On Ethics and History by Zhang Xuecheng & Philip J. Ivanhoe

Author:Zhang Xuecheng & Philip J. Ivanhoe [Xuecheng, Zhang & Ivanhoe, Philip J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780804772884
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2011-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

LETTER 2

Letter on Learning to My Clansman Runan1

Autumn has arrived, and I have received your letter. You take the time to inquire at length about my present situation, which I appreciate deeply. When I stayed with Shouyi,2 I reread your last letter and was reminded of how often I have written to you about my professional and personal troubles. You really had no reason to write back. I so regret this state of affairs! As of late, my mother is getting along nicely, my brothers are writing fine works, and my sisters and their children are all well. Thank you for kindly thinking of them.

When I recall the times we were all gathered under a single roof it makes me feel isolated and lonely Now, I have only Shouyi, you, and two or three other disappointed scholars with whom I can discuss literary matters and who comfort my solitude. Now dispirited, they have departed and scattered, leaving only me, the insignificant outcast from Chang’an.3 In the pure autumn air, I fast my heart in loneliness and anxiety. The fallen leaves gathered in the courtyard increase my sense that I have betrayed my clan and wasted my life. I aspire to reach the mountains; I dream of the flowing Xiang4 and in my stillness cannot understand the source of my falling tears.

Recently I was putting in order some ancient documents and generally regretting how easily their brilliance can fade away and be lost. I began to feel like some aging beauty; my only solace was to push ahead and make every effort! I am careful and attentive in all my work, but I am nothing but a worn-out old horse, unremarkable in every respect, which I find terribly regrettable. I must keep in mind what you said about the need to find the true heart of what one is reading. When I go over the fortifying and edifying points of the pleasant conversations we had in days past, my joy is truly overwhelming. And yet such thoughts also cause me to sigh.

I think about how sickly I was as a youth. In a given year, figuring up my accumulated, insignificant efforts, they would in general not total two full months of work. By nature I was dull, and on any day that I would recite more than a hundred words, my illness would flare up again and I would be forced to stop. I was married at age fourteen and had yet to finish my study of the Four Books.5

I watched my father assign all of his charges the classics to study while I remained among the beginning students, much to the amusement of my classmates. At that time, I first became aware of the great principles of the classics and histories. I already had begun to take a secret delight in these and started to elucidate my own questions and doubts. Every now and then, I would have an insight that would surpass the mature opinions of adult scholars, and from this point onward my understanding gradually improved.

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