Many are the anecdotes told of the wanderings of the sage after this tragic end to his work of reformation in his native state. In some districts he was gladly welcomed; in others he was often in danger of his life. At the court of Yen, where the king questioned him much as the monarch of Lu had done, he held forth less on abstruse doctrine than on education. "Young men," he is reported to have said, "should travel and become acquainted with many lands, so as to be able to judge the customs of different nations, and the peculiar characteristics of various races. I am so penetrated by this truth," he added, "that I will not fail to put it in practice whenever I get the opportunity. I would recommend the exercises of the gymnasium to all adolescents, and the study of what are called the liberal arts: Music, civil and religious ceremonial, arithmetic, fencing, and the art (_sic_) of managing skilfully a carriage of any kind drawn by horses or oxen." To his son, who asked him if he ought to devote himself to poetry, he replied: "You will never know how to speak or write well unless you make verses." One day he met a party of hunters, and, to the great surprise of his own followers, he asked to be allowed to join them, explaining that the first inhabitants of the earth lived by the chase alone, and adding that the reason he wished to be a hunter was to impress upon those about him once more how great a respect he had for the traditions of olden times. He learnt music when very young, and found in it a rest and recreation after his arduous and varied avocations. He became, it is said, so wonderfully skilful in the art of music, that when he had once heard the work of a composer, he could draw a faithful portrait of him, bringing out alike his physical and moral characteristics, which was indeed going to the very root of the matter. As for me, I do not think it is by any means necessary to be able to perform on an instrument in order to form a very good idea of the character of such composers as Rossini, Berlioz, and Wagner, after hearing _Il Barbiere di Siviglia_, _Les Troyens_, or _Die Meistersinger_; but as for giving portraits of their personal appearance, that would truly be difficult! Confucius, who took to himself a wife at the age of nineteen, was in favour of early marriages, and placed the limit of age for a woman at twenty, and for a man at thirty. He founded his arguments on the fact that in China a boy is considered to have become a man directly he enters his twentieth year, and that as soon as a girl is fifteen the management of the house is entrusted to her during the winter, whilst in the spring, when ploughing begins, she is sent to look after the mulberry trees. At the respective ages of twenty and fifteen, a boy and girl may become the head of a family, "if," discreetly adds the sage, "the parents give permission." [Sidenote: MEANING OF THE PHŒNIX]