The Ferry Lantern
An old ferry-woman lights a lantern each night to guide returning boats; after she dies without illness, the lantern lights itself and boats still find their way. A youth lost in mist is saved by the light and finds only her grave at dawn.
On the bank of the Xunyang River there was a ferry; at its mouth an old woman, surname Tao, whose husband died young and who had no son, kept the ferry for decades, hanging a lantern on a pole each night to light the returning boats to the shore. The woman was kindly; wind or snow, she never ceased, and many boatmen owed their lives to her.
Past eighty, the woman died without illness. After her death, the lantern at the ferry lit itself, night after night as when she lived; though no one lit it, the flame did not go out. Boatmen crossing at night, seeing the lantern, were at peace, saying: Granny Tao still lights the way for us.
A youth once crossed at night and, in the mist, nearly struck a reef; seeing the lantern's bright place he hurried toward it and was spared. At dawn he looked: the lantern hung on an empty pole, beneath it no house, only an old grave, the stone reading Tao.
The villagers, moved by her virtue, repaired her grave and sacrificed to her each year. From then, those who crossed the river's heart by night, though lost in mist, were never bewildered, all saying Granny Tao's lantern led them.
The Chronicler of the Strange says: Granny Tao's single lantern lit the returning boats on stormy nights; in life it succored men, in death it did not cease — was it the lantern's brightness? It was the woman's kindly heart that did not go out. The world has many a lamp lit for self-interest, lighting oneself but not another; the woman alone lit a lantern for all passers-by, and though she left the world her light did not change. The lantern hangs at an old grave, yet lights ten thousand li — the brightness of the heart lies not in the oil, not in the fire, but in a single thought of kindness. Look upon the ferry lantern, and you may know humanity.