And strive to act in such a manner as to command respect.
When satirized and admonished examine yourself,
And do this more thoroughly when favors increase.
“Years fly away like arrows, one pushing on the other;
The sun shines brightly through his whole course.
The planetarium keeps on revolving where it hangs;
And the bright moon repeats her revolutions.
To support fire, add fuel; so cultivate the root of happiness,
And you will obtain eternal peace and endless felicity.”
The commentary on the Thousand Character Classic contains many just observations and curious anecdotes to explain this book, whose text is so familiar to the people at large that its lines or characters are used as labels instead of figures, as they take up less room. If Western scholars were as familiar with the acts and sayings of King Wăn, of Su Tsin, or of Kwan Chung, as they are with those of Sesostris, Pericles, or Horace, these incidents and places would naturally enough be deemed more interesting than they now are. But where the power of genius, or the vivid pictures of a brilliant imagination, are wanting to illustrate or beautify a subject, there is comparatively little to interest Europeans in the authors and statesmen of such a distant country and remote period.[276]