Of his dress there is a minute description.
He avoided ostentatious colours; his summer
garments were of linen. He wore dark robes in
winter, lined with lamb-skins; he had a white
garment of deer-skins, a yellow of fox-furs. He
never neglected to carry the ordinary adornings
for use, such as chop-sticks, knife, purse, fan,
&c. At every new moon he visited his prince
in court dress.

He had his fasting days, but his ordinary
food was boiled, and he ate beef and fish cut
into small pieces; but he would eat nothing red
or discoloured, or out of season, and required
every attention to cleanliness and order in the
preparation and serving of his meals. He
partook of them with great moderation.

He habitually offered sacrifice and libations
to his ancestors, spoke not while at meals, nor
after he had retired to rest. He would not sit
down on a crumpled or ill-placed mat. He
refused to have any new medical nostrums tried
upon his person. The royal gifts he received he
used in sacrifice at the ancestral halls, and
performed the ancestral rites for those who left no
descendants.

He received mourners with a mournful
countenance, and if a person to whom deference was
due were afflicted with blindness, he did not on
that account fail to exhibit every mark of respect.
He showed sympathy for the afflicted by
descending from his carriage when they passed in
their mourning dress; and as the tablets were
borne along on which were inscribed the names
of honoured men, he paid them a similar attention.
He did not repudiate the courtesies shown
him, and attended the banquets prepared in his
honour. In his chariot he stood erect holding
the reins in his hand. He pointed at nothing
with his fingers, and he never uttered
superfluous words. He had no self-love, no
prejudices, no inexorable system, no obstinacy.*

*Lun Yu, chap. x.

It is said of him that when he quitted the
kingdom of Tse (for he was a great traveller),
he provided himself with only a handful of rice,
which had been steeped in water. This is an
early exemplification of the command in the
New Testament, to take neither scrip nor purse,
and the development of the maxim "to salute
no man by the way," may be found in the advice
which follows, not to allow any distraction or
diversion from the business in which we are
occupied. Confucius left his father, and when
he set out on his travels, he said: "I travel
slowly; that is the duty of him who quits his
parents. If haste be needful, hasten; but when
slow travelling is becoming, travel slowly. In
private life, live privately; in exercising public
functions, exercise them publicly." Mencius
eulogises the straightforwardness of Confucius' s
character as exhibited in his teachings and doings,
adding, that he always acted for the best under
the circumstances in which he was placed. He
calls Confucius the representative of harmony
produced by musical sounds, in which the louder
notes were from brazen instruments, the softer
from musical precious stones.

"I detest," he says, "appearances where
there is no reality. I hate the tares, fearing they
will damage the harvest. I hate clever
(cunning) men, fearing they will confound justice.
I hate the sound of the ching (music not according
to the rules of the gamut), fearing it will
corrupt harmony. I hate the violet colour, for
fear it may be mistaken for purple. I detest
the honest men of villages (petty representatives),
fearing they may confound virtue."*

*Mencius, book viii.

One of the most popular of the sage's sayings
is: "Within the four seas all men are brothers."
It was in answer to a complaint of one of his
disciples: "All men have brothers, but I have
none." The Chinese empire was supposed by
the ancients to be enclosed within four oceans,
bounding it to the north, south, east, and west.

"The woman must be subject to the man."
To which commentators add:

Woman may not direct affairs. When at
home she must obey her father, when married
her husband, when a widow her eldest son. Her
will should not be her own.

"He who has no distant cares must have pre-
sent sorrow."

"Whether clever or not, a son is a son."

"If you fail in your duty to men, how can
you serve spirits (the gods)? Supreme
knowledge illustrates resplendent virtue. He who
renovates the people reaches the borders of
extreme virtue."

"Four horses (in their rapidity) cannot
overtake (a violent) temper."

Confucius spoke highly of one of his
contemporaries, Yau Hwai, who in the heyday of youth
so moderated all his desires as to dwell in a
mean abode, in an obscure street, to eat out of
a vessel made of rushes, and to drink from
a calabash. " He is indeed a sage," said the
master.

"There is a condescension, not to be practised
merely because it is condescension, for if
condescension be not the effect of genuine courtesy
it ought not to be displayed."

"Let us not grieve that we know not other
men, but rather grieve that other men do not
know us."

"Learn what you learn thoroughly—add con-
stantly to your learning, so may you become a
teacher of men."

"Science consists in knowing that we know
what we know, and know not what we know
not."

"To know what is just and not to practise it
is cowardice."

"In our repasts economy is better than
extravagance, and in funeral ceremonies silent grief is
preferable to ostentatious and costly display."

"If the voice of celestial reason be heard by
you in the morning, you will be prepared for
death at even."

"Be not disquieted at finding no official
employment, but be disquieted until you have