asked by one of his disciples to explain what constituted filial piety,
he replied that it was a difficult obligation to define; while to
another disciple he was able to say without hesitation that the mere
support of parents would be insufficient, inasmuch as food is what
is supplied even to horses and dogs. According to the story-books for
children, the obligation has been interpreted by the people at large
in many different ways. The twenty-four standard examples of filial
children include a son who allowed mosquitoes to feed upon him, and did
not drive them away lest they should go and annoy his parents; another
son who wept so passionately because he could procure no bamboo shoots
for his mother that the gods were touched, and up out of the ground
came some shoots which he gathered and carried home; another who when
carrying buckets of water would slip and fall on purpose, in order to
make his parents laugh; and so on. No wonder that Confucius found filial
piety beyond his powers of definition.

Now for a genuine example. There is a very wonderful novel in which a
very affecting love-story is worked out to a terribly tragic conclusion.
The heroine, a beautiful and fascinating girl, finally dies of
consumption, and the hero, a wayward but none the less fascinating
youth, enters the Buddhist priesthood. A lady, the mother of a clever
young official, was so distressed by the pathos of the tale that she
became quite ill, and doctors prescribed medicines in vain. At length,
when things were becoming serious, the son set to work and composed a
sequel to this novel, in which he resuscitated the heroine and made
the lovers happy by marriage; and in a short time he had the intense
satisfaction of seeing his mother restored to health.

Other forms of filial piety, which bear no relation whatever to the
fanciful fables given above, are commonly practised by all classes. In