Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/404

 use by the people, these works are utterly worthless, and would be so even if the contents were unimpeachable, which is probably far from the case.

To make a very long matter short, the literatures of Korea and of China have a backward look. Imitation of past writings is the highest excellence to be achieved. Not only is there no such thing as originality, but the very word itself is wanting, and if the idea were expressed by a circumlocution it would be laughed at. To what extent the Chinese character is responsible for this state of things is a moot question, but I believe that it is one of the main causes of the backward condition of these peoples. The art of imitation dominates literature, art, dress, morals and everything else. Ask a man thoroughly conversant with these countries whether it is not true that when you have seen a single Chinese temple you have really seen them all, when you have heard one piece of music you have heard them all, when you have seen one good sample of cloisonne you have seen them all, when you have seen one sample of embroidery you have seen them all. In this arraignment Japan must be excepted, for she has received a new impetus along artistic lines through the demand of foreign trade. But I dare say that the true Japanese connoisseur to-day would by far prefer the simple and pure forms of earlier Japanese art to the more modern departures.

Korean literature, the more celebrated portions of which are all in the Chinese character, consists of voluminous histories, some of them running into several scores of volumes, the Chinese classics, founded on the Confucian code, belles lettres proper, consisting of what the Koreans vaguely call kenl, or " writing," the nature of it being supposedly poetic, a few heavy works on medicine, geography (native), law and government, and finally, a large number of biographies. Each family of note will have its history transcribed in volume after volume. Many of these are in manuscript, waiting for the time when some member of the family shall attain wealth and be able to have the work published for circulation throughout the clan.