I spent a fortnight at the house of R. F. Hawke, Esq., whose
father-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Legge, the eminent Chinese scholar, was
engaged on his five or six large volumes of the Chinese classics. The
Doctor is not impressed with the intellectual ability of Confucius
nor of his followers. His translations are invaluable, as saving
missionaries and other students of the Chinese much pains by placing
Chinese literature before them in a digested form. One could not help
regretting that this laborious scholar cannot have the advantage of an
international copyright law to afford protection to his costly fruits
of research. American authors suffer the same loss, however, as he, in
seeing their valuable works appropriated by foreigners.