Tsz-lu was averse to this, and said, "You can never go, that is certain; how should you feel you must go to that person?" "Well," said the Master, "he who has invited me must surely not have done so without a sufficient reason! And if it should happen that my services were enlisted, I might create for him another East Chow--don't you think so?" Tsz-chang asked Confucius about the virtue of philanthropy. His answer was, "It is the being able to put in practice five qualities, in any place under the sun." "May I ask, please, what these are?" said the disciple. "They are," he said, "dignity, indulgence, faithfulness, earnestness, kindness. If you show dignity you will not be mocked; if you are indulgent you will win the multitude; if faithful, men will place their trust in you; if earnest, you will do something meritorious; and if kind, you will be enabled to avail yourself amply of men's services." Pih Hih sent the Master an invitation, and he showed an inclination to go. Tsz-lu (seeing this) said to him, "In former days, sir, I have heard you say, 'A superior man will not enter the society of one who does not that which is good in matters concerning himself'; and this man is in revolt, with Chung-man in his possession; if you go to him, how will the case stand?" "Yes," said the Master, "those are indeed my words; but is it not said, 'What is hard may be rubbed without being made thin,' and 'White may be stained without being made black'?--I am surely not a gourd! How am I to be strung up like that kind of thing--and live without means?" "Tsz-lu," said the Master, "you have heard of the six words with their six obfuscations?" "No," said he, "not so far." "Sit down, and I will tell you them. They are these six virtues, cared for without care for any study about them:--philanthropy, wisdom, faithfulness, straightforwardness, courage, firmness. And the six obfuscations resulting from not liking to learn about them are, respectively, these:--fatuity, mental dissipation, mischievousness, perversity, insubordination, impetuosity." "My children," said he once, "why does no one of you study the Odes?--They are adapted to rouse the mind, to assist observation, to make people sociable, to arouse virtuous indignation. They speak of duties near and far--the duty of ministering to a parent, the duty of serving one's prince; and it is from them that one becomes conversant with the names of many birds, and beasts, and plants, and trees." To his son Pih-yu he said, "Study you the Odes of Chow and the South, and those of Shau and the South. The man who studies not these is, I should say, somewhat in the position of one who stands facing a wall!" "'Etiquette demands it.' 'Etiquette demands it,' so people plead," said he; "but do not these hankerings after jewels and silks indeed demand it? Or it is, 'The study of Music requires it'--'Music requires it'; but do not these predilections for bells and drums require it?"