Page 121 - Gan's Family History
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now or not; the truth will endure and after he was gone. He sometimes
in the end it will prevail. In a way, express wonder that Yan Hui
the fact that people find your absorbed his ideas so completely that
teaching hard to accept is a he never disagree with anything that
recognition of it in itself." he said as the others did.
Yan Hui was like that - simple "It makes him look stupid,"
and subtle, gentle and yet Confucius said, "as if he didn't
penetrating. Confucius was greatly understand. But he is not stupid.
cheered by what Yan Hui had said. When I question him, I find that he
Smiling, he said, "Son of the IS my teaching."
House of Yan, if you were a rich lord, When his son Po Yu died,
I would want to be your overseer." Confucius mourned his son
But Yan Hui lived in the according to his means; burying him
shadow of his Master. He came from in the way he felt the son of a scholar
a poor family and once had lived in should be buried - in a simple coffin
an alley and had not had enough to made of a single layer of wood.
eat, though no one ever had ever Shortly afterwards, another
heard him complain. He sought no calamity occurred. Yan Hui died.
public office nor did anyone offer him The favourite of his 72 disciples
any. He was modest and still; never whom he had counted on to take his
got angry and never made the same place when he was gone was
mistake twice and never returned a snatched from him by sudden
slight. He treated his inferiors as if illness.
they were superiors and he rejoices Confucius was thrown into the
in the company of old friends as he depths of despondency.
did in that of new ones. Conventional rules of mourning, the
dignity to be observed in the face of
Confucius considers Yan Hui deaths robberies were thrown to the
far wiser than himself and his wind and Confucius wept without
excellence was such that the Master cease, crying, "Heaven is destroying
said that Yan Hui was the only man me!"
he knew who could remain excellent A disciple remonstrated
for three whole months without a Confucius, fearing that he was
break. Other disciples could manage wasting his strength with excessive
only a month and some of them, only grief but Confucius replied with rare
a day. unkindness, "Too much grief? If I did
He was also admired and loved not grieve for Yan Hui, for whom
by his fellow disciples. One of them should I grieve?"
said of him, "He could be trusted with Into Confucius' sorrow, there
the rule of the state and the intruded Yan Hui's father; a simple,
education of a child." poor man who had undoubtedly
Confucius looked upon Yan rejoiced for years knowing that his
Hui as his successor, who would brilliant son had attained so
carry on his work of teaching long glamorous a place at the right hand
