The Prince was too astonished to reply; and after a while Hsü Wu Kuei continued, "I will try to explain to your Highness how I judge of dogs. The lowest in the scale will eat their fill and then stop, like a cat. Those of the middle class are as though staring at the sun. The highest class are as though they had parted with their own individuality.
"But I do not judge of dogs as well as I judge of horses. I judge of horses as follows. Their straightness
must be that of a line. Their curve must be that of an arc. Their squareness, that of the square. Their roundness, that of the compasses.
One commentator applies all this to the shape of the animals.
These are the horses of the State. They are not equal to the horses of the Empire. The horses of the Empire are splendid. They move as though anxious to get along, as though they had lost the way, as though they had parted with their own individuality. Thus, they outstrip all competitors, over the unstirred dust, out of sight!"
The Prince was greatly pleased and smiled. But when Hsü Wu Kuei went out, Nü Shang asked him, saying, "What can you have been saying to his Highness? Whenever I address him, it is either in a pacific sense, based upon the Canons of _Poetry_, _History_, _Rites_, and _Music_; or in a belligerent sense, based upon the _Golden Roster_ or the _Six Plans of Battle_.
I have transacted with great success innumerable matters entrusted to me, yet his Highness has never vouchsafed a smile. What can you have been saying to make him so pleased as all this?"
"I merely told him," replied Hsü Wu Kuei, "how I judged of dogs and horses."
"Was that all?" enquired Nü Shang, incredulously.
"Have you not heard," said Hsü Wu Kuei, "of the outlaw of Yüeh? After several days' absence from his State, he was glad to meet any one he had known there. After a month, he was glad to meet any one he had even seen there. And after a year, he was glad to meet any one who was in any way like to his fellow-countrymen. Is not this a case of absence from one's kind increasing the desire to be with them?
"Thus a man who had fled into the wilderness, where bishop-wort chokes the path of the weasel and stoat, now advancing, now stopping,--how he would rejoice if the footfall of a fellow-creature broke upon his ear. And how much more were he to hear the sound of a brother's, of a relative's voice at his side. Long it is, I ween, since his Highness has heard the voice of a pure man at his side!"