ithout _atmosphere,_
with all its lines sharply defined.... he made free to lecture
the great ones of the earth, and was very round with them,
even ridiculing them at his pleasure. He held the field for
Confucius--not the Taoist, but the Mencian Confucius--against all
comers; smote Yang Chu the Egotist hip and thigh; smote gentle
Mo Ti, the Altruist; preached fine and practical ethics; and
had no patience with those dreamers of the House of Laotse.--A
man sent from the Gods, I should say, to do a great work;
even though--

And then there was that dreamer of dreams, of Butterfly dreams,--
subtle mystical humorous Chwangtse: how could it be otherwise
than that clear-minded clarion-throated Philosopher Mang should
afford him excellent play? Philosopher Mang (Philosopher of the
Second Class, so officially entitled), in the name of his Master
K'ung Ch'iu, fell foul of Dreamer Chwang; how could it be
otherwise than that Dreamer Chwang should aim his shafts, not a
Mang merely, but (alas!) at the one whose name was always on
Mang's lips?--"Confucius says, Confucius says, Confucius says"--
cries Philosopher Mang.--"Oh hang your Confucius!" thinks Chwang
the Mystic; "let us have a little of the silence and splendor of
the Within!" (Well, Confucius would have said the same thing, I
think.) "Let me tell you a tale," says Chwang; and straight
goes forward with it.

"It was the time of the autumn floods. Every stream poured into
the river, which swelled in its turbid course. The banks were so
far apart that from one to the other you could not tell a cow
from a horse.

"Then the Spirit of the River laughed for joy that all the beauty
of the earth was gathered to himself. Down with the current he
journeyed east, until he reached the Ocean. There looking
eastward, and seeing no limit to its expanse of waves, his
countenance changed. As he gazed out, he sighed, and said to the
Spirit of the Ocean: 'A vulgar proverb says that he who has
heard but a part of the truth thinks no one equal to himself.
Such a one am I.

"'When formerly I heard people detracting from the learning of
Confucius, or underrating the heroism of Po I. I did not
believe. But now that I have looked on your inexhaustibility--
alas for me had I not reached your abode! I should have been
forever a laughing-stock to those of comprehensive enlightenment.'

"To which the Spirit of the Ocean answered: 'You cannot speak of
ocean to a well-frog,--the cr