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"It is no less aptly said: 'To be born is in the course of nature, but to die is according to the decree of destiny." "That is a two-edged weapon, and the dragon may be the first to apply it." "In that case this person will fall back upon the point of the adage: 'It is better to die two years too soon than to live one year too long," replied Chang Tao.
They said that, possessing Tao, one might live on many times the common threescore years and ten; very likely there is some truth in it; it seems as if it were true at any rate, of the life of nations. China caught glimpses, and lived on and on; grew old, and reviewed her youth time and again. But normally, what do we find with these un-Taoist nations of the West?
The source of color" for 'source' we might say, the 'issuing-point' "is vision; but That which produces color never manifests to the eye. The origin of taste lies in the palate; but That which causes taste is never perceived by that sense. All these pehnomena are functions of the Principle of Inaction the inert unchanging Tao."
The situation, as Mercer understood it from what Anina told him when she returned, seemed immeasurably worse even than he had anticipated. Tao had been making the Water City the basis of his insidious propaganda, rather than the Great City, as we had supposed. He had been in constant communication by boat with his men in the Water City; and now affairs there were ripe for more drastic operations.
It is an instinct for this truth that makes Chinese poetry the marvel that it is. So the man of Tao is enriching the natural world: filling the hills with gold, putting pearls in the sea. "Can one get Tao to possess it for one's own?" asks Chwangtse; and answers himself thus: "Your very body is not your own; how then should Tao be? If my body is not my own, whose is it, pray?
I told Miela then my plan for enlisting the sympathy of the women of the Light Country and for securing the active coöperation of the girls in ridding us of the disturbing presence of these Tao emissaries. We planned that whatever we did should be in secret, so far as possible. Mercer and I talked together, while Miela consulted with Lua at length.
Beauty is Tao: it is Tao that shines in the flowers: the rose, the bluebell, the daffodil the wistaria, the chrysanthemum, the peony they are little avatars of Tao; they are little gateways into the Kingdom of God.
Tao and I sat down near one of the lights and ate together. We were served by one of the men. My guard still kept close at hand. The food was nothing more than hard pieces of baked dough and a form of sweet something like chocolate. For drink there was a hot liquid quite comparable to tea. This was served us in small metal cups with handles that seemed to be insulated from the heat.
I explained to Mercer that Tao might at any time send an expedition to invade the Light Country. "How about that car we came from earth in?" he suggested. "He could sail over in that, couldn't he if he should want to come over here?" I knew that was not feasible.
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