generalship; and he answered, “from Confucius.”—­If a mere disciple could do so much, they thought, surely the Master himself could do much more:  as, perhaps, lead the Lu armies to universal victory.  So they sent him a cordial invitation, with no words as to the warlike views that prompted it.  High in hope, Confucius set out; these fourteen years his native country had been pulling at his heart-strings, and latterly, more insistently than ever.  But on his arrival he saw how the land lay.  Chi consulted him about putting down brigandage:  Chi being, as you might say, the arch-brigand of Lu.—­“If you, Sir, were not avaricious,” said Confucius, “though you offered men rewards for stealing, they would cleave to their honesty.”  There was nothing to be done with such men as these; he went into retirement, having much literary work to finish.  That was in 483.

In 482 his son Li died; and a year later Yen Huy, dearest of his disciples.  We have seen how he gave way to grief.  There is that strange mystery of the dual nature; even in Such a One.  There is the human Personality that the Great Soul must work through.  He had performed his function; he had fulfilled his duty; all that he owed to the coming ages he had paid in full.  But the evidence goes to show that he was still looking forward for a chance to begin, and that every disappointmtnt hurt the outward man of him:  that it was telling on him:  that it was a sad, a disappointed, even a heart-broken old man that wept over Yen Huy.—­In 481, we read, a servant of the Chief of Clan Chi caught a strange one-horned aninial, with a white ribbon tied to its horn.  None had seen the like of it; and Confucius, being the most learned of men, was called in to make pronouncement.  He recognised it at once from his mother’s description:  it was the k’e-lin, the unicorn; that was the ribbon Chingtsai had decked it with in the cave on Mount Ne the night of his birth.  He burst into tears.  “For whom have you come?” he cried; “for whom have you come?” And then:  “The course of my doctrine is run, and wisdom is still neglected, and success is still worshiped.  My principles make no progress:  how will it be in the after ages?” —­Ah, could he have know!—­I mean, that old weary mind and body; the Soul which was Confucius knew.

Yen Huy, Tse Lu, and Tse Kung:  those were the three whom he had loved and trusted most.  Yen Huy was dead; Tse Lu, with Tse Kao, another disciple, he had left behind in Wei holding office under the duke.  Now news came that a revolution had broken out there.  “Tse Kao will return,” said he; “but Tse Lu will die.”  So it fell.  Tse Kao, finding the duke’s cause hopeless, made his escape; but Tse Lu fought the forlorn hope to the end, and died like a hero.  Only Tse Kung, of the three, was left to him.  Who one morning, when he went to the Master’s house, found him walking to and fro before the door crooning over this verse: