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174
THE TEXTS OF TÂOISM.
BR. T.
in the other it had only enabled its owners to continue their bleaching. The difference of result was owing to the different use made of the art. Now you, Sir, had calabashes large enough to hold five piculs ;—why did you not think of making large bottle-gourds of them, by means of which you could have floated over rivers and lakes, instead of giving yourself the sorrow of finding that they were useless for holding anything. Your mind, my master, would seem to have been closed against all intelligence !'
Hui-zze said to Kwang-zze, 'I have a large tree, which men call the Ailantus? Its trunk swells out to a large size, but is not fit for a carpenter to apply his line to it; its smaller branches are knotted and crooked, so that the disk and square cannot be used on them. Though planted on the wayside, a builder would not turn his head to look at it. Now your words, Sir, are great, but of no use ;-all unite in putting them away from them.' Kwang-zze replied, 'Have you never seen a wild cat or a weasel? There it lies, crouching and low, till the wanderer approaches; east and west it leaps about, avoiding neither what is high nor what is low, till it is caught in a trap, or dies in a net. Again there is the Yak”, so large that it is like a cloud hanging in the sky. It is large indeed, but it cannot catch mice. You, Sir, have a large tree and are troubled because it is of no use ;—why do you not plant it in a tract where there is nothing else, or in a wide and barren wild ?
1 The Ailantus glandulosa, common in the north of China, called 'the fetid tree,' from the odour of its leaves.
2 The bos grunniens of Thibet, the long tail of which is in great demand for making standards and chowries.
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