A Letter Submitted to the Attendant Counselor Min Sik (閔湜)上閔上侍湜書
月日。某官某奉書于騎省學士閣下。昨者事有必關啓閣下者。造門納謁。蒙閣下欣然迎迓。賜以顔色。尋置酒酣暢。極歡而罷。方從容笑談間。再三目予曰。士當以謙恭畏愼爲志。近世有詩人林椿者。恃才傲物。竟不登一第。至窮餓而死。觀子之才。不後林生。常謙恭卑損。略無怠傲之色。又相貌充澤。必當遠到者。一言慰藉。有重千金。予非木腸。能不感泣。但念僕雖若怠傲者。其呈露于尊長之前。難矣。矧僕嘗竊怪挾文而自傲者曰。夫挾富貴之勢者。赫赫焉堂堂焉。其威足以服衆。其權足以制死生。故人其畏服奔走。俟命之不暇。孰肯議其是非哉。雖驕傲尙可。然要其終未有不自躓者。挾過人之力者。其拳勇足以脅制人物。雖倨且傲。莫有誰何者。然未有恃力而能長且久者也。況文章者。特一小伎耳。雖有錦腸繡肝奇麗之蘊。除知己外。非人人所敬而畏服者也。若以此自負。凌侮人物。必遭歐擊拉折之辱。非特此耳。其陷不測之禍亦審矣。是以。襧衡傲物。終敗身於黃祖。嵇康負氣。果見枉於鐘會。古之人類此者非一二。布在前史。炯若明鏡。然則凡鑑觀古人之成敗者。雖有所負。其謙恭畏愼。固出於自然。而如僕者。環顧一己。無一事可挾以爲怠傲者。雖折項俯地。不敢擡擧。縮縮然常若負大怍。固亦常理。而閣下有以此及予者。豈欲使予益痛折節。終保其身歟。愚雖不敏。敢不佩以周旋。書曰。謙受益慢招損。語曰。恭近於禮。遠恥辱也。此皆自甫學時。未嘗不習於耳熏於心者。加之閣下之曉喻若此。固當銘之座右。朝夕鑑戒。日繩其心而已。其遠到與未。皆天也命也。雖然。苟有知己如閣下者。手插羽翰。假以長風。則路亦何阻耶。不宣。某再拜。
On a certain day of a certain month, so-and-so of such and such an office submits this letter to His Excellency the Academician of the Giseong (騎省).
The other day, having a matter I had to lay before Your Excellency, I came to your gate and asked to be received; and Your Excellency met me gladly and opened your countenance toward me. You then set out wine, and we drank merrily and took great pleasure in it before the party broke up. In the midst of our quiet laughing and talking you looked at me two or three times and said: "A scholar should make it his purpose to be modest and respectful, fearful and careful. Lately there was a poet called Im Chun (林椿), who trusted to his talent and looked down upon others, and in the end never once passed the examination, and came to die in poverty and hunger. Looking at your talent, you fall no way behind Im Chun; and yet you are always modest and respectful and set yourself low, and have not the least look of idleness or arrogance. And your face and bearing are ample and glossy; you are surely a man who will reach far."
A single word of comfort weighed more than a thousand pieces of gold. I am no pith of wood either; how should I not be moved to weeping? Only, I think that even were I an idle and arrogant man, it would be a hard thing to show it before an honored elder.
Moreover, I have long thought it strange in my heart that a man should hold his writings under his arm and be arrogant of himself, and I thought thus. One who holds under his arm the power of wealth and rank is brilliant and imposing, and his dignity is enough to press down the many and his power enough to rule over death and life. And so men bend in fear and come running and are busy awaiting his orders, and who will try to argue his right and wrong? Though he be proud and arrogant, that may be. Yet if one looks into the end of it, there is none of them who has not fallen of himself.
One who holds under his arm a strength beyond others has fists and courage enough to threaten men and press them down; and though he be stiff and arrogant, no one can say anything to him. Yet there has been none who trusted to strength and lasted long.
How much more when writing is only a small skill. Though a man have an inside of silk and a liver of embroidery and have heaped up what is rare and beautiful, apart from those who know his worth it is not a thing that every man reveres and bends to in awe. If he boasts of himself by this and looks down upon others, he will surely suffer the shame of being struck and broken; and not this only — it is plain enough that he may also fall into calamities beyond reckoning. And so Mi Heng (禰衡) looked down upon others and in the end lost his body to Huang Zu (黃祖); and Xi Kang (嵇康) was confident of his spirit and in the end was unjustly put to death by Zhong Hui (鍾會). Of the men of old there is more than one or two of this kind, and they lie spread through the histories of the past, as clear as a bright mirror.
If it is so, then one who takes the making and the unmaking of the men of old for his mirror will, though he have something to be confident of, be modest and respectful, fearful and careful, of himself and from the first. But as for one like me, look round as I may upon my single body, there is not one thing I could hold under my arm and be idle and arrogant about. To bend my neck and look down at the ground and not dare to raise it, to shrink into myself as if I always bore some great shame, is from the first an ordinary matter for me besides. And that Your Excellency should nevertheless have addressed these words to me — is it not that you would have me strive the more and bend my carriage and so preserve my body in the end? Unintelligent as I am, how should I not carry them about with me and follow them?
The Documents say, "Modesty receives increase, and arrogance calls down decrease"; and the old saying has it, "Respectfulness is near to ritual, and keeps shame and disgrace far off." These are all words that, from the time I first studied, have never failed to be familiar to my ears and steeped into my heart. And since Your Excellency has told me so besides, I shall only carve them to the right of where I sit and take them for my mirror morning and evening and be careful, setting my heart straight day by day.
Reaching far and not reaching far are all of Heaven and of destiny. And yet, if there is one like Your Excellency who knows my worth, and you set wings upon me with your hand and lend me a long wind, then by what should the road be blocked?
Here I stop. So-and-so bows twice.