Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/216

182 "When Hsi Shih


 * A famous beauty of old.

was distressed in mind, she knitted her brows. An ugly woman of the village, seeing how beautiful she looked, went home, and having worked herself into a fit frame of mind, knitted her brows. The result was that the rich people of the place barred up their doors and would not come out, while the poor people took their wives and children and departed elsewhere. That woman saw the beauty of knitted brows, but she did not see wherein the beauty of knitted brows lay.


 * In suitability to the individual.

Alas! your Master is emphatically not a success."

Confucius had lived to the age of fifty-one without hearing, when he went south to P'ei, to see Lao Tzŭ.

Lao Tzŭ said, "So you have come, Sir, have you? I hear you are considered a wise man up north. Have you got ?"

"Not yet," answered Confucius.

"In what direction," asked Lao Tzŭ, " have you sought for it?"

"I sought it for five years," replied Confucius, "in the science of numbers, but did not succeed."

"And then? . . . ." continued Lao Tzŭ.

"Then," said Confucius, "I spent twelve years seeking for it in the doctrine of the Yin and Yang, also without success."