Emerson, Ralph Waldo
(Boston 1803-1882 Concord, Mass.) : Philosoph, Unitarier, Schriftsteller
Subjects
Index of Names : Occident
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Literature : Occident : United States of America
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Philosophy : United States of America
Chronology Entries (11)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1822-1894 |
Ralph Waldo Emerson and China. [Primärliteratur]. 1822 Wide world 3 If divine Providence shall always mix the fates of man, if good & evil must ever encamp (together) side by side then Europe must decline as Asia rises & Civilization will not be propagated but only transferred. Travellers, those missionaries of science & scholars of Observation, have in the case of China rather added to the marvel than otherwise ; a case unusual… Our forefathers believed that the East was a great empire whose simple political institutions had a recorded antiquity (trip) at least triple the (poetical) fabled period of any other ; that this nation augmented its territory with its age, incorporating all it took by the inherent virtues of its policy ; that by reason of its perfect adaptation to human wants the paternal yoke of the government embraced the densest population in the world ; that this population had for ages enjoyed all the great inventions that had recently been imparted to Europe as the Compass, the Press, & Gunpowder, that it was possessed of science unknown in Europe & that the peasants of this sunny land lived in greater luxury than the privileged order in the Western nations. This plausible tale is true in the particular but false on the whole. The Celestial Empire, - hang the Celestial Empire ! I hate Pekin. I will not drink of the waters of the Yellow Sea. Exorciso tea, celestissime, even tea. One is apt to mix up an idea of the productions of a nation in our opinion of the producers, & Tea the insignificant sop of an herb, wholly a luxury in the West, the frivolous employment of millions in the making & tens of millions in the drinking is a fit representative of China. It is useful to know the (productions) state of man in circumstances widely dissimilar. It is a help to an inference concerning our progress. 'This like getting two angles to compute a third. But I hate China. 'Tis a tawdry vase. Out upon China. Words ! Words. - 1822 Wide world 3 : Italy. We judge of the value of every portion of history by its usefulness in application to our own and other times. Can we learn from the greatness, or the disasters it recounts, how to mould our own governments, in order to ensure the benefits and avoid the faults of the nation we see? – then the history is valuable. But the annals of the Chinese monarchy could be of little comparative advantage to the European Statesman; certainly of much less, than those of the ancient European dynasties. Exactly the opposite of the great Asiatic anomaly, is Italy. I cannot accurately judge of the Chronicles of China since they are little accessible to many, and less so, to me; but from the vague knowledge we possess of that empire, and from our minute acquaintance with Italian history, we may learn this; that both are insupportably tedious from different causes. 1822 Wide world 6 But in China, as in Venice, will faction & cabal always watch to check the continuance of every administration, good or bad? 1823 But private life hath more delicate varieties, which differ in unlike circumstances ; and the barbarian in his tent by the Rhine, the Tartar burrowing in the ground, the Spartan in the humble house of the Republic, the Roman in the luxurious palace of the Emperors, the Chinese in his floating house, & the Englishman in his comfortable tenement fill up the hours of the day with very different thoughts & different actions… 1824 Poems. To-day I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze, The bald antiquity of China praise. Youth is (whatever cynic tubs pretend) The fault that boys and nations soonest mend. 1824 The theological notions of a Chinese are anomalous I trust in besotted perversity. 1824 Letter, Aug. 1824 “Friday ev.-g. Edward has just been home to say he has got a first prize for a Dissertation on China.” [Emerson, Edward. Antiquity, extent, cultivation, and present state of the Empire of China. In : Columbian centinel ; July 10, 1824]. 1824 Notebook, April 6, 1924. Indeed, the light of Confucius goes out in translation into the language of Shakespear [sic] & Bacon. The closer contemplation we condescend to bestow the more disgustful is that booby nation. The Chinese Empire enjoys precisely a Mummy's reputation, that of having preserved to a hair for 3 or 4,000 years the ugliest features in the world. I have no gift to see a meaning in the venerable vegetation of this extraordinary (nation) people. They are not tools for other nations to use. Even miserable Africa can say I have hewn the wood & drawn the water to promote the wealth & civilization of other lands. But, China, reverend dullness ! hoary ideot !, all she can say at the convocation of nations must be – 'I made the tea'. 1827 Letter to Miss Emerson, June 1827 In my frigidest moments, when I put behind me the subtler evidences, and set Christianity in the light of a piece of human history, much as Confucius or Solomon might regard it, I believe myself immortal. 1830 Journal. De Gerando I begin the Histoire Comparée des Systèmes de Philosophie par M. De Gérando. The first distinction that is made is that of Material and Work : changes, not creation. First come the Cosmogonies. Indians, Chinese, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians, have a striking sameness in them, but all these are an intellectual offspring ; no utility, mere curiosity… The rule "Do as you would be done by" is found in the "Invariable Medium" of the Chinese, but thrown into the 3d paragraph of the 3d chap. So the Invariable Milieu begins with these promising definitions. "The order established by heaven is called Nature. What is conformed to nature is called Law, the establishment of law (in the mind ?) is called Instruction." (This Invariable Milieu M. Abel Remusat has translated into French in Tome II. Des Notices des manuscrits, 1818). 1830 Journal And let him change the names, and read it in Chinese in a bazar at Pekin, and he will find it is pertinent still to the human mind. So much for the doctrine so much prosed over of pertinent preaching. 1833 Journal Well, thou navigating muse of mine ; ‘t is now the hour of Chinese inspiration, the post-tea-cuptime… 1834 Journal What more sensible than what they say of Mr. -, that he sells his splendid Chinese house and goes to live at Watertown because he cannot make a bow and pleasantly entertain the crowd of company that visit him. 1835 George Fox : lecture, delivered Febr. 26, 1835. This alleged Light, or Conscience, or Spirit, takes different names in every new receiver, but its attributes are essentially the same. Zoroaster in Persia, Confucius in China, Orpheus in Greece, Numa in Italy, Manco Capac in Peru. 1835 Journal As he taught, it seemed pleasant, the tie of principle that holds as brothers, all men, to that when a stranger comes to me from the other side the globe, Otaheitan or Chinese, to buy or sell with me, he shall have that measure from me as shall fill his mind with pleasant conviction that he has dealt with a fellow man in the deepest and dearest sense. 1835 Journal Give me one single man, and uncover for me his pleasures and pains, let me minutely and in the timbers and ground-plan study his architecture, and you may travel all round the world and visit the Chinese, the Malay, the Esquimaux and the Arab. 1835-1837 1835 ? 1837 ? Date ? Silence is absolutely necessary to the wise man. Great speeches, elaborate discourses, pieces of eloquence ought to be a language unknown to him ; his actions ought to be his language. As for me, I would never speak more. Heaven speaks ; but what language does it use to preach to men that there is a sovereign principle (which makes them to act & move) from which all things depend ; a sovereign principle which makes them to act & move ? Its motion is its language ; it reduces the seasons to their time ; it agitates nature ; it makes it produce. This silence is eloquence. Confucius. 1836 Nature. (Boston : J. Munroe and Co., 1836). Chap. 4. Language 1. Words are signs of natural facts. 2. Particular natural facts are symbols of particular spiritual facts. 3. Nature is the symbol of spirit. 1836 Journal This is the effervescence & result of all religions. This is what remains at the core of each when all forms are taken away. This is the Law of Laws, Vedas, Zoroaster, Koran, Golden Verses of Pythagoras, Bible, Confucius. 1837 Journal I read with great content the August number of the Asiatic journal. Herein is always the piquancy of the meeting of civilization and barbarism. Calcutta or Canton are twilights were Night and Day contend. A very good paper is the narrative of Lord Napier's mission to China… There stand in close contrast the brief, wise English despatches, with the mountainous nonsense of Chinese diplomacy. 1838 Journal Amna comes now into the world a slave, he comes saddled with twenty or forty centuries. Asia has arrearages & Egypt arrearages ; not to mention all the subsequent history of Europe & America. 1838 Divinity School address : delivered before the senior class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838 The sentences of the oldest time, which ejaculate this piety, are still fresh and fragrant. This thought dwelled always deepest in the minds of men in the devout and contemplative East; not alone in Palestine, where it reached its purest expression, but in Egypt, in Persia, in India, in China. Europe has always owed to oriental genius, its divine impulses. 1838 War : delivered in March, 1838 in Boston. It weaned the Scythians and Persians from some cruel and licentious practices, to a more civil way of life. It introduced the sacredness of marriage among them. It built seventy cities, and sowed the Greek customs and humane laws over Asia, and united hostile nations under one code. 1838 Literary ethics : an oration delivered before the Literary Societies of Dartmouth College, July 24, 1838. What else are churches, literatures, and empires? The new man must feel that he is new, and has not come into the world mortgaged to the opinions and usages of Europe, and Asia, and Egypt. 1838 The heart : lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple, Boson, Jan. 3, 1838. "When a daughter is born," said the Chinese Sheking, "she sleeps on the ground ; she is clothed with a wrapper ; she plays with a tile ; she is incapable either of evil or of good." [Shi jing]. 1838 Journal The heart of Christianity is the heart of all philosophy. It is the sentiment of piety which Stoic & Chinese, Mahometan & Hindoo labor to awaken. 1838 Journal In order to present the bare idea of virtue, it is necessary that we should go quite out of our circumstance & custom, else it will be instantly confounded with the poor decency & inanition, the poor ghost that wears its name in good society. Therefore it is that we fly to the pagans & use the name & relations of Socrates, of Confucius, Menu, Zoroaster ; not that these are better or as good as Jesus & Paul, but because th3ey are good algebraic terms not liable, to confusion of thought like those we habitually use. 1838 Letter, Oct. 1838, discussed the religious literature of Germany and Chinese writing. 1838 Journal The only speech will at last be action, such as Confucius describes the speech of God. 1838-1842 Early lectures, vol. 3 (1838-1842). I may even say that not only in idea of the race but in actual history the emerging of each rare individual of a finished man always speaks to us a language of admonition & Hope. That wonderful sympathy & attraction which we find in each great man by which we prefer one eminent individual to nations of Chinese & Indians what does it say but this that we have n inextinguishable conviction that the powers which he was permitted to unfold he folded in us. 1840 Thoughts on modern literature. In : Dial ; vol. 1, no 2 (Oct. 1840). When one of these grand monads is incarnated whom Nature seems to design for eternal men and draw to her bosom, we think that the old weariness of Europe and Asia, the trivial forms of daily life will now end, and a new morning break on us all. Of the perception now fast becoming a conscious fact, — that there is One Mind, and that all the powers and privileges which lie in any, lie in all; that I as a man may claim and appropriate whatever of true or fair or good or strong has anywhere been exhibited; that Moses and Confucius, Montaigne and Leibnitz are not so much individuals as they are parts of man and parts of me, and my intelligence proves them my own, — literature is far the best expression. 1840 Journal What is the State ? The Hero is the State : The Soul should legislate, Postponing still the measure to the man ; One sage outweighs all China and Japan. 1841 Essays. (Boston : J. Munroe and Co., 1841). I. History The Chinese pagoda is plainly a Tartar tent. The Indian and Egyptian temples still betray the mounds and subterranean houses of their forefathers… I believe in Eternity. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain, and the Islands, -- the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras in my own mind. IV. Spiritual laws It is a Chinese wall which any nimble Tartar can leap over. It is a standing army, not so good as a peace. It is a graduated, titled, richly appointed empire, quite superfluous when town-meetings are found to answer just as well. Can a cook, a Chiffinch, an Iachimo be mistaken for Zeno or Paul? Confucius exclaimed, -- "How can a man be concealed! How can a man be concealed!" VIII. Heroism The first step of worthiness will be to disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times, with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia, and England, so tingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. XII. Art Now that which is inevitable in the work has a higher charm than individual talent can ever give, inasmuch as the artist's pen or chisel seems to have been held and guided by a gigantic hand to inscribe a line in the history of the human race. This circumstance gives a value to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, to the Indian, Chinese, and Mexican idols, however gross and shapeless. 1841 Journal Confucius/Chinese classic : Hea Lun being just one of the many subsections into which Collie's work is divided. With his increasing acquaintance with Confucianism, he saw more wisdom and greatness in the Chinese philosopher. Confucius found himself secure in his position as one of the ethical and contemplative geniuses of the Orient whose all-embracing apophthegms are like the profound moments of heavenly life. 1841 Journal Chang Tsoo & Kee Neih retired from the state to the fields on account of misrule & showed their displeasure at Confucius who remained in the world. Confucius sighed & said ; 'I cannot associate with birds & beasts. If I follow not men whom shall I follow ? If the world were in possession of right principles, I should not seek to change it'. 1841 Journal I find an analogy also in the Asiatic sentences to this fact of life. The Oriental genius has no dramatic or epic turn, but ethical, contemplative, delights in Zoroastrian oracles, in Vedas, & Menu & Confucius. These embracing apophthegms are like these profound moments of the heavenly life. 1841 Journal All your learning of all literatures and states of society, Platonistic, Calvinistic, English or Chinese, would never enable you to anticipate one thought or expression. 1841 The Conservative : a lecture delivered at the Masonic Temple, Boston, December 9, 1841. I understand well the respect of mankind for war, because that breaks up the Chinese stagnation of society, and demonstrates the personal merits of all men. 1841 Man the reformer : a lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, January 25, 1841. The women fought like men, and conquered the Roman men. They were miserably equipped, miserably fed. They were Temperance troops. There was neither brandy nor flesh needed to feed them. They conquered Asia, and Africa, and Spain, on barley. 1842 The transcendentalist : a lecture read at the Masonic Temple, Boston, Jan. 1842. The oriental mind has always tended to this largeness. Buddhism is an expression of it. The Buddhist who thanks no man, who says, "do not flatter your benefactors," but who, in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist. 1842 Journal Naming, yes, that is the office of the newspapers of the world, these famous editors from Moses, Homer, Confucius, and so on, down to Goethe and Kant : the y name what the people already done, and the thankful people say, "Doctor, 't is a great comfort to know the disease whereof I die". 1843 Journal : The reformer (after the Chinese). Emerson supped up the Confucian idea into two paragraphs : There is a class whom I call the thieves of virtue. They are those who mock the simple & sincere endeavourers after a better way of life, & say, these are pompous talkers ; but when they come to act, they are weak, nor do they regard what they have said. These mockers are continually appealing to the ancients. And they say, Why make ourselves singular ? Let those who are born in this age, act as men of this age. – Thus they secretly obtain the flattery of the age. The inhabitants of the village & of the city, all praise them. Wherever they go they are attentive & generous. If you would blame them, there is nothing to lay hold of. They accord with prevailing customs & unite with a polluted age. They appear faithful & sincere, & act as if sober & pure. The multitude all delight in them but they confuse virtue. Chinese reformer. Chin Seang praised Heu Tsze to Mencius as a prince who taught and exemplified a righteous life. A truly virtuous prince, he added, will plough along with his people, and while he rules will cook his own food. Mencius. Does Heu Tsze sow the grain which he eats ? Seang. Yes. M. Does Heu Tsze weave cloth and then wear it ? S. No: Heu Tsze wears coarse hair-cloth. M. Does Heu Tsze wear a cap ? S. Yes. M. What sort of a cap ? S. A coarse cap. M. Does he make it himself? S. No : he gives grain in exchange for it. M. Why doesn't he make it himself? S. It would be injurious to his farming. M. Does he use earthenware in cooking his victuals, or iron utensils in tilling his farm ? S. Yes. M. Does he make them himself? S. No, he gives grain in barter for them. M. Why does not Heu Tsze act the potter, and take everything from his own shop he wants to use ? Why should he be in the confused bustle exchanging articles with the mechanics ? He is not afraid of labor, surely ? S. The work of the mechanic and that of the husbandman ought not to be united. M. Oh, then the government of the Empire and the labor of the husbandman are the only employments that ought to be united. Were every man to do all kinds of work, it would be necessary that he should first make his implements, and then use them : thus all men would constantly crowd the roads. Some men labor with their minds, and some with bodily strength. Those who labor with their strength are ruled by men. Those who are governed by others, feed others. This is a general rule under the whole heavens. [The Chinese Classical Work…, 1828, “Shang Mung”, pp. 78-79]. Mencius proceeds to instance Yu, who, after the deluge, was eight years abroad directing the opening of channels to let off the inundation into the sea, and the burning of forests and marshes to clear the land of beasts of prey, so that he had no time to go home even, but passed his own door repeatedly without entering; and asks if he had leisure for husbandry, if he had been inclined? Yu and Shun employed their whole minds in governing the Empire, yet they did not plough the fields. The antagonist urges again the leveling principles of Tsze, - saying that if these were followed, there would not be two market prices, nor any deceit in the country. Cloth of the same length would be of the same price. &c &c. Mencius replies ; Things are naturally unequal in value. Afterwards the defender of Tsze adduces for praise the (ex) behavior of Chung as an example of moderation (the highest virtue). Was not, he says Chin Chung Tsze a moderate scholar ? When in Ling, he was three days without food, till his ear heard not, nor did his eye see. On the side of the well was a Le (a sort of plum), which the Tsaou had more than half eaten : he crawled to it, attempted to eat it, &, after three efforts, managed to swallow it, after which his ear heard & his eye saw. Mencius replied ; I must consider Chung as chief among the scholar of Tsze, but I cannot deem him moderate. Were he to act up to his own principles, he ought to become an earthworm. Then he might be considered moderate. The worm above eats dry earth, & below, drinks muddy water. Was the house which Chung lived in built by Pih E (a sage) or by Taou Chih, (a robber some say) ? Was the grain he eat sown by Pih E. or by Taou Chih ? This he could not know. What (injury) harm can be in that ? said the other. He made shoes, & his wife prepared hemp, & gave these in exchange for food. Chung's brother had ten thousand chung of salary. He deemed it unjust, & would not eat of it. He considered his brother's house unjust, & would not live in it. He avoided his (mother) brother, left his mother, & dwelt in Woo Ling. Having afterwards returned, some one presented a live goose to his brother, on seeing which he gathered up his brows, & said, Why use that crackling thing ? Another day his mother killed this same goose, & gave it him to eat. His brother happening to come in, said, 'You are eating the flesh of that cackling thing'. On which he went out, & spewed out what he had eaten. Had he become an earthworm, then would he have acted up to his own tenets ? Yang taught that we should love ourselves only, Mih taught that we should love all men alike. Confucius taught the law of the Golden Mean, Tsze taught not to be dependent on any other. 1843 Letter to Margaret Fuller, June 1843. I have the best of Chinese Confucian books lately, an octavo published at Malacca, in English. Much of it is th4e old Confucius more fully rendered ; but the book of Mencius is fully new to me, and in its quiet sunshine a dangerous foil to Carlyle's stormlights. 1843 Journal There is nothing in history to parallel the influence of Jesus Christ. The Chinese books say of Wen Wang on of their kings "From the west from the east from the south from the north there was not one thought not brought in subjection to him". This can be more truly said of Jesus than of any mortal. 1843 Journal. The Chinese are as wonderful for their etiquette as the Hebrews for their piety. 1843 Journal My Chinese book does not forget to record of Confucius, that his nightgown was one length and a half of his body. 1843 Journal Chinese reformer ; Mencius ; Gonzalo's Kingdom. 1844 Essays : second series. (Boston : J. Munroe and Co., 1844). New England reformers (Lecture at Amory Hall) II. Experience The Chinese Mencius has not been the least successful in his generalization. "I fully understand language," he said, "and nourish well my vast-flowing vigor." -- "I beg to ask what you call vast-flowing vigor?" -- said his companion. "The explanation," replied Mencius, "is difficult. This vigor is supremely great, and in the highest degree unbending. Nourish it correctly, and do it no injury, and it will fill up the vacancy between heaven and earth. This vigor accords with and assists justice and reason, and leaves no hunger (or deficiency)." - III. Character The virtuous prince confronts the gods, without any misgiving. He waits a hundred ages till a sage comes, and does not doubt. He who confronts the gods, without any misgiving, knows heaven ; he who waits a hundred ages until a sage comes, without doubting, know men. Hence the virtuous prince moves and for ages shows empire the way. [Mencius]. Confucius said one day to Ke Kang: "Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it." Ke Kang, distressed about the number of thieves in the state, inquired of Confucius how to do away with them. Confucius said, "If you, sir, were not covetous, although you should reward them to do it, they would not steal." A completed nation will not import its religion. Duty grows everywhere, like children, like grass ; and we need not go to Europe or to Asia to learn it… I find it more credible, since it is anterior information, that one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that so many men should know the world… The sentiment, of course, is the judge and measure of every expression of it, - measures Judaism, Stoicism, Christianity, Buddhism, or whatever philanthropy, or politics, or saint, or seer pretends to speak in its name… Men may well come together to kindle each other to virtuous living. Confucius said, "If in the morning I hear of the right way, and in the evening lie, I can be happy." IV. Manners It is easy to push this deference to a Chinese etiquette; but coolness and absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities. A gentleman makes no noise: a lady is serene. 1844 Emancipation in the British West Indies : address delivered in concord on the anniversary of the emancipation of the negroes, in the British West Indies, Aug. 1, 1844. That of Asia Minor in poetry, music and arts ; that of Palestine in piety ; that of Rome in military arts and virtues, exalted by a prodigious magnanimity ; that of China and Japan in the last exaggeration of decorum and etiquette. 1844 The young American : a lecture read before the Mercantile Library Association, Boston, February 7, 1844. Public gardens, on the scale of such plantations in Europe and Asia, are now unknown to us. 1845 Journal. Yes ; but Confucius. Confucius, glory of the nations. Confucius, sage of the Absolute East, was a middle man. He is the Washington of philosophy, the Moderator, the Meden agan of modern history. 1845 Journal I should say again that the East loved infinity, & the West delighted in boundaries. 1846 Poems : Monadnoc Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart, Asia's rancor, Athens' art, Slowsure Britain's secular might, And the German's inward sight… Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born. Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race.. 1847 Journal Crier, call Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Proclus, Plotinus, Spinoza, Confucius and Menu, Kepler, Friar Bacon. 1848 Journal To me it looks as if a wise Frenchman should say to his country, Leave Pland and China and Oregon to themselves. 1850 Representative men : seven lecture. (Boston : Phillips, Sampson and Co., 1850). Uses of great men. We cannot read Plutarch without a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: "A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages. When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering, determined." Our colossal theologies of Judaism, Christism, Buddhism, Mahometism, are the necessary and structural action of the human mind. Plato ; or, the philosopher. The mind of Plato is not to be exhibited by a Chinese catalogue, but is to be apprehended by an original mind in the exercise of its original power. In him the freest abandonment is united with the precision of a geometer… Such is the history of Europe, in all points; and such in philosophy. Its early records, almost perished, are of the immigrations from Asia, bringing with them the dreams of barbarians; a confusion of crude notions of morals and of natural philosophy, gradually subsiding through the partial insight of single teachers… The unity of Asia and the detail of Europe ; the infinitude of the Asiatic soul and the defining, result-loving, machine-making, surface-seeking, opera-going Europe – Plato came to join, and, by contact, to enhance the energy of each. 1851 The fugitive slave law : address to citizens of Concord, 3 May, 1851. Europe is little compared with Asia and Africa ; yet Asia and Africa are its ox and its ass. Europe, the least of all the continents, has almost monopolized for twenty centuries the genius and power of them all. 1852 Journal In Massachusetts, every twelfth man is a shoemaker ; tea-plant for China ; oranges for Spain ; coal for England ; wheat for Canada. 1855 Woman : a lecture read before the Woman's rights convention, Boston, Sept. 20, 1855. The action of society is progressive. In barbarous society the position of women is always low - in the Eastern nations lower than in the West. "When a daughter is born," says the Shiking, the old Sacred Book of China," she sleeps on the ground, she is clothed with a wrap-per, she plays with a tile ; she is incapable of evil or of good." And something like that position, in all low society, is the position of woman ; because, as before remarked, she is herself its civilizer. 1855 Journal Connais les ceremonies. Si tu en pénètres le sens, tu gouverneras un royaume avec la même facilité que tu regards dans ta main. Confucius. 1855 Journal Confucius on ceremony. 1855 Journal Shake off from your shoes the dust of Europe and Asia. 1856 English traits. (Boston : Phillips, Sampson, and Co., 1856). III. Land The Russian in his snows is aiming to be English. The Turk and Chinese also are making awkward efforts to be English… As America, Europe, and Asia lie, these Britons have precisely the best commercial position in the whole planet, and are sure of a market for all the goods they can manufacture. V. Ability The English trade does not exist for the exportation of native products, but on its manufactures, or the making well every thing which is ill made elsewhere. They make ponchos for the Mexican, bandannas for the Hindoo, ginseng for the Chinese, beads for the Indian, laces for the Flemings, telescopes for astronomers, cannons for kings. IX. Cockayne The same insular limitation pinches his foreign politics. He sticks to his traditions and usages, and, so help him God! he will force his island by-laws down the throat of great countries, like India, China, Canada, Australia, and not only so, but impose Wapping on the Congress of Vienna, and trample down all nationalities with his taxed boots… I suppose that all men of English blood in America, Europe, or Asia, have a secret feeling of joy that they are not French natives. XVI Stonehenge. For the science, he had, if possible, even less tolerance, and compared the savans of Somerset House to the boy who asked Confucius "how many stars in the sky?" Confucius replied, "he minded things near him:" then said the boy, "how many hairs are there in your eyebrows?" Confucius said, "he didn't know and didn't care." [Zitat von Thomas Carlyle]. 1856 Journal But the others (those wise hermits), who speak from their thought, speak from the deep heart of men, from a far wide public, the public of all sane and good men, from a broad humanity : and Greek and Syrian, Parthian and Chinese, Cherokee and Kanaka, hear them speaking in their own tongue. 1856 Journal Well, in England and in America there is the widest difference of altitude between the culture of their scholars and that of the Germans, and here are in America a nation of Germans living with the Organon of Hegel in their hands, which makes the discoveries and thinking of the English and American look of a Chinese narrowness, and yet, good easy dunces that we are, we never suspect our inferiority. 1859 Well, when India was explored, and the wonderful riches of Indian theologie literature found, that dispelled once for all the dream about Christinanity being the sole revelation, - for, here in India, there in China, were the same principles, the same grandeurs, the like depths, moral and intellectual. 1859 Art and criticism : lecture 13 April 1859 at the Music Hall Boston. The Chinese have got on so long with their solitary Confucius and Mencius ; the Arabs with their Mahomet; the Scandinavians with their Snorre Sturleson; and if the English island had been larger and the Straits of Dover wider, to keep it at pleasure a little out of the imbroglio of Europe, they might have managed to feed on Shakspeare for some ages yet; as the camel in the desert is fed by his humps, in long absence from food… He [George Borrwo] therefore mastered the patois of the gypsies, called Romany, which is spoken by them in all countries where they wander, in Europe, Asia, Africa. 1860 The conduct of life. (Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1860). I Fate Mahometan and Chinese know what we know of leap-year, of the Gregorian calendar, and of the precession of the equinoxes. 1860 Reading. Laurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin’s Mission to China. "The two mandarins (namely, Pihkwei and the Tartar General) were in full official costume, and retained throughout that chamred and delighted manner, which a Chinaman always puts on when he is powerless and alarmed. " When Lord Elgin put these two captured officials into temporary office again, after the taking of Canton. 1862 Journal. Correctness The Englishman in China, seeing a doubtful dish set before him inquired, "Quack-quack?" The Chinese replied, "Bow-wow". 1862 The emancipation proclamation : an address delivered in Boston in Sept. 1862. "Better is virtue in the sovereign than plenty in the season," say the Chinese. 1862 Perpetual forces : delivered on 18 Nov. 1862 before the Parker Fraternity, Boson. Certain thoughts, certain observations, long familiar to me in night-watches and daylights, would be my capital if I removed to Spain or China, or, by stranger translation, to the planet Jupiter or Mars, or to new spiritual societies. 1863 The wise Confucius. Sayings of Confucius. Confucius says, "Now all over the empire carriages have wheels of the same size, all writing is with the same characters ; and for conduct there are the same rules.” – Doctrine of the mean. (Confucius, apud Legge.) "Of their seeing and hearing, their thinking and revolving, their moving and acting, men all say, It is from Me. Every one thus brings out his self, and his smallness becomes known. But let the body be taken away, and all would be Heaven. How can the body be taken away ? Simply by subduing and removing that self-having of the Ego. This is the taking it away. That being done so wide and great as Heaven is, my mind is as wide and great, and production and transformation cannot be separated from me. Hence it is said, - how vast in his Heaven! " – Idem, note, vol. 1, p. 294. The text is, "Call him man in his ideal, how earnest is he! Call him an abyss, how deep is he! Call him Heaven, how vast is he !" I am reading a better Pascal. "It is said in the Book of poetry, "Over her embroidered robe she puts a plain single garment." So it is the way of the superior man to prefer the concealment of his virtue, while it daily becomes more illustrious, and the way of the mean man to seek notoriety ; while he daily goes more and more to ruin. It is characteristic of the superior man, appearing insipid, yet never to produce satiety ; while showing a simple negligence, yet to have his accomplishments recognized ; while seemingly plain, yet to be discriminating. He knows how what is distance lies in what is near, - whence the wind proceeds from, how what is minute becomes manifested." – Idem, vol. 1, p. 295. "In hewing an axe-handle, the patterns is not far off." We grasp one axe-handle to hew another. "Is virtue a thing remote ? I wish to be virtuous, and lo ! virtue is at hand." "If one's actions be previously determined, there will be no sorrow in connection with them. If principles of conduct be, the practice of them will be inexhaustible." "It is characteristic of entire sincerity to be able to foreknow. The indicifual possessed of complete sincerity is like a spirit." "The way of heaven and earth may be declared in a sentence : - They are without any doubleness, and so they produce things in a manner that is unfathombable. Heaven is a shining spot, yet sun, moon, stars, constellations, are suspended in it ; the earth is a handful of soil, but sustains mountains like Hwa and Yoh without feeling their weight, and contains rivers and seas without leaking away. " To the colleges : "Learning without Thought is labour lost ; Thought without Learning is perilous. The accomplished scholar is not a utensil." Here is an acute observation that belongs to "Classes of Men" : - "The Master said, The faults of men are characteristic of the class to which they belong. By observing a man's faults, it may be known that he is virtuous." "The superior man thinks of virtue ; the small man thinks of comfort." Culture. "It is from music that the finish is received." – Confucius. "The subjects on which the Master did not talk were – extraordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings." – Legge, p. 65. He anticipated the speech of Socrates, and the Do as be done by, of Jesus. 1863 Authors or Books quoted or referred to in Journal for 1863 Confucius, Book of poetry, apud James Legge… The Wise Confucius…. Etc. S. 533-535… I justified to W---- yesterday Confucius’s speech about making money, lest he should rashly resign his position at Chicago… 1863 Journal It is with difficulty that we wont ourselves in the language of the Eastern poets, in the melodramatic life, as if one should go down to Lewis’s Wharf and find an ivory boat and a ping sea. He thinks he is at the opera. As, for example, in the Chinese Two Fair Cousins… Life is ideal; Death is to break up our styles. This the use of war, to shatter your porcelain dolls; to break up in a nation Chinese conservatism, death in life. 1863 Journal Confucius, his Doctrine of the Mean, Book of Poetry, 1864 Journal 'This is bad omen for England, that, in these years, her foreign policy is ignominious, that she plays a sneaking part with Denmark, with France, with Russia, with China, with America. 1865 Journal Vishnu Purana bear witness-Socrates, Zeno, Menu, Zertushi, Confucius, Rabia are as tender as St. Francis, St. Augustine, and St. Bernard. 1867 Progress of culture : address read before The Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge [Mass.], July 18, 1867. But if these works still survive and multiply, what shall we say of names more distant, or hidden through their very superiority to their coevals, - names of men who have left remains that certify a height of genius in their several directions not since surpassed, and which men in proportion to their wisdom still cherish, - as Zoroaster, Confucius, and the grand scriptures, only recently known to Western nations, of the Indian Vedas, the Institutes of Menu, the Puranas, the poems of the Mahabarat and the Ramayana ?... Our towns are still rude, - the make-shifts of emigrants, - and the whole architecture tent-like, when compared with the monumental solidity of medieval and primeval remains in Europe and Asia. 1868 Speech at Banquet in honor of the Chinese Embassy, Boston, 1868. [Speech of Ralph Waldo Emerson at the banquet given by the City of Boston, August 21, 1868, to the Hon. Anson Burlingame, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from China, and his associates, Chih Ta-Jin and Sun Ta-Jin, of the Chinese Embassy to the United States and the European powers. Mr. Emerson responded to the toast: "The union of the farthest East and the farthest West."] MR. MAYOR : I suppose we are all of one opinion on this remarkable occasion of meeting the embassy sent from the oldest Empire in the world to the youngest Republic. All share the surprise and pleasure when the venerable Oriental dynasty - hitherto a romantic legend to most of us - suddenly steps into the fellowship of nations. This auspicious event, considered in connection with the late innovations in Japan, marks a new era, and is an irresistible result of the science which has given us the power of steam and the electric telegraph. It is the more welcome for the surprise. We had said of China, as the old prophet said of Egypt, "Her strength is to sit still." Her people had such elemental conservatism that by some wonderful force of race and national manners, the wars and revolutions that occur in her annals have proved but momentary swells or surges on the pacific ocean of her history, leaving no trace. But in its immovability this race has claims. China is old, not in time only, but in wisdom, which is gray hair to a nation, or, rather, truly seen, is eternal youth. As we know, China had the magnet centuries before Europe ; and block-printing or stereotype, and lithography, and gunpowder, and vaccination, and canals ; had anticipated Linnus's nomenclature of plants ; had codes, journals, clubs, hackney coaches, and, thirty centuries before New York, had the custom of New Year's calls of comity and reconciliation. I need not mention its useful arts, - its pottery indispensable to the world, the luxury of silks, and its tea, the cordial of nations. But I must remember that she has respectable remains of astronomic science, and historic records of forgotten time, that have supplied important gaps in the ancient history of the western nations. Then she has philosophers who cannot be spared. Confucius has not yet gathered all his fame. When Socrates heard that the oracle declared that he was the wisest of men, he said, it must mean that other men held that they were wise, but that he knew that he knew nothing. Confucius had already affirmed this of himself: and what we call the GOLDEN RULE of Jesus, Confucius had uttered in the same terms five hundred years before. His morals, though addressed to a state of society unlike ours, we read with profit to-day. His rare perception appears in his GOLDEN MEAN, his doctrine of Reciprocity, his unerring insight, - putting always the blame of our misfortunes on ourselves ; as when to the governor who complained of thieves, he said, " If you, sir, were not covetous, though you should re-ward them for it, they would not steal." His ideal of greatness predicts Marcus Antoninus. At the same time, he abstained from paradox, and met the ingrained prudence of his nation by saving always, " Bend one cubit to straighten eight." China interests us at this moment in a point of politics. I am sure that gentlemen around me bear in mind the bill which the Hon. Mr. Jenckes of Rhode Island has twice attempted to carry through Congress, requiring that candidates for public offices shall first pass examinations on their literary qualifications for the same. Well, China has preceded us, as well as England and France, in this essential correction of a reckless usage ; and the like high esteem of education appears in China in social life, to whose distinctions it is made an indispensable passport. It is gratifying to know that the advantages of the new intercourse between the two countries are daily manifest on the Pacific coast. The immigrants from Asia come in crowds. Their power of continuous labor, their versatility in adapting themselves to new conditions, their stoical economy, are unlooked-for virtues. They send back to their friends, in China, money, new products of art, new tools, machinery, new foods, etc., and are thus establishing a commerce without limit. I cannot help adding, after what I have heard to-night, that I have read in the journals a statement from an English source, that Sir Frederic Bruce attributed to Mr. Burlingame the merit of the happy reform in the relations of foreign governments to China. I am quite sure that I heard from Mr. Burlingame in New York, in his last visit to America, that the whole merit of it belonged to Sir Frederic Bruce. It appears that the ambassadors were emulous in their magnanimity. It is certainly the best guaranty for the interests of China and of humanity. 1868 Journal Can anyone doubt that if the noblest saint among the Buddhists, the noblest Mahometan, the highest Stoic of Athens, the purest and wisest Christian, Menu in India, Confucius in China, Spinoza in Holland, could somewhere meet and converse together, they would all find themselves of one religion, and all would find themselves denounced by their own sects, and sustained by these believed adversaries of their sects ? 1868 Journal. Revolutions. When I see the Japanese building a steam navy, and their men of rank sending children to America for their education, the Chinese, instead of stoning an ambassador if he steps out of the walls of Canton, now choosing Mr. Burlingame as their ambassador to Western courts… 1868 Greatness : an address before the Amherst Social Union. This day-labor of ours, we confess, has hitherto a certain emblematic air, like the annual ploughing and sewing of the Emperor of China… Who can doubt the potency of an individual mind, who sees the shock given to torpid races---torpid for ages -- by Mahornet; a vibration propagated over Asia and Africa? What of Menu? What of Buddha? of Shakspeare? of Newton? of Franklin? 1870 Society and solitude : twelve chapters. (Boston : Fields, Osgood & Co., 1870). II Civilization Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its own. The Chinese and Japanese, though each complete in his way, is different from the man of Madrid or the man of New York. VII Works and days Nature loves to cross her stocks, - and German, Chinese, Turk, Russ and Kanaka were putting out to sea,' and intermarrying race with race ; and commerce took the hint, and ships were built capacious enough to carry the people of a county.' VIII Books After the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom, these are, the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroastrian Oracles ; the Vedas and Laws of Menu ; the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the Bhagvat Geeta, of the Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists ; the Chinese Classic, of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius and Mencius.' … As whole nations have derived their culture from a single book, - as the Bible has been the literature as well as the religion of large portions of Europe ; as Hafiz was the eminent genius of the Persians, Confucius of the Chinese, Cervantes of the Spaniards ; so, perhaps, the human mind would be a gainer if all the secondary writers were lost, - say, in England, all but Shakspeare, Milton and Bacon,-through the profounder study so drawn to those wonderful minds… The missionary must be carried by it, and find it there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in these things ? We call them Asiatic, we call them primeval ; but perhaps that is only optical, for Nature is always equal to herself, and there are as good eyes and ears now in the planet as ever were. Only these ejaculations of the soul are uttered one or a few at a time, at long intervals, and it takes millenniums to make a Bible. XI Success Thus we do not carry a counsel in our breasts, or do not know it; and because we cannot shake off from our shoes this dust of Europe and Asia, the world seems to be born old, society is under a spell, every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical and literature a quotation; and hence that depression of spirits, that furrow of care, said to mark every American brow. 1870 Journal Confucius and Menu had a deeper civilization than Paris or London. 1871 Journal The superior man thinks of virtue, the small man thinks of comfort. Confucius. 1875 Letters and social aims. (Boston : J. R. Osgood, 1875). Poetry and imagination As soon as a man masters a principle, and sees his facts in relation to it, fields, waters, skies, offer to clothe his thoughts in images. Then all men understand him : Parthian, Mede, Chinese, Spaniard, and Indian hear their own tongue. Social aims. Why have you statues in your hall, but to teach you that, when the door-bell rings, you shall sit like them. "Eat at your table as you would eat at the table of the king," said Confucius… The old Confucius in China admitted the benefit, but stated the limitation : "If the search for riches were sure to be successful, though I should become a groom with whip in hand to get them, I will do so. As the search may not be successful, I will follow after that which I love."… Resources We have seen China opened to European and American ambassadors and commerce ; the like in Japan : our arts and productions begin to penetrate both. As the walls of a modern house are perforated with water-pipes, sound-pipes, gas-pipes, heat-pipes, so geography and geology are yielding to man's convenience, and we begin to perforate and mould the old ball, as a carpenter does with wood… The disgust of California has not been able to drive nor kick the Chinaman back to his home; and now it turns out that he has sent home to China American food and tools and luxuries, until he has taught his people to use them, and a new market has grown up for our commerce. The emancipation has brought a whole nation of negroes as customers to buy all the articles which once their few masters bought, and every manufacturer and producer in the North has an interest in protecting the negro as the consumer of his wares. Quotation and originality The Patent-Office Commissioner knows that all machines in use have been invented and re-invented over and over; that the mariner's compass, the boat, the pendulum, glass, movable types, the kaleidoscope, the railway, the power-loom, etc., have been many times found and lost, from Egypt, China, and Pompeii down; and if we have arts which Rome wanted, so also Rome had arts which we have lost ; that the invention of yesterday of making wood indestructible by means of vapor of coal-oil or paraffine was suggested by the Egyptian method which has preserved its mummy-cases four thousand years… Now shall we say that only the first men were well alive, and the existing generation is invalided and degenerate ? Is all literature eavesdropping, and all art Chinese imitation ? Persian poetry. Enwerl. Body and soul. "A painter in China once painted a hall ;- Such a web never hung on an emperor's wall ;- One half from his brush with rich colors did run, The other he touched with a beam of the sun ; So that all which delighted the eye in one side, The same, point for point, in the other replied. "In thee, friend, that Tyrian chamber is found ; Thine the star-pointing roof, and the base on the ground : Is one half depicted with colors less bright? Beware that the counterpart blazes with light!" Inspirations The legends of Arabia, Persia and India are of the same complexion as the Christian. Socrates, Menu, Confucius, Zertusht, -- we recognize in all of them this ardor to solve the hints of thought. 1878 The sovereignty of ethics. In : North American review ; vol. 10, no 12 (1878). If I miss the inspiration of the saints of Calvinism, or of Platonism, or Buddhism, our times are not up to theirs, or, more truly, have not yet their own legitimate force. 1878 The fortune of the Republic : lecture delivered at the Old south church, Boston, March 30, 1878. They built great works and called their manufacturing village Etruria. Flaxman, with his Greek taste, selected and combined the loveliest forms, which were executed in English clay ; sent boxes of these as gifts to every court of Europe, and formed the taste of the world. It was a renaissance of the breakfast-table and china-closet. The brave manufacturers made their fortune. The jewellers imitated the revived models in silver and gold. 1894 Natural history of intellect & other papers. (Boston : Houghton, 1894). Concord walks I possess here all that I desire of the spoils of the East and the West, and, unless I am very much mistaken, what is far more beautiful than Babylonian robes, or vases of the Chinese. Here I learn what I teach. Boston Of these writers, of this spirit which deified them, I will say with Confucius, "If in the morning I hear of the right way, and in the evening die, I can be happy." |
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| 2 | 1822-1882 |
Ralph Waldo Emerson und China : Allgemein Quellen Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. L'invariable milieu, ouvrage morale Tséu-ssê [ID D1943]. The Chinese classical work commonly called the Four books. Transl. by David Collie. [ID D22647]. Iu-kiao-li, ou, Les deux cousines : roman chinois. Trad by Abel-Rémusat. [ID D5232]. Davis, John Francis. The Chinese [ID D2017]. Gérando, Joseph-Marie de. Histoire comparée des systèmes de philosophie, considérés relativement aux principes des connaissances humaines. (Paris : A. Eymery, 1822-1823). [Confucius]. [ID D29658]. Huc, Evariste Régis. Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet et la Chine pendant les années 1844, 1845 et 1846 [ID D2107]. The She king or the book of poetry. Transl. by James Legge. Marshman, Joshua. The works of Confucius [ID D1909]. Marshman, Joshua. Dissertation on the characters and sounds of the Chinese language [ID D1908]. Oliphant, Laurence. Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's mission to China and Japan in the years 1857 [ID D2188]. Perry, M[atthew] C[albraith]. Narrative of the expedition of an American squadron to the China seas and Japan, performed in the years 1852, 1853, and 1854 [ID D4578]. The Phenix : a collection of old and rare fragments [ID D29682]. Ansom Burlingame Senator Charles Sumner sent Emerson Senate documents on Chinese correspondence. Sekundärliteratur 1930 Frederic Ives Carpenter : Chinese literature and Buddhism were the only two Oriental systems which Emerson did not wholly welcome. Buddhism epitomized for him the quietism of the East, and its passiveness. Chinese literature epitomized its formalism, and its lack of the progressive element. 1932 Arthur Christy : The tie that bound Emerson to Confucius was their common belief in the goodness of man. When the responsibilities of manhood were on his shoulders and when he faced economic necessities, he found, after browsing among his books, that Confucius could speak to his condition. The simplest exposition of further influence from the reading of the Confucian books is the most significant instances in the essays in which Confucian thought is apparent. Confucius gave Emerson moral corroboration of his observations on men – not the universe. 1944 Chang Chi-yun : Emerson took the personality of Confucius as an example of human greatness. The great man was he who embodied in himself to the highest degree the virtue, the vital force of the universe. Emerson was one of the first American to take the trouble to acquaint himself with the thought and civilization of the East. His interest in Chinese literature remained constant ; and so, to a high degree, he qualified himself to be the announcer and the interpreter of this 'New era'. 1956 Donald M. Murray : One of the more exotic facts about 19th-century American culture is that transcendental New England imported intellectual cargoes from the Orient. Scholars have several times weighed and gauged this philosophical freight, and Emerson received and assimilated certain Confucian ideas. This interest continued over many years. There is a remarkable analogy between the structure of written Chinese and Emerson's theory of language and poetry. The ideographs, as explained in the books of his own time, offer an illuminating parallel with the theories expresses in Nature and The poet. Emerson's belief in the special efficacy of words conveying hard, sharp images of things ; his preference for words denoting the simple and even 'mean' objects of ordinary life ; and his interest in compressed, succinct language, like that of proverbs. (Eme9) Wong Kin-yuen : Emerson's first impression that Confucianism was absolute, that it was inimical to the system of Western thinking, was gradually substituted by a better understanding of its real nature and spirit. As to Emerson himself, the transition had been made. Having learned to probe from within himself for solution, he was apt to grant substance to what was happening in this world. Thus it was Confucius' practical ethics which places a value of goodness done in this world that attracted Emerson. His interest in the Confucian classics incessantly grew. He came to recognize that Confucianism also had its progressiveness, it was Confucianism that inherited and fully developed the humanistic tendency. He sees in Mencius a way to break down the barrier between human nature and the divine decree. 1985 Chang Yao-hsin : Confucianism proved to be part of the inexhaustible source of human wisdom from which Emerson never tired of drawing. Another reason for Emerson's interest in Confucius is to be sought in the nature of his philosophy. He did not recognize the Chinese sage at once. He knew at first little or nothing about China and Confucius. The three points which Confucius made accord well with what Emerson was to say all his life, namely, the divine nature of man, the possibility of achieving perfection by being true to one's nature, and the important role of the great man in the culture of men in general. These are the areas where Confucius exerted some influence on Emerson. 1992 Qian Mansu : Although Confucianism, with its practical orientation, was not Emerson's favorite, He read the Confucian Four Books in several editions and quoted from them for almost a hundred times in various speeches and writings. The part of Confucianism that he most willingly accepted was the attitude towards moral principles and self-cultivation. Emerson appreciated Confucius as an outstanding individual and rejected China as a nation. His criticism was quite representative of the prevalent Western image of China of the time : an ancient society caught in stagnation and self-complacency, unable to walk out of her own past. Emerson was most critical of China for her despotic system and her lack of individualism. Emerson's understanding of religion far outreached Christianity. Although he did not deny God, religion to him has nothing to do with a personified God – God of tradition or God of rhetoric, nor anything to do with church, or doctrines and rituals. His interest in Asia covers many fields, including the Indian Vedas, Hinduism, Menu, Zoroaster, Persian poetry, and Confucianism. For a long time, Emerson had no direct knowledge of Oriental philosophy. His idea of the Orient came mainly from impression and intuition. But with the maturity of his own philosophy, his prejudice relaxed and his vision broadened. Interest in the East was part of his search for new sources of ideas in order to draw inspiration and arguments to reinforce his newly-built system. A long time Confucius was the only Chinese philosopher Emerson was familiar with. Later Mencius became known to him. But Laozi and Zhuangzi were never mentioned by him. Self-reliance is Emerson's most important teaching. He found in Mencius a fellow exponent of the principle. 2003 Chen, Li-jen : For Emerson, Confucius was the greatest thinker in Chinese history. Emerson clearly showed his respect and admiration for Confucius. He quoted the Sayings of Confucius and Mencius as illustrations of his ideas. He copied a passage from the Chinese Classics explaining well the action of Confucius into his Journals. |
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| 3 | 1830 | Ralph Waldo Emerson reads De Gérando's Histoire comparée des systèmes de philosophie. |
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| 4 | 1834 | Ralph Waldo Emerson reads the 'Sheking'. |
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| 5 | 1836 | Ralph Waldo Emerson reads Marshman's Confucius. |
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| 6 | 1838 | Ralph Waldo Emerson reads 'Confucius'. |
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| 7 | 1841 | Ralph Waldo Emerson reads 'Confucius'. |
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| 8 | 1843 |
The Dial [ID D29685]. Ethnical scriptures : sayings of Confucius. Chee says, if in the morning I hear about the right way, and in the evening die, I can be happy. A man's life is properly connected with virtue. The life of the evil man is preserved by mere good fortune. Coarse rice for food, water to drink, and the bended arm for a pillow – happiness may be enjoyed even in these. Without virtue, riches and honor seem to me like a passing cloud. A wise and good man was Hooi. A piece of bamboo was his dish, a cocoa-nut his cup, his dwelling a miserable shed. Men could not sustain the sight of his wretchedness ; but Hooi did not change the serenity of his mind. A wise and good man was Hooi. Chee-koong said, Were they discontented ? The sage replies, They sought and attained complete virtue ; - how then yould they be discontented ? Chee says, Yaou is the man who, in torn clothes or common apparel, sits with those dressed in furred robes without feeling shame. To worship at a temple not your own is mere flattery. Chee says, grieve not that men know not you ; grieve that you are ignorant of men. How can a man remain concealed ! How can a man remain concealed ! Have no friend unlike yourself. Chee-Yaou enquired respecting filial piety. Chee says, the filial piety of the present day is esteemed merely ability to nourish a parent. This care is extended to a dog or a horse. Every dometic animal can obtain food. Beside veneration, what is the difference ? Chee entered the great temple, frequently enquiring about things. One said, who says that the son of the Chou man understands propriety ? In the great temple he is constantly asking questions. Chee heard and replied - 'This is propriety'. Choy-ee slept in the afternoon. Chee says, rotten wood is unfit for carving : a dirty wall cannot receive a beautiful color. To Ee what advice can I give ? A man's transgression partakes of the nature of his company. Having knowledge, to apply it ; not having knowledge, to confess your ignorance ; this is real knowledge. Chee says, to sit in silence and recal past ideas, to study and feel no anxiety, to instruct men without weariness ; - have I this ability within me ? In forming a mountain, were I to stop when one basket of earth is lacking, I actually stop ; and in the same manner were I to add to the level ground though but one basket of earth daily, I really go forward. A soldier of the kingdom of Ci lost his buckler ; and having sought after it a long time in vain ; he comforted himself with this reflection : 'A soldier has lost his buckler, but a soldier of our camp will find it ; he will use it. ' The wise man never hastens, neither in his studies nor his words ; he is sometimes, as it were, mute ; but when it concerns him to act and practice virtue, he, as I may say, precipiates all. The truly wise man speaks little ; he is little eloquent. I see not that eloquence can be of very great use to him. Silence is absolutely necessary to the wise man. Great speeches, elaborate discourses, pieces of eloquence, ought to be a language unknown to him ; his actions ought to be his language. As for me, I would never speak more. Heaven speaks ; but what language does it use to preach to men, that there is a sovereign principle from which all things depend ; a sovereign principle which makes them to act and move ? Its motion is its language ; it reduces the seasons to their time ; it agitates nature ; it makes it produce. This silence is eloquent. Ethical scriptures : Chinese four books. [Preliminary Note. Since we printed a few selections from Dr. Marhsman's translation of the sentences of Confucius, we have received a copy of 'the Chinese Classical Work, commonly called the Four Books, translated and illustrated with notes by the late Rev. David Collie, Principal of the Anglo-Chinese College, Malacca. Printed at the Mission Press'. This translation, which seems to have been undertaken and performed as an exercise in learning the language, is the most valuable contribution we have yet seen from the Chinese literature. That part of the work, which is new, is the Memoirs of Mencius in two books, the Shang Mung and Hea Mung, which is the production of Mung Tsze (or Mencius), who flourished about a hundres years after Confucis. The subjoined extracts are chiefly taken from these books.] All things are contained complete in ourselves. There is no greater joy than to turn round on ourselves and become perfect. The human figure and color possess a divine nature, but it is only the sage who can fulfill what his figure promises. The superior man's nature consists in this, that benevolence, justice, propriety, and wisdom, have their root in his heart, and are exhibited in his countenance. They shine forth in his face and go through to his back. They are manifested in his four members. Wherever the superior man passes, renovation takes place. The divine spirit which he cherishes above and below, flows on equal in extent and influence with heaven and earth. Tsze Kung says, The errors of the superior man are like the eclipses of the sun and moon. His errors all men see, and his reformation all men look for. Mencius says, There is not anything but is decreed ; accord with and keep to what is right. Hence he, who understands the decrees, will not stand under a falling wall. He, who dies in performing his duty to the utmost of his power, accords with the decrees of heaven. But he who dies for his crimes, accords not with the divine decree. There is a proper rule by which we should seek, and whether we obtain what we seek or not, depends on the divine decree. Put men to death by the principles which have for their object the preservation of life, and they will not grumble. The Scholar. Teen, son of the king of Tse, asked what the business of the scholar consists in ? Mencius replied, In elevating his mind and inclination. What do you mean by elevating the mind ? It consists merely in being benevolent and just. Where is the scholar's abode ? In benevolence. Where is his road ? Justice. To dwell in benevolence, and walk in justice, is the whole business of a great man. Benevolence is man's heart, and justice is man's path. If a man lose his fowls or his dogs, he knows how to seek them. The duty of the student is no other than to seek his lost heart. He who employs his whole mind, will know his nature. He who knows his nature, knows heaven. It were better to be without books than to believe all that they record. The Taou. Sincerity is the Taou or way of heaven. To aim at it is the way of man. From inherent sincerity to have perfect intelligence, is to be a sage by nature ; to attain sincerity by means of intelligence, is to be such by study. Where there is sincerity, there must be intelligence. Where intelligence is, it must lead to sincerity. He who offends heaven, has none to whom he can pray. Mencius said, To be benevolent is man. Then man and benevolence are united, they are called Taou. To be full of sincerity, is called beauty. To be so full of sincerity that it shines forth in the external conduct, is called greatness. Holiness or sageness which is above comprehension, is called divine. Perfection (or sincerity) is the way of heaven, and to wish for perfection is the duty of a man. It has never been the case that he who possessed genuine virtue in the highest degree, could not influence others, nor has it ever been the case that he who was not in the highest degree sincere could influence others. There is a divine nobility and a human nobility. Benevolence, justice, fidelity, and truth, and to delight in virtue without weariness, constitute divine nobility. To be a prince, a prime minister, or a great officer of state constitute human nobility. The ancients adorned divine nobility, and human nobility followed it. The men of the present day cultivate divine nobility in order that they may obtain human nobility ; and when they once get human nobility, they throw away divine nobility. This is the height of delusion, and must end in the loss of both. Of reform. Taou is not far removed from man. If men suppose that it lies in something remote, then what they think of is not Taou. The ode says, 'Cut hatchet handles'. This means of doing it, is not remote ; you have only to take hold of one handle, and use it to cut another. Yet if you look aslant at it, it will appear distant. Hence the superior man. When Tsze Loo heard anything that he had not yet fully practiced, he was afraid of hearing anything else. The governor of Yih asked respecting government. Confucius replied, Make glad those who are near, and those who are at a distance will com. The failing of men is that they neglect their own field, and dress that of others. They require much of others, but little of themselves. War. Mencius said, From this time and ever after I know the heavy consequences of killing a man's parents. If you kill a man's elder brother, he will kill your elder brother. Hence although you do not yourself kill them, you do nearly the same thing. When man says, I know well how to draw up an army, I am skilled in fighting, he is a great criminal. Politics. Ke Kang asked Confucius respecting government. Confucius replied, Government is rectitude. Ke Kang was harassed by robbers, and consulted Confucius on the subject. Confucius said, if you, sir, were not covetous, the people would not rob, even though you should hire them to do it. Mencius said, Pih E's would not look on a bad color, nor would his ear listen to a bad sound. Unless a prince were of his own stamp, he would not serve him, and unless people were of his own stamp, he would not employ them. In times of good government, he went into office, and in times of confusion and bad government, he retired. Where disorderly government prevailed, or where disorderly people lived, he could not bear to dwell. He thought that to live with low men was as bad as to sit in the mud with his court robes and cap. In the time of Chou, he dwelt on the banks of the North Ka, watching till the Empire should be brought to peace and order. Hence, when the fame of Pih E is heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the weak determined. E Yin said, What of serving a prince not of one's own stamp ! What of ruling a people which are not to your mind ! In times of good government he went into office, and so did he in times of disorder. He said, heaven has given life to this people, and sent those who are first enlightened to enlighten those who are last, and has sent those who are first aroused to arouse those who are last. I am one of heaven's people who am first aroused. I will take if there was a single man or woman in the Empire, who was not benefited by the doctrines of Yaou and Shun, that he was guilty of pushing them into a ditch. He took the heavy responsibility of the Empire on himself. Lew Hea Hooi was not ashamed of serving a dirty Prince, nor did he refuse an inferior Office. He did not conceal the virtuous, and acted according to his principles. Although he lost his place, he grumbled not. In poverty he repined not. He lived in harmony with mean of little worth, and could not bear to abandon them. He said, 'You are you, and I am I ; although you sit by my side with your body naked, how can you defile me ?' Hence when the fame of Lew Hea Hooi is heard of, the mean man becomes liberal, and the miserly becomes generous. Virtue. Chung Kung asked, What is perfect virtue ? Confucius said, What you do not wish others to do to you, do not to them. Sze Ma Neu asked, What constitutes perfect virtue ? Confucius replied ; It is to find it difficult to speak. 'To find it difficult to speak ! Is that perfect virtue ?' Confucius rejoined, What is difficult to practice, must it not be difficult to speak ? Confucius says, Virtue runs swifter than the royal postillions carry despatches. The She King says, 'Heaven created all men having their duties and the means of rules of performing them. It is the natural and constant disposition of men to love beautiful virtue.' Confucius says, that he who wrote this ode knew right principles. Confucius exclaimed, Is virtue far off ? I only wish for virtue, and virtue comes. Confucius said, I have not seen any one who loves virtue as we love beauty. Confucius says, The superior man is not a machine which is fit for one thing only. Tze Kung asked, Who is a superior man ? Confucius replied, He who first practices his words, and then speaks accordingly. The principles of great man illuminate the whole universe above and below. The principles of the superior man commence with the duties of common men and women, but in their highest extent they illuminate the universe. Confucius said, Yew, permit me to tell you what is knowledge. What you are acquainted with, consider that you know it ; what you do not understand, consider that you do not know ist ; this is knowledge. Confucius exclaimed, How vast the influence of the Kwei Shin (spirits or gods). If you look for them, you cannot see them ; if you listen, you cannot hear them ; they embody all things, and are what things cannot be separated from. When they cause mankind to fast, purity, and dress themselves, everything appears full of them. They seem to be at once above, and on the right, and on the left. The ode says, The descent of the gods cannot be comprehended ; with what reverence should we conduct ourselves ! Indeed that which is least, is clearly displayed. The cannot be concealed. |
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| 9 | 1843 | Ralph Waldo Emerson reads 'The four books' and 'Shiking'. |
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| 10 | 1856 |
Letter from Walt Whitman to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Brooklyn, August, 1856. With Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Oregon—with the states around the Mexican sea—with cheerfully welcomed immigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa—with Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island—with all varied interests, facts, beliefs, parties, genesis—there is being fused a determined character, fit for the broadest use for the freewomen and freemen of Tho States, accomplished and to be accomplished, without any exception whatever—each indeed free, each idiomatic, as becomes live states and men, but each adhering to one enclosing general form of politics, manners, talk, personal style, as the plenteous varieties of the race adhere to one physical form. |
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| 11 | 1863 | Ralph Waldo Emerson began to read the Chinese classics, translated by James Legge. |
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Bibliography (21)
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1820-1876 |
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson ; with annotations : 1820-1876. Vol. 1-10. Ed. by Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes. (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1909 / 1913). http://archive.org/details/journalsofralphw02emeruoft. http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/19/00DECADE/09/1909_RWEjournal_IX.pdf. |
Publication / Eme5 |
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| 2 | 1843 |
The Dial : a magazine for literature, philosophy, and religion. Ed. by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley. Vol. 3, no 3 (April), no 4 (Oct.). (Boston, Mass. : E.P. Peabody, 1843). [Henry David Thoreau edited in the absence of Ralph Waldo Emerson the issue Ethical scriptures]. Enthält : Ethical scriptures : sayings of Confucius. Ethical scriptures : Chinese four books. http://books.google.ch/books?id=P3sAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false. http://books.google.ch/books?hl=de&id=VnsAAAAAYAAJ&q=taou#v=snippet&q=taou&f=false. |
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| 3 | 1904 |
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Boston : Houghton, Mifflin and Co, 1904). RWE.org - The Complete http://ia700406.us.archive.org/31/items/cu31924020761023/cu31924020761023.pdf. I. Nature, Adresses & Lectures II. Essays I III. Essays II IV. Representative Men V. English Traits VI. Conduct of Life VII. Society and Soliturde VIII. Letters and Social Aims IX. Poems X. Lectures & Biographical Sketches XI. Miscellanies XII. Natural History of Intellect |
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| 4 | 1930 |
Hu, Shi. Hu Shi ri ji. ([S.l. : s.n.], 1930). [Enthält Übersetzungen von Gedichten von] : Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, William Shakespeare, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rudyard Kipling, James Russell Lowell, Alfred Noyes, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Dane Miller, Denis H. Robertson. 胡適日記 |
Publication / HuS5 |
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| 5 | 1939 |
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson : 1813-1881. Vol. 1-6. (New York, N.Y. : Columbia University Press, 1939). http://books.google.ch/books?id=EAai9yxHmD4C&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=edward+emerson+the+antiquity, +extent,+cultivation++empire+of+china&source=bl&ots=y13aXvz39S&sig= FPLvXS6_-gi-NVlFhTRO1HMWpWo&hl=de&sa=X&ei=aM9bUcjREIvo4Q SwkoC4Dg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=edward%20emerso%20the %20antiquity%2C%20extent%2C%20cultivation%20%20empire%20of%20china&f=false. |
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| 6 | 1960-1982 |
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The journals and miscellaneous notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson : 1819-1882. Vol. 1-6. (Cambridge : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1960-1982). http://books.google.ch/books/p/harvard?q=china&vid=ISBN9780674484504&hl=en_ US&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=china&f=false. http://books.google.ch/books?id=C7M9fa6yZSIC&pg=PA378&lpg=PA 378&dq=emerson+the+light+of+confuciu+goes+out+in+translation&source =bl&ots=zj3SrcOVkz&sig=FZrDxivwB40su5DwnZDh9KoyI2I&hl=de&sa=X&ei =odJbUdFG4eThBLyUgZAL&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q= emerson%20the%20light%20of%20confucius%20goes%20out%20in%20translation&f=false. |
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| 7 | 1966 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Dai biao xing ren wu. Aimosen zhu ; He Xin yi. (Taibei : Guo li bian yi guan, 1966). Übersetzung von Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Representative men : seven lectures on the uses of great men : Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Goethe. (Leipzig : B. Tauchnitz, 1907). [Platon, Emanuel Swedenborg, Michel de Montaigne, William Shakespeare, Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]. 代 表性人物 |
Publication / Shak250 | |
| 8 | 1968 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Meiguo san wen xuan. Aimosen deng zhuan ; Zhang Ailing deng yi. (Taibei : You lian, 1968). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Prosa von Emerson]. 美國散文選 |
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| 9 | 1989 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Xi yang wen xue xuan yi. Aimosheng deng zhu ; Huang Zhongming yi. (Taibei : Yu zhen f axing, 1989). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Werke von Emerson]. 西洋文學選譯 |
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| 10 | 1990 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Aimosheng san wen xuan. Aimosheng zhu ; Shen Li yi. (Xianggang : Kai yi, 1990). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Prosa von Emerson]. 愛默生散文選 |
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| 11 | 1992 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Mei de tou shi. Aimosheng ; Tong Xiaogong. (Changsha : Hunan wen yi chu ban she, 1992). [Übersetzung von Essays von Emerson]. 美的透视 |
Publication / Eme17 | |
| 12 | 1993 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Aimosheng ji : lun wen yu jiang yan lu. Ji'ou Bo'ertai [Joel Porte] bian ; Zhao Yifan jiao. Vol. 1-2. (Beijing : Sheng huo, du shu, xin zhi san lian shu dian, 1993). (Meiguo wen ku). Übersetzung von Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays & lectures. Ed. by Joel Porte. (New York, N.Y. : Literary Classics of the U.S., Vikin Press, 1983). 爱默生集 : 论文与讲演录 |
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| 13 | 1993 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Zi ran chen si lu. Aimosheng zhu ; Bo Fan yi. (Shanghai : Shanghai she hui ke xue yuan chu ban she, 1993). (Ming ren ming zhu yi cong). Übersetzung von Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature. (Boston : J. Munroe and Co., 1836). 自然沉思录 |
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| 14 | 1995 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Aimosheng san wen xuan. Aimosheng zhu ; Yao Jirong yi. (Tianjin : Bai hua wen yi chu ban she, 1995). (Waiguo ming jia san wen cong shu). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Prosa von Emerson]. 愛默生散文選 |
Publication / Eme14 | |
| 15 | 1996 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Aimosheng ge yan ji zhuan. Aimosheng zhu ; Zhuang Qimin bian yi. (Shanghai : Shanghai shi jie tu shu chu ban gong si, 1996). Xiu xian ying yu. Shi jie ming jia ge yan zuo pin jingxuan). [Übersetzung gesammelter Zitate von Emerson]. 爱默生格言集 |
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| 16 | 1998 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Dai biao ren wu. R. W. Aimosheng zhu ; Pu Long yi. (Beijing : Sheng huo, du shu, xin zhi san lian shu dian, 1998). (San lian jing xuan ; 2). Übersetzung von Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Representative men : seven lectures on the uses of great men : Plato, Swedenborg, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon and Goethe. (Leipzig : B. Tauchnitz, 1907). [Platon, Emanuel Swedenborg, Michel de Montaigne, William Shakespeare, Napoleon, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]. 代表人物 |
Publication / Shak249 | |
| 17 | 1998 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Aimosheng sui bi ba pian. (Beijing : Zhongguo ren min da xue chu ban she, 1998). (Ying yu ren wen shi jie). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Essays von Emerson]. 爱默生随笔八篇 |
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| 18 | 1998 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Meiguo xue zhe = Aimosheng jiang yan ji. Aimosheng zhu ; Zhao Yifan yi. (Beijing : Sheng huo, du shu, xin zhi san lian shu dian, 1998). (San lian jing xuan). Übersetzung von Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The American scholar. = An oration, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, at Cambridge [Mass.], August 31, 1837. (Boston : James Munroe and Co., 1837). 美国学者 |
Publication / Eme19 | |
| 19 | 1999 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Xi shuo sheng ming hua cai : Aimosen zi ran wen xuan. Aimosen zuo zhe ; Lin Shuzhen yi zhe. (Taibei : Zhang lao shi, 1999). (Ren yu zi ran xi lie ; 6). Übersetzung von Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Nature [and other writings]. (Boston : J. Munroe and Co., 1836). 細說生命華采 : 愛默森自然文選 |
Publication / Eme20 | |
| 20 | 2000 |
[Emerson, Ralph Waldo]. Aimosheng jing dian san wen xuan. Aimosheng ; Tong Xiaogong. (Changsha : Hunan wen yi chu ban she, 2000). (Ying mei jing dian san wen xuan). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Essays von Emerson]. 爱默生经典散文选 |
Publication / Eme12 | |
| 21 | 2013 |
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Complete Guide to the Life and Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. RWE.org. http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1. I. Nature, Adresses & Lectures II. Essays I III. Essays II IV. Representative Men V. English Traits VI. Conduct of Life VII. Society and Soliturde VIII. Letters and Social Aims IX. Poems X. Lectures & Biographical Sketches XI. Miscellanies XII. Natural History of Intellect |
Publication / Eme2 |
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Secondary Literature (15)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1820-1876 |
The Ralph Waldo Emerson Journals Digital Archive. 1904-1914 edition. Vol. 1 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_1_1820-1824.pdf. Vol. 2 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_2%20_1825-1832.pdf. Vol. 3 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_3_1833-1835.pdf. Vol. 4 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_4_1836-1838.pdf. Vol. 5 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_5_1838-1841.pdf. Vol. 6 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_6_1842-1844.pdf. Vol. 7 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_7_1845-1848.pdf. Vol. 8 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_8_1849-1855.pdf. Vol. 9 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_9_1856-1863.pdf. Vo. 10 : http://www.perfectidius.com/Volume_10_1864-1876.pdf. |
Publication / Eme27 |
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| 2 | 1926 | Bundy, Robert Edgar. Some traces of the influence of the Four books of the Chinese classics on the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. MA Columbia University, 1926. MS | Publication / Eme31 |
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| 3 | 1930 | Carpenter, Frederic Ives. Emerson and Asia. (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1930). | Publication / Eme26 | |
| 4 | 1932 | Christy, Arthur. The Orient in American transcendentalism : a study of Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott. (New York, N.Y. : Columbia University Press, 1932). | Publication / THD16 | |
| 5 | 1944 | Chang, Chi-yun. The centenary celebration of Sino-American intellectual friendship : an address delivered before the Oriental Society of Harvard University on September 20, 1943. In : Far Eastern quarterly ; vol. 3, no 3 (1944). = Emerson and Confucius.In : Sino-American relations, vol. 1, no 3 (1975). | Publication / Eme29 |
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| 6 | 1956 |
Murray, Donald M. Emerson's "Language as fossil poetry" : an analogy from Chinese. In : The New England quarterly ; vol. 29, no 2 (1956). http://www.jstor.org/stable/362184. |
Publication / Eme9 |
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| 7 | 1978 |
[Brooks, Van Wyck]. Aimosen zhuan. Bulukesi zhu ; Chen Cangduo yi. (Taibei : Tian hua chu ban shi yi shi shi ye gu fen you xian gon, 1978). (Tian hua wen xue cong kan). Übersetzung von Brooks, Van Wyck. The life of Emerson. (New York, N.Y. : E.P. Dutton, 1932). 愛默森傳 |
Publication / Eme23 | |
| 8 | 1982 | Wong, Kin-yuen. A passage to humanism : Chinese influence on Emerson. In Essays in commemoration of the golden jubilee of the Fung Ping Shan Library (1932-1982) : studies in Chinese librarianship, literature, language, history and arts. Ed. by Chan Ping-leung [et al.]. (Hong Kong : Fung Ping Shan Library of the University of Hong Kong, 1982). | Publication / Eme30 |
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| 9 | 1985 | Chang, Yao-hsin. Chinese influence in Emerson, Thoreau, and Pound. (Ann Arbor, Mich. : University Microfilms International, 1984). | Publication / Pou103 | |
| 10 | 1992 | Qian, Mansu. Emerson and China : reflections on individualism. (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University, 1992). Diss. Harvard Univ., 1992. | Publication / Eme7 |
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| 11 | 1996 |
Qian, Mansu. Aimosheng he Zhongguo. (Beijing : Sheng huo, du shu, xin zhi san lian shu dian, 1996). [Emerson and China]. 爱默生和中国 |
Publication / Eme25 | |
| 12 | 1999 |
Chen, Bo. Aimosheng. (Taibei : Dong da tu shu, 1999). (Shi jie zhe xue jia cong shu). [Biographie von Ralph Waldo Emerson]. 爱默生 |
Publication / Eme24 | |
| 13 | 2003 |
Chen, Li-jen. The concept of heaven in Confucianism and Emerson's transcendentalism. In : Intergrams ; vol. 4 (2033). http://ccsun.nchu.edu.tw/~intergrams/intergrams/042-051/042-051-chen.htm. |
Publication / Eme6 |
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| 14 | 2007 | Grossman, Richard L. The tao of Emerson : the wisdom of the Tao te ching as found in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. (New York, N.Y. : Modern Library, 2007). | Publication / Gross1 | |
| 15 | 2008 |
Wang, Leng. An approach to Emerson's writing style from a daoist perspective. In : Dao ; vol. 7 (2008). http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11712-008-9073-x. |
Publication / Eme8 |
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