instead of first, by Imperial command, and in accordance with the precedence of brothers. He rose to high office, and was also a volu- minous writer. A great favourite at Court, it is related that he was once at some Imperial festivity when he began to feel cold. The Emperor bade one of the ladies of the seraglio lend him a tippet, whereupon about a dozen of the girls each offered hers. But

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