Tae question is sometimes asked, what portion or portions of western literature would repay translation into Chinese "Phe answer depends largely, of course, upon what you understand by "repay."
missionary societies, for instance, as soon as a smattering of this most difficult of all languages had been acquired by their earlier agents, called for translations of the HebrewScriptures, which they distributed broadcast along the coast, not at all as a commercial speculation, but with the very praiseworthy idea of supplying what they conceived to be the spiritual wants of a heathen people. The result of this impression that the whole of the western Bible would repay translation was the fixed idea planted in the half crazy mind of Hung Siu-clition, the original Taiping Rebel, that he was called upon to emulate the example of Joshua and exterminate those Philistines the Manchus. However, this is hardly the place in which to discuss that very vexed question as to whether the Scriptures should be offered toa half cultured and wholly unspiritual people in the mass unleavened with comment or explanation or, as the other side, the Church of Rome, holds, should be communicated in judiciously selected portions, Viewed as literature there is much in the Old Testament books that would commend itself to the Chinese, though at the same time there is perhaps more that would shock them, The fidelity of Ruth to her mother-in-law would meet with their highest approbation, but they would unanimously condemn her subsequent marriage with Boaz. And so with the rest. It does not, however, seem probable that, for the present at least, any portion of our Scriptures will be put into Chinese (as they have been put into French) as a purely literary venture. Nor are the translations brought out for many years past of western works of science or sociology so to be regarded. Like the existing translations of our Bible they were intended by the translator or his trous to enlighten the ignorance of the Chinese, and not to bring him reputation or profit. That his abstract in Chinese of Wheaton's International Law has brought both to the President of the Peking Tung-wen-kuan is doubtless regarded by the translator himself as a happy accident, where his object had been simply to carry out the desire of his employers, the Tsungli Yamen, to have some inkling of what this unpleasant Law of Nations could be which they were "so constantly upbraided with infringing. The series of text books produced by his fellow professors at Peking and by our indefatigable fellow-citizen Mr. Fryer here have been, we understand, always retailed at a price which barely covered, if it covered at all, their prime cost. In the higher sense of the word repayment, they have already repaid the labour spent on them,- for they have done much to spread in this belated country a knowledge of western sciences, and they are every year more sought after by the newer China.
What, however, we had in mind when we to write was to tell the truth, a less elevated idea of repayment. It was, in short, the question whether, as a publisher's speculation, it would pay to translate works of western literature into Chinese, and what works? The initial difficulties would be what we may call the machinery of translation. There are not a dozen foreigners in China, probably not half a dozen, who could, unaided, translate the simplest document,—for instance, an invit tation to an official interview,—into correct not to say elegant Chinese. Into intelligible Chinese, certainly: but a Chinaman, like the admirers of Swin-hume's poems, would prefer elegance to intelligibility, at any rate in a literary work. Hence to the cost of the western translator must be added that of his native aide. But even if you allow a native aide, how many western translaters will you find in China capable of seeing that the ideas of the original author are at once fully and tersely rendered Scarcely a score, and of that score at least half would want leisure or inclination for the work. Those who would consent to undertake it for-no higher object than the pecuniary reward would, not unnaturally, expect that reward to be adequate, in other words high,—so high, indeed, as to make the enterprise altogether unproductive. For the prices at which Chinese have been hitherto able to purchase not their own native works alone but western translations also are so low that they would, for a long time at any rate, refuse to give for the books published under the suggested system the sum necessary to afford a minimum of profit. Our publisher would in fact be much in the position of his American brethren who find a remunerative sale fur high-priced American novels difficult because of the competition of the pirated and consequently cheap issues of English novelists. In his case, however, it is not piracy but philanthropy that keeps him from the field: missionaries have given their labour for nothing, professors for their salaries, and the translations thus made have sold at, often indeed far below, the mere cost of printers' ink and paper.
But suppose that (owing, let us say, to a large increase of Chinamen trained in the literature of both countries) circumstances allowed of translations being made into Chinese at a sufficiently low cost, what works would prove most attractive to the Chinese public, and be likely to command a sale? With a people whose ideas move so slowly the answer would naturally be, those works which most resemble the present popular favourites. The belles lettres of China include elegiac (but not dramatic) poetry, novels, and collections of correspondence, private and official. Dramas are written to be acted, not to be read. ('his however was the case with Shakespeare's plays, and taken alone would not be a sufficient objection to the translation of our great dramatists the real objection lies in the practical impossibility of turning western poetry of this form into adequate Chinese). takes in China the only.one which seems Of the other shapes which pure literature
open to the suggested treatment is the novel. This, of course, would give our again apply the touchstone of Chinese translators sufficient range did they not
taste. Now, itis fact, and a regrettable one, that a novel will not commend itself to the Chinese public unless it is marked by a coarseness which has disappeared from English novels at least for the best part of a century, The Chinese would prefer then Smollett or Fielding to Miss Yonge or Anthony Trollope. The truth is (and it is a truth which missionary societies should have borne in mind), that so isolated a civilisation as we find here requires special preparation before any successful attempt can be made to graft on it the ideas of the experienced west. Before China can appreciate the distinetion between Calvinism and Presbyteriavism or understand Mr. Howell's preference for Jane Austen's novels over Nhackeray's, she must begin at the beginning of things, and start with a course of Augustine and Boccaccio. When our translating and publishing company is formed it should commence with the earlier Italian novel (perhaps a little expurgated) and go on to the simpler romances that delighted Horace Walpole But one of its first issues (after the Decameron) should be the Arabian Nights. Ut that (Aladdin always excepted) does not go down, we shall conclude that Chinese taste is not worth educating and shall cease to dream of bringing out in twenty-four tao the complete works of Sse-ko-teh, or Ti-kien-se.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.