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PT. I, SECT. IV.
THE WRITINGS OF KWANG-3ZE.
219
being cut down ? Moreover, the reason of its being preserved is different from that of the preservation of things generally; is not your explaining it from the sentiment which you have expressed wide of the mark?'
7. Nan-po Zze-khi ? in rambling about the Heights of Shang?, saw a large and extraordinary tree. The teams of a thousand chariots might be sheltered under it, and its shade would cover them all! Zzekhi said, 'What a tree is this! It must contain an extraordinary amount of timber! When he looked up, however, at its smaller branches, they were so twisted and crooked that they could not be made into rafters and beams; when he looked down to its root, its stem was divided into so many rounded portions that neither coffin nor shell could be made from them. He licked one of its leaves, and his mouth felt torn and wounded. The smell of it would make a man frantic, as if intoxicated, for more than three whole days together. “This, indeed,' said he, 'is a tree good for nothing, and it is thus that it has attained to such a size. Ah! and spirit-like men acknowledge this worthlessness (and its result) 3.
In Sung there is the district of King-shih 4, in which catalpae, cypresses, and mulberry trees grow well. Those of them which are a span or two or rather more in circumference are cut down by persons who want to make posts to which to tie their
1 Probably the Nan-kwo Zze-khî at the beginning of the second Book.
2 In the present department of Kwei-teh, Ho-nan. 3 A difficult sentence to construe. * In what part of the duchy we do not know. 5 See Mencius, VI, i, 13.
