Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/108



plunder such things, and suffer for the crime, whom have you to reproach but yourself, pray?"

This puzzled Hsiang greatly, and he thought that Kuŏ was just hoaxing him a second time; so he went and consulted a learned man named Tung Kuŏ about it. Tung Kuŏ, however, pointed out to him that even his body was, in a philosophical sense, stolen from the influences of Nature; that Kuŏ had simply plundered or used that which was the common property of all, and that, while his principle of robbery was just, and deserved no punishment, that of Hsiang was selfish, and led to his conviction as a criminal.

The Dream of the Yellow Emperor.

During the first fifteen years of the reign of the Yellow Emperor he rejoiced in the love of the whole empire; so he fostered his life, and spent his time in the gratification of his senses; but his skin became shrivelled, his complexion swarthy, his mind confused, and his passions out of gear. During the second fifteen years of his reign he had occasion to mourn over the disorder of his realm; whereupon he exerted all the powers of his mind and put forth all his strength and wisdom in caring for the people; but still his own health and appearance continued as bad as ever. Then the Yellow Emperor groaned, and exclaimed with a sigh, " My faults are indeed excessive! To think that all this misery should result first from my caring too much for myself, and now from endeavouring to benefit my subjects!" Whereupon he renounced the whole machinery of government, abandoned his imperial seraglio, dismissed his guards and eunuchs, removed the frame on which his bells hung, retrenched his table, and retired into a secluded chamber in the great court of his palace, where he purified himself and put on sad-coloured robes, not meddling with State affairs for a period of three months. One day it so happened that he fell asleep and dreamed. He thought he wandered as far as the State of Hua-hsü, a place situated a very long way off. He had no idea how many thousand myriads of li he was from