I. GOOD TASTE IN KNOWLEDGE
THE aim of education or culture is merely the development of good taste in knowledge
and good form in conduct. The cultured man or the ideal educated man is not necessarily
one who is well-read or learned, but one who likes and dislikes the right things.
To know what to love and what to hate is to have taste in knowledge. ... I have met
such persons, and found that there was no topic that might come up in the course of
the conversation concerning which they did not have some facts or figures to produce,
but whose points of view were deplorable. Such persons have erudition, but no
discernment, or taste. Erudition is a mere matter of cramming of facts or information,
while taste or discernment is a matter of artistic judgment. In speaking of a scholar,
the Chinese generally distinguish between a man's scholarship, conduct, and taste
or discernment.  This is particularly so with regard to historians; a book of history
may be written with the most fastidious scholarship, yet be totally lacking in insight
or discernment, and in the judgment or interpretation of persons and events in history,
the author may show no originality or depth of understanding. Such a person, we say,
has no taste in knowledge. To be well-informed, or to accumulate facts and details,
is the easiest of all things. There are many facts in a given historical period that
can be easily crammed into our mind, but discernment in the selection of significant
facts is a vastly more difficult thing and depends upon one's point of view.
CD   Huefi (scholarship); hsin^ (conduct); ^hih or ^hihchien (discernment, or real
insight) . Thus one's shih, or power of insight into history or contemporary events
may be "higher" than another's. This is what we call "power of interpretation, " or
interpretative in An educated man, therefore, is one who has the right loves and
hatreds. This we call taste, and with taste comes charm. Now to have taste or
discernment requires a capacity for thinking things through to the bottom, an
independence of judgment, and an unwill-ingness to be bulldozed by any form of humbug,
social, political, literary, artistic, or academic. There is no doubt that we are
surrounded in our adult life with a wealth of humbugs: fame humbugs, wealth humbugs,
patriotic humbugs, political humbugs, religious humbugs and humbug poets, humbug
artists, humbug dictators and humbug psychologists. When a psychoanalyst tells us
that the performing of the functions of the bowels during childhood has a definite
connection with ambition and aggressiveness and sense of duty in one's later life,
or that constipation leads to stinginess of character, all that a man with taste can
do is to feel amused. When a man is wrong, he is wrong, and there is no need for one
to be impressed and overawed by a great name or by the number of books that he has
read and we haven't.
Taste then is closely associated with courage, as the Chinese always associate shih
with tan, and courage or independence of judgment, as we know, is such a rare virtue
among mankind. We see this intellectual courage or independence during the childhood
of all thinkers and writers who in later life amount to anything. Such a person refuses
to like a certain poet even if he has the greatest vogue during his time; then when
he truly likes a poet, he is able to say why he likes him, and it is an appeal to
his inner judgment. This is what we call taste in literature. He also refuses to give
his approval to the current school of painting, if it jars upon his artistic instinct.
This is taste in art. He also refuses to be impressed by a philosophic vogue or a
fashionable theory, even though it were backed by the greatest name. He is unwilling
to be convinced by any author until he is convinced at heart; if the author convinces
him, then the author is right, but if the author cannot convince him, then he is right
and the author wrong. This is taste in knowledge. No doubt such intellectual courage
or independence of judgment requires a certain childish,naive confidence in oneself,
but this self is the only thing that one can cling to, and the moment a student gives
up his right of personal judgment, he is in for accepting all the humbugs of life.
Confucius seemed to liave felt that scholarship without thinking was more dangerous
than thinking unbacked by scholarship; he said, "Thinking without learning makes one
flighty, and learning without thinking is a disaster. " He must have seen enough
students of the latter type in his days for him to utter this warning, a warning very
much needed in the modern schools. It is well known that modern e-ducation and the
modern school system in general tend to encourage scholarship at the expense of
discernment and look upon the cramming of information as an end in itself, as if a
great amount of scholarship could already make an educated man. But why is thought
discouraged at school? Why has the educational system twisted and distorted the
pleasant pursuit of knowledge into a mechanical, measured, uniform and passive
cramming of information? Why do we place more importance on knowledge than on thought?
How do we come to call a college graduate an educated man simply because he has made
up the necessary units or weekhours of psychology, medieval history, logic, and
"religion"? Why are there school marks and diplomas, and how did it come about that
the mark and the diploma have, in the student's mind, come to take the place of the
true aim of education?
The reason is simple. We have this system because we are educating people in masses,
as if in a factory, and anything which happens inside a factory must go by a dead
and mechanical system. In order to protect its name and standardize its products,
a school must certify them with diplomas. With diplomas, then, comes the necessity
of grading, and with the necessity of grading come school marks, and in order to have
school marks, there must be recitations , examinations, and tests. The whole thing
forms an entirely logical sequence and there is no escape from it. But the consequences
of having mechanical examinations and tests are more fatal than we imagine. For it
immediately throws the emphasis on memorization of facts rather than on the
development of taste or judgment. I have been a teacher myself and know that it is
easier to make a set of questions on historical dates than on vague opinions on vague
questions. It is also easier to mark the papers.
The danger is that after having instituted this system, we are liable to forget that
we have already wavered, or are apt to waver from the true ideal of education, which
as I say is the development of good taste in knowledge. It is still useful to remember
what Confucius said: "That scholarship which consists in the memorization of facts
does not qualify one to be a teacher. " There are no such things as compulsory subjects,
no books, even Shakespeare's, that one must read. The school seems to proceed on the
foolish idea that we can delimit a minimum stock of learning in history or geography
which we can consider the absolute requisite of an educated man. I am pretty well
educated, although I am in utter confusion about the capital of Spain, and at one
time thought that Havana was the name of an island next to Cuba. The danger of
prescribing a course of compulsory studies is that it implies that a man who has gone
through the prescribed course ipso facto knows all there is to know for an educated
man. It is therefore entirely logical that a graduate ceases to learn anything or
to read books after he leaves school, because he has already learned all there is
to know.
We must give up the idea that a man's knowledge can be tested or measured in any form
whatsoever. Chuangtse has well said, "Alas, my life is limited, while knowledge is
limitless! " The pursuit of knowledge is, after all, only like the exploration of
a new continent, or "an adventure of the soul, " as Anatole France says, and it will
remain a pleasure, instead of becoming a torture, if the spirit of exploration with
an open, questioning, curious and adventurous mind is maintained. Instead of the
measured, uniform and passive cramming of information, we have to place this ideal
of a positive, growing individual pleasure. Once the diploma and the marks are
abolished, or treated for what they are worth, the pursuit of knowledge becomes
positive, for the student is at least forced to ask himself why he studies at all.
At present, the question is already answered for the student, for there is no question
in his mind that he studies as a freshman in order to become a sophomore, and studies
as a sophomore in order to become a junior. All such extraneous considerations should
be brushed aside, for the acquisition of knowledge is nobody else's business but one's
own. At present, all students study for the registrar, and many of the good students
study for their parents or teachers or their future wives, that they may not seem
ungrateful to their parents who are spending so much money for their support at college,
or because they wish to appear nice to a teacher who is nice and conscientious to
them, or that they may go out of school and earn a higher salary to feed their families.
I suggest that all such thoughts are immoral. The pursuit of knowledge should remain
nobody else's business but one's own, and only then can education become a pleasure
and become positive.

II. ART AS PLAY AND PERSONALITY
Art is both creation and recreation. Of the two ideas, I think art as recreation or
as sheer play of the human spirit is more important. Much as I appreciate all forms
of immortal creative work, whether in painting, architecture or literature, I think
the spirit of true art can become more general and permeate society only when a lot
of people are enjoying art as a pastime, without any hope of achieving immortality.
As it is more important that all college students should play tennis or football with
indifferent skill than that a college should produce a few champion athletes or
football players for the national contests, so it is also more important that all
children and all grown-ups should be able to create something of their own as their
pastime than that the nation should produce a Rodin. I would rather have all school
children taught to model clay and all bank presidents and economic experts able to
make their own Christmas cards, however ridiculous the attempt may be, than to have
only a few artists who work at art as a profession. That is lo say, I am for amateurism
in all fields. I like amateur philosophers, amateur poets, amateur photographers,
amateur magicians, amateur architects who build their own houses, amateur musicians,
amateur botanists and amateur aviators. I get as much pleasure out of listening to
a friend playing a sonatina of an evening in an indifferent manner as out of listening
to a first-class professional concert. And everyone enjoys an amateur parlor magician,
who is one of his friends, more than he enjoys a professional magician on the stage,
and every parent enjoys the amateur dramatics of his own children much more heartily
than he enjoys a Shakespearean play. We know that it is spontaneous, and in spontaneity
alone lies the true spirit of art. That is why I regard it as so important that in
China painting is essentially the pastime of a scholar and not of a professional artist.
It is only when the spirit of play is kept that art can escape being commercialized.
Now it is characteristic of play that one plays without reason and there must be no
reason for it. Play is its own good reason. This view is borne out by the history
of evolution. Beauty is something that cannot be accounted for by the struggle for
existence, and there are forms of beauty that are destructive even to the animal,
like the over-developed horns of a deer. Darwin saw that he could never account for
the beauties of plant and animal life by natural selection, and he had to introduce
the great secondary principle of sexual selection. We fail to understand art and the
essence of art if we do not recognize it as merely an overflow of physical and mental
energy, free and unhampered and existing for its own sake. This is the much decried
formula of "art for art's sake." I regard this not as a question upon which the
politicians have the right to say anything, but merely as an incontrovertible fact
regarding the psychological origin of all artistic creation. Hitler has denounced
many forms of modern art as immoral, but I consider that those painters who paint
portraits of Hitler, to be shown at the new Art Museum in order to please the powerful
ruler, are the most immoral of all. That is not art, but prostitution. If commercial
art often injures the spirit of artistic creation, political art is sure to kill it.
For freedom is the very soul of art. Modern dictators are attempting the impossible
when they try to produce a political art. They don't seem to realize that you cannot
produce art by the force of the bayonet any more than you can buy real love from a
prostitute.
In order to understand the essence of art at all, we have to go back to the physical
basis of art as an overflow of energy. This is known as an artistic or creative impulse.
The use of the very word "inspiration" shows that the artist himself hardly knows
where the impulse comes from. It is merely a matter of inner urge, like the scientist's
impulse for the discovery of truth, or the explorer's impulse for discovering a new
island. There is no accounting for it. We are beginning to see today, with the help
of biological knowledge, that the whole organization of our mental life is regulated
by the increase or decrease and distribution of hormones in the blood, acting on the
various organs and the nervous system controlling these organs. Even anger or fear
is merely a matter of the supply of adrenalin. Genius itself, it seems to me, is but
an over-supply of glandular secretions. An obscure Chinese novelist, without the
modern knowledge of hormones, made a correct guess about the origin of all activity
as due to "worms" in our body. Adultery is a matter of worms gnawing our intestines
and impelling the man to satisfy his desire. Ambition and aggressiveness and love
of fame or power are also due to certain other worms giving the person no rest until
he has achieved the object of his ambition. The writing of a book, say a novel, is
again due to a species of worms which impel and urge the author to create for no reason
whatsoever. Between hormones and worms, I prefer to believe in the latter. The term
is more vivid.
Given an over-supply or even a normal supply of worms, a man is bound to create
something or other, because he cannot help himself. When a child has an over-supply
of energy, his normal walking is transformed into hopping or skipping. When a man
has an over-supply of energy, his walking becomes transformed into prancing or dancing.
So. then, dancing is nothing but inefficient walking, inefficient in the sense that
there is a waste of energy from an utilitarian, not an aesthetic, point of view.
Instead of going straight to a point,which is the quickest road, a dancer waltzes
and goes in a circle. No one really tries to be patriotic when he is dancing, and
to command a man to dance according to the capitalist or fascist or proletarian
ideology is to destroy the spirit of play and glorious inefficiency in dancing. ...
As if man in civilization didn't work too much already, in comparison with every other
species and variety of the animal kingdom, so that even the little leisure he has,
the little time for play and art, must too be invaded by the claims of that monster,
the State!
This understanding of the true nature of art as consisting in mere play may help to
clarify the problem of the relationship of art and morality. Beauty is merely good
form, and there is good form in conduct as well as in good painting or a beautiful
bridge. Art is very much broader than painting and music and dancing, because there
is good form in everything. There is good form in an athlete at a race;
there is good form in a man leading a beautiful life from childhood and youth to
maturity and old age, each appropriate in its own time;there is good form in a
presidential campaign well directed, well maneuvered and leading gradually to a
finale of victory, and there is good form, too, in one's laughter or spitting, as
so carefully practised by the old Mandarins in China. Every human activity has a form
and expression, and all forms of expressions lie within the definition of art. It
is therefore impossible to relegate the art of expression to the few fields of music
and dancing and painting.
With this broader interpretation of art, therefore, good form in conduct and good
personality in art are closely related and are equally important. There can be a luxury
in our bodily movements, as in the movement of a symphonic poem. Given that over-supply
of energy, there is an ease and gracefulness and attendance to form in whatever we
do. Now ease and gracefulness come from a feeling of physical competence, a feeling
of ability to do a thing more than well to do it beautifully . In the more abstract
realms, we see this beauty in anybody doing a nice job. The impulse to do a nice job
or a neat job is essentially an aesthetic impulse. ... In the more concrete details
of our life, there is, or there can be, ease and gracefulness and competence, too.
All the things we call "the amenities of life" belong in this category. Paying a
compliment well and appropriately is called a beautiful compliment, and on the other
hand, paying a compliment with bad taste is called an awkward compliment.
The development of the amenities of speech and life and personal habits reached a
high point at the end of the Chin Dynasty (third and fourth centuries, A.D. ) in China.
That was the time when "leisurely conversations" were in vogue. The greatest
sophistication was seen in women's dress, and there were a great number of men noted
for their handsomeness. There was a fashion for growing " beautiful beards, " and
men learned to wabble about clad in extremely loose gowns. The dress was so designed
that there was no part of one's body unreachable in case one wanted to scratch an
itch. Everything was gracefully done. The chu, a bundle of hair from the horse's tail
tied together around a handle for driving away mosquitoes or flies, became an
important accessory of conversation, and today such leisurely conversations are still
known in literary works as chut an or "chu conversations." The idea was that one was
to hold the chu in his hand and wave it gracefully about in the air during conversation.
The fan came in also as a beautiful adjunct to conversation, the conversationalist
opening, waving and closing it, as an American old man would take off his spectacles
and put them on again during a speech, and was just as beautiful to look at. In point
of utility, the chu or the fan was only slightly more useful than an Englishman's
monocle, but they were all parts of the style of conversation, as a cane is a part
of the style of walking. Among the most beautiful amenities of life I have seen in
the West are the clicking of heels of Prussian gentlemen bowing to a lady in a parlot
and the curtsying of German girls, with one leg crossed behind the other. That I
consider a supremely beautiful gesture, and it is a pity that this custom lias gone
out of vogue.
Many are the social amenities practised in China. The gestures of one's fingers,
liands and arms arc carefully cultivated. The method of greeting among the Manchus,
known as tach'ien, is also a beautiful thing to look at. The person comes into the
room, and letting one arm fall straight down at the side, he bends one of his legs
and makes a graceful dip. In case there is company sitting around the room, he makes
a graceful turn around the axis of his unbent leg while in that position, thus making
a general greeting to the entire company. One should also watch a cultivated
chess-player put his stones on the chessboard. Holding one of those tiny white or
black stones carefully balanced on his forefinger, he gently pushes it from behind
by an outward movement of his thumb and an inward movement of the forefinger, and
lands it beautifully on the board. A cultured Mandarin made extremely beautiful
gestures when he was angry. He wore a gown with the sleeves tucked up at the lower
ends showing the silk lining, known as "horse-hoof sleeves, " and when he was greatly
displeased, he would brandish his right arm or both arms downwards and with an audible
jerk bring the tucked-up "horse-hoof" down, and gracefully wobble out of the room.
This is known as fohsiu, or to "brush one's sleeves and leave. "
The speech of a cultured Mandarin official is also a beautiful thing to hear. His
words come out with a beautiful cadence, and the musical tones of the Peking accent
have a graceful musical rise and fall. His syllables are pronounced gracefully and
slowly, and in the case of real scholars, his language is set up with jewels from
the Chinese literary language. And then one should hear how the Mandarin laughs or
spits. It is positively delightful. The spitting is done generally in three musical
beats, the first two being sounds of drawing in and clearing the throat in preparation
for the final beat of spitting out, which is executed with a quick forcefulness:
staccato after legato. I really don't mind the germs thus let out into the air, if
the spitting is aesthetically done, for I have survived the germs without any
appreciable effect on my health. His laughter is an equally regulated and artistically
rhythmical affair, slightly artificial and stylized, and finishing off in an
increasing generous volume, pleasantly softened by a white beard when there is one.
Such laughter is a carefully cultivated art with an actor as part of his technique
of acting, and theater-goers always enjoy and applaud a perfectly executed laugh.
This is of course a very difficult thing, because there are so many kinds of laughter;
the laughter of happiness, the laughter at some one falling into one's trap, the
laughter of sneer or contempt, and most difficult of all, the laughter of despair,
of a man caught and defeated by the force of over-whelming circumstances. Chinese
theater-goers watch for these things and for the hand gestures and steps of an actor,
the latter being known as t'aipu, or "stage steps. " Every movement of the arm, every
inclination of the head, every twist of the neck, every bend of the back, every waving
movement of the flowing sleeve, and of course every step of the foot, is a carefully
practiced gesture. The Chinese classify acting into the two classes of singing and
acting, and there are plays with emphasis on singing, and other dramas with emphasis
on acting. By "acting" is meant these gestures of the body, the hands and the face,
as much as the more general acting of emotions and expressions. Chinese actors have
to learn how to shake their heads in disapproval, how to lift their eyebrows in
suspicion, and how to gently stroke their beard in peace and satisfaction. . . .
Art has a relationship to morals only insofar as the peculiar quality of a work of
art is an expression of the artist's personality. An artist with a grand personality
produces grand art; an artist with a trivial personality produces trivial art; a
sentimental artist produces sentimental art, a voluptuous artist produces voluptuous
art, a lender artist produces tender art, and an artist of delicacy produces delicate
art. There we have the relationship of art and morality in a nutshell. Morality,
therefore, is not a thing that can be superimposed from the outside. ... It must grow
from the inside as the natural expression of the artist's soul. And it is not a question
of choice, but an inescapable fact. The mean-hearted artist cannot produce a great
painting, and a big-hearted artist cannot produce a mean picture, even if his life
were at stake.
The Chinese notion of p'in in art is extremely interesting, sometimes spoken of as
jenp'in ("personality of the man") or p'inkeh ("personality of character"). There
is also an idea of grading, as we speak of artists or poets of "the first p'in" or
"second p'in, " and we also speak of tasting or sampling good tea as "to p'in tea.
" There are then a whole category of expressions in connection with the personality
of a person as shown in a particular action. In the first place, a bad gambler, or
a gambler who shows bad temper or bad taste, is said to have a bad tup'in or a bad
"gambling personality. "A drinker who is apt to behave disgracefully after a hard
drink is said to have a bad chiup'in or bad "wine personality. " A good or bad
chess-player is said to have a good or bad ch'ip'in or "chess personality. " The
earliest Chinese book of poetic criticism is known as Shihp'in   ( Personalities of
Poetry ), with a grading of the different poets, and of course there are books of
art criticism known as huap'in or "Personalities in Painting."
Connected with this idea of p'in, therefore, there is the generally accepted belief
that an artist's work is strictly determined by his personality. This "personality"
is both moral and artistic. It tends to emphasize the notion of human understanding,
high-mindedness, detachment from life, absence of pettiness or triviality or
vulgarity. In this sense it is akin to English "manner" or "style." A wayward or
unconventional artist will show a wayward or unconventional style and a person of
charm will naturally show charm and delicacy in his style, and a great artist with
good taste will not stoop to "mannerisms. " In this sense, personality is the very
soul of art. The Chinese have always accepted implicitly the belief that no painter
can be great unless his own moral and aesthetic personality is great, and in judging
calligraphy and painting, the highest criterion is not whether the artist shows good
technique but whether he has or has not a high personality. A work, showing perfect
technique, may nevertheless show a "low" personality, and then, as we would say in
English, that work lacks "character. "
We have come thus to the central problem of all art. Tseng Kuofan said in one of his
family letters that the only two living principles of art in calligraphy are form
and expression, and that one of the greatest calligraphists of the time. Ho Shaochi,
approved of his formula and appreciated his insight. Since all art is concrete, there
is always a mechanical problem, the problem of technique, which has to be mastered,
but as art is also spirit, the vital element in all forms of creation is the personal
expression. It is the artist's individuality, over against his mere technique, that
is the only significant thing in a work of art. In writing, the only important thing
in a book is the author's personal style and feeling, as shown in his judgment and
likes and dislikes. There is a constant danger of this personality or personal
expression being submerged by the technique, and the greatest difficulty of all
beginners, whether in painting or writing or acting, is to let oneself gv . The reason
is, of course, that the beginner is scared by the form or technique. But no form without
this personal element can be good form at all. All good form has a swing, and it is
the swing that is beautiful to look at, whether it is the swing of a champion
golf-player's club, or of a man rocketing to success, or of ;i football player carrying
the ball down the field. There must be a flow of expression, and that power of
expression must not be hampered by the technique, but must be able to move freely
and happily in it. There is that swing so beautiful to look at in a train going around
a curve, or a yacht going at full speed with straight sails. There is that swing in
the flight of a swallow, or of a hawk dashing down on its prey, or of a champion horse
racing to the finish "in good form", as we say.
We require that all art must have character, and character is nothing but what the
work of art suggests or reveals concerning the artist's personality or soul or heart
or, as the Chinese put it, "breast." Without that character or personality, a work
of art is dead, and no amount of virtuosity or mere perfection of technique can save
it from lifelessness or lack of vitality. Without that highly individual thing called
personality, beauty itself becomes banal. So many girls aspiring to be Hollywood stars
do not know this, and content themselves with imitating Marlene Dietrich or Jean
Harlow, thus exasperating a movie director looking for talent. There are so many
ba-nally pretty faces, and so little fresh, individual beauty. Why don't they study
the acting of Marie Dressier? All art is one and based on the same principle of
expression or personality, whether it is acting in a movie picture or painting or
literary authorship. Really, by looking at the acting of Marie Dressier or Lionel
Barrymore, one can learn the secret of style in writing. To cultivate the charm of
that personality is the important basis for all art, for no matter what an artist
does, his character shows in his work.
The cultivation of personality is both moral and aesthetic, and it requires both
scholarship and refinement. Refinement is something nearer to taste and may be just
born in an artist, but the highest pleasure of looking at a book of art is felt only
when it is supported by scholarship. This is particularly clear in painting and
calligraphy. One can tell from a piece of calligraphy whether the writer has or has
not seen a great number of Wei rubbings. If he has, this scholarship gives him a certain
antique manner, but in addition to that, he must put into it his own soul or personality,
which varies of course. If he is a delicate and sentimental soul, he will show a
delicate and sentimental style, but if he loves strength or massive power, he will
also adopt a style that goes in for strength and massive power. Thus in painting and
calligraphy, particularly the latter, we are able to see a whole category of aesthetic
qualities or different types of beauty, and no one will be able to separate the beauty
of the finished product and the beauty of the artist's own soul. There may be beauty
of whimsicality and waywardness, beauty of rugged strength, beauty of massive power,
beauty of spiritual freedom, beauty of courage and dash, beauty of romantic charm,
beauty of restraint, beauty of soft gracefulness, beauty of austerity, beauty of
simplicity and "stupidity", beauty of mere regularity, beauty of swiftness, and
sometimes even beauty of affected ugliness. There is only one form of beauty that
is impossible because it does not exist, and that is the beauty of strenuousness or
of the strenuous life.

Ill. THE ART OF READING
Reading or the enjoyment of books has always been regarded among the charms of a
cultured life and is respected and envied by those who rarely give themselves that
privilege. This is easy to understand when we compare the difference between the life
of a man who does no reading and that of a man who does. The man who has not the habit
of reading is imprisoned in his immediate world, in respect to time and space. His
life falls into a set routine; he is limited to contact and conversation with a few
friends and acquaintances, and he sees only what happens in his immediate neighborhood.
From this prison there is no escape. But the moment he takes up a book, he immediately
enters a different world, and if it is a good book, he is immediately put in touch
with one of the best talkers of the world. This talker leads him on and carries him
into a different country or a different age, or unburdens to him some of his personal
regrets, or discusses with him some special line or aspect of life that the reader
knows nothing about. An ancient author puts him in communion with a dead spirit of
long ago, and as he reads along, he begins to imagine what that ancient author looked
like and what type of person he was. Both Mencius and Ssema Ch'ien, China's greatest
historian, have expressed the same idea. Now to be able to live two hours out of twelve
in a different world and take one's thoughts off the claims of the immediate present
is, of course, a privilege to be envied by people shut up in their bodily prison.
Such a change of environment is really similar to travel in its psychological effect.
But there is more to it than this. The reader is always carried away into a world
of thought and reflection. Even if it is a book about physical events, there is a
difference between seeing such events in person or living through them, and reading
about them in books, for then the events always assume the quality of a spectacle
and the reader becomes a detached spectator. The best reading is therefore that which
leads us into this contemplative mood, and not that which is merely occupied with
the report of events. The tremendous amount of time spent on newspapers I regard as
not reading at all, for the average readers of papers are mainly concerned with getting
reports about events and happenings without contemplative value.
The best formula for the object of reading, in my opinion, was stated by Huang Shanku,
a Sung poet and friend of Su Tungp'o. He said, "A scholar who hasn't read anything
for three days feels that his talk has no flavor (becomes insipid), and his own face
becomes hateful to look at (in the mirror)." What he means, of course, is that reading
gives a man a certain charm and flavor, which is the entire object of reading, and
only reading with this object can be called an art. One doesn't read to "improve one's
mind, " because when one begins to think of improving his mind, all the pleasure of
reading is gone. He is the type of person who says to himself: " I must read Shakespeare,
and I must read Sophocles, and I must read the entire Five Foot Shelf of Dr. Eliot,
so I can become an educated man. "I'm sure that man will never become educated. He
will force himself one evening to read Shakespeare's Hamlet and come away, as if from
a bad dream, with no greater benefit than that he is able to say that he has "read"
Hamlet. Anyone who reads a book with a sense of obligation does not understand the
art of reading. This type of reading with a business purpose is in no way different
from a senator's reading up of files and reports before he makes a speech. It is asking
for business advice and information, and not reading at all.
Reading for the cultivation of personal charm of appearance and flavor in speech is
then, according to Huang, the only admissible kind of reading. This charm of
appearance must evidently be interpreted as something other than physical beauty.
What Huang means by "hateful to look at" is not physical ugliness. There are ugly
faces that have a fascinating charm and beautiful faces that are insipid to look at.
I have among my Chinese friends one whose head is shaped like a bomb and yet who is
nevertheless always a pleasure to see. The most beautiful face among Western authors,
so far as I have seen them in pictures, was that of G. K. Chesterton. There was such
a diabolical conglomeration of mustache, glasses, fairly bushy eyebrows and knitted
lines where the eyebrows met! One felt there were a vast number of ideas playing about
inside that forehead, ready at any time to burst out from those quizzically
penetrating eyes. That is what Huang would call a beautiful face, a face not made
up by powder and rouge, but by the sheer force of thinking. As for flavor of speech,
it all depends on one's way of reading. Whether one has "flavor" or not in his talk,
depends on his method of reading. If a reader gets the flavor of books, he will show
that flavor in his conversations, and if he has flavor in his conversations, he cannot
help also having a flavor in his writing.
Hence I consider flavor or taste as the key to all reading. It necessarily follows
that taste is selective and individual, like the taste for food. The most hygienic
way of eating is, after all, eating what one likes, for then one is sure of his
digestion. In reading as in eating, what is one man's meat may be another's poison.
A teacher cannol force his pupils to like what he likes in reading, and a parent cannot
expect his children to have the same tastes as himself. And if (he reader has no taste
for what he reads, all the time is wasted. As Yuan Chunglang says, "You can leave
the books that you don't like alone, and let other people read them . "
There can be, therefore, no books that one absolutely must read. For our intellectual
interests grow like a tree or flow like a river. So long as there is proper sap, the
tree will grow anyhow, and so long as there is fresh current from the spring, the
water will flow. When water strikes a granite cliff, it just goes around it; when
it finds itself in a pleasant low valley, it stops and meanders there a while; when
it finds itself in a deep mountain pond, it is content to stay there; when it finds
itself traveling over rapids, it hurries forward. Thus, without any effort or
determined aim, it is sure of reaching the sea some day. There are no books in this
world that everybody must read, but only books that a person must read at a certain
time in a given place under given circumstances and at a given period of his life.
I rather think that reading, like matrimony is determined by fate or yinyuaii . Even
if there is a certain book that every one must read, like the Bible, there is a time
for it. When one's thoughts and experience have not reached a certain point for reading
a masterpiece, the masterpiece will leave only a bad flavor on his palate. Confucius
said, "When one is fifty, one may read the Book of Changes, " which means that one
should not read it at forty-five. The extremely mild flavor of Confucius' own sayings
in the Analects and his mature wisdom cannot be appreciated until one becomes mature
himself.
Furthermore, the same reader reading the same book at different periods, gets a
different flavor out of it. For instance, we enjoy a book more after we have had a
personal talk with the author himself, or even after having seen a picture of his
face, and one gets again a different flavor sometimes after one has broken off
friendship with the author. A person gets a kind of flavor from reading the Book of
Changes at forty, and gets another kind of flavor reading it at fifty, after he has
seen more changes in life. Therefore, all good books can be read with profit and
renewed pleasure a second time. I was made to read Westward Ho ! and Henry Esmond
in my college days, but while I was capable of appreciating Westward Ho ! in my 'teens,
the real flavor of Henry Esmond escaped me entirely until I reflected about it later
on, and suspected there was vastly more charm in that book than I had then been capable
of appreciating.
Reading, therefore, is an act consisting of two sides, the author and the reader.
The net gain comes as much from the reader's contribution through his own insight
and experience as from the author's own. In speaking about the Confucian Analacts,
the Sung Confu-cianist Ch'eng Yich'uan said, "There are readers and readers. Some
read the Analects and feel that nothing has happened, some are pleased with one or
two lines in it, and some begin to wave their hands and dance on their legs
unconsciously. "
I regard the discovery of one's favorite author as the most critical event in one's
intellectual development. There is such a thing as the affinity of spirits, and among
the authors of ancient and modern times, one must try to find an author whose spirit
is akin with his own. Only in this way can one get any real good out of reading. One
has to be independent and search out his masters. Who is one's favorite author, no
one can tell, probably not even the man himself. It is like love at first sight. The
reader cannot be told to love this one or that one, but when he has found the author
he loves, he knows it himself by a kind of instinct. We have such famous cases of
discoveries of authors. Scholars seem to have lived in different ages, separated by
centuries, and yet their modes of thinking and feeling were so akin that their coming
together across the pages of a book was like a person finding his own image. In Chinese
phraseology, we speak of these kindred spirits as re-incarnations of the same soul,
as Su Tungp'o was said to be a re-incarnation of Chuangtse or T'ao Yuanming,   and
Yuan Chunglang was said to be the re-incarnation of Su Tungp'o. Su Tungp'o said that
when he first read Chuangtse, he felt as if all the time since his childhood he had
been thinking the same things and taking the same views himself. When Yuan Chunglang
discovered one night Hsii Wench'ang, a contemporary unknown to him, in a small book
of poems, he jumped out of bed and shouted to his friend, and his friend began to
read it and shout in turn, and then they both read and shouted again until their servant
was completely puzzled. George Eliot described her first reading of Rousseau as an
electric shock. Nietzsche felt the same thing about Schopenhauer, but Schopenhauer
was a peevish master and Nietzsche was a violent-tempered pupil, and it was natural
that the pupil later rebelled against the teacher.
It is only this kind of reading, this discovery of one's favorite author, that will
do one any good at all. Like a man falling in love with his sweetheart at first sight,
everything is right. She is of the right height, has the right face, the right color
of hair, the right quality of voice and the right way of speaking and smiling. This
author is not CD  Su Tungp'o performed the unique {eat of writing a complete set of
poems on the rhymes used by the complete poems of T'ao, and at the end of the collection
of Su '.s' Poems on T'do'.s Rhyffif;, he said of himself that he was the re-incarnation
of T'ao, whom he admired desperately above all other predecessors.something that a
young man need be told about by his teacher. The author is just right for him; his
style, his taste, his point of view, his mode of thinking, are all right. And then
the reader proceeds to devour every word and every line that the author writes, and
because there is a spiritual affinity, he absorbs and readily digests everything.
The author has cast a spell over him, and he is glad to be under the spell, and in
time his own voice and manner and way of smiling and way of talking become like the
author's own. Thus he truly steeps himself in his literary lover and derives from
these books sustenance for his soul. After a few years, the spell is over and he grows
a little tired of this lover and seeks for new literary lovers, and after he has had
three or four lovers and completely eaten them up, he emerges as an author himself.
There are many readers who never fall in love, like many young men and women who flirt
around and are incapable of forming a deep attachment to a particular person. They
can read any and all authors, and they never amount to anything.
Such a conception of the art of reading completely precludes the idea of reading as
a duty or as an obligation. In China, one often encourages students to "study
bitterly." There was a famous scholar who studied bitterly and who stuck an awl in
his calf when he fell asleep while studying at night. There was another scholar who
had a maid stand by his side as he was studying at night, to wake him up every time
he fell asleep. This was nonsensical. If one has a book lying before him and falls
asleep while some wise ancient author is talking to him, he should just go to bed.
No amount of sticking an awl in his calf or of shaking him up by a maid will do him
any good. Such a man has lost all sense of the pleasure of reading. Scholars who are
worth anything at all never know what is called "a hard grind" or what "bitter study"
means. They merely love books and read on because they cannot help themselves.
With this question solved, the question of time and place for reading is also provided
with an answer. There is no proper time and place for reading. When the mood for reading
comes, one can read anywhere. If one knows the enjoyment of reading, he will read
in school or out of school, and in spite of all schools. He can study even in the
best schools. Tseng Kuofan, in one of his family letters concerning the expressed
desire of one of his younger brothers to come to the capital and study at a better
school, replied that: "If one has the desire to study, he can study at a country school,
or even on a desert or in busy streets, and even as a woodcutter or a swineherd. But
if one has no desire to study, then not only is the country school not proper for
study, but even a quiet country home or a fairy island is not a proper place for study.
" There are people who adopt a self-important posture at the desk when they are about
to do some reading, and then complain they are unable to read because the room is
too cold, or the chair is too hard, or the light is too strong. And there are writers
who complain that they cannot write because there are too many mosquitos, or the
writing paper is too shiny, or the noise from the street is too great. The great Sung
scholar, Ouyang Hsiu, confessed to "three on's" for doing his best writing: on the
pillow, on horseback and on the toilet. Another famous Ch'ing scholar, Ku Ch'ienii,
was known for his habit of " reading Confucian classics naked" in summer. On the other
hand, there is a good reason for not doing any reading in any of the seasons of the
year, if one does not like reading:
To study in spring is treason;
And summer is sleep's best reason;
If winter hurries the fall, Then stop till next spring season.
What, then, is the true art of reading? The simple answer is lo just take up a book
and read when the mood comes. To be thoroughly enjoyed, reading must be entirely
spontaneous. One takes a limp volume of Lisao, or of Omar Khayyam, and goes away hand
in hand with his love to read on a river bank. If there are good clouds over one's
head, let them read the clouds and forget the books, or read (he books and the clouds
at the same time. Between times, a good pipe or a good cup of tea makes it still more
perfect. Or perhaps on a snowy night, when one is sitting before the fireside, and
there is a kettle singing on the hearth and a good pouch of tobacco at the side, one
gathers ten or a dozen books on philosophy, economics, poetry, biography and piles
them up on the couch, and then leisurely turns over a few of them and gently lights
on the one which strikes his fancy at the moment. Chin Shengt'an regards reading a
banned book behind closed doors on a snowy night as one of the greatest pleasures
of life. The mood for reading is perfectly described by Ch'en Chiju (Meikung): "The
ancient people called books and paintings 'limp volumes' and ' soft volumes';
therefore the best style of reading a book or opening an album is the leisurely style.
" In this mood, one develops patience for everything. As the same author says, "The
real master tolerates misprints when reading history, as a good traveller tolerates
bad roads when climbing a mountain, one going to watch a snow scene tolerates a flimsy
bridge, one choosing to live in the country tolerates vulgar people, and one bent
on looking at flowers tolerates bad wine. "
The best description of the pleasure of reading I found in the autobiography of China's
greatest poetess, Li Ch'ingchao (Yi-an, 1081-1141). She and her husband would go to
the temple, where secondhand books and rubbings from stone inscriptions were sold,
on the day he got his monthly stipend as a student at the Imperial Academy. Then they
would buy some fruit on the way back, and coming home, they began to pare the fruit
and examine the newly bought rubbings together, or drink tea and compare the variants
in different editions. As described in her autobiographical sketch known as
Postscript to Chinshihiu (a book on bronze and stone inscriptions) :
I have a power for memory, and sitting quietly after supper in the Homecoming Hall,
we would boil a pot of tea and, pointing to the piles of books on the shelves, make
a guess as to on what line of what page in what volume of a certain book a passage
occurred and see who was right, the one making the correct guess
. having.the privilege of drinking 'his cup' of ^tea first.' When a guess wasi correct,;
'"we would lift thecup high-and break out 'into a loud laughter, so much so
that'sometimes;*hertea-was spilled   on our dress and we were not able to drink. We;
were then-content to. live .and^row old in such a world! Therefore we held our
heads,high, .although we were living in poverty, arid sorrow. :. In time our
collection grew bigger and bigger and the books arid art objects were piled up on
tables and desks and beds, and we i enjoyed them with-our eyes and our minds and:
planned and discussed over ithem," tasting a happiaess above those enjoying dogs
and-horses and'music'and dance ..
This sketch was written in her old age after her husband had died, when she .was a
lonely old woman fleeing from place to place.

IV. THE ART OF WRITING
The art of writing is very much broader than the art of writing itself, or of
the ;writing'technique. In fact, it would be helpful to a beginner who aspires to
be a writer first to dispel in him any overcon-cern with the technique of writing,
and tell him to stop trifling with such superficial -matters and get down to the depths
of his soul, to the end of developing a genuine literary personality. as the foundation
of all authorship.. When the foundation is properly laid and a genuine literary
personality is cultivated, style follows as a natural consequence and the liittle
points of technique will take care of themselves. It really does not'matter if he
is a little confused about points of rhetoric and grammar, provided he can turn out
good stuff. There are always professional readers with publishing houses whose
business it is to attend to the commas, semicolons, and split infinitives. On the
other hand, no amount of grammatical or literary polish can make a writer if he
neglects the cultivation of a literary personality. As Button says, "The style is
the man." Style is not a method, a system or even a decoration for one's writing;
it is but the total impression that the reader gets of the, quality of the writer's
mind, his depth or superficiality, his insight or lack of insight and other qualities
like wit, humor, biting sarcasm, genial understanding, tenderness, delicacy of
understanding, kindly cynicism or cynical kindliness, hard-headedness, practical
common sense, and general attitude toward things. It is clear that there can be no
handbook for developing a "humorous technique" or a "three-hour course in cynical
kindliness, " or "fifteen rules for practical common sense" and "eleven rules for
delicacy of feeling."
We have to go deeper than the surface of the art of writing, and the moment we do
that, we find that the question of the art of writing involves the whole question
of literature, of thought, point of view, sentiment and reading and writing. In my
literary campaign in China for restoring the School of Self-Expression ( hsingling, )
and for the development of a more lively and personal style in prose, I have been
forced to write essay after essay giving my views on literature in general and on
the art of writing in particular. I have attempted also to write a series of literary
epigrams under the general title "Cigar Ashes. " Here are some of the cigar ashes:
( a) Technique and Personality Professors of composition talk about literature as
carpenters talk about art. Critics analyze a literary composition by the technique
of writing, as engineers measure the height and structure of Taishan by compasses.
There is no such thing as the technique of writing. All good Chinese writers who to
my mind are worth anything have repudiated it.
The technique of writing is to literature as dogmas are to the church the occupation
with trivial things by trivial minds'.
A beginner is generally dazzled by the discussion of technique the technique of the
novel, of the drama, of music and of acting on the stage. He doesn't realize that
the technique of writing has nothing to do with the birth of an author, and the
technique of acting has nothing to do with the birth of a great actor. He doesn't
even suspect that there is such a thing as personality, which is the foundation of
all and literature.
The Appreciation of Literature
When one reads a number of good authors and feels that one author describes things
very vividly, that another shows great tenderness of delicacy, a third expresses
things exquisitely, a fourth has an indescribable charm, a fifth one's writing is
like good whiskey, a sixth one's is like mellow wine, he should not be afraid to say
that he likes them and appreciates them, if only his appreciation is genuine. After
such a wide experience in reading, he has the proper experiential basis for knowing
what are mildness, mellowness, strength, power, brilliance, pungency, delicacy, and
charm. When he has tasted all these flavors, then he knows what is good literature
without reading a single handbook.
The first rule of a student of literature is to learn to sample different flavors.
The best flavor is mildness and mellowness, but is most difficult for a writer to
attain. Between mildness and mere flatness there is only a very thin margin.
A writer whose thoughts lack depth and originality may try to write a simple style
and end up by being insipid. Only fresh fish may be cooked in its own juice; stale
fish must be flavored with anchovy sauce and pepper and mustard the more the better.
A good writer is like the sister of Yang Kueifei, who could go to see the Emperor
himself without powder and rouge. All the other beauties in the palace required them.
This is the reason why there are so few writers who dare to write in simple English.
( c ) Style arid Thought
Writing is good or bad, depending on its charm and flavor, or lack of them. For this
charm there can be no rules. Charm rises from one's writing as smoke rises from a
pipe-bowl, or a cloud rises from ;i hill-top, not knowing whither it is going. The
best style is that of "sailing clouds and flowing water, " like the prose of Su Tungp'o.
Style is a compound of language, thought and personality. Some styles are made
exclusively of language.
Very rarely does one find clear thoughts clothed in unclear language. Much more often
does one find unclear thoughts expressed clearly. Such a style is clearly unclear.
Clear thoughts expressed in unclear language is the style of a confirmed bachelor.
He never has to explain anything to a wife. E.g., Immanuel Kant. Even Samuel Butler
often gets so quizzical.
A man's style is always colored by his "literary lover." He grows to be like him more
and more in ways of thinking and methods of expression. That is the only way a style
can be cultivated by a beginner. In later life, one finds one's own style by finding
one's own self.
One never learns anything from a book when he hates the author. Would that school
teachers would bear this fact in mind!
A man's character is partly .born, and so is his style. The other part is just
contamination.
A man without a favorite author is a lost soul. He remains an un-impregnated ovum,
an unfertilized pistil. One's favorite author or literary lover is pollen for his
soul.
A favorite author exists in the world for every man, only he hasn't taken the trouble
to find him.
A book is like a picture of life or of a city. There are readers who look at pictures
of New York or Paris, but never see New York or Paris itself. The wise man reads both
books and life itself. The universe is one big book, and life is one big school.
A good reader turns an author inside out, like a beggar turning his coat inside out
in search of fleas.
Some authors provoke their readers constantly and pleasantly like a beggar's coat
full of fleas. An itch is a great thing.
The best way of studying any subject is to begin by reading books taking an unfavorable
point of view with regard to it. In that way one is sure of accepting no humbug. After
having read an author unfavorable to the subject, he is better prepared to read more
favorable authors. That is how a crritical mind can be developed
A writer always has an instinctive interest in words as such. Every word has a life
and a personality, usually not recorded by a dictionary, except one like the Concise
or Pocket Oxford Dictionary .
A good dictionary is always readable, like the P.O.D.
There are two mines of language, a new one and an old one. The old mine is in the
books, and the new one is in the language of common people. Second-rate artists will
dig in the old mines, but only first-rate artists can get something out of the new
mine. Ores from the old mine are already smelted, but those from the new mine are
not.
Wang Ch'ung (A. D. 27-c. 100) distinguished between "specialists" and "scholars, "
and again between "writers" and "thinkers. " I think a specialist graduates into a
scholar when his knowledge broadens, and a writer graduates into a thinker when his
wisdom deepens.
A "scholar's" writing consists of borrowings from other scholars, and the more
authorities and sources he quotes, the more of a "scholar" he appears. A thinker's
writing consists of borrowings from ideas in his own intestines, and the greater
thinker a man is, the more he depends on his own intestinal juice.
A scholar is like a raven feeding its young that spits out what it has eaten from
the mouth. A thinker is like a silkworm which gives us not mulberry leaves, but silk.
There is a period of gestation of ideas before writing, like the period of gestation
of an embryo in its mother's womb before birth. When one's favorite author has kindled
the spark in one's soul, and set up a current of live ideas in him, that is the
"impregnation." When a man rushes into print before his ideas go through this period
of gestation, that is diarrhoea, mistaken for birth pains. When a writer sells his
conscience and writes things against his convictions, that is artificial abortion,
and the embryo is always stillborn. When a writer feels violent convulsions like an
electric storm in his head, and he doesn't feel happy until he gets the ideas out
of his system and puts them down on paper and feels an immense relief, that is literary
birth. Hence a writer feels a maternal affection toward his literary product as a
mother feels toward her baby. Hence a writing is always better when it is one's own,
and a woman is always lovelier when she is somebody else's wife.
The pen grows sharper with practice like a cobbler's awl, gradually acquiring the
sharpness of an embroidery needle. But one's ideas grow more and more rounded, like
the views one sees when mounting from a lower to a higher peak.
When a writer hates a person and is thinking of taking up his pen to write a bitter
invective against him, but has not yet seen his good side, he should lay down the
pen again, because he is not yet qualified to write a bitter invective against the
person.
The School of Self-Expression
The so-called "School of Hsingling " started by the three Yuan brothers  at the end
of the sixteenth century, or the so-called "Kun-gan School" (Kungan being the native
district of the brothers) is a school of self-expression. Hsing means one's "personal
nature, " and ling means one's "soul" or "vital spirit."
Writing is but the expression of one's own nature or character and the play of his
vital spirit. The so-called "divine afflatus" is but the flow of this vital spirit,
and is actually caused by an overflow of hormones in the blood.
In looking at an old master or reading an ancient author, we are but watching the
flow of his vital spirit. Sometimes when this flow of energy runs dry or one's spirits
are low, even the writing of the best calligraphist or writer lacks spirit or vitality.
This "divine afflatus" comes in the morning when one has had a good sleep with sweet
dreams and wakes up by himself. Then after his cup of morning tea, he reads the papers
and finds no disturbing news and slowly walks into his study and sits before a bright
window and a clean desk, while outside there is a pleasant sun and a gentle
(D  Yuan Hungtao (usually known as Yuan Chunglang), the second brother, is considered
the leader of the school.breeze. At this moment, he can write good essays, good poems,
good letters, paint good paintings and write good inscriptions on them.
The thing called "self" or "personality" consists of a bundle of limbs,  muscles,
nerves,  reason,  sentiments, culture,  understanding, experience, and prejudices.
It is partly nature and partly culture, partly born and partly cultivated. One's
nature is determined at the time of his birth, or even before it. Some are naturally
hardhearted and mean; others are naturally frank and straightforward and chivalrous
and big-hearted; and again others are naturally soft and weak in character, or given
over to worries. Such things are in one's "marrow bones" and the best teacher or wisest
parent cannot change one's type of personality. Again other qualities are acquired
after birth through education and experience, but insofar as one' s thoughts and ideas
and impressions come from the most diverse sources and different streams of influence
at different periods of his life, his ideas, prejudices and points of view present
a most bewildering inconsistency. One loves dogs and is afraid of cats, while another
loves cats and is afraid of dogs. Hence the study of types of human personality is
the most complicated of all sciences.
The School of Self-Expression demands that we express in writing only our own thoughts
and feelings, our genuine loves, genuine hatreds, genuine fears and genuine hobbies.
These will be expressed without any attempt to hide the bad from the good, without
fear of being ridiculed by the world, and without fear of contradicting the ancient
sages or contemporary authorities.
Writers of the School of Self-Expression like a writer's most characteristic
paragraph in an essay, his most characteristic sentence in a paragraph, and his most
characteristic expression in a sentence. In describing or narrating a scene, a
sentiment or an event, he deals with the scene that he himself sees, the sentiment
that he himself feels and the event as he himself understands it. What conforms to
this rule is literature and what does not conform to it is not literature.
The girl Lin Taiyu in Red Chamber Dream belonged also to the School of Self-Expression
when she said, "When a poet has a good line, never mind whether the musical tones
of words fall in with the established pattern or not. "
In its love for genuine feelings, the School of Self-Expression has a natural contempt
for decorativeness of style. Hence it always stands for the pure and mild flavor in
writing. It accepts the dictum of Men-cius that "the sole goal of writing is
expressiveness."Literary beauty is only expressiveness.
The dangers of this school are that a writer's style may degenerate into plainness
(Yuan Chunglang), or he may develop eccentricity of ideas (Chin Shengt'an), or his
ideas may differ violently from those of established authorities (Li Chowu). That
is why the School of Self-Expression was so hated by the Confucian critics. But as
a matter of fact, it is these original writers who saved Chinese thought and literature
from absolute uniformity and death. They are bound to come into their own in the next
few decades.Chinese orthodox literature expressly aimed at expressing the minds of
the sages and not the minds of the authors and was therefore dead; the hsingling school
of literature aims at expressing the minds of the authors and not the minds of the
sages, and is therefore alive.
There is a sense of dignity and independence in writers of this school which prevents
them from going out of their way to say things to shock people. If Confucius and Mencius
happen to agree with them and their conscience approves, they will not go out of their
way to disagree with the Sages; but if their conscience disapproves, they will not
give Confucius and Mencius the right of way. They can be neither bribed with gold
nor threatened with ostracism.
Genuine literature is but a sense of wonder at the universe and at human life.
He who keeps his vision sane and clear will have always this sense of wonder, and
therefore has no need to distort the truth in order to make it seem wonderful. The
ideas and points of view of writers of this school always seem so new and strange
only because readers are so used to the distorted vision.
A writer's weaknesses are what endear him to a hsingling critic. All writers of the
hsingling school are against imitation of the ancients or the moderns and against
a literary technique of rules. The Yuan brothers believed in "letting one's mouth
and wrist go, resulting naturally in good form" and held that "the important thing
in literature is genuineness." Li Liweng believed that "the important thing in
literature is charm and interest. " Yuan Tsets'ai believed that "there is no technique
in writing. " An early Sung writer, Huang Shanku, believed that "the lines and form
of writing come quite accidentally, like the holes in wood eaten by insects. "
The Familiar Style
A writer in the familiar style speaks in an unbuttoned mood. He completely exposes
his weaknesses, and is therefore disarming.
The relationship between writer and reader should not be one between an austere school
master and his pupils, but one between familiar friends. Only in this way can warmth
be generated.
He who is afraid to use an "I" in his writing will never make a good writer.
I love a liar more than a speaker of truth, and an indiscreet liar more than a discreet
one. His indiscretions are a sign of his love for his readers.
I trust an indiscreet fool and suspect a lawyer.
The indiscreet fool is a nation's best diplomat. He wins people's hearts.
My idea of a good magazine is a fortnightly, where we bring a group of good talkers
together in a small room once in a fortnight and let them chat together. The readers
listen to their chats, which last just about two hours. It is like having a good evening
chat, and after that the reader goes to bed, and next morning when he gets up to attend
to his duties as a bank clerk or accountant or a school principal posting notices
to the students, he feels that the flavor of last night's chat still lingers around
his cheeks.
There are restaurants for giving grand dinners in a hall with gold-framed mirrors,
and there are small restaurants designed for a little drink. All I want is to bring
together two or three intimate friends and have a little drink, and not go to the
dinners of rich and important people. But the pleasure we have in a small restaurant,
eating and drinking and chatting and teasing each other and overturning cups and
spilling wine on dresses is something which people at the grand dinners don't
understand and cannot even "miss".
There are rich men's gardens and mansions, but there are also little lodges in the
mountains. Although sometimes these mountain lodges are furnished with taste and
refinement, the atmosphere is quite different from the rich men's mansions with
vermillion gates and green windows and a platoon of servants and maids standing around.
When one enters the door, he does not hear the barking of faithful dogs and he does
not see the face of snobbish butlers and gatekeepers, and when he leaves, he doesn't
see a pair of "unchaste stone lions" outside its gate. The situation is perfectly
described by a writer of the seventeenth century: "It is as if Chou, Ch'eng, Chang
and Chu  are sitting together and bowing to each other in the Hall of Fuhsi, and
suddenly there come Su Tungp'o and Tungfang Su who break into the room half naked
and without shoes, and they begin to clap their hands and joke with one another. The
onlookers will probably stare in amazement, but these gentlemen look at each other
in silent understanding. "
What Is Beauty7
The thing called beauty in literature and beauty in things depends so much on change
and movement and is based on life. What lives always has change and movement, and
what has change and movement naturally has beauty. How can there be set rules for
literature or writing, when we see that mountain cliffs and ravines and streams
possess a beauty of waywardness and ruggedness far above that of canals, and yet they
were formed without the calculations of an archi-Sung doctrinaires.tect? The
constellations of stars are the wen or literature of the skies, and the famous
mountains and great rivers are the wen or literature of the earth. The wind blows
and the clouds change and we have the pattern of a brocade; the frost comes and leaves
fall and we have the color of autumn. Now do the stars moving around their orbits
in the firmament ever think of their appreciation by men on earth? And yet the Heavenly
Dog and the Cowherd are perceived by us by an accident. The crust of the earth shrinks
and stretches and throws up mountains and forms deep seas. Did the earth consciously
create the Five Sacred Mountains for us to worship? And yet the T'aihua and the
K'uenluen Mountains dash along with their magnificent rhythm and the Jade Maiden and
the Fairy Boy stand around us on awe-inspiring peaks, apparently for our enjoyment.
These are but free and easy strokes of the Creator, the great art master. Can clouds,
which sail forth from the hill-tops and meet the lashing of furious mountain winds,
have time to think of their petticoats and scarves for us to look at? And yet they
arrange themselves, now like the scales of fish, now like the pattern of brocade,
and now like racing dogs and roaring lions and dancing phoenixes and gamboling
unicorns, like a literary masterpiece. Can autumn trees that are feeling the pinch
of heat and cold and the devastation of frost, and that are busily occupied in slowing
down their breath and conserving their energy, have time to paint and powder
themselves for the traveller on the ancient highway to look at? And yet they seem
so cool and pure and sad and forlorn, and far superior to the paintings of Wang Wei
and Mi Fei.
And so every living thing in the universe has its literary beauty. The beauty of a
dried-up vine is greater than the calligraphy of Wang Hsichih, and the austerity of
an overhanging cliff is more imposing than the stone inscriptions on Chang Menglung's
lomb. Therefore we know that the wen or literary beauty of things arises from their
na-lure, and those that fulfill their nature clothe themselves in wen or beautiful
lines. Therefore wen, or beauty of line and form, is intrinsic and not extrinsic.
The horse's hoofs are designed for a quick gallop, the tiger's claws are designed
for pouncing on its prey; lie stork's legs are designed for wading across swamps,
and the bear's paws are designed for walking on ice. Does the horse, the tiger, the
stork or the bear ever think of its beauty of form and proportions? All it tries to
do is function in life and adopt a proper posture for movement. But from our point
of view, we see the horse's hoofs, the tiger's claws, the stork's legs and the bear's
paws have a striking beauty, either in their fullness of contour and suggestion of
power, or in their slenderness and strength of line, or in their clearness of outline,
or in the ruggedness of their joints. Again the elephant's paws are like the lishu
style of writing, the lion's mane is like the feipo, fighting snakes write wonderful
wriggling ts'aoshu ("grass script"), and floating dragons write chuanshu ("seal
characters"), the cow's legs resemble pa fen (comparatively stout and symmetrical
writing), and the deer resembles hsiaok'ai (elegant "small script"). Their beauty
comes from their posture or movement, and their bodily shapes are the result of their
bodily functions, and this is also the secret of beauty in writing. When the shih
or posture of movement requires it, it may not be repressed, and when the posture
or movement does not require it, it must stop. Hence a literary masterpiece is like
a stretch of nature itself, well-formed in its formlessness, and its charm and beauty
come by accident. For this thing we call shih is the beauty of movement, and not the
beauty of static proportions. Everything that lives and moves has its shih and
therefore has its beauty, force, and wen, or beauty of form and line.