Page:The sayings of Confucius; a new translation of the greater part of the Confucian analects (IA sayingsofconfuci00confiala).pdf/38

people. "Rotten wood cannot be carved," the Master himself once remarked, and he found bitter confirmation of his saying in Duke Ting of Lu. Nothing could ever have been made out of such utterly weak and worthless material. And he afterwards spent thirteen years of his life in the fruitless search for a sovereign who would correspond even faintly to his ideal. Such unswerving devotion to the abstract cause of right and justice and good government cannot but puzzle those who have been taught to regard Confucius as the very type and embodiment of materialistic wisdom and practical utilitarianism. But in truth, strange though it may sound, he was a great idealist who gained his hold on his countrymen by virtue rather of his noble imaginings and lofty aspirations than of any immediate results or tangible achievements. By the men of his own day he was more often than not considered a charlatan and an impostor. It is remarkable that even the two Taoist recluses and the eccentric Chieh Yü (p. 122) should have condemned him as a visionary and a "crank." Similar was the impression he made on the gate-keeper who asked a disciple if his Master was the man "who was always trying to do what he knew to be impossible." This playful sarcasm is really the best commentary on his career, and one that pays him unintentionally the greatest honour. Though often disheartened