After this, during his residence in the State of Ch’in, his followers, owing to a stoppage of food supply, became so weak and ill that not one of them could stand.  Tsz-lu, with indignation pictured on his countenance, exclaimed, “And is a gentleman to suffer starvation?”

“A gentleman,” replied the Master, “will endure it unmoved, but a common person breaks out into excesses under it.”

Addressing Tsz-kung, the Master said, “You regard me as one who studies and stores up in his mind a multiplicity of things—­do you not?”—­“I do,” he replied; “is it not so?”—­“Not at all.  I have one idea—­one cord on which to string all.”

To Tsz-lu he remarked, “They who know Virtue are rare.”

“If you would know one who without effort ruled well, was not Shun such a one?  What did he indeed do?  He bore himself with reverent dignity and undeviatingly ‘faced the south,’ and that was all.”

Tsz-chang was consulting him about making way in life.  He answered, “Be true and honest in all you say, and seriously earnest in all you do, and then, even if your country be one inhabited by barbarians, South or North, you will make your way.  If you do not show yourself thus in word and deed how should you succeed, even in your own district or neighborhood?—­When you are afoot, let these two counsels be two companions preceding you, yourself viewing them from behind; when you drive, have them in view as on the yoke of your carriage.  Then may you make your way.”

Tsz-chang wrote them on the two ends of his cincture.

“Straight was the course of the Annalist Yu,” said the Master—­“aye, straight as an arrow flies; were the country well governed or ill governed, his was an arrow-like course.

“A man of masterly mind, too, is Kue Pih-yuh!  When the land is being rightly governed he will serve; when it is under bad government he is apt to recoil, and brood.”

“Not to speak to a man.” said he, “to whom you ought to speak, is to lose your man; to speak to one to whom you ought not to speak is to lose your words.  Those who are wise will not lose their man nor yet their words.”

Again, “The scholar whose heart is in his work, and who is philanthropic, seeks not to gain a livelihood by any means that will do harm to his philanthropy.  There have been men who have destroyed their own lives in the endeavor to bring that virtue in them to perfection.”

Tsz-kung asked how to become philanthropic.  The Master answered him thus:  “A workman who wants to do his work well must first sharpen his tools.  In whatever land you live, serve under some wise and good man among those in high office, and make friends with the more humane of its men of education.”

Yen Yuen consulted him on the management of a country.  He answered:—­

“Go by the Hia Calendar.  Have the State carriages like those of the Yin princes.  Wear the Chow cap.  For your music let that of Shun be used for the posturers.  Put away the songs of Ch’ing, and remove far from you men of artful speech:  the Ch’ing songs are immodest, and artful talkers are dangerous.”