Liu Bei — The Emperor Who Kept Running Away

The Mat Seller with a Big Mouth

"Your father has little virtue. Do not copy him."

A father, gravely ill, wrote these words to his seventeen-year-old son.

Not many fathers tell their sons not to follow their example.

The writer was Liu Bei. In the age when China split into three warring kingdoms, he founded the kingdom of Shu and even became its emperor.

Why did he write that? The story goes back about fifty years.

In Zhuo Commandery in the north, Liu Bei lost his father when he was small. He and his mother made a living selling shoes and weaving straw mats. So says the history Records of the Three Kingdoms, put together by a man named Chen Shou some decades after Liu Bei's death.

In the southeast corner of the house, a mulberry tree rose high above the fence. From a distance it looked round and thick, like the canopy of a small carriage.

Everyone who passed wondered about it. It was no ordinary tree. Some even said an important man would come out of this house.

According to a later book, the Han Jin Chun Qiu, the boy Liu Bei was playing under that tree with the children of his relatives, and he said:

"Someday I will ride in a carriage with a feather canopy like this one."

A feather canopy is a carriage cover decorated with bird feathers. It was the sign of an emperor's carriage.

His uncle, Liu Zijing, scolded him.

"Don't talk nonsense. You'll get our whole clan wiped out."

When he turned fifteen, his mother sent him off to study. His teacher was Lu Zhi, who came from the same commandery and had once been governor of Jiujiang.

The money for school came from a relative, Liu Yuanqi. He always paid the same amount for Liu Bei as for his own son.

Yuanqi's wife was not happy. The Records of the Three Kingdoms has the talk between husband and wife.

"They are separate families. Why do you keep doing this?"

"Our clan has this boy. He is no ordinary person."

But Liu Bei himself did not much like reading. What he liked were dogs, horses, music, and fine clothes.

He was tall. When he let his arms hang, his hands reached below his knees. It is also written that he could turn his head and see his own ears.

He said little and was humble toward others. He showed neither joy nor anger on his face.

Even so, he liked the company of men proud of their fighting skill, and young men fought to follow him. Rich horse dealers who traveled around saw that this young man was no ordinary fellow, and gave him plenty of money. With it, Liu Bei gathered followers.

Among them were Guan Yu, who had run away from his home village and come to Zhuo, and Zhang Fei, a local man. The two served as Liu Bei's bodyguards.

In later stories, the three swore brotherhood in a peach garden. But the Records of the Three Kingdoms has no such scene.

What it does say is that the three slept in the same bed and were as close as brothers. And at big gatherings, the two stood beside Liu Bei all day long.

In 184, a great rebellion broke out, led by the Yellow Turbans. Liu Bei led his followers to join the fight against them. He won merit and became the commandant of Anxi County, the county's police officer.

About the time before he became commandant, another record, the Dianlue, tells this too. Liu Bei met bandits out in the fields and was wounded, so he pretended to be dead. After the bandits left, an old acquaintance carried him away in a cart, and he lived.

One day, an inspector arrived from the commandery. He was an official who toured the county offices and checked on the men who worked there.

Liu Bei asked to see him. He was not let in.

So he walked right in, tied the inspector up, and beat him two hundred times with a stick.

Then he untied the cord of his seal of office, the braided cord from which an official's seal hangs, put it around the inspector's neck, and tied him to a post for hitching horses.

This is what a man did, of whom it was written that he never showed joy or anger on his face.

The Dianlue also gives the reason. An order had gone out to cut down the men who had become officials through war merit, and Liu Bei thought he would be dropped too. The inspector said he was ill and would not see him. Liu Bei hated him for it. He said he had a secret order from the governor, seized the inspector, tied him to a tree, and beat him over a hundred times, meaning to kill him. The inspector begged for his life, and Liu Bei let him go, it is said.

Liu Bei gave up his post as an official and ran away.

The Day He Dropped His Chopsticks

"Only Liu Bei can bring peace to this province."

Some years after he threw away his post and ran, the governor of Xuzhou lay gravely ill. He left these words, the Records of the Three Kingdoms says.

A man who had thrown away his post and run was about to be handed a whole large province.

Liu Bei did not want to accept. He said:

"Yuan Shu is close by. His family produced five ministers in four generations. Give the province to him."

Everyone around him objected. Kong Rong, the governor of Beihai, said:

"Yuan Shu is dry bones in a grave. Pay him no mind. If you do not take what Heaven gives, you will regret it later and never get it back."

At last Liu Bei took Xuzhou.

But he did not hold that province for long.

In 196, he spent about a month in a standoff with that same Yuan Shu. While he was away, a warlord named Lü Bu took his empty city, Xiapi. Liu Bei's wife and child were captured by Lü Bu.

His army was in deep trouble. Then a man named Mi Zhu reached out a hand.

Mi Zhu offered his own sister to Liu Bei as a wife, and gave two thousand servants and gold and silver to help the army. With this, the army that had been so hard pressed got back on its feet, the Records of the Three Kingdoms says.

Even so, it was not enough. According to a later record, the Yingxiong Ji (Records of Heroes), at Guangling Liu Bei's army went hungry, and officials and soldiers, from top to bottom, were driven to eating one another.

Liu Bei sent a messenger to Lü Bu to ask for terms and surrender. To the very man who had taken his city and his family.

Lü Bu sent Liu Bei's wife and child back, the same book says.

About two years later, Lü Bu attacked Liu Bei again, and this time Liu Bei fled to Cao Cao. His wife and child were captured by Lü Bu once more.

Cao Cao treated Liu Bei very well. Together they brought down Lü Bu, and Liu Bei got his family back. When they returned to the capital, Xu (later called Xuchang), Cao Cao rode in the same carriage as Liu Bei whenever he went out, and sat on the same mat whenever he sat down.

In those days, a secret plan was moving in the capital.

A relative of the emperor said he had received a secret edict, a private order from the emperor, hidden in the belt of the emperor's robe. He was plotting to strike down Cao Cao. Liu Bei had joined the talks, though he had not done anything yet.

Then one day, Cao Cao said to Liu Bei, in an offhand way:

"Today, the only heroes in the land are you and me. Someone like Yuan Shao does not even count."

Liu Bei happened to be eating. He dropped his spoon and chopsticks.

A man who had joined a plot against Cao Cao had just been told by Cao Cao himself that he was one of only two heroes in the land.

The Records of the Three Kingdoms tells it only this far. A later book, the Huayang Guozhi (Chronicles of Huayang), says that thunder happened to crack at that moment. Liu Bei is said to have told Cao Cao:

"The sage said that a fierce thunderclap or a strong wind must always change a man's face. How true. I never knew one thunderclap could be this strong."

Stories from even later added green plums and wine to this scene, and made it a famous one.

Soon after, Liu Bei was given the job of going out to meet Yuan Shu, and left Xu. Then he killed the governor in Xuzhou and turned against Cao Cao.

The plot in the capital was exposed in the first month of 200. The men in the plot were killed, clans and all. Liu Bei was no longer in the capital.

That same year, Cao Cao came to attack Liu Bei at the head of his own army.

According to a later record, the Wei Shu (Book of Wei), Liu Bei did not believe it at first. Cao Cao was locked in a standoff with Yuan Shao in the north. He could not possibly come here.

When a scout on horseback galloped in to say Cao Cao had come in person, Liu Bei still did not believe it. He took only a few dozen riders and went out to see for himself.

He saw the banners of Cao Cao's army.

Liu Bei ran, just like that, and left his troops behind, the book says.

Cao Cao took all the soldiers who were left, and captured Liu Bei's wife and child.

Guan Yu was taken alive too, and led away.

The Fat on His Thighs

Cao Cao made his captive Guan Yu a general and treated him very well.

In Cao Cao's army, Guan Yu won merit by cutting down Yan Liang, a top general of Yuan Shao.

But Cao Cao saw that Guan Yu's heart did not mean to stay here long. He had his officer Zhang Liao ask what Guan Yu felt. Guan Yu sighed and answered, the Records of the Three Kingdoms says:

"I know well how kindly Lord Cao treats me. But I received deep kindness from General Liu, and we swore to die together. I cannot betray him. I will not stay here. When I have won merit and repaid Lord Cao, I will leave."

After Guan Yu cut down Yan Liang, Cao Cao heard that he would leave, and piled on still more rewards. Guan Yu sealed up every gift he had been given and left it behind. He handed in a letter of farewell and went off to Liu Bei, who was with Yuan Shao's army.

When his officers wanted to chase him, Cao Cao said:

"He is doing this for his own lord, as each of us does. Do not chase him."

To a man who had lost his army, his wife, and his child, Guan Yu had come back.

In time Cao Cao beat Yuan Shao and came south. Liu Bei turned for help to Liu Biao, who governed Jingzhou in the south.

Liu Biao went out of the city himself to welcome Liu Bei, treated him as the most honored guest, added soldiers to his force, and stationed him in a town called Xinye. But able men from all over Jingzhou gathered around Liu Bei day by day. Liu Biao began to doubt Liu Bei's heart and quietly kept his guard up.

Liu Bei was a guest in a foreign land. Several years passed in Jingzhou.

One day, an incident is told in a book called the Jiuzhou Chunqiu. At Liu Biao's table, Liu Bei got up to use the toilet. There he noticed that fat had grown on the inside of his thighs.

Liu Bei wept, it is said.

When he came back to his seat, Liu Biao wondered about it and asked why. Liu Bei answered:

"I was always on my horse, never off the saddle, and the fat on my thighs wore away. Now I do not ride, so the fat has come back. The days and months race by, old age is coming, and I have done nothing. That is what makes me sad."

In his forties. A guest in other men's houses, with fat growing on his thighs.

About that time, a man named Xu Shu recommended someone to Liu Bei.

"Zhuge Kongming is a sleeping dragon. Wouldn't you like to meet him?"

A sleeping dragon is a dragon still lying low on the ground. It means a great man who has not yet come out into the world. Liu Bei said, bring him here. Xu Shu answered:

"You can go to see this man, but you cannot summon him. General, you should go yourself."

Liu Bei went. The Records of the Three Kingdoms says that he finally met him on the third visit.

In later stories, on the third visit Kongming was taking a nap, and Liu Bei stood waiting at the foot of the steps until he woke up. But all the Records of the Three Kingdoms has is a single line: he went three times and met him.

About twenty years later, Kongming himself wrote about that time.

"The late emperor did not think me lowly. He lowered himself, and three times he came to my thatched hut and asked me about the affairs of the world."

The late emperor means Liu Bei. Kongming's name was Zhuge Liang. At that time he lived by plowing his own fields, and had never held any post.

Liu Bei grew closer to this man day by day. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei did not like it. Liu Bei calmed them and said:

"For me to have Kongming is like a fish having water. Please say no more."

After that, the two said nothing.

In 208, Liu Biao died, and his son Liu Cong, who took his place, surrendered to Cao Cao. Liu Bei knew nothing. He noticed only when Cao Cao's army was already close.

Kongming urged him to attack Liu Cong and take Jingzhou. Liu Bei said:

"I cannot do it."

As Liu Bei fled south, the people of Jingzhou followed him one after another. By the time he reached Dangyang, there were over a hundred thousand of them, with several thousand carts. They could go only about ten li (about four kilometers) a day.

Someone said he should hurry to Jiangling and defend the city. There were many people, but few soldiers in armor. How would he hold off Cao Cao's men when they came?

Liu Bei answered:

"To do something great, you must put people first. Now people have come to me for help. How could I abandon them?"

Cao Cao's five thousand riders had covered three hundred li (over 120 kilometers) in a day and a night, and were chasing him.

The Child He Left Behind

Cao Cao feared that Liu Bei would take the weapons and food stored at Jiangling in the south. He threw away his heavy baggage and hurried with light gear, and when he heard Liu Bei had gone past, he chased him with five thousand picked riders.

The riders caught up with him at Changban, in Dangyang.

The Records of the Three Kingdoms tells it very briefly.

Liu Bei abandoned his wife and child, and fled with Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, and a few dozen riders.

This was the man who had just said, how could I abandon them?

The people who had followed him and all their baggage fell into Cao Cao's hands in one great haul.

He was also a man who had twice before won back a wife and child who had been captured.

The rear guard, the post at the very back of a fleeing army that holds off the chasers, was given to Zhang Fei. He had only twenty riders.

Zhang Fei put the river at his back, broke the bridge, glared with wide eyes, and held his spear crosswise. He shouted:

"I am Zhang Yide. Come on. Let's fight to the death!"

No enemy would come near. Thanks to this, Liu Bei got away.

On the run, someone reported that Zhao Yun had gone north. North was where Cao Cao's army was. According to a later work, the Zhao Yun Bie Zhuan (Separate Biography of Zhao Yun), Liu Bei threw the short halberd in his hand at the man, a short spear that could also be thrown.

"Zilong would never abandon me and run."

Zilong was Zhao Yun's courtesy name. A man who had abandoned his wife and child and run away said this.

After a while, Zhao Yun arrived, the same book says.

The Records of the Three Kingdoms itself says this. Zhao Yun held the small child against his own body and protected the child's mother, Lady Gan, and saved them both.

The child's name was Shan. He was a baby born just the year before. The one who would take over his father's place later.

After this battle, some people left Liu Bei. One was Xu Shu.

Cao Cao's army had captured his mother. Xu Shu said goodbye to Liu Bei, pointing at his own chest:

"I meant to do great things with you, General, because of the heart in this chest. Now I have lost my aged mother, and the heart in this chest is in pieces. I can no longer be of use to you. I take my leave here."

Xu Shu went to Cao Cao.

At Dangyang, where Liu Bei had barely escaped, a man came to meet him. He was Lu Su, the envoy of Sun Quan, who held the lower Yangtze. A book called the Jiangbiao Zhuan tells of their exchange.

"Lord of Yuzhou, where do you plan to go from here?"

The name Yuzhou came from the post as governor of Yuzhou that Liu Bei had been given earlier.

"I am an old friend of Wu Ju, governor of Cangwu, so I plan to rely on him."

Cangwu was a commandery far to the south, at the edge of the land.

Lu Su said that Wu Ju was an ordinary man in a distant, remote commandery. Someone would swallow him up before long. Better to join hands with Sun Quan.

Liu Bei was overjoyed, it is said.

This happened at Dangyang, where he had run and left his wife and child.

On Lu Su's advice, Liu Bei joined hands with Sun Quan and went on to Fankou, by the river, to wait for Sun Quan's army.

The Jiangbiao Zhuan writes about that time this way. Liu Bei heard that Cao Cao's army was coming down the river, and he was afraid. Every day he sent lookouts to the riverbank to wait for Sun Quan's army.

A lookout spotted Zhou Yu's ships and came running back. Liu Bei asked, "How do you know they are not soldiers from Qingzhou or Xuzhou?" Those were Cao Cao's men. The lookout answered, "We know by the ships."

Liu Bei went to see Zhou Yu in one small boat and asked, "How many soldiers can fight?" "Thirty thousand." "That is too few, I am sorry to say." Zhou Yu said, "It is enough. Lord of Yuzhou, please watch me beat them."

Even so, Liu Bei could not believe that Zhou Yu would surely win. On purpose, he stayed back, keeping apart from Zhou Yu with only Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and two thousand soldiers.

The later historian Sun Sheng doubted this story, calling it a flourish to praise Wu's merit. But this is how the Jiangbiao Zhuan writes of Liu Bei at that moment.

If Zhou Yu won, they would advance. If he lost, they would pull back. That was what the preparation was for.

A Man of Good Faith

That winter, Liu Bei joined forces with Sun Quan's army and beat Cao Cao's huge fleet at Red Cliff, burning his ships.

Liu Bei took the southern part of Jingzhou, and Sun Quan gave him his own sister as a wife.

This sister was quite a person. She was quick-minded and fierce in spirit, just like her brothers. The hundred or so maids who served her all stood holding swords.

Every time Liu Bei entered his wife's room, his heart went cold, the Records of the Three Kingdoms says.

About that time, an invitation came from Sun Quan. Let us take Yizhou in the west, the land of Shu, together.

According to the main text of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei followed the plan of his retainer Yin Guan. He would agree on the surface, and then answer that the commanderies he had newly taken were not yet settled and he could not move. Sun Quan dropped the plan.

A later book, the Xiandi Chunqiu, tells a stronger story. Liu Bei meant to take Shu himself. He would not let Sun Quan's navy pass, and said this to Sun Yu, who had come leading it:

"If you take Shu, I will let my hair down, go into the mountains, and live as a hermit. I will not lose my good faith before the world."

It means giving up the world and hiding in the mountains.

In 211, a messenger came from Liu Zhang, the governor of that Yizhou. He was of the same Liu clan as Liu Bei. He asked for help against an enemy in Hanzhong in the north.

Liu Bei left Jingzhou to Zhuge Liang and Guan Yu, and entered Yizhou with tens of thousands of soldiers. At the town of Fu, Liu Zhang came out to meet him in person, and the two were overjoyed to meet.

At this time, his strategist Pang Tong advised him. If you seize Liu Zhang at this gathering, you will get the province without a fight.

Liu Bei answered, "I have only just entered another man's land, and my kindness and good name have not yet spread. I cannot do it."

At Fu, a grand banquet was held. The Records of the Three Kingdoms preserves what happened there.

Enjoying the wine, Liu Bei said to Pang Tong, "Today's gathering was a happy one, I think."

Pang Tong answered, "To attack another man's land and then be glad of it is not the war of a man of virtue."

Liu Bei was drunk. He said angrily:

"When King Wu of Zhou defeated King Zhou of Yin, they say he sang in front of his army and had it dance behind. Was he not a man of virtue? What you say is wrong. Get out."

It is a story of an old sage king defeating a wicked king. Pang Tong hesitated and withdrew.

Liu Bei regretted it at once. He had Pang Tong called back.

Pang Tong returned to his seat. He did not apologize. He ate and drank as if nothing had happened.

Liu Bei asked, "Back there, in our quarrel, which of us was wrong?"

Pang Tong answered, "My lord and I, both of us."

Liu Bei burst out laughing, and the banquet went on happily as before.

The next year, the break with Liu Zhang came. Liu Bei accused Liu Zhang's generals of rudeness, had them cut down, and turned his troops on Liu Zhang.

When Liu Bei began his attack on Shu, some of Cao Cao's old officials said this, according to the later Fuzi:

"Liu Bei will not succeed. He is poor at war, loses every time he fights, and is busy running away. How could he take another man's land?"

Another man is said to have said, "Liu Bei is generous and has a wide heart. He can make men work for him at the risk of their lives."

While Liu Bei was besieging the city of Luo, Pang Tong was hit by a stray arrow and died. He was thirty-six. Whenever Pang Tong came up in conversation, Liu Bei shed tears.

In the summer of 214, Liu Zhang surrendered, and Liu Bei took Yizhou. It was a few years after he was said to have promised to let down his hair and go into the mountains.

Liu Bei had an old friend, Jian Yong. Even in front of Liu Bei, he stretched out his legs and leaned on things, and did as he pleased.

In a drought year, making liquor was once forbidden. Officials searched homes, and it was proposed to give the same punishment even to people who were only found with liquor-making tools.

Jian Yong was out walking with Liu Bei and saw a man and a woman on the road. He said, "Those two are about to do something indecent. Why don't you tie them up?"

"How do you know?"

"They have the tools for it. It is the same as a man who is going to make liquor."

Liu Bei laughed loudly and pardoned the people who had only been holding tools.

In time, Liu Bei fought Cao Cao's army in Hanzhong in the north. What happened then is told this way.

The battle was going badly, and it was time to pull back, but Liu Bei was angry and would not retreat. No one could stop him. Arrows were falling like rain. Then Fa Zheng stepped forward and stood in front of Liu Bei.

"Xiaozhi, dodge the arrows!"

Xiaozhi was Fa Zheng's courtesy name.

"My lord is taking arrows and stones himself. For a man like me, all the more."

"Xiaozhi, you and I will pull back together."

A man who had done little but run away would not retreat this time.

The battle of Hanzhong ended in Liu Bei's victory. When Cao Cao heard it was Fa Zheng's plan, he said this, according to the Records of the Three Kingdoms: "I knew it. Xuande could never have made such a plan himself. Someone taught him." Xuande was Liu Bei's courtesy name.

In the winter of the same year, Guan Yu, who was guarding Jingzhou, was hit from behind by Sun Quan's army.

Guan Yu was cut down at a place called Linju.

Do Not Copy Me

Guan Yu fell partly because his own side betrayed him. Mi Fang, who had been guarding Jingzhou with Guan Yu, went over to Sun Quan. Mi Fang was the younger brother of that Mi Zhu.

Mi Zhu tied himself up and came before Liu Bei to ask for punishment. Liu Bei comforted him, saying that one brother's crime does not reach another, and treated him as warmly as before.

Out of shame and anguish, Mi Zhu fell ill and died in a little over a year.

Around the same time, Fa Zheng died too. He was forty-five. Liu Bei wept for days.

In the fourth month of 221, Liu Bei took the throne as emperor at Chengdu. The announcement he made to the gods of Heaven said:

"I have little virtue, and I fear I will stain the imperial seat."

This is a set phrase of modesty used on such occasions. Perhaps a retainer wrote it.

In the sixth month of that year, Zhang Fei was killed by his own men.

Liu Bei had always warned Zhang Fei. According to the Records of the Three Kingdoms, he used to say:

"You go too far in punishing and killing. On top of that, you whip your soldiers every day and then keep them at your side. That is a way to invite disaster."

Zhang Fei did not change.

A message came from the commander of Zhang Fei's camp. Liu Bei had only heard that a message had come from the commander, and he said:

"Ah. Fei is dead."

In the seventh month, Liu Bei led his army east himself to attack Sun Quan, who had killed Guan Yu. Even when Sun Quan sent a letter asking for peace, Liu Bei was furious and refused.

Zhao Yun tried to stop him, according to the later Zhao Yun Bie Zhuan. "The enemy of the nation is Cao Cao, not Sun Quan." Liu Bei did not listen.

Fa Zheng, who was said to have stood in the rain of arrows to stop him, was gone.

In the summer of 222, the Wu general Lu Xun crushed Liu Bei's army. Generals such as Feng Xi and Zhang Nan died in battle, and Ma Liang was killed too.

Liu Bei gathered his scattered soldiers, abandoned his boats, and went back on foot to the town of Yufu. There he changed the name Yufu to Yong'an. It means forever at peace.

Zhuge Liang sighed, it is said: "If Fa Xiaozhi were alive, he would have stopped His Majesty and not let him go east. Even if he had gone, he would not have fallen into such danger."

That winter, Sun Quan sent envoys for peace again.

This time Liu Bei agreed.

In the second month of 223, Zhuge Liang came from Chengdu. Liu Bei's illness had grown heavy.

Liu Bei asked Zhuge Liang to look after what came after him. The Records of the Three Kingdoms writes:

"Your talent is ten times that of Cao Pi. You will surely bring peace to the state and finish the great work. If my heir is worth helping, help him. If he has no talent, take the throne yourself."

Cao Pi was Cao Cao's son, the emperor of Wei. Zhuge Liang wept and answered:

"I will serve as your arms and legs and give all my strength. I will give all my loyalty, and keep on until I die."

To his son Liu Shan he left a last testament. This is the words an emperor leaves before he dies, and it has come down to us in a book called the Zhuge Liang Ji.

"At first it was only diarrhea. Then other illnesses joined in, and I do not think I can save myself."

"A man who dies at fifty is not said to die young. I am past sixty. What is there to resent? I no longer grieve for myself. I only worry about you and your brothers."

"Do not do a bad thing because it is small. Do not leave a good thing undone because it is small."

As he lay dying, Liu Bei called his son, the Prince of Lu, and said:

"When I die, you and your brothers must serve the Chancellor as you would a father. You should work together with the Chancellor."

The Chancellor is the highest minister, who helps the emperor. He meant Zhuge Liang.

In the fourth month, Liu Bei died at the Yong'an Palace. He was sixty-three by the traditional count.

That testament had more.

"Only wisdom and virtue can make others follow you. Your father has little virtue. Do not copy him."

Liu Shan, who received it, was seventeen. He was the baby his father had abandoned and run from at Changban. It was Zhao Yun who had held him and carried him out.

Liu Bei too was a child who lost his father young. The one who paid for his schooling was a relative, Liu Yuanqi. He had said, this boy is no ordinary person.

Every time he ran, there were people who had been left behind. There were also people who followed his back as he ran.

Mi Zhu, who gave his sister and his wealth. Guan Yu, who sealed up his gifts and came back. Zhang Fei, who broke the bridge, made the river his shield, and glared the enemy down. Fa Zheng, said to have stood in the rain of arrows. Zhao Yun, who held the little Liu Shan and got him out alive.

The testament ends by talking about books. Read the Book of Han and the Book of Rites. The copies the Chancellor made for you were lost on the way and never arrived. Look for them again yourself, and study.

The last letter of a man who had not much liked reading.