“Good gives the tangible, evil but the shadows.”
“If you insist on every one being like you, look nowhere but in your mirror.”
XIX
NOTES ON CHINESE LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE
Among the treasures of Buddhist monasteries are the stone tablets called “Pei Tze.” It used to be the custom of celebrated visitors to write an epigram, a witticism, a poem, or a sentence of philosophy, which the monks had a stone-cutter engrave as near the beautiful chirography as possible on these tablets, which constitute through the empire a great literary treasure which is not likely now to be renewed. Not a little of the sententiousness is humorous. A sign hanging up in a celebrated Buddhist monastery in the Chingtu plain, Szechuen province, makes this merry reference to fleas, which constitute the largest part of the present immense population of China: “There are animals with more legs than ponies at Inns other than this Inn.” Another popular humorous motto is: “One can carry kindness too far, such as the fisherman who had such pity for fish that he would only go fishing with straight hooks.” The idiom for inaction is: “keeping one’s hands in one’s sleeves.” For “eating crow” the Chinese say: “eating a dumb man’s bitterness.” More of their wisdom follows:
“Meekness and gentleness are the boat and the sail for crossing the rough stream of this world.”
“The truths that we least wish to hear are those which it is most to our advantage to know.”
“The way to glory lies through a palace; to riches through a market; to virtue through a desert.”
“The Manchu court is like the sea, where everything depends on the wind.”
“He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.”