Jane Austen's Fanny Price: A Taoist Sage at Mansfield Park

Jane Austen
Mansfield Park

Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 and died on July 18, 1817. 


Fanny Price, of Mansfield Park, (MP)  is probably the most maligned of Austen's heroines.  Just why is not clear to me, but I suspect it's a classic example of imposing 21st century standards on 19th century characters and a misreading of Austen in general.  Too many readers fall in love with Liz  Bennet's lively, outgoing, and cheeky behavior and therefore insist that all of Austen's heroines be the same.  In fact, three of Austen's heroines do fit this category:  Liz, of course,  Emma (Emma), and to a considerable extent Catherine (Northanger Abbey) , the youngest of  the heroines.

But, Austen also has three quiet, more reserved heroines:  Elinor (Sense and Sensibility), Anne (Persuasion), and Fanny (MP).  What I find interesting, is that, though the heroine is the quiet reserved type, there is another woman who exemplifies the more outgoing lively woman, the "Liz" type if I may so call her.  Paired off with Elinor is her sister Marianne, who exemplifies the romantic enthusiastic outgoing follower of sensibility; with Anne is again her sister Elizabeth (interesting choice for her name) who is certainly more outgoing and demonstrative than Anne; and with Fanny, of course, is Mary Crawford, whom some readers want to be the heroine of MP in spite of her selfish, egotistic, insensitive, amoral, and manipulative behavior.

Mary Crawford is Austen's point that being bright, lively, and vivacious does not necessarily make one a good person (notice how many male villains in Austen are the same type),  for those are external attributes.  Liz is a good person because of what's inside her, not because of  how she appears to others.   The same is true of Fanny, for it is what is inside her that makes her a good person. What makes Mary a bad person is what's inside of her and those who admire her  are those who see the surface only.  Telling this sort of critic that you can't tell a book by its cover is a waste of time, for they are enthralled, fooled, duped by external glamour and never get beyond that.

Many commentators have insisted that Fanny shouldn't be the heroine, nor does she deserve to be happily married at the end.  She has done nothing to deserve her fate.  Mary should be the real heroine and gain Edmund as her reward.  Of course, these are the same people who deride Edmund as being dull, uninteresting, and priggish.  I can only wonder how they could see Edmund and Mary together.   I wonder how long Mary would be a faithful wife to Edmund, a country minister, and also how long her brother Henry, who is the male version of a lively, outgoing, charming suitor,  would remain satisfied with the dull, priggish Fanny, as they see her.

One theme in MP that has surprised me is the number of characters in the story who have improved, inexplicably over the length of the novel.  In Austen's novels, it's usually the heroine and the hero who have learned something about themselves and have managed to more or less overcome their failings (Emma, I must admit, is a question mark here), but in this novel, a number of other characters, especially in the Bertram family, have developed, more or less, a sense of responsibility and concern for others, which was lacking in the beginning.

It is this that started me thinking.  I could find no particular or obvious reason for these changes in the characters.  No one lectures them and seldom are they called upon to recognize their shortcomings.  The changes seem to happen in a vacuum--mysteriously.


It was about this time, the third or fourth reading of MP,  that, from the depths of my sub- or unconscious that there is something Taoist about Fannie's behavior.  I wondered how a Taoist might view this novel.  I am not an expert in Taoism, but I have read a little ("a little learning is a dangerous thing"), just enough to get me in trouble here.  So, I dug out my copy of Laotse's (aka Lao Tzu) Tao Te Ching and found some intriguing characteristics of the Taoist Sage.

I am not saying that Jane Austen deliberately created Fanny as a Taoist Sage or even that she was aware of Taoism.  This is simply a view of MP as it might be seen by a Taoist. 



THE TAOIST SAGE

Just what is a Taoist sage and how does one recognize one?

Chapter 2
The Sage:one who manages affairs without action, preaches without words, acts, but does not appropriate claim or ownership, and accomplishes but claims no credit.


This clearly could be Fanny as many of her detractors point out that she is far too quiescent for their tastes.



Chapter 9
The Sage retires when the work is done:

Fanny seldom if ever claims credit for what she accomplishes.  She does what she is expected to do and says little about it.



chapter 17
But of the best sages,  when their task is accomplished and their work is done,
the people will all remark, "We have done it ourselves."

Fanny seldom gets credit for what she does, even though near the end of the novel, Lady Bertram declares she can't get along without Fanny.  This is the reason  Susan will move to Mansfield Park to take Fanny's place. 



Chapter 22
The Sage does not:reveal himself, justify himself, boast of himself, or act proudly.

He acts in accordance with the situation and does not force himself or his ideas on others.  He acts as an example for others, so his influence is subtle and non-assertive.

This is  true of Fanny.  She listens and observes and only expresses an opinion when asked.  And, few ask her besides Edmund.

All of the above observations come from the  Wisdom of LaoTse, translated and edited by Lin Yutang, 




THE CHARACTERS

I mentioned above that many of the characters had undergone significant changes by the end of the novel.  Here is a brief description of the major characters at the beginning of the novel and the changes they undergo to reach the place where they are at the end.     .


The Prices  (Fanny's family)

William
Fanny's brother in the navy who gets necessary sponsorship for promotion  from Sir Thomas.  Sir Thomas would never have met William if if weren't for Fannie and the impression she made on Sir Thomas.

Fanny
her marriage, far above her class status to Edmund

Susan
Fanny's sister, ends up replacing Fanny at Mansfield Park. 



THE BERTRAMS  (at Mansfield Park)


Sir Thomas
In the beginning of the novel, he is an absent father and head of the household, and this is true whether he is off in the West Indies or at home.  He does not  take his proper place as father and lord of the manor.  He also knows that his wife is unable or unwilling to play her part, so he allows Aunt Norris to become a dictator and rule his household.  Later, though, he suddenly realizes the problems that his family is having are at least partially due to his abdication of responsibility, and he now begins to assert himself as head of household.

Lady Bertram
She seems totally detached from the family.  Her main concerns seem to be herself and her dog.  Again, near the end, when Tom becomes deathly ill, she rouses herself and spends most of her time at his bedside nursing him.  This is a considerable change from her earlier behavior when the reader isn't sure whether she really is aware of anyone, aside from her pet dog,  around her.


Tom
The eldest son plays to perfection the role of The Wastrel.  He shows no interest in his studies at college, and demonstrates little concern nor for his duties and responsibilities as heir to Mansfield Park.  It's party time is his philosophy.   Shortly after his illness, he also changes his behavior and settles down at the university and begins to show an interest in his role as heir to Mansfield Park.  There is also a hint of marriage, which is a major concern of every well-established family--the heir must marry and produce an heir of his own.

Edmund
While he is  a serious and dedicated student, determined to be a good minister to his parish when he takes over, he also is infatuated by Mary Crawford, who would make a most inappropriate wife for the clergyman he wants to be.  Again, at the end, he recognizes the folly of his infatuation and gradually comes to realize that Fanny is the woman most suited for him and his role in life.

Maria
The oldest daughter, selfish and self-absorbed, thinks only of herself.  She makes a bad choice in her marriage, selecting a suitor who could never be a suitable partner but has a large house and a considerable fortune.  For her follies she ends up in exile, supported by Sir Thomas, but banned, at least for now, from Mansfield Park.

Julia
She is strongly influenced by her older sister.   Austen seems to suggest she would be a different person if she had a different older sister to model.

Aunt Norris
Sister to Lady Bertram and Mrs. Price (Fanny's mother)
She is the real power in the house.  Unfortunately she is also evil, greedy, and malicious.  She is the one who most deliberately torments Fanny, reminding regularly of her low position at Mansfield Park, barely one step above the servants.    At the end, she realizes that Sir Thomas has recognized his error and has finally become the head of household he should have been long ago, and she elects to go into voluntary exile with Maria. 

Mary and Henry Crawford
brother and sister, relatives to the minister at MP.  They are bright, outgoing, attractive, as well as shallow,  selfish, and self-absorbed.  They are classic examples of the cliche that one can't tell a book by its cover.  They are very popular at first, but by the end, they have revealed themselves take themselves off to London, perhaps to wonder for the rest of their lives just what they had missed out on.

Mansfield Park is the longest and most complex novel that Austen wrote.  It is. in my estimation, the most misunderstood and misread novel as well.  Austen's basic tenet, in all her works, is that one must look beneath the surface to determine the true nature of the other, and that true nature may be in opposition to what appears on the surface.  I believe that too many readers have taken the surface appearances of many of the characters and stopped there, and therefore missing their true nature.

In any case, read and enjoy.  I rank it a close second to Persuasion.

Tao Te Ching: Chapter 33--Knowing Oneself

33.

He who knows others is learned;
    He who knows himself is wise.
He who conquers others has power of muscles;
    He who conquers himself is strong.
He who is contented is rich.
    He who is determined has strength of will.
He who does not lose his center endures,
He who dies yet (his power) remains has long life.


The Wisdom of Laotse
trans. by Lin Yutang

This was also stressed by the Greeks. "Know thyself" is a Delphic maxim which apparently was carved into the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.  This chapter however goes beyond attaining knowledge and insists on action.  To know oneself is not enough: one must take
what one knows about oneself and act upon it to shape one's behavior.

Lin Yutang: Spirit and Flesh, concl.

"A defense of the angels-without-bodies theory will be found to be most vague and unsatisfying.  Such a defender might say, 'Ah, yes, but in the world of spirit, we don't need such satisfactions.' 'But what instead have you got?'  Complete silence; or perhaps, 'Void--Peace--Calm.'  'What then do you gain by it?'  'Absence of work and pain and sorrow.' I admit such a heaven has a tremendous attraction to galley slav4es.  Such a negative ideal and conception of happiness is dangerously near to Buddhism and ultimately to be traced to Asia (Asia Minor, in this case) rather than Europe.

Such speculations are necessarily idle, but I may at least point out that the conception of a 'senseless spirit' is quite unwarranted, since we are coming more and more to feel that the universe itself is a sentient being.  Perhaps motion rather than standing still will be a characteristic of the spirit, and one of the pleasures of a  bodiless angel will be to revolve like a proton around a nucleus at the speed of twenty or thirty thousand revolutions a second.  There may be a keen delight in that, more fascinating than a ride on a Coney Island scenic railway.  It will certainly be a kind of sensation.  Or perhaps he bodiless angel will dart like light or cosmic rays in ethereal waves around curved space at the rate of 186,000 miles per second.  There must still be spiritual pigments for the angels to paint and enjoy some form of creation, ethereal vibrations for the angels to feel as tone and sound and color, and ethereal breeze to brush against the angels' cheeks.  Otherwise spirit itself would stagnate like water in a cesspool, or feel like men on a hot, suffocating summer afternoon  without a whiff of fresh air.  There must still be motion and emotion (in whatever form) if there is to be life; certainly not complete rest and insensitiveness."

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living


Perhaps I'm wrong here, but I somehow get the idea that he doesn't take the idea of the possible existence of angels very seriously.  


"we are coming more and more to feel that the universe itself is a sentient being."

I'm not clear as to how seriously we are meant to take this statement.  Is he suggesting that this is just another idea similar to that of angels which is now coming to take the place of angels?

Or, is he suggesting that this may be a more rational idea which will prove that the existence of angels is untenable?

Lin Yutang: Spirit and Flesh, Pt. 1

III.   Spirit and Flesh

"The most obvious fact which philosophers refuse to see is that we have a body.  Tired of seeing our mortal imperfections and our savage instincts and impulses, sometimes our preachers wish that we were made like angels, and yet we are at a total loss to imagine what the angels' life would be like.  We either give the angels a body and a shape like our own--except for a pair of wings--or we don't.  It is interesting that the general conception of an angel is still that of a human body with a pair of wings.  I sometimes thank that it is an advantage even for angels to have a body with the five senses.  If I were to be an angel, I should like to have a school-girl complexion, but how am I going to have a school-girl complexion without a skin?  I still should like to drink a glass of tomato juice or iced orange juice, but how am I going to appreciate iced orange juice without having thirst?  And how am I going to enjoy food, when I am incapable of hunger?  How would an angel paint without pigment, sing without the hearing of sounds, smell the fine morning air without a nose?  How would he enjoy the immense satisfaction of scratching an itch, if his skin doesn't itch?  And what a terrible loss in the capacity for happiness that would be!  Either we have to have bodies and have all our bodily wants satisfied, or else we are pure spirits and have not satisfactions at all.  All satisfactions imply want.

I sometimes think what a terrible punishment it would be for a ghost or an angel to have no body, to look at a stream of cool water and have no feet to plunge into it and get a delightful cooling sensation from it, to see a dish of Peking or Long Island duck and have no tongue to taste it, to see crumpets and have no teeth to chew them, to see the beloved faces of our dear ones and have no emotions to feel toward them.  Terribly sad it would be if we should one day return to this earth as ghosts and move silently into our children's bedroom, to see a child lying there in bed and have no hands to fondle him and no arms to clasp him, no chest for his warmth to penetrate to, no round hollow between cheek and shoulder for him to nestle against, and no ears to hear his voice."

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living

(to be continued)

Lin Yutang: from The Importance of Living

"No one can say that a life with childhood, manhood and old age is not a beautiful arrangement; the day has its morning, noon and sunset, and the year has its season, and it is good that it is so.  There is no good or bad in life, except what is good according to its own season.  And if we take this biological view of  life and try to live according to the seasons, no one but a conceited fool or an impossible idealist can deny that human life can be lived like a poem.  Shakespeare has expressed this idea more graphically in his passage about the seven states of life, and a good many Chinese writers have said about the same thing.  It is curious that Shakespeare was never very religious, or very much concerned with religion.  I think this was his greatness; he took human life largely as it was, and intruded himself as little upon the general scheme of things as he did upon the characters of his plays.  Shakespeare was like Nature herself, and this is the greatest compliment we can pay to a writer or thinker.  He merely lived, observed life and went away."


What can one say then about those many lives that are cut short in childhood or maturity and never reach old age?  Would such a life be an unfinished poem?

Lin Yutang: "Earthbound" conclusion

"The situation then is this: man wants to live, but he still must live upon the earth.

. . . .


"Any good practical philosophy must start out with the recognition of our having a body. It is high time that some among us made the straight admission that we are animals, an admission which is inevitable since the establishment of the basic truth of the Darwinian theory and the great progress of biology, especially bio-chemistry. It was very unfortunate that our teachers and philosophers belong to the so-called intellectual class, with a characteristic professional pride of intellect. The men of the spirit were as proud of the spirit as the shoemaker is proud of leather. Sometimes even the spirit was not sufficiently remote and abstract and they had to use the words, 'essence' or 'soul' or 'idea,' writing the with capital letters to frighten us. The human body was distilled in this scholastic machine into a spirit, and the spirit was further concentrated into a kind of essence, forgetting that even alcoholic drinks must have a 'body'--mixed with plain water--if they are to be palatable at all. And we poor laymen were supposed to drink that concentrated quintessence of spirit. The over-emphasis on the spirit was fatal. It made us war with our natural instincts, and my chief criticism is that it made a whole and rounded view of human nature impossible. It proceeded also from an inadequate knowledge of biology and psychology, and of the place of the senses, emotions and, above all, instincts in our life. Man is made of flesh and spirit both, and it should be philosophy's business to see that the mind and body live harmoniously together, that there be a reconciliation between the two."

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living


We are not ghosts in the machine, a soul trapped in a sinful or evil body, as so many religious traditions insist. We are both body and soul (whatever that term may mean to you) and we should accept this. As long as we cannot accept this, any sort of true lasting harmony will be impossible.

Lin Yutang: "Earthbound" part 2

"The situation, then, is this: man wants to live, but he still must live upon this earth.

. . . . .

For we are of the earth, earth-born and earth-bound. There is nothing to be unhappy about the fact that we are, as it were, delivered upon this beautiful earth as its transient guests. Even if it were a dark dungeon, we still would have to make the best of it; it would be ungrateful of us not to do so when we have, instead of a dungeon, such a beautiful earth to live on for a good part of a century. Sometimes we get too ambitious and disdain the humble and yet generous earth. Yet a sentiment for this Mother Earth, a feeling of true affection and attachment, one must have for this temporary abode of our body and spirit, if we are to have a sense of spiritual harmony.

We have to have, therefore, a kind of animal skepticism as well as animal faith, taking this earthly life largely as it is. And we have to retain the wholeness of nature that we see in Thoreau who felt himself kin to the sod and partook largely of its dull patience, in winter expecting the sun of spring, who in his cheapest moments was apt to think that it was not his business to be "seeking the spirit," but as much the spirit's business to seek him, and whose happiness, as he described, was a good deal like that of the wood-chucks. The earth, after all, is real, as the heaven is unreal; how fortunate is man that he is born between the real earth and the unreal heaven!"

(to be concluded)

Lin Yutang: "Earthbound"

The following excerpt doesn't really describe too many people in this country, does it? Or at least, it's not the way I hear people talking today--attempting to show how they are the real Americans.

"The situation then is this: man wants to live, but he still must live upon this earth. All questions of living in heaven must be brushed aside. Let not the spirit take wings and soar to the abode of the gods and forget the earth. Are we not, mortals, condemned to die? The span of life vouchsafed us, threescore and ten, is short enough, if the spirit gets too haughty and wants to live forever, but on the other hand, it is also long enough, if the spirit is a little humble. One can learn such a lot and enjoy such a lot in seventy years, and three generations is a long, long time to see human follies and acquire human wisdom. Anyone who is wise and has lived long enough to witness the changes of fashion and morals and politics through the rise an fall of three generations should be perfectly satisfied to rise from his seat and go away saying, "It was a good show,' when the curtain falls."

(To be continued)

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living

Suppose a person who followed this sort of philosophy were to run for public office. I wonder what that person's speeches would be like. What would this person do in a debate?

Lin Yutang: Oct. 10, 1895 to March 26, 1976

Would a different attitude or perspective on life make this a better world? Certainly today's headlines should make us wonder if something isn't wrong somewhere. Lin Yutang presents an idea that appears to be non-existent in the world's leaders and their followers.

The world, I believe, is far too serious, and being far too serious, it has need of a wise and merry philosophy. The philosophy of the Chinese art of living can certainly be called the "gay science,' if anything can be called by that phrase used by Nietzsche. After all, only a gay philosophy is profound philosophy; the serious philosophies of the West haven't even begun to understand what life is. To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average business man does, for no business man who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher. This is not merely a casual thought, but is a fundamental point of view with me. The world can be made a more peaceful and more reasonable place to live in only when men have imbued themselves in the light gayety of this spirit. The modern man takes life far too seriously, and because he is too serious, the world is full of troubles. We ought, therefore, to take time to examine the origin of that attitude which will make possible a whole-hearted enjoyment of this life and a more reasonable, more peaceful and less hot-headed temperament.

-- Lin Yutang --
from The Importance of Living
Chapter One


Any thoughts?

Lin Yutang: Human Dignity and the Scamp

The following quotation gives us some idea of Lin Yutang's thinking about two seemingly different concepts: dignity and the scamp. They seem opposed, but as usual with Yutang, he doesn't see things the way most do.


To me, spiritually a child of the East and the West, man's dignity consists in the following facts which distinguish man from the animals. First, that he has a playful curiosity and a natural genius for exploring knowledge; second that he has dreams and a lofty idealism (often vague, or confused, or cocky, it is true, but nevertheless worthwhile); third, and still more important, that he is able to correct his dreams by a sense of humor, and thus restrain his idealism by a more robust and healthy realism; and finally, that he does not react to surroundings mechanically and uniformly as animals do, but possesses the ability and the freedom to determine his own reactions and to change surroundings at his will. This last is the same as saying that human personality is the last thing to be reduced to mechanical laws; somehow the human mind is forever elusive, uncatchable and unpredictable, and manages to wriggle out of mechanistic laws or a materialistic dialectic that crazy psychologists and unmarried economists are trying to impose upon him. Man, therefore, is a curious, dreamy, humorous and wayward creature.

In short, my faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier. The scamp is probably the most glorious type of human being, as the soldier is the lowest type, according to this conception. In in my last book, My Country and My People, the net impression of readers was that I was trying to glorify the "old rogue." It is my hope that the net impression of the present one will be that I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from becoming lost as serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.

. . . . .

Speaking as a Chinese, I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot.



One of the most common characters found in myths and legends and folklore is the Trickster. The following quotations come from the Wikipedia entry on the Trickster, and the Trickster sounds a lot like Yutang's scamp.


"In mythology, and in the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a god, goddess, spirit, man, woman, or anthropomorphic animal who plays tricks or otherwise disobeys normal rules and conventional behavior."

"In later folklore, the trickster/clown is incarnated as a clever, mischievous man or creature, who tries to survive the dangers and challenges of the world using trickery and deceit as a defense."

"Modern African American literary criticism has turned the trickster figure into one example of how it is possible to overcome a system of oppression from within."


The quotations come from Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living which was first published in 1937. It's almost 75 years later, and his warning still seems relevant today, even though the threats are internal rather than external. For a short story which best exemplifies Yutang's theme, I would recommend Harlan Ellison's "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman."

Who or what is our best defense against the threats to freedom and civil liberty--the Soldier or the Scamp/Trickster?

Something to think about

[Humanity] seems to be divided into idealists and realists, and idealism and realism are the two great forces molding human progress. The clay of humanity is made soft and pliable by the water of idealism, but the stuff that holds it together is after all the clay itself, or we might all evaporate into Ariels. The forces of idealism and realism tug at each other in all human activities, personal, social and national, and real progress is made possible by the proper mixture of these two ingredients, so that the clay is kept in the ideal pliable, plastic condition. half moist and half dry, not hardened and unmanageable, nor dissolving into mud.


Lin Yutang
from The Importance of Living

Lin Yutang: October 10, 1895--March 3, 1976

I can no longer remember how I was first introduced to Lin Yutang, but it just might have been simply seeing one of his books and getting intrigued by the cover. How can one not even stop and glance inside a book whose cover reads as follows:

The Importance of Living

The Classic Bestseller
That Introduced Millions
to the Noble Art of Leaving
Things Undone

Lin Yutang




I found it irresistible and purchased the book. I read it and have been dipping into it at random since then.

One of his skills is the way he presents his ideas. Unlike many other writers, he can write something that I disagree with and, yet, does not irritate me in the least. I simply read it, realize I disagree with him at this point, and then continue reading. I wish I could do the same. I am not sure as to how he does this. I've wondered though if it might be the context. This book is very mellow and relaxed; perhaps this is his secret. Relaxed and mellow readers might be more likely to remain so even when encountering ideas they disagree with. Just a thought. . .


The following quotation comes from "The Awakening," the first chapter of The Importance of Living--to be precise, the opening paragraphs. It is here that he writes about his philosophy of living.

"In what follows I am presenting the Chinese point of view, because I cannot help myself. I am interested only in presenting a view of life and of things as the best and wisest Chinese minds have seen it and expressed it in their folk wisdom and their literature. It is an idle philosophy born of an idle life, evolved in a different age, I am quite aware. But I cannot help feeling that this view of life is essentially true, and since we are alike under the skin, what touches the human heart in one country touches all. I shall have to present a view of life as Chinese poets and scholars evaluated it with their common sense, their realism and their sense of poetry. I shall attempt to reveal some of the beauty of the pagan world, a sense of the pathos and beauty and terror and comedy of life, viewed by a people who have a strong feeling of the limitations of our existence, and yet somehow retain sense of the dignity of human life.

The Chinese philosopher is one who dreams with one eye open, who views life with love and sweet irony, who mixes his cynicism with a kindly tolerance, and who alternately wakes up from life's dream and then nods again, feeling more alive when he is dreaming than when he is awake, thereby investing his waking life with a dream-world quality. He sees with one eye closed and with one eye opened the futility of much that goes on around him and of his own endeavors , but barely retains enough sense of reality to determine to go through with it. He is seldom disillusioned because he has no illusions, and seldom disappointed because he never had extravagant hopes. In this way his spirit is emancipated.

For, after surveying the field of Chinese literature and philosophy, I come to the conclusion that the highest ideal of Chinese culture has always been a man with a sense of detachment (takuan) toward life based on a sense of wise disenchantment. From this detachment comes high-mindedness (k'uanghuai), a high-mindedness which enables one to go through life with tolerant irony and escape the temptations of fame and wealth and achievement, and eventually makes him take what comes. And from this detachment arise also his sense of freedom, his love of vagabondage and his pride and nonchalance. It is only with this sense of freedom and nonchalance that one eventually arrives at the keen and intense joy of living."


In the second paragraph, Lin suggests the Chinese philosopher lives a dreamlike existence. An early 4th century BC Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu once said that he had dreamt one night that he was a butterfly, completely happy and satisfied. Then he awoke and found himself to be Chuang Tzu, but he didn't know whether he was a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu or Chuang Tzu who dreamt he was a butterfly. (taken from the Wikipedia entry on Chuang Tzu or Zuangzi, alternate spelling)



A Poem by Li Po

"Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly,
And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking.
Which was the real--the butterfly or the man?
Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things?
The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea
Returns in time to the shallows of a transparent stream.
The man, raising melons outside the green gate of the city,
Was once the Prince of the East Hill.
So must rank and riches vanish.
You know it, still you toil and toil--what for?"


In the second paragraph, Lin wrote "we are alike under the skin, what touches the human heart in one country touches all." Perhaps the East and the West are not that far apart once we get beneath the surface:

"Vanity of vanity, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth for ever."

"All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."

King James Version: Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, v. 1-4 , 7



Who knows? Perhaps some day we will see our similarities as being as important as, or perhaps even more important than the differences. And the differences will become fascinating and intriguing--and not hateful.

Something to think about

from The Importance of Living

I have always assumed that the end of living is the true enjoyment of it. It is so simply because it is so. I rather hesitate at the word "end" or "purpose." Such an end or purpose of life, consisting in its true enjoyment, is not so much a conscious purpose, as a natural attitude toward human life. The word "purpose" suggests too much contriving and endeavor. The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should set about to achieve, but just what to do with life, a life which is given him for a period of on the average fifty or sixty years? The answer that he should order his life so that he can find the greatest happiness in it is more a practical question, similar to that of how a man should spend his weekend, than a metaphysical proposition as to what is the mystic purpose of his life in the scheme of the universe.

--Lin Yutang--

A rather relaxed and stress free attitude towards life I think--and probably not for everybody, I should think.

Something to think about.

Something to think about:

Where there are too many policemen, there is no liberty. Where there are too many soldiers, there is no peace. Where there are too many lawyers, there is no justice.

-- Lin Yutang --


What do you think? Is he overstating his case?

Do you think that perhaps Lin Yutang just doesn't understand the situation today--that we must now give up some freedoms to be safe and secure?

Lin Yutang: October 10, 1895--March 26, 1976

The following is from the Wikipedia entry on Lin Yutang:

"Lin Yutang...was a Chinese writer and inventor. His informal but polished style in both Chinese and English made him one of the most influential writers of his generation and his compilations and translations of Classic Chinese texts into English were bestsellers in the West."

To be honest, I don't know just how "influential" he really was during his life time; I had never heard of him, which really doesn't mean that much, until I began doing some research for a paper while in grad school during the '80s. I found a Modern Library edition of his translation of the The Wisdom of Laotse, which is probably better known as The Tao Te Ching. While there have been later editions which incorporate manuscript discoveries made after Lin Yutang had died, I still grab his translation first and then check the more recent versions. Not only is it one of the more readable translations, his version includes commentaries for each chapter that consist of his thinking as well as quotes from other Taoist writings.

He has published over 30 books in English, ranging from a Chinese-English dictionary to the work mentioned above to collections of short stories to The Importance of Living, which is the application of Chinese philosophy and wisdom applied to the 20th century, and now the 21st century. The following is a quotation from The Importance of Living. It's an excellent example of his philosophy and of his relaxed and informal writing style. I suspect it has had a subtle influence on me, one that I probably still don't realize just how much that was, and is.

"If we must have a view of the universe, let us forget ourselves and not confine it to human life. Let us stretch it a little and include in our view the purpose of the entire creation--the rocks, the trees, and the animals. There is a scheme of things (although 'scheme' is another word, like 'end' and 'purpose,' which I strongly distrust)--I mean there is a pattern of things in the creation, and we can arrive at some sort of opinion, however lacking in finality, about this entire universe, and then take our place in it. This view of nature and our place in it must be natural, since we are a vital part of it in our life and go back to it when we die. Astronomy, geology, biology, and history all provide pretty good material to help us form a fairly good view if we don't attempt too much and jump at conclusions. It doesn't matter if, in this bigger view of the purpose of the creation, man's place recedes a little in importance. It is enough that he has a place, and by living in harmony with nature around him, he will be able to form a workable and reasonable outlook on human life itself."
from The Importance of Living, a Quill Edition, William Morrow, New York, 1937

Yutang looks for a natural pattern of things and suggests that "...we can arrive at some sort of opinion, however lacking in finality... a fairly good view if we don't attempt too much and jump at conclusions." How different this is from what we hear today from so many purveyors of absolute truths and ultimate or final proclamations of the way things are: nothing more need be known, for they know it all.

I can't say that I agree with everything in the work, but even at places where I vehemently disagree with him, I find that I don't seem to need to argue with him as I do with many other writers. Perhaps it's because he doesn't appear to try to 'convert" me but simply tells me what he thinks and why he thinks that way.

If you are looking for something to read that's a little different and something that encourages a more reasonable and relaxed philosophy, you might glance at The Importance of Living. After all, the front cover blurb is "The Classic Bestseller That Introduced Millions to the Noble Art of Leaving Things Undone."

Looking around my place, it's clear that Lin Yutang has had a significant influence on me.