Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1885 — WISDOM OF TEE PAST. [ARTICLE]

WISDOM OF TEE PAST.

Extracts from a Book Written Fifteen Hundred Years Ago. [From the New York Graphic.] A very learned member of the Chinese Embassy ht Washington is the possessor of a book of great antiquity and of almost priceless value. He believes that it was written more than fifteen centuries ago, and that it was at that time copied from a still older manuscript—so old, in fact, that Noah might have had it with him in the Ark. This learned and genial diplomatist has, during his leisure moments, amused himself by translating into English certain portions of this venerable manuscript, which appears to be a compound of history, political rules, and observations upon the social relations of life. These observations display a deep insight into human nature, and a very keen perception of the weakness, as well as the strength of mankind. A number of these translated passages have been kindly sent to ns by the courteous and erudite possessor of this valuable and unique work. Here are some of them: If one purposes to be very much in love with his wife, let him marry a virgin and not a widow. For if he marries a widow, especially if she be sweet in disposition, loving, amiable, and passionate, the more he loves her the more unhappy he will be by reason of his reflections upon the past; upon what happened before he wedded her, and when she was the wife of her first- husband. In what otherwise would be his most happy moments, these disquieting reflections will obtrude themselves; and the more lovely is his wife, and the more affection she bestows upon him, the more bitter will be his regret that the same loveliness and the same affection were once the possession of another. This is the manner in which a man’s heart is made—he is intensely jealous and selfish. In the bestowal of rewards by a ruler for past services in war or in the civil service, the ruler should not expect gratitude on the part of a recipient. However great the reward may be, the recipient will think that it is but the payment of a debt, and often that the payment is not aqeduate. The selfesteem"bf a" man is always greater than the estimate of his worth formed by others. An affected humility may seek to disguise this, even to the mind of the man himself—but at the bottom of his soul there will rest the belief that he has only been paid what was his due—in which case he will not feel grateful, or that he has not been paid enough, in which case, under the cloak of affected gratitude will lurk anger and a desire for revenge. All men are naturally mean and s§lfseeking. (The Chinese phrase here, our diplomatist informs us, is very inadequately rendered by the translation he has given. The phrase—chiloupillapouza omotazen zawtek lingopotzet—is not at all modern, although it is found in comparatively modern Chinese writings, those of the ; sixth century after Christ for instance. The words have a very elastic meaning—as for instance they have been construed thus: “By nature each man, like a hog, wishes to be first at the feeding trough, and to keep the other hogs away.”) The selfishness of men, however, is very different from that of women. The latter is the most intense and absorbing, and to gratify it nothing is too sacred to be sacrified. And the jealousy of woman is essentially different from that of man. She is far more egotistical. The sense of having supplanted a rival is sweet to her. A woman who has married a widower is not jealous of the dead wife, provided that her husband treats her lovingly. She is delighted by the idea that she has displaced the memory of the dead wife from the heart of the living husband, and that she now filis it. When he caresses her she does not say to herself with regret, “Thus he has caressed my predecessor,” but conscious that he has love<Tbefore, is proud that she, as she thinks, has rooted out that love, and now controls him. The essential difference between men and womeh, in their domestic relations, may also be seen in the fact that women accept and are happy under a system of polygamy, while men never have, and never will, accept a system of polyandry. (The learned Chinese philosopher was § little rash here —for he did not foresee the Oneida Community.)