Chapter 55 talent

Cousin Lin Ziyuan recalled Su Manshu: "Manshu is also like his father. He is calm by nature and unsmiling. He is good at reading and counting lines at a glance. He is very important to his teacher Zhong Zhuojing. He often says: 'This son is extraordinary, and he will build great things in the future.'" Zhang Shizhao recalled: "Man Shu is really a strange man in modern times. It took only two or three years from the beginning of his literacy to his family. When he first wrote and ink with Zhao in Shanghai, he learned to translate Russian (Note: Hugo) novels, but he couldn't make sentences. As for the writing and stippling, there are eight or nine mistakes, and the degree is far below that of Bazhi Toutuo. One day, he grabbed thirty foreign clams (foreign coins), left the writing on the case, and fled. Zhao and Chen Duxiu were shocked, but they could not trace That. In the next year, when I went to Tokyo and returned to the Tongren Wenhui, my words were meaningful and wonderful, which is beyond the reach of my predecessors."

When he first arrived in Shanghai, Su Manshu's Chinese proficiency was really not very good, especially the phonology and prose, but he decided to learn to write ancient poems.At first, Chen Duxiu corrected Manshu's exercises, and then Chen was helpless, and then Zhang Shizhao taught them, but Zhang was just perfunctory, and most of them were self-taught by Manshu.After arriving in Japan, Manshu asked Zhang Taiyan to teach him how to compose poems, but Zhang didn't teach him well, but let him find his favorite poems and read them casually.Manshu was quite diligent. He once hid in a shabby room for many days and wrote many poems.Manshu's poems gradually became better, and he was especially famous for "spring rain on the roof of the building, when will I return to see the Zhejiang tide; straw sandals and broken bowls are unknown, and which bridge to step on the cherry blossoms" was famous for a while.It is said that as long as there is well water, you can sing "Shakuba Xiao".

In just over a year, Su Manshu learned Sanskrit that others could only understand for decades by relying on several introductory books on Sanskrit in English provided by Chen Duxiu. Sanskrit Dictionary, published in Tianyi Bao.It is said that the manuscript of his "Sanskrit Dictionary" was preserved in the home of his adoptive mother Kawai Sen in Yokohama, and was destroyed in the Great Japan Earthquake in September 1923. In 1909, Misiluo, an Indian who was proficient in Sanskrit, came to Tokyo. Zhang Taiyan hired him as a lecturer and organized ten people to study Sanskrit together, and the tuition was shared among them.However, Mishiluo did not understand Chinese and had difficulty in teaching, so Zhang asked Su Manshu to act as an interpreter.At that time, each class had to translate for two and a half hours, and Manshu was ill. The doctor advised him to only translate for one hour at a time, but because he couldn’t find a substitute, Manshu had to persist with his illness until the class was closed due to financial difficulties. Finish.

In 1913, Su Manshu, Shen Yanmou and Zheng Tongsun spent several months planning and compiling the "English-Chinese Dictionary" and "Chinese-English Dictionary" in Shengze.According to eyewitnesses, Manshu didn't go out every day, didn't receive guests, and just buried himself in his work. "If you peek at it, you will see big books, small books, Zhu books, and ink books, like fly heads, like grapes, as bright as peach blossoms, as ethereal as water clouds, piled up with fifty or seventy leaves." Although it was not completed in the end, However, Liu Chengyu still offered 2,000 yuan to buy the manuscripts of the two dictionaries. The middleman Jin Weinong took a rebate of about 200 yuan, and the remaining manuscript remuneration was shared equally among the three.But these two dictionaries were never published.After Manshu's death, Liu Chengyu handed over the remaining manuscripts to Liu Yazi for safekeeping.

At the end of 1914, Su Manshu prepared a hundred chapters of the novel "Jiangsha Ji". Each episode is accompanied by an illustration, and 30 paintings have been drawn.Shi Manshu traveled with Xiao Renqiu, so he asked Xiao Renqiu to ask Sun Yat-sen to support him in printing books.Sun was in poverty at this time, so Mrs. Sun donated 80 yuan as a gift.But Manshu's book was not published in the end.