This year the saying "Scholars scorn each other" is not only a slogan to confuse black and white and conceal the darkness of the world of letters, but enables certain individuals to "hang out a sheep's head when what they are selling is dogs' flesh."
How many can in fact "on the strength of their merits despise the defects of others"? In recent years we have seen them rather "use their own defects to sneer at those of others." For instance, some writing in the vernacular is ungrammatical and difficult to read and this is undoubtedly a "defect." Thereupon certain critics cite Sung or Ming dynasty anecdotes and belles-lettres to make an open attack on modern writing; but before long they reveal their own shortcomings by disclosing that they are often unable to punctuate correctly the type of literature which they are boosting -- no small "defect" either.* In certain cases they even "use their own defects to sneer at the merits of others." Thus those who despise modern essays not only use the essay form themselves but write essays infinitely worse than those they run down.** All their high-faluting talk, as Chekhov has pointed out, is merely looking down upon everything from the height of shamelessness, and since these whom they despise cannot aspire to compare with them, how can they "scorn each other"? They make this claim to reciprocity solely in order to enhance their prestige,
____________________-191-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Selected Works of Lu Hsun.
Volume: 4.
Contributors: Hsien-yi Yang - Translator, Gladys Yang - Translator, Hsun Lu - Author.
Publisher: Foreign Languages Press.
Place of publication: Peking.
Publication year: 1960.
Page number: 191.
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