Chuang Tzu 1.7

Hui-tsze told Kwang-tsze, saying, "The king of Wei sent me some seeds of a large calabash, which I sowed. The fruit, when fully grown, could contain five piculs of anything. I used it to contain water, but it was so heavy that I could not lift it by myself. I cut it in two to make the parts into drinking vessels; but the dried shells were too wide and unstable and would not hold the liquor; nothing but large useless things! Because of their uselessness I knocked them to pieces." 

Kwang-tsze replied, "You were indeed stupid, my master, in the use of what was large. There was a man of Sung who was skillful at making a salve which kept the hands from getting chapped; and his family for generations had made the bleaching of cocoon-silk their business. 

A stranger heard of it, and proposed to buy the art of the preparation for a hundred ounces of silver. 

"The kindred all came together, and considered the proposal. 'We have,' said they, 'been bleaching cocoon-silk for generations, and have only gained a little money. Now in one morning we can sell to this man our art for a hundred ounces—let him have it.'

"The stranger accordingly got it and went away with it to give counsel to the king of Wû, who was then engaged in hostilities with Yüeh. The king gave him the command of his fleet, and in the winter he had an engagement with that of Yüeh, on which he inflicted a great defeat, and was invested with a portion of territory taken from Yüeh. 

"The keeping the hands from getting chapped was the same in both cases; but in the one case it led to the investiture of the possessor of the salve, and in the other it had only enabled its owners to continue their bleaching. The difference of result was owing to the different use made of the art. 

"Now you, Sir, had calabashes large enough to hold five piculs—why did you not think of making large bottle-gourds of them, by means of which you could have floated over rivers and lakes, instead of giving yourself the sorrow of finding that they were useless for holding anything. Your mind, my master, would seem to have been closed against all intelligence!" 

Hui-tsze said to Kwang-tsze, "I have a large tree, which men call the Ailantus. Its trunk swells out to a large size, but is not fit for a carpenter to apply his line to it; its smaller branches are knotted and crooked, so that the disk and square cannot be used on them. Though planted on the wayside, a builder would not turn his head to look at it. Now your words, Sir, are great, but of no use;- all unite in putting them away from them." 

Kwang-tsze replied, "Have you never seen a wildcat or a weasel? There it lies, crouching and low, till the wanderer approaches; east and west it leaps about, avoiding neither what is high nor what is low, till it is caught in a trap, or dies in a net. 

"Again there is the Yak, so large that it is like a cloud hanging in the sky. It is large indeed, but it cannot catch mice. 

"You, Sir, have a large tree and are troubled because it is of no use—why do you not plant it in a tract where there is nothing else, or in a wide and barren wild? There you might saunter idly by its side, or in the enjoyment of untroubled ease sleep beneath it. Neither bill nor axe would shorten its existence; there would be nothing to injure it. What is there in its uselessness to cause you distress?"