A Letter Sent to the Licentiate Kim Hoeyeong (金懷英)與金秀才懷英書
某啓。昔者方僕與足下未第時。寄洪圓六十餘日同學相磨。子尙記否。其後興王寺月師方丈。寫肝膽誓神交。吾今念之。子亦豈忘也否。足下淹貫史家。說唐漢事。如昨所覩。吾久已服之矣。僕所著作。子亦未敢多排。必不以僕爲乏於文者。蒙前月某日所辱啓事。不得修答。又蒙今月日啓事。復不能答。想足下必不以僕乏於文而不能修答。殆謂倨慢不遜。頑然不爲禮節。則計已獲罪左右。然僕之不答。亦必有謂。夫啓者。欲與人有所賀謝陳請。或敍情而爲之者。與表牋同體。獻於上則曰表。於太子王侯則曰牋。贄於搢紳士大夫則曰啓。因高卑別其名耳。要其體未始不同。今之人。於表牋則頗或倣古人體。於啓事則率張大其詞。多用古人之文之長且蔓者爲屬對。然後謂佳。不爾。必唾而棄之矣。此習。林宗庇始倡之矣。故林公獻某官啓曰。落落高才。崑崙岡上千金難價之美玉。昂昂勁節。峨嵋山西萬歲不長之孤松。此則不甚長蔓。而詞亦信美。其多至二十許字。而詰屈難句斷者亦衆矣。古人亦曰。古事無有不對者。有若雍齒且侯。吾屬何患。則已對以劉蕡不第。我輩登科。信哉斯言也。若暇日於書史中。努力不倦。收拾捃掇。則何有不對者乎。是亦詩之集句之比也。且百家衣體。亦非古人所甚尙。唯王荊公喜爲之。但貴卽席中急就者耳。迨曠日搜索古人詩集。然後爲之。何有不可乎。今人所以作啓。久已成習。不可克革。苟必用本文與古事。編列成章。則其所自創於心者。能有幾耶。僕欲反之。必爲所笑。若倣而爲之。必爲後世君子所笑。後世之笑。甚於今人之笑。寧被笑於今人。無爲後人所笑。又反覆思之。則所以投文於人者。欲求媚耳。反爲所笑。如勿投之。然則今人亦不可不懼。爲吾計者。不若皆輟而不作。俱免前後人所笑。是故。非有不得已干於王公大人者。則不爲也。故平生所著啓事甚些小。後當覓而見也。幸吾子勿至深訝而疑僕之倨也。吾輩親密間。若以詩或以手書往復亦可。何吾子再辱啓事。若後生新進之求之於長者之禮耶。初暑。伏惟萬萬自愛云云。
So-and-so declares. Long ago, when you and I had not yet passed the examination, we lodged at Hongwon Temple (洪圓寺) and studied together for some sixty days and ground ourselves against one another. Do you still remember it? Afterward, in the abbot's quarters of the monk Wol at Heungwang Temple (興王寺), we poured out our livers and gallbladders and swore to be friends in heart. I think of it even now; how should you have forgotten it either?
You are clear throughout the histories, and you speak of the affairs of Tang and Han as if you had seen them yesterday, and I have long since marveled at it. Nor have you dared to push aside much of what I have written, so that you surely do not hold me a man wanting in letters. Last month on a certain day I received the address (啓事) you sent and did not write a reply; and again this month I received an address and again did not reply. I suppose you do not think that I fail to write a reply because I am wanting in letters, but rather say that I am haughty and immodest and stiffly keep no courtesy; and reckoning so, I have already earned your blame. Yet in my not replying there is also, surely, a reason.
Now what is called an address (啓) is composed when one has something to congratulate another upon, or to thank him for, or to report and request of him, or again when one would set forth one's feelings; and it is of the same form as the memorial (表) and the report (牋). Submitted to the king it is called a memorial; to the Heir Apparent and to kings and princes, a report; offered to officials and gentlemen, an address. They are divided in name according to high and low; their form was from the first no different.
The men of these days sometimes imitate the forms of the men of old in memorials and reports, but in addresses they generally spread their words and make them grand and draw in a great deal of what is long and tangled from the writings of the men of old, and only when they have matched it in parallel do they call it good. Otherwise they will surely spit at it and throw it away. This habit was first called forth by Im Jongbi (林宗庇). And so in the address that Lord Im submitted to a certain official he said: "Your towering high talent is a fair jade upon the slope of Mount Kunlun that a thousand pieces of gold could hardly price; your unbending firm integrity is a lone pine west of Mount Emei that has not grown in ten thousand years." This is not very long or tangled, and the words are truly beautiful. But there are also many that run to twenty characters and more, so snarled that the phrase can hardly be broken off.
The men of old also said, "Among the matters of antiquity there is nothing that cannot be matched." To such a line as "Even Yong Chi (雍齒) was made a marquis, so what should our company fear?" there has already been matched "Liu Fen (劉蕡) did not pass the examination, and yet our company has passed"; and truly those words fit. If on an idle day one labors without slackening to gather from among the writings and the histories, what is there that cannot be matched? This too is a thing like gathering and joining the lines of others in poetry.
Again, the form of stitching together the writings of many houses was not something the men of old upheld much either; only Wang of Jingguo (王荊公) was fond of composing in it. It is prized only for being composed on the spot, in haste. If one spends several days rummaging through the collected poems of the men of old before composing, what could one not do?
The way the men of these days compose addresses has grown old and already become a habit, and cannot be pulled apart and reformed. If one must use passages of the text and matters of antiquity, weaving them and laying them out to make a composition, how many of them will be made from one's own heart? If I meant to overturn it, I should surely become a laughingstock; and if I imitate it in composing, I shall surely become the laughingstock of the gentlemen of a later age. The laughter of a later age is worse than the laughter of the men of these days. I would rather take the laughter of the men of these days than become a laughingstock to those who come after. And thinking it over again: to throw a piece of writing to another is to seek his good opinion, and if instead it becomes a laughingstock, that is the same as not throwing it at all. If so, the men of these days too cannot but be feared. By my reckoning, nothing is better than to stop composing them altogether and so escape the laughter of the men before and after alike.
Therefore, unless there is no help for it and I must seek something of a prince or a great man, I do not compose them. And so the addresses I have composed in all my life are very few; look for them hereafter. I pray you will not think it deeply strange and suspect me of haughtiness. Between us, who are so close, it is well enough to exchange poems or writings in our own hands. Why have you twice sent an address, as though with the courtesy of a newcomer making a request of an elder?
It is the first of the heat. I pray you will cherish yourself ten thousand times over. And so forth.