Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/121



my prescription is a secret that has been handed down from generation to generation, and may not be disclosed to others." So he turned them all out of the room, and remained himself alone with Hua-tzŭ for the space of seven days; and there is no one who knows what he did all that time. But the result was, that an illness which had lasted for years was cured, so to speak, in a single day.

When Hua-tzŭ came to his right senses he flew into a great rage, turned his wife out of doors, flogged his son, and drove away the scholar with a spear. This came to the ears of a certain gentleman of the same state, who asked Hua-tzŭ why he behaved so strangely. Hua-tzŭ replied, "Formerly, when I had no memory, I had no cares; I lived at large, unconscious of anything in the wide world; existence and non-existence were all one to me. But now, all of a sudden, I find myself remembering everything that has occurred for ten years past; births and deaths, gains and losses, joys and sorrows, loves and hates, are mixed up in my memory in the most inextricable confusion, and the future bids fair to be as intolerable as the present. Would that I could recover my former happy state of oblivion! But that is impossible; and there you have the reason why I drove the whole pack of them away."

The Crazy Genius.

There was once a man of the State of Ts'in, named P'ang, who had a son. The boy, when quite little, was extremely clever, and showed signs of an understanding beyond his years; but when he grew up he became crazy. If he heard anybody sing, he thought he was crying; he took white objects for black; perfumes he thought were stenches; if he ate sweet things, he imagined they were bitter; bad conduct he approved as good; in fact, whatever he thought about in the whole world—water, fire, heat, or cold—his ideas were always the exact reverse of the truth.

One day a man named Yang said to the lad's father, "The Superior Man of Lü (Confucius) has a multitude of resources; he will surely be able to effect a cure. Why not ask his