For The Fallacy Of
Human Expectations, The Structure He Erected Fell With Him.
Great as an administrator, and successful as a soldier, Hwangti was
unfortunate in one struggle that he provoked.
At an early period of his
career, when success seemed uncertain, he found that his bitterest
opponents were men of letters, and that the literary class as a body was
hostile to his interests and person. Instead of ignoring this opposition
or seeking to overcome it by the same agency, Hwangti expressed his hatred
and contempt, not only of the literary class, but of literature itself,
and resorted to extreme measures of coercion. The writers took up the gage
of battle thrown down by the emperor, and Hwangti became the object of the
wit and abuse of every literate who could use a pencil. His birth was
aspersed. It was said that he was not a Tsin at all, that his origin was
of the humblest, and that he was a substituted child foisted on the last
of the Tsin princes. These personal attacks were accompanied by
unfavorable criticism of all his measures, and by censure where he felt
that he deserved praise. It would have been more prudent if he had shown
greater indifference and patience, for although he had the satisfaction of
triumphing by brute force over those who jeered at him, the triumph was
accomplished by an act of Vandalism, with which his name will be quite as
closely associated in history as any of the wise measures or great works
that he carried out.
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