WHAT I LIVED FOR. 
103 
papers: and as for England, almost the last significant 
scrap of news from that quarter was the revolution of 
1649 ; and if you have learned the history of her crops 
for an average year, you never need attend to that thing 
again, unless your speculations are of a merely pecu¬ 
niary character. If one may judge who rarely looks 
into the newspapers, nothing new does ever happen in 
foreign parts, a French revolution not excepted. 
What news! how much more important to know 
what that is which was never old! “ Kieou-he-yu 
(great dignitary of the state of Wei) sent a man to 
Khoung-tseu to know his news. Khoung-tseu caused 
the messenger to be seated near him, and questioned 
him in these terms : Wliat is your master doing ? The 
messenger answered with respect: My master desires 
to diminish the number of his faults, but he cannot 
come to the end of them. The messenger being gone, 
the philosopher remarked : What a worthy messenger! 
What a worthy messenger !” The preacher, instead of 
vexing the ears of drowsy farmers on their day of rest 
at the end of the week, — for Sunday is the fit conclu¬ 
sion of an ill-spent week, and not the fresh and brave 
beginning of a new one, — with this one other draggle- 
tail of a sermon, should shout with thundering voice, — 
“Pause! Avast! Why so seeming fast, but deadly 
slow?” 
Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, 
while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily ob¬ 
serve realities only, and not allow themselves to be de¬ 
luded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, 
would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ En¬ 
tertainments. If we respected only what is inevitable 
and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound 
