430 CHINESE LITERATURE
life, of any leading statesman to publish a collection of his memorials to the throne, with possibly a few essays and some poems. Such have a brief succes (festime, and are then used by binders for thickening the folded leaves of some masterpiece of antiquity. Successful candidates for the final degree usually print their winning essays, and sometimes their poems, chiefly for distribution among friends. Several diaries of Ministers to foreign countries and similar books have appeared in recent years, recording the astonishment of the writers at the extraordinary social customs which prevail among the barbarians. But nowadays a Chinaman who wishes to read a book does not sit down and write one. He is too much oppressed by the vast dimensions of his existing literature, and by the hopelessness of rivalling, and still more by the hopelessness of surpassing, those immortals who have gone before.
It would be obviously unfair to describe the Chinese people as wanting in humour simply because they are tickled by jests which leave us comparatively unmoved. Few of our own most amusing stories will stand con- version into Chinese terms. The following are speci- mens of classical humour, being such as might be introduced into any serious biographical notice of the individuals concerned.
Ch'un-yii K'un (4th cent. B.C.) was the wit already mentioned, who tried to entangle Mencius in his talk. On one occasion, when the Ch'u State was about to attack the Chi State, he was ordered by the Prince of Ch'i, who was his father-in-law, to proceed to the Chao State and ask that an army might be sent to their assistance ; to which end the Prince supplied him with 100 Ibs. of silver and ten chariots as offerings
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