To which the friend replied, “If I, not being you, cannot know what you know, it follows that you, not being a fish, cannot know in what the pleasure of fishes consists.” “Let us go back,” rejoined Chwang Tze, “to your original question. You ask me how I know in what the pleasure of fishes consists. Well, I know that I am enjoying myself over the Hao, and from this I infer that the fishes are enjoying themselves in it.”--_Autumn Floods._ Sung Yu gives us this satirical outburst about _POPULARITY_ The eagle is king of the birds; among fishes Leviathan holds the first place. Cleaving the far, crimson clouds, The eagle soars upward apace, With only the blue sky above, Into remote realms of space; But the grandeur of heaven and earth Is naught to the hedge-sparrow race. The whale through one oceans swims, To take its course through a second; While the minnow measures a puddle As the width of the sea might be reckoned. And just as with birds and fishes, Is the case, to be sure, with man. Here soars a resplendent eagle, There swims one huge leviathan: Behold the philosopher sapient, Whose fame will never grow dim; Alone in the might of his wisdom-- Can the rabble understand him? Yuan Mei, however, possessed a satiric humor so keen as to place him among the true wits. His letter to a friend might have been written today and his Cookery Notes are such as are found in our current comics. _A STANZA FOR A TOBACCO-POUCH_ DEAR FRIEND: I have received your letter of congratulation, and am much obliged. At the end of the letter, however, you mention that you have a tobacco-pouch for me, which will be forwarded upon the receipt of a stanza. But such an exchange would seem to establish a curious precedent. If for a tobacco pouch you expect in return a stanza, for a hat or a pair of boots you would demand a whole poem; while your brother might bestow a cloak or coat upon me, and believe himself entitled to an epic. At this rate, dear friend, your congratulations would become rather costly to me. Let me instruct you, on the other hand, that a man once gave a thousand yards of silk for a phrase, and another man a beautiful girl for a stanza--which makes your tobacco-pouch look like a slight inducement, does it not? Mencius forbids the taking advantage of people on the ground of one’s rank or merits. How much worse, therefore, to do so by virtue of a mere tobacco-pouch! Elegant as a tobacco-pouch may be, it is only the work of a sempstress; but my poetry, poor as it may be, is the work of my brain. The exchange would evidently be complimentary to the sempstress, and the reverse to me.