mouth for seven days." Tsze-sze answered, "In ordering their
rules of propriety, it was the design of the ancient kings that
those who would go beyond them should stoop and keep by them,
and that those who could hardly reach them should stand on tiptoe
to do so. Thus it is that the superior man, in mourning for his
parents, when he has been three days without water or congee,
takes a staff to enable himself to rise [2]."'
While he thus condemned the severe discipline of Tsang,
Tsze-sze appears, in various incidents which are related of him,
to have been himself more than sufficiently ascetic. As he was
living in great poverty, a friend supplied him with grain, which he
readily received. Another friend was emboldened by this to send
him a bottle of spirits, but he declined to receive it.' You receive
your corn from other people,' urged the donor, 'and why should you
decline my gift, which is of less value? You can assign no ground
in reason for it, and if you wish to show your independence, you
should do so completely.' 'I am so poor,' was the reply, 'as to be in
want, and being afraid lest I should die and the sacrifices not be
offered to my ancestors, I accept the grain as an alms. But the
spirits and the dried flesh which you offer to me are the
appliances of a feast. For a poor man to be feasting is certainly
unreasonable. This is the ground of my refusing your gift. I have
no thought of asserting my independence [3].'
To the same effect is the account of Tsze-sze, which we
have from Liu Hsiang. That scholar relates:-- 'When Chi was living
in Wei, he wore a tattered coat, without any lining, and in thirty
days had only nine meals. T'ien Tsze-fang having heard of his

1 See the ¥|®Ñ¶°ÃÒ, in the place just quoted from. For the incident
we are indebted to K'ung Fu; see note 3, p. 36.