The story of Sung Hung, a statesman who flourished about the time of the Christian era, pleasantly illustrates a chivalrous side of the Chinese character.  This man raised himself from a humble station in life to be a minister of state, and was subsequently ennobled as marquis.  The emperor then wished him to put away his wife, who was a woman of the people, and marry a princess; to which he nobly replied:  “Sire, the partner of my porridge days shall never go down from my hall.”

Of the miseries of exile from the ancestral home, lurid pictures have been drawn by many poets and others.  One man, ordered from some soft southern climate to a post in the colder north, will complain that the spring with its flowers is too late in arriving; another “cannot stand the water and earth,” by which is meant that the climate does not agree with him; a third is satisfied with his surroundings, but is still a constant sufferer from home-sickness.  Such a one was the poet who wrote the following lines:—­

     Away to the east lie fair forests of trees,
     From the flowers on the west comes a scent-laden breeze,
     Yet my eyes daily turn to my far-away home,
     Beyond the broad river, its waves and its foam.

And such, too, is the note of innumerable songs in exile, written for the most part by officials stationed in distant parts of the empire; sometimes by exiles in a harsher sense, namely, those persons who have been banished to the frontier for disaffection, maladministration of government, and like offences.  A bright particular gem in Chinese literature, referring to love of home, was the work of a young poet who received an appointment as magistrate, but threw it up after a tenure of only eighty-three days, declaring that he could not “crook the hinges of his back for five pecks of rice a day,” that being the regulation pay of his office.  It was written to celebrate his own return, and runs as follows:—­

“Homewards I bend my steps.  My fields, my gardens, are choked with weeds:  should I not go?  My soul has led a bondsman’s life:  why should I remain to pine?  But I will waste no grief upon the past:  I will devote my energies to the future.  I have not wandered far astray.  I feel that I am on the right track once again.

“Lightly, lightly, speeds my boat along, my garments fluttering to the gentle breeze.  I inquire my route as I go.  I grudge the slowness of the dawning day.  From afar I descry by old home, and joyfully press onwards in my haste.  The servants rush forth to meet me:  my children cluster at the gate.  The place is a wilderness; but there is the old pine-tree and my chrysanthemums.  I take the little ones by the hand, and pass in.  Wine is brought in full bottles, and I pour out in brimming cups.  I gaze out at my favourite branches.  I loll against the window in my new-found freedom.  I look at the sweet children on my knee.