All are good at first, but few prove themselves to be so at the last.--SHE KING, ii., Major Odes, the Tang. In serving his parents a son may remonstrate with them, but gently; when he sees that they do not incline to follow his advice he shows an increased degree of reverence, but does not abandon his purpose; and should they punish him he does not allow himself to murmur.--CONFUCIAN AN., Le Yin (ch. xviii.). The Great God has conferred on the inferior people a moral sense, compliance with which would show their nature invariably right.--SHOO KING, Announcement of T'ang (ch. ii.). Confucius said:--"There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth when the physical powers are not yet settled, he guards against lust. When he is strong and the physical powers are full of vigor, he guards against quarrelsomeness. When he is old and the animal powers are decayed, he guards against covetousness."--CONFUCIAN AN., Ke She (ch. vii.). He who stops short where stopping short is not allowable, will stop short in everything. He who behaves shabbily to those whom he ought to treat well, will behave shabbily to all.--MENCIUS, Tsin Sin (pt. i., ch. xliv.). Men are partial where they feel affection and love; partial where they despise and dislike; partial where they stand in awe and reverence; partial where they feel sorrow and compassion; partial where they are arrogant and rude. Thus it is that there are few men in the world who love and at the same time know the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate and yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred.--THE GREAT LEARNING (ch. viii.). Heaven's plan in the production of mankind is this: that they who are first informed should instruct those who are later in being informed, and they who first apprehend principles should instruct those who are slower to do so. I am one of Heaven's people who first apprehended. I will take these principles and instruct this people in them.--MENCIUS, Wan Chang (pt. i., ch. vii.). From 'The Proverbial Philosophy of Confucius': copyrighted 1895, by Forster H. Jennings; G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publishers RUFUS CHOATE (1799-1859) BY ALBERT STICKNEY [Illustration: RUFUS CHOATE] Rufus Choate, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of advocates who have appeared at the English or American bar, was one of the most remarkable products of what is ordinarily considered hard, prosaic, matter-of-fact New England. He was a man quite apart from the ordinary race of lawyers or New-Englanders. He was as different from the typical New-Englander as was Hawthorne or Emerson. He had the imagination of a poet; and to his imagination, singular as it may seem, was largely due his success in handling questions of fact before juries.