epdf.pub_the-importance-of-living (1)

In Enghshi (gxzgjpt the in Shanghai" by the last five titles, the following are published Commercial Press) LETTLRS OF A CHINESE AMAZON READINGS IN MODLRN JOURNALISTIC PROSE THE LIITLE THE CRITIC: FIRST SHUIS (^30-1932) LITTLE CRITIC: SKCOND Sunr.s (i33-i93)) CONMTCIUS SAW NANCY (A Dsama) AND K&SAYS ABOUT NOTHING A NVN oi TAISHAN AND K AIMING ENGLISH BOOKS OTHER TRANSLATIONS KAIMING ENGUSIZ GRAMMAR KASLD ON NOTIONAL CATEGORIES A HISTORY op THE PRESS AND PUBLIC OHKION IN CHINA of Chicago Ptess) MY MY COUNTRY AND THE IMPORTANCE Prt>!>x,K (John Day) OF LIVING (John Day) In Chinese PHILOLOGICAL ESSAYS (Yttycnhsiieft Luntf'ung) SKIRMISHES (Chicnfuchi) Tmi LONE WAYFARER (Tahuangcht) IT SEEM* TO ME ( Woti Huu), vols { T JOHN DAY book REYNAL & HITCHCOCK NEW YORK : // is not truth that that makes makes man truth great Only those who take great, but man CONFUCIUS what the people of the world are busy about can be busy about what the people of the world take leisurely leisurely CHANG CH'AO PREFACE THIS is a personal testimony, a testimony of thought and claim to establish eternal truths In fact objectivity in philosophy; the point of have liked to call it my own experience o not intended to be objective and makes no life It is "A I rather despise claims to view is the thing I should Lyrical Philosophy," using the cal" in the sense of being a highly personal word "lyri- and individual oudook But that would be too beautiful a name and I must forego it, for fear of aiming too high and leading the reader to expect too much, and because the main ingredient of my thought is matter-of-fact prose, a more level easier to maintain because tented My am I to lie low, to cling to the light that I soil, to be of kin to the sod soul squirms comfortably in the soil and sand Sometimes when one feet Very much con- natural is he thinks he drunk with is in heaven and is happy seems so this earth, one's spirit But actually he seldom rises six above the ground should have liked also to write the entire book in the form of a dialogue like Plato's such a convenient form for personal, It is inadvertent disclosures, for bringing in the significant our daily life, above silent thought why A all trivialities of for idle rambling about the pastures of sweet, But somehow I fear, perhaps, that this have not done form of so I not know being so little in and a writer after all literature vogue today, no one probably would read it, wants to be read* And when I say dialogue, I not mean answers and questions up like newspaper interviews, or those leaders chopped into short paragraphs; I mean disreally good, long, leisurely courses extending several pages at a stretch, with many detours, and coming back to the original point of discussion by a short cut at the most unexpected spot, like a man returning home by climbing over & hedge, to the surprise of his walking companion Oh, vii how PREFACE viii home by climbing over the back fence, and on bypaths! At least my companion will grant that I am with the way home and with the surrounding countryside I love to reach to travel familiar , But I dare not I am not original The ideas expressed here have been thought and expressed by many thinkers of the East and West over and over again; those I borrow from the East are hackneyed truths there* my of They are, nevertheless, being If my ideas; they have they have taken root in express something original in me, my being, and when I become a part it is first because they encountered them as ideas and them, my not because the person who expressed them is of any account In fact, I have traveled the bypaths in my reading as well as in my heart gave an instinctive assent Many writing baffle a of the authors quoted are Chinese professor of literature If I like names obscure and may some happen to be well- known, I accept their ideas only as they compel my intuitive approval and not because the authors are well-known It is my habit to buy cheap editions of old, obscure books and see what I can discover there If the professors of literature knew the sources of my ideas, they would be astounded at the Philistine But there is a greater pleasure in picking up a small pearl in looking at a large one in a jeweler's window, I am an ash-can than in not deep and not well-read does not Locke or know If one is too well-read, then one and wrong is wrong I have not read or Berkeley, and have not taken a college course right Hume is right in philosophy Technically speaking, my method and my training are all wrong, because I not read philosophy, but only read life at first hand That is an unconventional way of studying philosophy the incorrect way in my family woman who Some has all of my sources arc: Mrs* Huang, an amah the ideas that go into the breeding of $ Soochow boat-woman with her profuse use of expletives; a Shanghai street car conductor; my cook's wife; a lion cub in the zoo; a squirrel in Central Park in York; a good in China; a New deck steward who made one good remark; on astronomy (dead for that writer of a some ten years now) ; all news column in boxes;