“And now I take my pleasure in my garden.  There is a gate, but it is rarely opened.  I lean on my staff as I wander about or sit down to rest.  I raise my head and contemplate the lovely scene.  Clouds rise, unwilling, from the bottom of the hills:  the weary bird seeks its nest again.  Shadows vanish, but still I linger round my lonely pine.  Home once more!  I’ll have no friendships to distract me hence.  The times are out of joint for me; and what have I to seek from men?  In the pure enjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my idle hours with lute and book.  My husbandmen will tell me when spring-time is nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields.  Thither I shall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over the dizzy cliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the streamlet swelling from its tiny source.  Glad is this renewal of life in due season:  but for me, I rejoice that my journey is over.  Ah, how short a time it is that we are here!  Why, then, not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to trouble whether we remain or go?  What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious thoughts?  I want not wealth:  I want not power:  heaven is beyond my hopes.  Then let me stroll through the bright hours, as they pass, in my garden among my flowers; or I will mount the hill and sing my song, or weave my verse beside the limpid brook.  Thus will I work out my allotted span, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit free from care.”

Besides contributing a large amount of beautiful poetry, this author provided his own funeral oration, the earliest which has come down to us, written just before his death in A.D. 427.  Funeral orations are not only pronounced by some friend at the grave, but are further solemnly consumed by fire, in the belief that they will thus reach the world of spirits, and be a joy and an honour to the deceased, in the same sense that paper houses, horses, sedan-chairs, and similar articles, are burnt for the use of the dead.

CHAPTER X—­MINGS AND CH’INGS, 1368-1911

The first half of the fourteenth century, which witnessed the gradual decline of Mongol influence and power, was further marked by the birth of a humble individual destined to achieve a new departure in the history of the empire.  At the age of seventeen, Chu Yuan-chang lost both his parents and an elder brother.  It was a year of famine, and they died from want of food.  He had no money to buy coffins, and was forced to bury them in straw.  He then, as a last resource, decided to enter the Buddhist priesthood, and accordingly enrolled himself as a novice; but together with the other novices, he was soon dismissed, the priests being unable to provide even for their own wants.  After this he wandered about, and finally joined a party of rebels commanded by one of his own uncles.  Rapidly rising to the highest military rank, he gradually found himself at the head of a huge army, and by 1368