From Lin Yutang’s, “The Importance of Living”

Only those who take leisurely what people of the world are busy about can be busy about what the people take leisurely.

Chang Ch’ao

page 141, 1943 edition, William Heinemann:


III: Chin’s* thirty-three happy Moments

I: I was sitting alone in an empty room and I am getting annoyed at a mouse at the head of my bed, and wondering what the little rustling sound signifies – what article of mine he is biting or what volume of my books he is eating up. While I am in this state of mind, and don’t know what to do, I suddenly see a ferocious-looking cat, wagging its tail and staring with its wide-open eyes, as if it were looking at something. I hold my breath and wait a moment, keeping perfectly still, and suddenly with a little sound the mouse disappears like a whiff of the wind. Ah, is this not happiness?

* Chin Shengt’an