le-tai-pih

Updated: May 8, 2025

I told her of the splendors of our great versifier, Le-Tai-Pih; and I might have said that many American poets, like Walt Whitman, had doubtless read the translations to their advantage. I had the pleasure at least of commanding this lady's attention, and I believe she was the first American who deigned to take a Chinaman seriously.

- As A Chinaman Saw Us: Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home