These two incidents are referred to by Confucius, and are among the first learned by every Chinese child.
I looked through the book and noticed that many of the designs were for the amusement of the children, as well as to develop their ingenuity. In the two volumes of the T'ao he had only the outlines of the pictures which he readily constructed with the blocks. But he had with him also a small volume which was a key to the designs having lines indicating how each block was placed. This he had purchased for a few cash. Much of the interest of the book, however, attached to the puzzling character of the pictures.
There was one with a verse attached somewhat like the following:
The old wife drew a chess-board
On the cover of a book,
While the child transformed a needle
Into a fishing-hook.
Chinese literature is full of examples of men and women who applied themselves to their books with untiring diligence. Some tied their hair to the beam of their humble cottage so that when they nodded with sleepiness the jerk would awake them and they might return to their books.
Others slept upon globular pillows that when they became so restless as to move and cause the pillow to roll from under their head they might get up and study.
The child once more took the blocks and illustrated how one who was so poor as to be unable to furnish himself with candles, confined a fire-fly in a gauze lantern using that instead of a lamp. At the same time he explained that another who was perhaps not able to afford the gauze lantern, studied by the light of a glowworm.
"K'ang Heng," said the child, as he put the blocks together in a new form, "had a still better way, as well as more economical. His house was built of clay, and as the window of his neighbor's house was immediately opposite, he chiseled a hole through his wall and thus took advantage of his neighbor's light.
"Sun K'ang's method was very good for winter," continued the child as he rearranged the blocks, "but I do not know what he would do in summer. He studied by the light reflected from the snow.
"Perhaps," he went on as he changed the form, "he followed the example of another who studied by the pale light of the moon."