Kien Wû asked Lien Shû, saying, "I heard Khieh-yü talking words which were great, but had nothing corresponding to them in reality—once gone, they could not be brought back. I was frightened by them; they were like the Milky Way which cannot be traced to its beginning or end. They had no connection with one another, and were not akin to the experiences of men."
"What were his words?" asked Lien Shû, and the other replied, he said that "Far away on the hill of Kû-shih there dwelt a Spirit-like man whose flesh and skin were smooth as ice and white as snow; that his manner was elegant and delicate as that of a virgin; that he did not eat any of the five grains, but inhaled the wind and drank the dew; that he mounted on the clouds, drove along the flying dragons, rambling and enjoying himself beyond the four seas; that by the concentration of his spirit-like powers he could save men from disease and pestilence, and secure every year a plentiful harvest. These words appeared to me wild and incoherent and I did not believe them."
"So it is," said Lien Shû. "The blind have no perception of the beauty of elegant figures, nor the deaf of the sound of bells and drums. But is it only the bodily senses of which deafness and blindness can be predicated? There is also a similar defect in the intelligence; and of this your words supply an illustration in yourself.
"That man, with those attributes, though all things were one mass of confusion, and he heard in that condition the whole world crying out to him to be rectified, would not have to address himself laboriously to the task, as if it were his business to rectify the world.
"Nothing could hurt that man; the greatest floods, reaching to the sky, could not drown him, nor would he feel the fervor of the greatest heats melting metals and stones till they flowed, and scorching all the ground and hills. From the dust and chaff of himself, he could still mould and fashion Yâos and Shuns—how should he be willing to occupy himself with things?"
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