to die now in this employ, I should still have outlived almost all my contemporaries. Can I then complain?
This story gave me food for much sad reflection. I had always doubted the saying of Confucius that “bad government is worse than a tiger,”[1] but now I felt its truth. Alas! who would think that the tax-collector could be more venomous than a snake? I therefore record this for the information of those whom it may concern.
CONGRATULATIONS ON A FIRE.
I have received the letter informing me that your house has been attacked by fire, and that you have lost everything. At first, I felt shocked: then doubtful: but now I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. My sorrow is turned into joy. Still, we are far apart, and you give no particulars. If you mean that you are utterly and irretrievably beggared, then I have further reason to offer you my congratulations.
In the first place, it was only because I knew your happiness to be bound up with the happiness of your parents, and feared that this calamity would disturb the even tenor of their lives, that I felt shocked.
Secondly, the world is never weary of citing the fickleness of fortune and the uncertainty of her favours. And it is an old tradition that the man who is to rise to great things must first be chastened by misfortune and sorrow; and that the evils of flood and fire, and the slanders of scoundrels, are sent upon him solely that he may shine thereafter with a brighter light. But this doctrine is absurdly far-fetched, and could never command the confidence even of diviner intellects than ours. Therefore I doubted.
My friend, you are widely read in ancient lore. You are an accomplished scholar: a man, in fact, of many gifts. Yet you have failed to rise above the common rank and file. And why?
