Once upon a time--a long time ago--there was a man in China who wanted to build a mountain. He knew what he wanted: it was a mountain nine yun (仞) high, towering over 60 feet by modern measurements. It was a great undertaking, but he toiled and he toiled with only a bamboo basket (簣) to carry his soil. Slowly a mountain began to take shape. With much sweat on his brow, the mountain grew higher and higher, steadily growing towards its predestined height with each basket of soil. Just when the man was one basket short of nine yun, he gave up. That last basket of soil never topped his mountain and the mountain remained just short of nine yun tall. 為山九仞,功虧一簣. Was it really so wrong of this man to stop?