Appreciation of Qian Zhongshu's Classic Prose

Qian Zhongshu's outstanding achievements in literary research and literary creation. In particular, it has important enlightenment significance in scientifically sublating China's traditional culture and selectively drawing lessons from foreign cultures. The following is the classic prose masterpiece of Qian Zhongshu that I brought to you for your appreciation.

: prejudice

Prejudice can be said to be a festival of thoughts. It is not the daily life of people without thoughts, but the Sunday entertainment of people with thoughts. If you can't be biased, then you should be objective, fair and serious at any time and anywhere. It's like building a house with only a living room but no bedroom. It's like looking in the mirror in the bathroom and posing for the camera. In the 27th sentence of Dante's Hell, the devil claims: "Our devil has the best reason in his life." It can be seen that the establishment of hell is for this generation; In this world, words and actions do not need to be reasonable. Of course, the so-called right axiom is also prejudice. According to the common sense of physiology, the position of human heart is not in the middle, a little sideways, and it is fashionable and left. The ancients called remote roads "left roads", which has scientific basis. Having said that, however, there are many viewpoints that are not lost in the so-called "biased meaning" in the Five Odes, such as academic theory. Only essays on the edge of life, love letters in love, etc. , are honest and happy. The world is too vast and too desert. We opened our eyes and looked directly at it, but our eyesight was still poor. Why don't dogs notice dogs when they look at bones? As for the so-called prejudice, we have to look at it more than aiming at the target. However, some people think that this is a view of the red heart of things. For example, Plato defined the cloud for mankind: "Man is a bipedal animal without feathers." It can be described as extremely objective! However, according to Diogenes la ertius, who came to Athens from Greece, in the second chapter of Philosophy, someone questioned Plato with a plucked chicken. The clown in "The Wedding of Figaro" written by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais said: "People drink but are not thirsty, and there are animals in all seasons." We know that it was a violent beating by a young man who was greedy for wine and lust, but we have to admit that this extreme theory does reveal some human roots. The word extreme, originally is interlinked; Don't get excited, of course, our opinions will be biased. Suppose we say, "human beings are animals that make sounds day and night, regardless of cold and heat." What are the disadvantages?

Birds crow in spring, birds crow in autumn, mosquitoes thunder in summer, insects wake birds to sleep at night, and wind and rain don't happen every day. No one comes, dogs don't bark, and laying hens don't report. Only people use words, actions and machinery to make sounds anytime and anywhere. That is, when a person is in a room, when there is no reward, he can turn on the phonograph, listen to the radio, and even snore like thunder while sleeping. Of course, language is not sound, but in the language that you don't listen, don't want to listen, or can't hear through walls and distances, words lose their edges and contours and become a noisy group that rises and shrinks, just like the barking of chickens and dogs. This is the so-called "human voice" It destroys sleep, shatters thoughts and cultivates neurasthenia.

After all, the world is dominated by human beings. The human voice is above everything else. A thousand words in nature are not equal to the noise of two people talking at the same time, at least from the ears of a third party. Tang Zixi's poem "Drunk Sleep" is famous for "the mountains are as quiet as ancient times", which probably refers to the ancient times before human beings appeared. Otherwise, monks live on the mountain, tourists come down from the mountain, restaurants and teahouses open halfway up the mountain, and that mountain will never be allowed to be quiet. People are the achilles' heel of silence, which can naturally be solved by silence. The sound of wind and waves is to silence what wind is to air and waves are to the sea. Every day, when the East suddenly turns white, our dreams have come back and we are sleepy. We will hear countless birds singing and say hello to the morning. That night did not completely disappear, and the silence still lingered to shelter the dream that had not been found clearly. Countless sparrows are so trivial that they peck through the silence; The sound of birds and magpies is as crisp as scissors, and that of old storks is as slow and prickly as a saw. They all tried to silence with one voice and two voices. But the silence seems too thick, too fluid and too elastic, and the floating surface broken by birds will be filled immediately. The rooster sang the melodious dawn, without drawing a sound trace on the silence. Slowly, we forgot that it was the birds that broke the silence; It seems that silence absorbs and digests the sound of birds and becomes silence with sound. At this time, as long as there is the cry of the child next door, the cough of the sleeper upstairs, or the footsteps of people who get up early for a walk outside the wall, the silence is like Cebu seeing the sunrise, broken and scattered. When people are awake and fresh, you can't be more sure. When I was tired or thinking hard, I suddenly heard someone making noise. The most caring humanists may sometimes kill their hearts and hope to be quiet. All natural sounds, such as animal sounds and wind and waves, can live in harmony with silence, and ancient poets who are good at physical objects have long realized this. The Book of Songs: "Whispering A?vagho?a is long and quiet", which is explained as "smelling without silence" below; It can be seen that there is no shouting in Ma Si, and there will be no noise. Yan Family Instructions also points out that Wang Ji's famous sentence "cicadas make the forest quieter and the palace mountain quieter" is a feeling of "silence"; Insects and birds make noise, which increases the silence. In Shelley's poem "A Memory" written for Jane, woodpeckers are described, and birds peck mountains more secluded. Coleridge's poem "Organ Music" said: "The sound of the sea is far away and quiet, as if telling me to be quiet." If the sea is crowded with people, the poet must be deaf and have a headache. Therefore, we often compare "crows crow and birds crow" to the noise of human voices, or to save three points for human beings. It is a shame to compare the laughter of a group of women and girls to "birdsong".

Silence is not silence. No sound is dead, not static; So Dante said that in hell, even the sun is a silent dove. Silence can be said to be a transparent auditory state, just as emptiness can be said to be a visual silence. Silence can make people hear voices that they can't usually hear, moralists can hear the whispers of conscience, and poets can hear the secret breath of dusk moving or the sound of grass sprouting. The more noise you hear, the less you can hear. Only humans are so noisy, so it is unnatural for humans to get together and be silent. For example, five minutes of silence in front of you, or reunion after a long separation like relatives and friends, holding hands and saying nothing. This silence is like pregnancy, full of unspoken voices.

There is another terrible place for people. Although the cars and horses are noisy, they are on a horizontal line with you and only make trouble around you. Only people will aim at your mind and make trouble on you-for example, if you live downstairs and someone lives upstairs. If nothing else, footsteps alone are enough to make you feel like Aunt Zhao in a Dream of Red Mansions, and someone is kicking your head. Every time I can't stand it, I make two big wishes. I'd like to live downstairs and become the so-called "man who prospers the field" in Shan Hai Jing. My mind is born under my chest, and I won't be the first to be trampled by the shoes upstairs. Second, I hope that people who live upstairs will become like Christian "angels" or angels, with their bodies born to the waist and wings on their backs, without walking with their legs and feet. That's very kind of you. You don't want the people upstairs to suffer the pain of gouging out their feet like Sun Bin, although he doesn't care about your mind. You are what Rodenbach called "a soul damaged by noise".

Trouble and heat, silence and cold are all related; So in the gloomy hell, sunshine also gives people a sense of loneliness. When the noise is loud, the cold room will turn into a hot pot, which will make people fidgety all over. Schopenhauer's Philosophical Essays says in section 278 that thinkers should be deaf, which makes sense. Because if you are not deaf, you will hear the sound, and the sound is lively, it will be difficult for your mind to remain calm and your thoughts will not be fair, so you can only use prejudice instead. At that time, you forgot that you were also a noisy animal. You once kicked the head of the person downstairs and made a hullabaloo about so that the person next door couldn't think or sleep. You don't care if people say you are too partial. You have another prejudice and made a bet on the edge of life.

: window

It's spring again, so the windows can be kept open. Spring comes in through the window, and people can't sit still in the house, so they go out through the door. But spring outside is so cheap! There is sunshine everywhere, not as bright as the darkness in the room; There is a lazy wind in the sun everywhere, which is not as lively as stirring a dull room. Even the birds' songs are trivial and thin, which needs the silence in the room to set off. Therefore, we understand that we should look at it in the window in spring, just like drawing with a picture frame.

At the same time, we realize that doors and windows have different meanings. Of course, doors are used to let people in and out. However, windows can sometimes be used as entrances and exits. For example, thieves or lovers in novels like to climb windows. Therefore, the fundamental difference between a window and a door is not just whether someone comes in or someone goes out. According to the matter of enjoying spring, we might as well say: with the door, you can go out; With windows, we don't have to go out. The window opens the gap between man and nature, brings in the wind and the sun, and closes a part of spring in the house, so that we can sit and enjoy ourselves without looking outside. Tao Yuanming, an ancient poet, has a good understanding of the spirit of this window. There are two sentences in "Going Home": "Leaning on the south window is proud, and the knees are comfortable." Doesn't mean you can live in a small house as long as you have a window overlooking it? He added: "Xia Yue is idle, lying high under the north window, and the breeze is rustling, calling himself the Lord of the Western Emperor." It means that as long as the window is ventilated, the small room can become a paradise; Although he is from Chaisang, there is Lushan Mountain nearby, so there is no need to go up for the summer. Therefore, doors let us pursue and express our desires, while windows let us possess and express our enjoyment. This difference is not only the opinion of people who live in the house, but also sometimes applies to people outside the house. An outsider, knocking at the door, has some demands and inquiries. He is a guest at most, and everything has to be decided by the master. On the other hand, a person who comes in through the window, whether stealing or cheating, has made up his mind to be your temporary host, ignoring your welcome and rejection. There is a quip in Miao Sai Muse's poem "A Quoi r vent les jeunes filles" that my father opened the door and invited her material husband, mat riel poux, but my ideal lover, id al, always came in through the window. In other words, the son-in-law who comes in through the front door is just a formal son-in-law. Although she is favored by her husband, she still needs to win her own favor. Those who come in through the back window are always true lovers, and the soul and body are completely entrusted by the girls. You have to go through the porter's notice to enter the main entrance, and then wait for the host to come out, and you have to say a few words to explain your purpose. It takes time and effort. Like coming in through the back window? It seems that the shortcut to learning still depends on the inspiration behind the book. If you look at the words in front, you will see further. This, of course, is only the difference under normal social conditions. In abnormal times such as war, the house itself can't be saved, let alone the doors and windows!

All the houses in the world have doors, but we can still see houses without windows. This shows that the window represents a higher stage of human evolution than the door. Doors are the needs of people living in houses, and windows are more or less a luxury. The original intention of a house is like a bird's nest or a den. When people come back for the night, closing the door is considered as a kind of protection. However, the window is open on the wall, so that we can live without going out and closing the door during the day. Therefore, the house adds meaning to life. It is not only a shelter from the wind and rain, but also a place where we think, work, entertain and perform the tragicomedy of life from morning till night. Doors are the entrances and exits of people, and windows can be said to be the entrances and exits of the sky. The house is man-made. In order to avoid the threat of nature, we lure a corner of the sky into four stacks of walls and a roof and window, and persuade it to be used by people, just as we trap wild horses and turn them into livestock. From then on, we can get in close contact with nature in the house without looking for light or changing the air. Light and air will find us. Therefore, human beings' victory over nature is also a window. However, this kind of victory is like a woman's victory over a man. On the surface, it seems to be a concession-people open the window to let the wind and sunshine in and occupy it, but whoever occupies this place will be occupied by this place! As we said just now, doors are needed, and needs are not won by people. For example, I eat when I am hungry and drink when I am thirsty. So someone knocks at the door, and you have to answer it. Maybe Ibsen said that the younger generation wanted to rush in. Perhaps, as de Quincy said in On Knocking at the Gate, the world in broad daylight will enter a dark and evil world. Maybe it's the prodigal son who came home. Maybe it's debt collection The more I don't know, the more I dare not open it. The more I want to know, the more I want to open it. Even the sound of the postman knocking at the door every day makes you hope with doubt, because you don't know and want to know what news he brings. It's not up to you to open and close the door. But what about the window? Get up in the morning, just pull the curtain aside, and you will know that something is waiting for you outside the window, whether it is snow, fog, rain or sunny, and decide whether to open the window. As mentioned above, windows are considered as luxury goods, and luxury goods are originally increased or decreased according to people's situation.

I often think that windows can be regarded as the eyes of a house. Liu Xi's "Interpretation of Names" said: "Window, cluster also; Outside the endoscope, it is also intelligent. " Just like Carol Gottfried Keller's "Song of the Evening", Abend Lie said: "The eyes are like small windows Fensterlein, and the beautiful scenery is vivid." Again, it's just a semi-finished product. Eyes are the windows of the soul, we can see the outside world and let people see our hearts; Eyes often follow their own heart, so Mencius thought that "love is not as good as eyes." In maeterlinck's plays, lovers are not allowed to close their eyes when kissing, and you can see how many kisses each other wants to rise from their hearts to their mouths. When we talk to people with black glasses, we always feel that we can't figure out his intentions, as if he is facing each other with a mask, which is why. According to Goethe1April 5, 830 recorded by Egmen Eckermann, Goethe hates all people who wear glasses, saying that they can clearly see the wrinkles on his face, but the glasses he gave them dazzled them and could not see their mood. Windows allow people inside to see the outside, and people outside may also see the inside, so people living in busy places should use curtains to protect their private lives. As long as there is no light outside the window, people who are late can roughly guess whether the host is at home, and don't have to open the door to ask again, just like waiting for someone to talk, seeing his mind from his eyes. Closing the window is equivalent to closing your eyes. There are many scenes between heaven and earth that can only be seen with your eyes closed, such as dreams. If the sound outside the window is too noisy, close the window and let the soul explore freely and meditate quietly. Sometimes, closing the window is also related to closing your eyes. You feel that the world outside the window, like you, can't give you any satisfaction. If you want to go back to your hometown, you must meet your lost relatives and friends. You want to sleep, close your eyes and look for it in your dreams, so you get up and close the window first. Because it's only spring, it's still cold, and the windows can't be closed at night.

: eat

Eating is sometimes like getting married. Nominally, the most important thing is often accessories. Eating a good meal is actually just eating vegetables, just like begging a rich woman, the purpose is not for women. This * * * transformation contains a shifting and not too simple outlook on life. Arguing about taste rather than satisfying hunger has become the purpose of our meal. The tongue replaces the stomach as the last or highest referee. However, we still disguise enjoyment as a need, not to eat vegetables, but to eat, just like we study philosophy or art, and always say that we can use it to seek truth, goodness and beauty. Useful things can only be used by people, so they exist; On the contrary, useless things will be covered and defended by people, and they can also avoid being abandoned. Plato divided the country into three classes in the Republic, which is equivalent to the three components of the soul; Hunger and thirst for food and drink is the lowest component of the soul, equivalent to civilians or people in political organizations. The most ingenious politicians know how to perfuse the people and decorate their ambitions into the will and welfare of the people; Inviting guests to a restaurant to eat, but also in the name of eating, is an excuse from the tip of the tongue to the stomach, as if to say: "Stop complaining, this is your share!" " If you are famous, I will do it for you. What else have you lost? "In fact, God knows-even people who are hungry know that if it is designed to fill their stomachs, the roots of bark are not much different from chickens, ducks and fish! I can't believe that so many political functions are needed in the physiological process of digestion and excretion.

Percy Uss, an ancient Roman poet, once lamented that the genius of human beings was developed from the belly, and the master was taught by the master craftsman Artisingenique Largit or Venter. This meaning was brought into full play by rabelais. There is a chapter in the third volume of "The Noble Family" praising the belly, which is regarded as the founder and advocate of human slaughter and all kinds of knowledge and occupations. Birds fly, animals walk, fish swim, insects crawl, life and all other activities are also for the stomach. All human creations and activities, including writing articles, not only show the enrichment of the mind, but also prove the emptiness of the stomach. A full stomach is the most useless. At that time, my mind was at a loss, only worthy of being a fool's dream. We have an unwritten rule that sleeping after lunch is strong evidence. We usually regard hunger as too low, only saying that it produces beggars, thieves and prostitutes, forgetting that it also stimulates thoughts, skills and the political and economic theory of "everyone eats when there is food". B.H.Brockes, an ancient German poet, wrote a hymn, comparing God to "a great chef, der gross Speisemeister", cooking for all mankind, which inevitably brings some religious childishness. The person who cooks for us is by no means our real master. Don't be such a god. Only those who cook for him and feed him will lead our actions. For example, the head of a family is not a father who earns money to support his family, but a child who is wet behind the ears and sits down to eat; Of course, I didn't realize this when I was a child, and my fathers would never admit it. What rabelais said seems to be more reasonable. Imagine that the stomach wants us to provide it with tea and rice all the time. If it's not God, what is it? But after all, it is dirty, blindly accommodating and absorbing, and does not know how to enjoy and appreciate. Life is complicated. On the one hand, people with stomachs want food to enrich themselves, on the other hand, people with food want appetite to eat. The first outlook on life can be said to be eating; The second one might as well be called eating vegetables. The first kind of people work, produce and create in exchange for food. The second person uses the results of the first person's activities to strengthen the spleen and stimulate appetite, help eat and increase food intake. Therefore, it is not enough to have music at dinner time, and there are also "beauties" and "beauties" to persuade wine; If you are gentle, there will be a cold party and a summer party, and famous calligraphy and painting will be uploaded on the dining table; Even enjoy flowers, visit mountains and bring natural attractions to eat. Needless to say, try to pay attention to the food you eat. The material environment is so rich that the tongue, like the body, is very casual. At this time, there will be chastity and integrity; Many things I used to eat seem to be polluted now and will never be imported again. In this field, it seems that you should eat less, but in fact you should eat more. Let the stomach be the master, and when you are full, you will be done, without losing your discretion. The tongue is picky and greedy, regardless of life and death. As a result, my stomach was unlucky, and I had to avoid my mouth. My tongue could only "fade out of the bird" as Li Kui jy said. This is really a retribution for its greed and forgetting this! From this point of view, the outlook on life of eating vegetables seems inappropriate.

However, the food is still commendable. The world is upside down, full of friction and conflict. Only the two most harmonious things are man-made: music and cooking. A bowl of good food is just like a piece of music, and it is also a kind of consistent diversity and harmonious taste, which makes opposing molecules complement each other and become an inseparable synthesis. The most superficial examples, such as boiled crab with vinegar, roast duck with sweet sauce, or barbecued pork with apple sauce in western food, and oozing plaice with lemon slices, all turn out to be totally irrelevant, but they are predestined, such as beauty and talent, sow and elephant, which are a perfect match and complement each other. Up to now, they are too close to tear apart. In seasoning, there are so-called "predetermined harmony" in Leibniz's philosophy from Bernie, and there are also predetermined irreconcilable ones, such as pepper and boiled shrimp and crab, sweet and sour and fried beef and mutton, just like the incompatible horns and feathers in ancient songs. The truth of music can be used in cooking, and Confucius has long understood it, so the Analects of Confucius records that he once listened to Shao in the same breath, "I don't know the taste of meat in March." It's a pity that his old gentleman, although he attaches great importance to cooking in the chapter of "the hard time emerging", is not ignorant. Of these two harmonies, he prefers music. For example, "The Doctrine of the Mean" talks about physical and mental cultivation, and only says that "harmony between hair and middle festival" can cultivate a musical personality, which is really the words of people who don't know the taste of meat when listening to music. In our view, a perfect personality, "consistent" "my way" and a well-governed country should not only be as harmonious as music, but also regard the harmony of cooking as an ideal. At this point, we don't follow Confucius, but are willing to admire the forgotten Yi Yin. Yi Yin was the first philosopher chef in China. In his eyes, the whole world is like a kitchen for cooking. Lu Chunqiu's Ben Wei Pian recorded a long passage about the taste of yin and even soup, which turned the greatest ruling philosophy into a mouth-watering recipe. This concept permeated China's ancient political consciousness, so starting from Shangshu Gu Ming, being a prime minister is better than "stirring the pot with soup", and Lao Tzu also said that "governing the country is like cooking a little fresh". Mencius once praised Yi Yin as a "saint" and Liu Xiahui as a "saint of harmony". Maybe there are some mistakes in the text here. In fact, Liu Xiahui, who allows people to be naked, should be regarded as a liberal. And Yi Yin is worthy of the word "harmony"-the word "harmony", of course, with some cooking meaning, to reconcile the five flavors.

Eating also has many social functions, such as connecting feelings, talking about business and so on, that is, "please eat." Although the types of social eating are complex, their nature is extremely simple. It is a pleasure to give food to people who have their own food; It is shameful to eat other people's food when there is food. The subtlety of communication is nothing more than this. On the other hand, to send meals to people who have no food is to send meals; If you eat other people's food because you have no food, you will lose face while enjoying it. This is charity, not communication. As for the number of guests invited to dinner and the ratio of men to women, we will talk about it another day. However, Almanachdes Courmands has a wonderful article, an interesting "food yearbook", which must be mentioned here. In addition to studying eating, these eight rare books also discuss the problem of inviting meals. The general idea is: after eating someone else's food, don't speak ill of the host behind his back for many days, and the length of time depends on the quality of the food; Therefore, men should invite more people to eat, eat good meals to enhance the feelings of friends and reduce the slander of the enemy. I sincerely introduce this discussion to all friends who don't want to be friends with each other and those who are willing to be friends with each other. As for myself, I am waiting for the invitation of gentlemen, and I will try my best to carry out what Zhu Bajie said to Nanshan Wang's little demon: "Don't pull, wait for my family to eat the future."