_CONCLUSION_
THE PLEASURES OF A PHILOSOPHER
There are perhaps in China alone more philosophers than could be found in
all the rest of the world put together. To give an idea of the ways of
thinking of these thinkers, who take their pleasure where they can find
it, I will let one of them speak:
“The song of birds and the cries of the swallows announce the advent of
spring; the fine weather invites one to walk abroad. I should have liked
to respond to this call from Nature; my daily occupations have prevented
me. I met yesterday at the flower cottage a friend who blamed me for
having failed to keep an appointment. I answered: ‘Ah, I am not free as
you are to do what I choose. I live dependent on another, to whom I am
subjected as a minor is to his guardian. Ah! if you could only know how
many writing brushes and how much paper I use in the course of one year.
In the face of this beautiful weather, where Nature is developing with
renewed vigour, I can only envy the pleasures of others without being
able to share in them myself. But in compensation I find pleasure in
passing my days of leisure in the bosom of my family, surrounded by those
I love.
“‘When seated by my fireside, I drink wine with my wife, and hold my
children on my knees; I feel no other human ambition, and do not believe
that the spirits in heaven are a whit happier than I am. Sometimes, as
a change, we go and drink a cup of tea in the cottage, or look at the
flowers in the garden. We are thus surrounded at home with joys which
endure and do not change.
“‘As regards what you call pleasure, it is only the result of a
combination of circumstances, and may any day change and completely
disappear. Good dinners, excellent wines, horses, games—all those things
are but instantaneous metamorphoses, where no solid basis ensuring their
eternal duration exists. That resembles a beautiful orange which might
contain nothing but a spongy and savourless tissue. After the fireworks
have died out, night rules again, and the darkness appears only all the
darker.
“‘Have you read the story of X——, who played the heavy swell, and threw
money out of the window by handfuls. His friends besieged his house
without interruption. His servants were prouder than the noblest lords.
Night and day the only thought was what pleasure-party should be arranged
for the following day. One might have imagined that his house was built
over a gold mine, to see the life he led.
“‘But at the end of a certain number of years his resources began to
fail. He could not, however, change his way of living.
“‘He first of all resorted to loans from his generous friends, and next
went to the pawn-shop. When all their resources had been exhausted he ran
away.
“‘Oh! my friend, the number of rich dishes eaten by that man with an
air of complete satisfaction. Oh! my friend, the number of beautiful
women who were proud to be styled his friends even for a day. His name
was known everywhere, in the theatres, in society, and everywhere where
fashionable people meet together. Oh! the many fashions that he invented
merely in colours and hues of silk. And the jewels that he distributed
right and left.
“‘All that was done with the money of other people, since his bills have
not yet been paid. Is that pleasure? Come, you will admit that it is not.
“‘Instead of gleaming for a short while and being eternally disgraced
thereafter, I prefer during my moments of leisure to light my
incense-burner on my little table, and to sit at it chatting with our
sages through my books. It is there that solid pleasures are to be
found, far preferable to those which are only superficial. All that can
be felt and seen has already been described, and costs nothing to read
about. Songs, music, beautiful women, I see them and hear them in these
admirable pages. Why, then, go running again through the grey dust to
those places where your personality is effaced, and money alone reigns in
uncontested mastery?’”
THE END.
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MR. A. P. MARSDEN
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End of Project Gutenberg's Chin-Chin, by Tcheng-Ki-Tong Tcheng-Ki-Tong