Page:Zhuang Zi - translation Giles 1889.djvu/94

60 Ch'an, "you will be emulating the virtue of Yao next. To look at you, I should say you had enough to do to attend to your own short-comings!"


 * A sneer at his want of toes.

"Those who disguise their faults," said Shên T'u Chia, "so as not to lose their toes, are many in number. Those who do not disguise their faults, and so fail to keep them, are few. To recognise the inevitable and to quietly acquiesce in Destiny, is the achievement of the virtuous man alone. He who should put himself in front of the bull's-eye when Hou I


 * A Chinese Tell.

was shooting, would be hit. If he was not hit, it would be destiny. Those with toes who laugh at me for having no toes are many. This used to make me angry. But since I have studied under our Master, I have ceased to trouble about it. It may be that our Master has so far succeeded in purifying me. At any rate I have been with him nineteen years without being aware of the loss of my toes. Now you and I are engaged in studying the internal. Do you not then commit a fault by thus dragging me back to the external?"

At this Tzŭ Ch'an began to fidget, and changing countenance, begged Shên T'u Chia to say no more.

There was a man of the Lu State who had been