Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/347

CAP. XXIV.] sense, based upon the Golden Roster or the Six Plans of Battle.


 * Ancient military treatises.

I have transacted with great success innumerable matters entrusted to me, yet his Highness has never vouchsafed a smile. What can you have been saying to make him so pleased as all this?"

"I merely told him," replied Hsü Wu Kuei, "how I judged of dogs and horses."

"Was that all? " enquired Nü Shang, incredulously.

"Have you not heard," said Hsü Wu Kuei, "of the outlaw of Yüeh? After several days' absence from his State, he was glad to meet any one he had known there. After a month, he was glad to meet any one he had even seen there. And after a year, he was glad to meet any one who was in any way like to his fellow-countrymen. Is not this a case of absence from one's kind increasing the desire to be with them?

"Thus a man who had fled into the wilderness, where bishop-wort chokes the path of the weasel and stoat, now advancing, now stopping,—how he would rejoice if the footfall of a fellow-creature broke upon his ear. And how much more were he to hear the sound of a brother's, of a relative's voice at his side. Long it is, I ween, since his Highness has heard the voice of a pure man at his side!"

Hsü Wu Kuei went to visit the Prince. The