THE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1788
The Reverend Professor James Legge, in 1890 in translating the TAO TÊ CHING of Lao-tze into the English language, would discover in the files of the India Office a Latin manuscript translation of this material, that had been sent to the office by a missionary organization in 1788. The document as discovered would be still “in excellent preservation.” Legge would indicate that the object of the translator had evidently been to demonstrate Chinese knowledge of the Holy Trinity and the Christian God, and would dismiss this manuscript he had found as of little value. In quoting a section of it in a note he would indicate, also, that this represented “the first morsel of it that has appeared in print.”
TAOISM LIGHT FROM CHINA
(Inference: There is zero likelihood that either Henry Thoreau or Waldo Emerson ever had access to this early translation.) THOREAU AND CHINA HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1815
December 20, Wednesday: James Legge was born at Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He would be educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and then Kings College, Aberdeen. After studying at the Highbury Theological College, London, he would go as a missionary to China.
ACTUALLY, NOBODY CAN GUESS WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT
Reverend James Legge “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1828
November 10, Monday: Wang T‘ao was born in China under the name Wang Libin. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1837
September: The Reverend James Legge entered Highbury College in Middlesex, where he began studies toward a master of divinity degree. Drawn to the foreign missions since his childhood, before long he would make a commitment to the London Missionary Society, and embark upon the study of Chinese in London under a returned missionary, Samuel Kidd.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
Reverend James Legge “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1839
James Legge was ordained at Trevor Chapel, London and got married with Mary Isabella Morison (1817- 1852). The newlyweds set out on a sailing vessel for the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca, an institution for the education of Chinese and Malayan youth that had been established in 1818 by the pioneering protestant missionary Robert Morrison (1782-1834). He would remain at Malacca, coming to be in charge of the college, for 3 years. When, subsequently, the college would remove to Hong Kong, the Reverend Legge would live there for nearly 3 decades. Keuh Agong, a Christian, would accompany Legge on his move to Hong Kong in 1844.
When Chinese “water-braves” laid claim to an ability to walk along the sea-bottom and remain hidden there all night were audited by government officials, it turned out not to be possible for them to validate their claims (although they were pretty good underwater, it remains a fact that although we know of people who can remain underwater for fully five minutes, we have never observed anyone reach the sixth minute, and it remains a fact that no-one can expect to swim underwater for more than about 70 yards laterally, max, before being forced to the surface to take a breath).
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
Reverend James Legge “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1840
June: In the deep strait off Hong Kong, an expeditionary force of 16 British warships assembled. They sailed on up the Pei Ho river with 4,000 troops to express British contempt for Chinese local rule. The Qing court sent the mandarin Qishan, governor of Qili, to negotiate to prevent this foreign army from approaching the capital of the nation in Beijing. OPIUM
It was during this year of deep international tension that the newly minted Reverend James Legge was becoming the representative of the London Missionary Society in Malacca and Hong Kong (until 1873). HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Reverend James Legge HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1841
The Reverend James Legge took over as principal of the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca, published his A LEXILOGUS OF THE ENGLISH, MALAY, AND CHINESE LANGUAGES; COMPREHENDING THE VERNACULAR IDIOMS OF THE LAST IN THE HOK-KEEN AND CANTON DIALECTS, and began a project to translate, in many volumes, the Chinese classics. During his decades of residence in the Orient, he would be translating classic literature into English with the help of Wang T‘ao. (This was the year in which Captain Charles Eliot was landing on an island then known as Heung Gong.)
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
Reverend James Legge “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1842
With the opening of China to the West as a result of the First Opium War, the London Missionary Society moved its base of operations to several treaty ports along the coast. Eventually the Reverend James Legge would be put in charge of the society’s mission house in the new colony of Hong Kong.
The Reverend Issachar J. Roberts, who at this point was forced to acknowledge that his abilities in the Chinese language were “feeble,” helped open a Baptist mission in Hong Kong, then moved to Canton. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1843
January 16, Monday: At the Anglo-Chinese College in Malacca, China, Tkin Shen and Mêng-mei Ho prepared an English translation THE RAMBLES OF THE EMPEROR CHING TIH IN KËANG NAN: A CHINESE TALE with an introduction by the Reverend James Legge, president of that college. VIEW THE PAGE IMAGES HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1844
In Hong Kong, the Governor was Sir John Davis.
The college supervised by the Reverend James Legge at Malacca, the Anglo-Chinese College, was moved to Hong Kong. A Chinese Christian, Keuh Agong, accompanied the Reverend on this move. Legge would be residing in that coastal British protectorate for nearly 3 decades.
In this year appeared two German versions of the TAO TÊ CHING of Lao-tze that, according to the Reverend James Legge, were very different from each other.
CHINA THOREAU AND CHINA
(We don’t know that Henry Thoreau came across either of these.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1848
In Hong Kong, the Governor was Sir George Bonham.
When a theological seminary was established in Hong Kong, the Reverend James Legge added this to his responsibilities.1
1. Except for various furloughs home and brief travels within mainland China, the Reverend would be spending almost a third of his long life at this notoriously brash and dynamically polyglot British outpost of empire. (Helping the sun never to set from 1843 to 1873..., so to speak.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1849
The British finally yielded, in their insistence begun in 1843 that they be allowed to pass inside the city wall of Canton. This was something which the local authorities just were not going to allow to happen, not anytime soon, nor ever.
Upon relocating from mainland China to the coastal island of Hong Kong, Wang Libin changed his name to Wang T‘ao. Under that monicker he would for the following 13 years be doing translations for the London Missionary Society Press.
The Reverend Issachar J. Roberts , who had returned to the United States due to the “opium-war” disturbances, remarried with Virginia Young at East Hickman, Kentucky in a ceremony presided over by the Reverend William Buck. This marriage, and Mrs. Roberts’s sojourn in China, would prove unfortunate: Among the other missionaries whom [the Baptist missionary couple Tarleton Perry Crawford and Martha Foster Crawford] met in Shanghai and with whom they were to work were I.J. and Virginia Roberts. Martha concluded that Mrs. Roberts was a mental case, for she refused to be left alone with Chinese people. Virginia constantly clung to Martha, becoming agitated when the latter left her by herself in a room. Loathing the sight of the Chinese, as Virginia did, she was a most unhappy person. She even threatened to commit suicide. On one occasion the Crawfords found her beating her head against a wall. The Robertses quarreled often, and Virginia made it clear that if she ever returned home, she would not come back to China, whether or not her husband did. Martha came to regard Roberts as a cruel man and blamed him for Virginia’s “advanced case of insanity.” The question remains: which of the Robertses was more insane?
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” IS FABULATION, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Reverend James Legge HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1850
In Hong Kong, the population reached 33,000. CHINA
The Reverend James Legge’s AN ARGUMENT FOR SHANG-TE AS THE PROPER RENDERING OF THE WORDS ELOHIM AND THEOS, IN THE CHINESE LANGUAGE; WITH STRICTURES ON THE ESSAY OF BISHOP BOONE IN FAVOUR OF THE TERM SHIN, ETC. ETC. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1852
Subsequent to the death of his first wife Mary Isabella Morison during this year, the Reverend James Legge would remarry with the widowed Hannah Mary Johnstone Willetts.
Publication in Hong Kong of William Boone’s THE NOTIONS OF THE CHINESE CONCERNING GODS AND SPIRITS: WITH AN EXAMINATION OF THE DEFENSE OF AN ESSAY, ON THE PROPER RENDERING OF THE WORDS ELOHIM AND THEOS, INTO THE CHINESE LANGUAGE, which included an essay by the Reverend Legge. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1857
January: Two overly patriotic employees of Cheong Ah-lum’s bakery (the most heavily patronized bakery in Hong Kong) attempted to poison at one fell swoop all the Westerners in town. They used far too much arsenic, vomiting ensued, and the translator James Legge made a narrow escape. The governor of the colony would compose a hymn of thanksgiving and it would be sung in the local cathedral.
CHINA
In related news, the British empire fell victim to a successful use of agitprop in India during their replacement of the old military musket by the Enfield rifle which had been used with effectiveness in the Crimea. It seems that the manual of arms for this Enfield required the rifleman to tear off the end of a greased paper cartridge with his teeth. A rumor began to be circulated at the Dum Dum Arsenal outside Calcutta, that these cartridge papers were greased with a mixture of cow fat, cows being sacred to the Hindu soldiers, with pig fat, pigs being anathema to the Moslem soldiers. Well, that rumor might well have been the truth for all we know, but the substance of such a matter really has very little bearing upon the effectiveness of such agitprop. The native soldiers would need to attempt a narrow escape from this spiritual poisoning by appropriate purging. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1858
In Hong Kong, Wang T‘ao and A. Wylie prepared XIGUO TIANXUE YUANLIU (a translation into Chinese of A HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY OF THE WESTERN COUNTRIES). HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1859
In Hong Kong, the Governor was Sir Hercules Robinson.
The Reverend James Legge’s THE LAND OF SINIM: A SERMON PREACHED IN THE TABERNACLE, MOORFIELDS, AT THE SIXTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY was published in London by John Snow.
After the sudden death of his 1st wife in Hong Kong the Reverend would remarry with Hannah Mary Willetts, née Johnstone (1822-1881). The couple would produce two sons and two daughters, and adopt a stepdaughter. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1860
The Taiping rebellion or Chinese Civil War drove a number of Chinese to the refuge of the foreign settlement in Shanghai. The white expeditionary troops occupied Peking and looted and torched Yuan-ming-yuan, the Summer Palace. Sino-British, Sino-Russian, and Sino-French Peace Treaties were signed in Peking. “Wah” Frederick Townsend “Wah” Ward organized his little army which would in 1862 receive the name “the Ever Victorious Army,” and would in 1864 be disbanded. Young J. Allen came to China.
From Hong Kong, Wang T‘ao was in contact with the leaders of the Taiping Kingdom. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1861
The Reverend James Legge’s THE CHINESE CLASSICS: WITH A TRANSLATION, CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES, PROLEGOMENA, AND COPIOUS INDEXES, IN FIVE VOLUMES, Volumes 1 and 2 (Hong Kong: Legge; London: Trubner (the series of volumes would continue until 1872). HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1862
There was a controversy over the control and command of a flotilla of warships, known as the Osborn Flotilla, which the Chinese had purchased from England.
Wang T‘ao wrote from Hong Kong, under the pseudonym Wang Wan, to a Taiping Christian leader, proposing tactics against the Qing military and suggesting that the westerners were not the enemy of the Taiping Kingdom. He proposed that their real enemy was the Buddhist government in Beijing; if the Taiping army could achieve victory over the Qing army led by Zeng Guofan, then the westerners might side with the Christian side in this ongoing Chinese Civil War (the largest and longest civil war ever fought).
May: Wang T‘ao had written, under the pseudonym Wang Wan, to a Taiping Christian leader, proposing tactics against the Qing military and suggesting that the westerners were not the enemy of the Taiping Kingdom. He had proposed that the real enemy of the Chinese Christians was the Buddhist Qing government in Beijing. If the Christian army could achieve victory over the Buddhist army led by Zeng Guofan, then the westerners might side with the Taiping Kingdom. When the Qing army captured Shanghai, this letter fell into the hands of the Qing government and Emperor Tongzhi ordered his arrest. Wang took refuge in the British Consulate of Hong Kong, and would remain there for more than four months.
October: Dr. Samuel Kneeland, Jr. was commissioned surgeon of the 45th Massachusetts Regiment, and would serve in that capacity in New Bern, North Carolina until the regiment was discharged during July 1863.
Captain Edward H. Faucon took charge of a screw-powered steamer, the Montgomery, in a blockade of the harbor of Wilmington, North Carolina.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, in the largest and longest civil war that the world had ever seen, Wang T‘ao had written, under the pseudonym Wang Wan, to a Taiping Christian leader, proposing tactics against the Qing military and suggesting that the westerners were not the enemy of the Taiping Kingdom. He had proposed that the real enemy of the Chinese Christians was the Buddhist Qing government in Beijing. If the Christian army could achieve victory over the Buddhist army led by Zeng Guofan, then the westerners might side with the Taiping Kingdom. When the Qing army had captured Shanghai, this letter had fallen into the hands of the Qing government and Emperor Tongzhi had ordered his arrest. Wang had taken refuge in the British Consulate of Hong Kong. At this point four months later, in disguise, he was escorted from the British Consulate and secreted aboard a ship. The Buddhist forces centered on Beijing would be triumphant over the Christian Chinese forces centered on Nanking, and in consequence for the next 22 years he would be in exile from his homeland. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1863
In this year the scholar Wang T‘ao came to live in Hong Kong (he would assist the Reverend James Legge in many translations from the Chinese into English).
At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson listed his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Confucius, Book of Poetry, apud J. Legge;2 D’Herbelot, Bibliotèque Orientale; Saadi; Hafiz; Von Hammer Purgstall.” While reading in the James Legge translation, he had jotted into his journal an impression that in reading Confucius he was “reading a better Pascal,” and had declared that this ancient had “anticipated the speech of Socrates, and the Do as be done by, of Jesus.” EMERSON AND CHINA
2. It seems clear that the source that Emerson consulted in this year for the Chinese “Book of Poetry, apud J. Legge,” could not have been any one of the three editions that the Reverend Legge published in book form, for these would not be published until 1871, 1876, and 1879. Emerson must, therefore, have been referring to some earlier effort along this line as published in some local journal such as the North American Review. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1865
The Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was founded.
By this point, the Reverend James Legge and Wang T‘ao had completed the translation of SHANG SHU and THE BAMBOO BOOK ANNALS. Publication of THE CHINESE CLASSICS: WITH A TRANSLATION, CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES, PROLEGOMENA, AND COPIOUS INDEXES, IN FIVE VOLUMES, Volume 3 part 1, MENCIUS, part 2.... HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
The displaced person Wang T‘ao went to Scotland to assist the Reverend Professor James Legge of Oxford
University in further translation of the Confucian classics into the English language. In this year appeared the first of Legge’s major books of translations from the Chinese. (not counting some preliminary translation of the BOOK OF POETRY or SHIH CHING that had in 1863 been consulted by Waldo Emerson). HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1867
The Reverend James Legge returned to his native Scotland, to the small town of Dollar in Clackmannanshire, where he had invited Wang T‘ao to join him in further translations from the Chinese into English.
His THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF CONFUCIUS. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1870
At the end of the journal entries for this year, Waldo Emerson listed his recent readings in Oriental materials: “Plotinus; Porphyry; Menu; Confucius; Averroës.” EMERSON AND CHINA
The Reverend James Legge received his LLD from the University of Aberdeen. He would be the pastor at Union Church, Hong Kong for the following three years, visiting mission stations at Shanghai, Chefoo (Yantai) and Peking (Beijing), and returning to England via Japan and the USA in 1873.
Spring: The Reverend Professor James Legge’s translations of various Chinese classics such as THE BOOK OF SONGS, ICHING, and THE BOOK OF RITES.
Winter: Wang T‘ao returned to Hong Kong. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1871
The BIBLE was published in Mandarin.
The Reverend Professor James Legge’s THE CHINESE CLASSICS: WITH A TRANSLATION, CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES, PROLEGOMENA, AND COPIOUS INDEXES, IN FIVE VOLUMES, Volume 4 part 1, part 2.
Late in the year: Late in the year, the 1st of the Reverend James Legge’s three published translations of the SHIJING, or SHI KING, into English as THE BOOK OF POETRY. “[I]t was Legge’s general practice to translate a text several times without reference to previous translations before embarking on a final version. Revisions of the final version were often carried out in a similar way — first an independent translation, then a comparison with his earlier efforts.” (He would publish a 2d translation of these Chinese materials in 1876, and a 3d in 1879.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1872
Wang T‘ao purchased the printing press of the London Mission in Hong Kong and founded the Zhong Hua General Printing House. The Reverend Professor James Legge’s THE CHINESE CLASSICS: WITH A TRANSLATION, CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES, PROLEGOMENA, AND COPIOUS INDEXES, IN FIVE VOLUMES, Volume 5 part 1, part 2. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1873
In this year Japan was granting to its subjects religious freedom and adopting the Gregorian calendar.
The Reverend Professor James Legge left Hong Kong, returning to England via Japan and the USA. In Scotland he rejoined his wife Hannah Mary Willetts Legge and their children. No longer a missionary, he would devote himself to his scholarship. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1874
February 5, Thursday: In Hong Kong, Wang T‘ao founded Tsun-wan yat-po (the Universal Circulating Herald, absolutely the 1st Chinese daily newspaper, of which he would be Editor-in-Chief until 1884, and which would endure until 1947).3
3. Hong Kong journalist Lin Yu-t’ang would refer to Wang T‘ao as the “Father of the Chinese Newspaper.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1875
The Reverend Professor James Legge’s THE LIFE AND TEACHING OF MENCIUS. He was named Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1876
October: The Reverend James Legge became the initial professor to hold the newly endowed chair of Chinese Language and Literature at Oxford University (in fact he was the initial Nonconformist ever to achieve a professorship there!). Although he would attract few students to his lectures, he would be laboring over his translations of the Chinese classics in his study at 3 Keble-Terrace for the following couple of decades, until 1897. According to an anonymous obit in the Pall Mall Gazette, his practice was to retire at 10PM and rise at 3AM, winter and summer, making himself a cup of tea over a spirit-lamp and going directly to his desk. In this year he prepared the 2d of his three published translations of the SHIJING, or SHI KING, into English as THE BOOK OF POETRY. “[I]t was Legge’s general practice to translate a text several times without reference to previous translations before embarking on a final version. Revisions of the final version were often carried out in a similar way — first an independent translation, then a comparison with his earlier efforts.” (He had publish his 1st translation of these materials in late 1871, and would publish a 3d in 1879.)
In his “Social Aims,” published in LETTERS AND SOCIAL AIMS, Waldo Emerson the Sage of Concord quoted Confucius:4 “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.” *** “‘Eat at your table as you would eat at the table of a king,’ said Confucius.” EMERSON AND CHINA
4. At some point (I’m going to have to look up in what year: it is Volume IX, page 399 in the printed journal), Waldo had recorded in his journal that “The Englishman in China, seeing a doubtful dish set before him, inquired, ‘Quack-quack?’ The Chinese replied, ‘Bow-wow.’” EMERSON AND CHINA HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1879
The final one of the Reverend Professor James Legge’s three published translations of the SHIJING, or SHI KING, into English as THE BOOK OF POETRY. “[I]t was Legge’s general practice to translate a text several times without reference to previous translations before embarking on a final version. Revisions of the final version were often carried out in a similar way — first an independent translation, then a comparison with his earlier efforts.” (He had ventured his 1st translation of these Chinese materials in late 1871, and his 2d in 1876.)
From this point forward the Reverend Professor would be participating in Max Müller’s SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST project (which by 1910 would have filled a number of shelves — 50 volumes; his translations account for volumes 3, 16, 27, and 28, on Confucianism, plus volumes 39 and 40, on the new category Taoism). HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1880
The Reverend Professor James Legge’s “comparative” study, THE RELIGIONS OF CHINA.
H.A. Tupper’s THE FOREIGN MISSIONS OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION (Philadelphia). Material pertaining to the Reverend Issachar J. Roberts is to be found on pages 83-90. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1882
The Reverend Professor James Legge’s “the religious portions” of the Chinese BOOK OF POETRY, Volume 16.
The US implemented the Chinese Exclusion Act. EUGENICS HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1884
During his 10-year career as Editor-in-Chief of Hong Kong’s Tsun-wan yat-po or Universal Circulating Herald, Wang T‘ao had penned nearly a thousand editorials calling for the reform of the Chinese political system through the adoption of a British-style parliamentary monarchy. He had also been agitating for reform of the educational system by introducing western science to the curriculum, and for the establishment of textile, mining, railway, machinery, and mining industries. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1886
The Reverend Professor James Legge produced lengthy annotated translations from the Chinese language of Buddhist texts.
August Weismann, in proposing his body/germplasm division as a rejection of the idea of the inheritability of acquired characteristics, offered that the supposition of the acquisition of an acquired characteristic would be “very like supposing that an English telegram to China is there received in the Chinese language.”
The Dutch government began a study of beri-beri, which was devastating the native Indonesian population. Christian Eijkman was assigned the task of studying the “germ” held to be responsible. When his laboratory chickens developed symptoms, Eijkman observed that a temporary diet of pure white rice had coincided with the disease. Studies led to the culprit –the truncated-cone rice mill– which was so thoroughly “polishing” the bran from rice as to remove some vital quality, a vital quality later determined by R. Williams to be thiamine, or Vitamin B1. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1888
Charlie Soong was received into full status as a “traveling” preacher.
The Reverend Professor James Legge produced a translation of the Nestorian monument. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1890
The Reverend Professor James Legge’s translation of the TAO TÊ CHING of Lao-tze.
CHINA
Reverend James Legge. THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. Oxford UP, 1891 TAO TÊ CHING CHINA HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1895
The Reverend Professor James Legge prepared a translation of ancient Chinese poetry.
China was no longer being viewed, in the eyes of white Europeans, as the primary Eastern power. Japan had conquered Korea and China had been forced to recognize this new hegemony over the Korean peninsula, and China had been likewise forced to cede Taiwan. Alexis Krausse, a British China-watcher, described the Central Kingdom as “Corrupt to the core, ill-governed, lacking cohesion and without means of defending herself... To believe in the recuperative power of China is mere wasted faith.... China as a political entity is doomed.” Sir Henry Norman, an observer of the Sino-Japanese War, declared that “The war with China and the treaty with England will at last force foreigners to see Japan as she is. The Japanese are a martial and proud race, with marvelous intelligence, and untiring energy and enthusiasm.” The official newspaper of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Journal de St-Pétersbourg, ventured that “Since the beginning of this war, the Chinese have provided a lamentable spectacle. No one suspected such weakness.” U.S. Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert declared that “Japan has leaped, almost at one bound, to a place among the great nations of the earth. Her recent exploits in the war with China have focused all eyes upon her, and the world now comprehends the startling fact that this small island kingdom, so little taken account of heretofore in the calculations even of students and statesmen, has within a few decades stridden over ground traversed by other nations only within centuries.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
Philo McGriffin, the Westerner who had led the Chinese navy into its massive defeat at the Yalu River, would return to New-York City and there commit suicide by gunshot.
A Chinese secret society, the Big Swords, formed an alliance with Yuxian, prefect of Caozhou, to put down banditry. The bandits converted to Catholic Christianity, gaining for themselves the protection of foreigners. The magistrates’ courts were overwhelmed by the number of cases being brought, and as Christians the bandits had acquired legal immunity from prosecution, so the Big Sword secret society began to simply execute the bandits as they were apprehended. The Big Swords also burned the Catholic churches that harbored bandits. Finally, Yuxian executed several Big Sword leaders. More secret societies would emerge in this Shandong section of China, such as the Boxers (The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, or Yihe Magic Boxing).
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Reverend James Legge HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
1896
The Reverend Professor James Legge’s unfinished “Notes On My Life.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
1897
April: Wang T‘ao died in Shanghai.
November 26, Friday: Suffering a stroke after completing his class on elementary Chinese composition, the Reverend Professor James Legge slipped into a coma.
November 29, Monday: James Legge died.
December 3, day: The body of James Legge was deposited at Wolvercote cemetery, Oxford.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: January 10, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
JAMES LEGGE REVEREND JAMES LEGGE
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
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REVEREND JAMES LEGGE JAMES LEGGE