Ch‘êng Hao (1032-1085) and Ch‘êng I (1033-1107) were two brothers famed for their scholarship, especially the younger of the two, who published a valuable commentary upon the Book of Changes. The elder attracted some attention by boldly suppressing a stone image in a Buddhist temple which was said to emit rays from its head, and had been the cause of disorderly gatherings of men and women. A specimen of his verse will be given in the next chapter. Ch‘êng I wrote some interesting chapters on the art of poetry. In one of these he says, “Asked if a man can make himself a poet by taking pains, I reply that only by taking pains can any one hope to be ranked as such, though on the other hand the very fact of taking pains is likely to be inimical to success. The old couplet reminds us—
‘E’er one pentameter be spoken
How many a human heart is broken!’
There is also another old couplet—
‘’Twere sad to take this heart of mine
And break it o’er a five-foot line.’
Both of these are very much to the point. Confucius himself did not make verses, but he did not advise others to abstain from doing so.”
WANG AN-SHIH
The great reformer and political economist Wang An-shih (1021-1086), who lived to see all his policy reversed, was a hard worker as a youth, and in composition his pen was said to “fly over the paper.” As a man he was distinguished by his frugality and his obstinacy. He wore dirty clothes and did not even wash his face, for which Su Hsün denounced him as a beast. He was so cocksure of all his own views that he would never admit the possibility of being wrong, which gained for him the sobriquet of the Obstinate Minister. He attempted to reform the examination system, requiring from the candidate not so much graces of style as a wide acquaintance with practical subjects. “Accordingly,” says one Chinese writer, “even the pupils at village schools threw away their text-books of rhetoric, and began to study primers of history, geography, and political economy.” He was the author of a work on the written characters, with special reference to those which are formed by the combination of two or more, the meanings of which, taken together, determine the meaning of the compound character. The following is a letter which he wrote to a friend on the study of false doctrines:—
“I have been debarred by illness from writing to you now for some time, though my thoughts have been with you all the while.
“In reply to my last letter, wherein I expressed a fear that you were not progressing with your study of the Canon, I have received several from you, in all of which you seem to think I meant the Canon of Buddha, and you are astonished at my recommendation of such pernicious works. But how could I possibly have intended any other than the Canon of the sages of China? And for you to have thus missed the point of my letter is a good illustration of what I meant when I said I feared you were not progressing with your study of the Canon.