Preface Written to Send Off Yi of the Historiographical Office (史館) on Taking Up His Post at Geoje送李史館赴官巨濟序
予固聞之。其所謂縣之巨濟者。炎方之極徼也。家於水中。環四面皆瀛海之浩溔也。毒霧熏蒸。颶風不息。暑月。有蚊蝱之大於蜂者群集噆人。誠可畏也。凡官于此。多是左遷者也。今足下以英偉之才。處蓬山之署。未嘗不汗靑修史。眉目萬世爲己任。課其績。宜受甄昇之命。迺反落此。能不悲哉。然可賀者有二。夫天欲成就之。必先試艱險。是陰陽之數也。子無罪而謫。此必大福將至之漸也。是可賀一也。大抵得道之深者。多在幽閑闃寂之地。何則。專其心一其入故也。今子之所之。地寂而人稀。官閑而務簡。無一事敢干於心者。常隱几於虛白之空。嗒然喪耦。遊於物之初。則其道之入也愈深矣。道旣充中。面澤外發。自然還童。必作神仙中人也。不知返轅之日。將莊，老其身而來耶。抑爲安期，羨門子而至耶。吾輩亦摳衣問道矣。是可賀二也。行矣毋多傷。時或以吾言慰其情耳。千里遠別。得無垂涕。挽袖欲留。其可得乎。
I have indeed heard of it. The district they call Geoje is the utmost edge of the hot country. Its houses stand in the midst of the water, and what rings it on all four sides is all the vast sea. Poisonous mists steam up and the whirling wind does not cease, and in the hot months mosquitoes and gadflies bigger than hornets gather in swarms and bite men; it is truly to be feared. Those who hold office here are for the most part men who have been demoted.
Now your honor, with your surpassing talent, held a post in the office of Bongsan (蓬山), and never failed to make it your own charge to dry the bamboo slips and compile the history and make bright the brows and eyes of ten thousand ages. If your merits are reckoned, you ought to have received the command of promotion; and instead you have fallen to this. How can one not grieve?
Yet there are two things to be congratulated. When Heaven would bring a man to completion it must first try him with hardship and peril; this is the measure of yin and yang. That you are banished without guilt is surely a sign that a great blessing is about to come. This is the first thing to be congratulated.
Now, those who have got the Way deeply are mostly in places secluded and idle and still. Why so? Because they make their minds single and their entering one. The place where you are going now is still in its ground and sparse in its people, idle in its office and simple in its business, and there is not one affair that dares encroach upon the mind. If you lean always on your armrest in a space void and white, and sit blankly, having lost your mate, and roam in the beginning of things, then your entering into the Way will be the deeper. And once the Way is full within, the sheen of it comes out in the face, and you will return of yourself to childhood and surely become one among the immortals. I do not know whether, on the day you turn your carriage back, you will come with the body of a Zhuangzi or a Laozi, or arrive as an Anqisheng (安期生) or a Xianmenzi (羨門子). We too shall gather up our skirts and ask you about the Way. This is the second thing to be congratulated.
Go, and do not grieve too much. Console your heart from time to time with my words. At a parting of a thousand li, how can one not shed tears? I would take you by the sleeve and keep you here, but is that a thing that can be done?