knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain
himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one,
and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my
lesson [3].'
His mother died in the year B.C. 527, and he resolved that
her body should lie in the same grave with that of his father, and
that their common resting-place should be in Fang, the first home
of the K'ung in Lu. But here a difficulty presented itself. His
father's coffin had been for twenty years where it had first been
deposited, off the road of The Five Fathers, in the vicinity of
Tsau:-- would it be right in him to move it? He was relieved from
this perplexity by an old woman of the neighborhood, who told him
that the coffin had only just been put into the ground, as a
temporary arrangement, and not regularly buried. On learning this,
he carried his purpose into execution. Both coffins were conveyed
to Fang, and put in the ground together, with no intervening space
between them, as was the custom in some States. And now came a
new perplexity. He said to himself, 'In old times, they had graves,
but raised no tumulus over them. But I am a man, who belongs
equally to the north and the south, the east and the west. I must
have something by which I can remember the place.' Accordingly
he raised a mound, four feet high, over the grave, and returned
home, leaving a party of his disciples to see everything properly
completed. In the meantime there came on a heavy storm of rain,
and it was a considerable time before the disciples joined him.
'What makes you so late?' he asked. 'The grave in Fang fell down,'
they said. He made no reply, and they repeated their

1 Mencius, V. Pt. II. v. 4.
2 Ana. VII. vii.