world go in" or "seek for admittance " (天堂有路無人足走地獄無門蒼生去扣).
To illustrate the use of fang-pien in the common language let us take one more saying, given in Mr. Scarborough's collection. It is "Do good to others and you do good to yourself" (與人方便與己方便).
That purity may exist in impurity and good be found among the bad is taught in the saying—Get a pearl (a mani) in dirty water (濁水得摩尼). Another interesting saying shows us the popular belief that the rich have all, and the poor have nothing. The saying runs—They who are in good position are universal Sovereigns, the poor have not where to stick an awl (貴有空王章貧無置 (or 立) 錐地). If you are high up in the world you can have every thing you like, and if you are a poor man you cannot own anything. The K‘ung-wang is the Chuan-lun-wang or Universal Sovereign, and the chang are his magnificent court robes. In popular speech and literature is the first half of this saying is often omitted as superfluous, the latter half alone being used. It is an old saying dating apparently from the period of the Han dynasty.[1]
We have now come to the end of this Chapter and to the end of these Essays. The Essays, as the reader may have observed, are fragmentary and imperfect, partly because information was lacking, and partly because they have been cut off from their original surroundings. But their aim is not so much to teach facts and suggest theories about the Chinese language as to invite study on the subject. For though much, very much has been written on this language it has been little studied even by the professed sinologists. And yet it is neither dull work nor toil in vain to track the Chinese words and phrases of to-day back to their dens, to trace their line of descent and watch in their fates the workings of imperceptible influences.
- ↑ Scarborough's Collection of Chinese Proverbs; Perny's Prov. Chin.; Rev. A. H. Smith's Proverbs and Common Sayings of the Chinese in the Ch. Rec., vols. xiv., xv., xvi.; Premare Not. Ling. Sin., p. 135; Moule's Four Hundred Millions, chap. vii.; Sacred Edict, art. 7, Amplification.
