Did they rue the past?
They sought love and found it; what had they to rue?
Tzu-kung went out, and said, The Master is not for him.
15. The Master said, Eating coarse rice and drinking water, with bent arm for pillow, we may be merry; but ill-gotten wealth and honours are to me a wandering cloud.
16. The Master said, Given a few more years, making fifty for learning the Yi,[68] I might be freed from gross faults.
17. The Master liked to talk of poetry, history, and the upkeep of courtesy. Of all these he liked to talk.
18. The Duke of She asked Tzu-lu about Confucius.
Tzu-lu did not answer.
The Master said, Why didst thou not say, He is a man that forgets to eat in his eagerness, whose sorrows are forgotten in gladness, who knows not that age draws near?
19. The Master said, I was not born to wisdom: I loved the past, and sought it earnestly there.