ee. But with Confucius as with every
Adept the case is quite different. "The Master's wall is
fathomless," said Tse Kung; but he and the other disciples
took care that China at least should find the gate of entry;
and it is still possible for us to go in, and "see the beauty
of the temple, the richness of the robes of the officiating
priests." You go through everything; see him under all sorts of
circumstances; and ask at last: "Is this all?"--No, says your
guide; "see here!" and flings one last door open. And that,
like the door in Lord Dunsaney's play, opens on to the vastness
of the stars. What is it that baffles us and remains undefined
and undefinable? Just this: TAO: the Infinite Nature. You can
survey the earth, and measure it with chains; but not Space, in
which a billion leagues is nowise different from an inch or two,
--it bears the same proportion to the whole.

There was his infinite trust;--and his unbroken silence as to the
Things he trusted in. Time and the world went proving to him
year by year that his theories were all impracticable, all wrong;
that he was a failure; that there was not anything for him to
do, and never would be a chance for him to do it;--and all their
arguments, all the sheer dreadful tyranny of fact, had no weight
with him at all: he went on and on. What was his sword of
strength? Where were the Allies in whom he trusted? How dared
he pit K'ung Ch'iu of Lu against time and the world and me?--The
Unseen was with him, and the Silence; and he (perhaps) lifted no
veil from the Unseen, and kept silent as to the silence;--and yet
maintained his Movement, and held his disciples together, and
saved his people,--as if he himself had been the Unseen made
visible, and the Silence given a voice to speak.

And with it all there was the human man who suffered. I think
you will love him the more for this, from the _Analects:_

"The Minister said to Tse Lu, Tseng Hsi, Jan Yu, and Kung-hsi Hua
as they sat beside him: 'I may be a day older than you are, but
forget that. You are wont to say, "We are unknown." Well; had
ye a name in the world, what would ye do?'"

"Tse Lu answered lightly: 'Give me charge of a land of a
thousand chariots, crushed between great neighbors, overrun by
soldiery and oppressed by famine; in three years' time I should
have put courage and high purpose into the people.'"

"The Master smiled,--'What wouldst thou do, Ch'iu?' he said."

"Jan Yu answe