Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/103



source of happiness. The difference between the male and the female consists in the former being honourable and the latter base; it has fallen to my lot to be born a male, and that is another source of happiness. Among the crowd of people who come into the world there are some who see neither months nor days—who never live to get free from their swaddling-bands; I have already lived ninety years, and that is my third source of happiness. Poverty is the common lot of scholars, and death is the end of us all. What cause for sorrow is there, then, in quietly fulfilling one's destiny and awaiting the close of life? "

"Excellent! " exclaimed Confucius. " By this means can a man find tranquillity and sereneness in himself."

Here death is regarded simply in the light of the inevitable. In the following stories it is represented in a far more beautiful and attractive guise: —

The Blessedness of Death.

Lin-lei, who had reached the age of a hundred years, and still wore fur clothes at the end of spring, went a-gleaning in the harvest-fields, singing as he walked. Confucius, journeying to the State of Wei, saw him in the field as he passed by, and, turning to his disciples, said—

"That old gentleman is worth speaking to. Go up to him, one of you, and test him with a few questions."

Tzŭ Kung offered to go, and, coming opposite to the old man just in front of a ridge of earth, "Sir," says he, with a sigh, "do you not repine at your lot, that you are singing as you glean? " But Lin-lei continued his course, singing as before; so Tzŭ Kung repeated his question again and again, until Lin-lei raised his eyes and answered him.

"What have I to repine at?" he said.

"Why, Sir," replied Tzŭ Kung, "not diligent in youth, neglectful of opportunities in middle life, wifeless and childless in your old age, and the time of death rapidly approaching, what possible happiness can be yours, that you are singing as you glean?"