Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/144

 Guard your own Frontier.

Duke Wên of Chin once started to attend a conference of the feudal princes, the object of which was to organise an attack on the State of Wei. On the journey his Minister, Kung-tzŭ Ch'u, was observed to cast up his eyes and laugh. "What are you laughing at?" demanded the Duke. "I was laughing," replied the Minister, "about a certain neighbour of mine. He was escorting his wife on her way to pay a visit to her parents, when he spied a pretty girl picking mulberry-leaves for silkworms. Delighted at the rencontre, he stopped to talk to her, when, happening to turn his head, he saw somebody else paying attention to his wife. That was what I was laughing to myself about."

The Duke understood the hint. He did not proceed any farther, but led his soldiers back; and they had not arrived in their own state when news reached them that an enemy had come during their absence and attacked their northern frontier.

Moderation the Best Policy.

An elderly man lay dying, and as he felt his end drawing near, he called his son to him, and said, "The King has sought to load me with honours, but I have consistently declined them. When I am dead he will seek to confer honours upon you; but mind what I say—accept no land from him which is worth anything. Now, between the States of Ch'u and Yueh there is a bit of ground that is of no use to anybody, and has, moreover, a very bad reputation; for the people of both Ch'u and Yueh believe it to be haunted. This is a kind of property that you may retain for ever." Soon after this the man died, and the King offered a beautiful piece of land to his son. The youth, however, declined it, and begged for the bad piece. This was granted to him, and he has never lost possession of it to this day.

The Folly of being Righteous Over-much.

There was once a man named Yuan Ching-mu, who, during a journey, fainted with hunger on the road. An old