There was the deformed hunchback Shû. His chin seemed to hide his navel; his shoulders were higher than the crown of his head; the knot of his hair pointed to the sky; his five viscera were all compressed into the upper part of his body, and his two thigh bones were like ribs.
By sharpening needles and washing clothes he was able to make a living. By sifting rice and cleaning it, he was able to support ten individuals.
When the government was calling out soldiers, this poor Shû would bare his arms among the others; when it had any great service to be undertaken, because of his constant ailments, none of the work was assigned to him; when it was giving out grain to the sick, he received three kung, and ten bundles of firewood.
If this poor man, so deformed in body, was still able to support himself, and complete his term of life, how much more may they do so, whose deformity is that of their faculties!
IMAGE: Jacques Callot, The Hunchback With a Cane (c. 1622)
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