Relax And Enjoy Free

Archive for October, 2009

Michigan’s growing, problematic financial future, including the decline in automotive industry jobs (not to mention the higher cost of fuel), spells financial insecurity for many Michigan families, making it harder to afford long-distance vacations and high-priced recreational activities enjoyed so much in the past. This has led me to wonder, “How do we entertain ourselves and our families and fully enjoy summer break for less money? Better yet, how do we support Michigan’s economy in these tough economic times?” By enjoying the grass (and water) in our own backyard and partaking in all that our state has to offer.

I have compiled a list of activities that won’t break the bank, and will provide interesting ways to have some fun close to home this summer.

1. Museums. When was the last time you visited a museum? Michigan has wonderful world-class Museums from art to science to history. Standouts include the Detroit Institute of Art (did you know that it is the fifth-largest fine arts museum in the country?), and the Grand Rapids Art Museum. The Detroit Science Center is geared to kids, and offers a host of family-friendly exhibits and galleries, not to mention the astonishing sensory experience of the museum’s IMAX dome theater. Your kids will thank you. Michigan.org is a great resource for finding these museums.

2. Lighthouses. Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state. Bordered by the Great Lakes, the sheer multitude of these historic gems mean they have become an icon for our state, and their tall, slender columns grace everything from our shorelines to picturesque wall calendars. These lighthouses – many of which have been renovated and some which have become public museums – continue to educate and serve as a reminder of our state’s grand maritime history. Don’t miss the opportunity to visit them! If nothing else, you and your family will be treated to nature’s grand brushstrokes of a sweeping, maritime landscape.

3. Beaches. With our abundant coastline, beaches are everywhere in Michigan and easy to love during the humid, late summer months. Some beaches are better than others, and so it’s important to pick the right one. From personal experience, southwest Michigan and northwest Michigan truly offers some of the best beach experiences. South Haven (the magnificent century-old lighthouse still stands at the end of south pier), Grand Haven, St. Joseph, and the Traverse City / Leland areas are home to remarkable beaches. Long stretches of soft, white sand, clean, blue water for swimming and boating, and quaint, lively towns brimming with restaurants, shops, and ice cream parlors make these required destinations!

4. Parks. Take advantage of the many well-maintained and diverse Michigan Metro Parks. Pack a picnic lunch for the day, and don’t forget to pack the s’mores. These wonderful chocolate, marshmallow, gram cracker treats are a must-bring for a Michigander’s picnic feast.

The Michigan Metro Parks provide a myriad of family-fun activities, including swimming, paddle boating, fishing, and loads of scenic picnic settings. And most have paved and wooded trails, making them ideal for hiking, biking, roller blading, and bird watching. Plan to take bats and a ball for a friendly baseball game.

5. Festivals. Michigan offers a variety of outdoor summer festivals which draw people from all walks of life and from all corners of the state; from the cultural (Ann Arbor Arts Fair) to heritage festivals (Holland’s Tulip Time) to national extravaganzas (Traverse City’s National Cherry Festival), and everything in between. Most Michigan communities will host some form of festival throughout the summer months. For a complete list, go to Michigan.org.

6. Produce Picking – Take Your Pick! I can’t say enough about the produce grown here in Michigan. Across the state, and especially on the west and northwest sides, abundant crops of blueberries, tart cherries, strawberries, peaches, apples and grapes are grown each year. The fruits are then sold at various farmers markets and roadside stands throughout the state. There is nothing like eating farm-fresh fruit (or vegetables for that matter). The sweetness and flavor of the produce is far superior to anything found in your grocery aisle. And since it’s grown locally, it’s fresh!

For the novelty and experience, visit a local fruit farm and pick your own cherries, blueberries, and the like for use now and in the colder months ahead. Bring along the family; children always get a kick out of picking their own fruit and dropping them into pails! It also gives them an appreciation and respect for nature and God’s beautiful creation.

After the harvest, have the family participate in baking something delectable and sweet. Cobblers, crisps, and shortcakes always satisfy during the hot summer months. Or, teach kids to can or package & freeze the fruit for the months ahead (bubbling, tart cherry pies always seem to hit the spot when the weather turns cool).

And one last word of advice: Save the fruit pits! You can have your very own fruit tree if you wrap the pits in moist paper towels until they start to spawn seedlings, and then transfer them to your own back yard!

7. Gardening. Gardening is a great outdoor activity that the whole family can become involved in. The wonderful Michigan summer weather provides optimal planting conditions. It does not matter what size garden you decide to plant – a large vegetable garden or an oversized container garden – it can be very rewarding for the whole family to share in the planting and harvesting of a garden.

To get started, make a trip to the local library and get some good books on the subject. Then, plan your garden – just what kind of plants to plant, and where? Time to visit the nursery to purchase your plants. Get the whole family involved in choosing just the right plants. Make sure everyone has a hand in the planting and caring for the new garden. You may be surprised just how rewarding gardening can be.

8. Family Cookouts. Get family and friends together for a pot luck or backyard barbeque. Plan some fun games for the kids, as well as the adults. Have everyone bring a dish. You will have a virtual feast.

If cooking for yourself and immediate family, find a new and challenging recipe. Experiment with using fresh herbs from the garden to add an earthy, pungent flavor to your meals. Or – next time you’re doing the grocery shopping – give exotic fruits and vegetables a try. My family is partial to sliced mangos, and this fruit pairs especially well with Mexican-inspired fish tacos. Cooking something new can provide not only an activity, but a tasty reward for all who partake in the meal.

9. Scavenger Hunts. Whatever happened to the old-time scavenger hunt? Organize a weekend scavenger hunt with friends. Plan and place your clues, and get that old competitive spirit out, and play to win!

10. Exercise. Get out and start that outdoor exercise program you have been promising yourself since New Year’s Eve. Walk, jog, bike, whatever…Just get out and “do it”! Head into fall with a leaner, more revitalized “you”.

11. Crafts. Crafting can add hours of fun for adults and kids alike. Visit a near by Craft store – you will be sure to find many exciting crafting projects for you and your children. Or, you might just have something lying around the house to inspire the imagination. For instance, polish the dust off a collection of miscellaneous seashells and glue them to flower pots, mirrors, unpainted furniture, and wooden boxes to create exquisite nautical treasures. Embellish with sea glass and milky-green coats of paint. The sky’s the limit!

Knitting is also a great craft, and easy to learn. Nowadays, there are so many scrumptious textures and colors of yarn, and so many unique patterns, that knitting as we know it has been completely revitalized! Spend a few afternoon hours teaching a child the rewards of making and wearing something made from the heart and the hands.

12. Reading. Reading can be a luxury for some. People leading hectic, stressful lifestyles may want to just sit back and catch up on some reading. Take that special book out of doors; your yard, the beach, or a great shady park. You might be surprised how much that outdoor setting can make it all the more relaxing.

Speaking of settings, I can’t think of a more appropriate summer book to read than “Gift from the Sea” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. This poetic piece was written half a century ago by Charles Lindbergh’s wife. Her meditations on life, love, solitude and contentment are made against the oceanic backdrop of Captiva Island (before the loads of tourists) and a tiny, weathered beach cabin. Her muse? None other than the tiny seashells she collected from the beach outside her cabin door. Truly a soul-inspiring read.

I have provided just a few activities that won’t break the bank. Yet these activities will still provide some fun times for you and your loved ones this summer while also supporting Michigan’s economy. Just use your imagination, and I am sure you can come up with many more fun activities that will provide some wonderful summer memories for you, your family and friends.

 

The months between the cherries and the peaches

Are brimming cornucopias which spill


 

Fruits red and purple, somber-bloomed and black;

Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches

We’ll trample bright persimmons, while you kill

Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvasback.

—Elinor Wylie1

I ate another apple pie and ice cream; that’s practically all I ate all the way across the country, I knew it was nutritious and it was delicious, of course.

—Jack Kerouac2

  In October of 1998, Jiao-Tong, the literary editor of the China Times in Taipei, Taiwan, invited me to write an essay on American food in American literature for presentation at the first International Conference on Food and Literature that was held in Taipei in May of 1999.  I thought that I would find many secondary source books on this topic.  After extensive searches of the net and communications with several professors of American literature at universities in the United States and Canada, I was quite surprised to find no book in print on the topic.  Not only was there no book about it there was also no single article that directly addressed my topic.  The absence of secondary sources explains why most of the references in this essay are to primary sources.  The limitations on time and space for this writing further explain why I have limited my survey of American literature to novels, short stories and poetry.  I have tried to make a representative selection among novelists, short story writers and poets including writers from almost two hundred years of American literature, both genders and a variety of ethnic groups.  Because there are so many versions of primary works that I cite, I have limited those citations to author’s name, title of work and internal part such as verse, chapter, or section and omitted page numbers of the particular versions that I used.  Less well-known works, collections and anthologies receive standard citation format.

To bring some order to this vast quantity of material, I have created three themes around which I can weave what I have found about American food in American literature: continuity and discontinuity; purity and impurity; and, abundance and scarcity.  These three themes allow several important truths about the American experience through time to appear as preoccupations of its writers as well.  For example, the great changes wrought on the land and the indigenous peoples were accompanied by profound and lasting attachments to European food habits.  Also, the tremendous abundance of natural resources and artificial wealth in America has long coexisted with devastated land and utter poverty.  The greatest American writers, such as Melville, Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck, have repeatedly recognized and embodied these extremes in their plots and in their characters, much as they are embodied in the every day lives and personalities of Americans.

As an introductory frame for my presentation, I would like to offer some possible explanations for the lack of secondary sources.  First, I think that most of the famous and popular American foods, such as pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers and ice cream are derivative from European foods.  The pizza came from Italy.  The hot dog is a version of the German sausage.  Hamburgers are reformed meatballs joined with bread that is as old as agricultural civilization itself.  And ice cream also has its counterparts in the cuisine of European nations.  So the first reason for the lack of secondary sources is that most American foods are derivative and not original to America.

An ironic counterexample in this context is the Chinese fortune cookie.  As a food item, it has very little nutrition, but as a part of the American idea of Chinese food it has become a necessity at American Chinese restaurants.  However, I have asked several owners, waiters and waitresses in American Chinese restaurants whether Chinese fortune cookies came from China.  All of them have told me that they did not.  They were invented in America and most likely, according to this oral history, in San Francisco.  This seems to me to be a credible history.  San Francisco grew as a city on the money generated by high-risk professions such as whaling, shipping, gold mining and offshore ocean fishing.  We can easily imagine an enterprising Chinese person noting how concerned the Americans in these professions were with their future good luck or bad luck, putting this understanding together with a well-established American liking for sweet desserts, and creating a sweet dessert that looked different and contained words of wisdom about the consumer’s fate.

 Second, until the last few decades, American literature and literary criticism were dominated by males whose worldview connected food with women and put them both in the kitchen and out of sight.  Most of the male writers whom I read for this essay used food and activities around food to highlight aspects of character or plot.  They did not present food gathering and preparation, cooking, serving, eating, drinking and cleaning up as activities that substantially reinforced aspects of their main characters, most of whom are men, or as events that substantially advanced the plot, story-line or themes of their writing. 

Indeed, a related topic could be included in this kind of study that has to do with care of the body generally.  For example, it is extremely rare for any American writer to mention such bodily functions as excretion or urination.  Different kinds of breathing are certainly associated with different kinds of emotional and physical conditions, such as fear, sorrow, fatigue, exertion or contemplation.  But like food, other bodily processes are usually ignored, taken for granted or glossed.  I mention this topic only in passing, and do not have the time or space here to dwell on it, but simply to point out that focusing on food as a topic in relation to literature is an important innovation that signifies a range of human activities whose presence or silence in literature would be an interesting expansion of this focus.     

Third, as an American, I feel that most Americans take food for granted.  We tend to view it as an unavoidable burden placed on our freedom of activity by the condition of having a physical body.  We tend, especially in the last decade of the 20th century, to try to minimize as much as possible the time and energy required for all phases of life connected with physical nourishment of our bodies.    The growth, popularity and power of the fast food industry in America reflect this disdain for the necessities of physical nourishment.

After the Allied victory in World War II, the US experienced unprecedented prosperity while applications of new technology allowed older tasks to be done with increasing speed.  The complete acceptance of free market competition, in an ideological, political and economic opposition to centralized, planned economies and societies, the tremendous success of rapid, large-scale mass production in support of military forces during the war, and the increasingly tense and complicated struggle between capitalism and communism began to change the values of American society from the slower, simpler values of agricultural life and rural living to the faster, more complicated values of industrial production and urban living.  Speed began its emergence as a paramount American value.  For example, in 1955, shortly before the experiences recorded in Kerouac’s On the Road, the two fast food companies that are now the largest in America—McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken—were founded.  “By the early 1980s there were about 440 food franchising companies with a combined total of more than 70,000 retail outlets in the United States.”3  Americans from smaller, more congested living situations in Europe slowly adjusted to the scope of the American land and its resources.  Size, especially bigness, became a common value in all areas of American life.  With the advent of speed as a value, the American ideology for the remainder of the 20th century gained its primary outlines—the bigger the better, the faster the better.  From automobiles to hamburgers, this ideology began increasingly to govern how Americans thought about everything they did.  Both values play significant and signifying roles in the relationship between American food and American literature.   

Besides the social environment of European derivation, male dominance and indifference toward food, there is the traditional character of the successful American writer.  Most of America’s most famous writers were and continue to be male.  Most of these male writers, such as Hawthorne, Twain, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Poe, and Miller, continually placed their leading characters, most of whom were males, in positions that required the creation of a stable and meaningful life.  Like the first colonists, like the pioneers, like the immigrants, their characters are continually faced with challenges to their survival, their ability and their manhood where the latter is defined in terms of overt verbal and physical superiority rather than mutual, cooperative care or nurturing.  An ironic counter-example is Ayn Rand, a female writer who totally accepted the values of competition, personal power and rugged individualism. Her powerful male characters, such as the nearly godlike architect in Atlas Shrugged, are faced with problems and situations that demand forceful, individual creation and production on large scales. 

The fact that creation and production also consumed energy, resources, time and money was not a central concern until the beginnings of the environmental movement in the late 50’s and early 60’s.  The fact that creation and production often resulted in the emotional and physical deprivation of less independent beings, such as children, animals, women, the poor, and members of minority ethnic groups was also not a central concern of American writers or critics until the late 50’s and early 60’s.  The earlier writers felt driven to produce and reproduce the feelings, drives, imagery and characters of male-oriented, individualistic creation and production in their writings.  As a consequence, many of the facts of life, such as eating, drinking, digesting, excreting and nurturing were consistently absent, implied, glossed or ignored.

These are at least four reasons why there is such a scarcity of secondary sources on the topic of American food in American literature.  It is, in effect, a book waiting to be written.

Fortunately, however, there are many instances of food in American literature and they do show some interesting patterns and features.  I have created three themes to focus these patterns and features: continuity and discontinuity; purity and impurity; and, abundance and scarcity.  First I am going to briefly described the substance and justification of each theme and then proceed with the literary material that especially illustrates and is illuminated by each theme.

A.            Continuity and Discontinuity.  The first European colonists on the East Coast of America experienced several discontinuities and began creating others.  From crowded European cities and farmlands they came to vast, sparsely inhabited forests, mountains and valleys.  From the rigidly intolerant societies of many 16th and 17th century European countries they came to a land whose societies, those of the indigenous peoples, were completely strange and closed to them.  From lives of poverty and scarcity they came to a land that gradually disclosed resources and riches beyond their wildest dreams.  From old, settled areas in Europe that had long ago been tamed by the sword, the plow, the cross and the crown they came to wilderness that seemed indifferent to the grandeur and traditions of European civilization.

Within these discontinuities they also created discontinuities in the lives of the indigenous peoples, by war, trade and intermarriage.  In the natural life cycles of the new land, they also began creating discontinuities by the invasive activities of logging, farming, mining, urbanization, hunting and fishing.  The cultivation of extremes that have

become fixtures of American life began at this time.  There were Americans who loved the wilderness and the indigenous ways and shed as many of their European ways as possible.  There were Americans who loathed the wilderness and the native ways and strove either to change them or destroy them.  These latter among the early colonists insisted on the continuation of European religions and languages, official protocols, social forms and manners and whatever foods they could make in the new world, such as bread, or have shipped from Europe without spoilage, such as tea.

The indigenous people fell before the larger and larger waves of Europeans most of whom firmly believed that the best Indian was a dead Indian.  For example, it is estimated that in 1600 there were approximately 10,000,000 indigenous people living in many different groups, or tribes, across the American continent.  By 1900, under an official US government policy of extermination, that total had fallen to approximately 500,000.  The impact of the new inhabitants on the land has been no less powerful.  In 1600, most of the land east of the Mississippi River and west of the Rocky Mountains was covered with mixed hardwood and deciduous forests.  By 1990, less than 3% of the original trees remained standing.

Besides the clash of Europeans and indigenous peoples, the growing population of Americans cultivating land for crops, especially cotton and tobacco, sold to a growing population of consumers in Europe provided a market for human labor—slaves.  The slave trade, initiated by the Dutch and pursued by almost every Western European country with seafaring expertise, created extreme discontinuities in many aspects of African life that are beyond the scope of this essay.  But the importation of Africans as slaves created an entirely new stream of Americans, subjected for two hundred years to plantation conditions of near starvation, who invented and innovated with the meager edible material accessible to them.  Their creativity has contributed many different kinds of distinctively American foods, such as chitlins, greens, and an entire range of foods centered in the bayou area of Louisiana known as Cajun food.  Along with original contributions made by the indigenous peoples to the first colonists’ and pioneers’ diets such as corn, some of these food items that have lasted longer than the institution of slavery itself have also found places in American literature.

B.             Purity and Impurity.  The early colonists on the American East Coast brought with them a deep fear of hell and a deep desire to purify their lives of any elements that prevented the practice of true Christianity.  True Christianity meant for them a literal reading of the bible and a literal construction of human social life around the teachings and tenets of the bible.  Red, for them, was the color of the devil, the color of evil and the color of the indigenous people.  Pure black and pure white were their colors of choice.

Those Americans who loved the wilderness, however, quickly adopted the use of multi-colored animal skins for clothing and natural dyes for coloring cloth or their skin.  It was therefore no mere historical accident that the American cultural revolution of the 60’s adopted wildly colored clothing, vehicles, hair and language as an obvious and dramatic signifier against the dark suits, white shirts, dark ties and dark shoes of establishment figures.  It was no historical accident that the beatniks and hippies both reached out for foods that differed greatly in flavor, color, smell, taste and texture from white bread, roast beef, boiled potatoes, oatmeal, milk and tea.  It was also no historical accident that some of the most influential writers of this era, such as Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, found deep and lasting inspiration from the literature and the food of lands and peoples far beyond the American shores.

C.            Abundance and Scarcity.  From 1895 to 1915, approximately 23,000,000 immigrants moved from Europe to the United States.  These people came from all parts of Europe.  They left living conditions characterized by poverty, political turmoil and oppression and lack of any kind of opportunity for improvement.  America was a land that promised to make their dreams of prosperity, wealth, abundance and freedom come true.  Many of those immigrants made their fortunes in America then returned with them to their families in Europe.  But many others stayed in America, had their families there and began contributing tastes, colors and flavors to an increasingly heterogeneous American scene.  This period of intense migration saw the beginnings of neighborhoods in major cities, such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago. These were ethnic enclaves for Italians, Poles, Germans, Jews, as well as Blacks trying to find an alternative to the militarily defeated but still powerful racism of their former southern masters, or others whose strong sense of group identity always brought with it special foods that were amplified by the increasingly large scales of American life.

At the same time, the rapid growth of large-scale manufacturing, in factories employing tens of thousands of immigrants who were poorly paid and allowed only a minimal education beyond the background of their European origins, turned some of these neighborhoods into the first American slums and ghettos.  Extremely low wages, non-existent social services, waves of unemployment and the increasing pressure of large families and new arrivals frequently put many of these new Americans on the edges of malnutrition, hunger and even starvation. Abundance and scarcity began to appear as poles of a socioeconomic oscillation driven not by such obvious institutions as slavery but by beliefs, prejudices and attitudes about the superiority and inferiority of different kinds of peoples coupled with firmly established patterns of access and lack of access to resources.  The negative shock of World War I was followed by the positive euphoria of the roaring 20’s.  That decade of unprecedented prosperity and national expansion was followed by the great depression of the 30’s.  America was clearly moving into the vanguard of a world order whose extremes ranged from genocide to population explosion, from starvation to rotting surpluses and from worn feet in foul mud to toenail polish in satin slippers on polished marble. 

A first glimpse of the theme of continuity and discontinuity can be seen by comparing the two citations at the beginning of this essay. Elinor Wylie lived from 1885 to 1928.  Jack Kerouac lived from 1922 to 1969.  Ripe fruit appears as an edible food from the tree in Wylie’s poem and as an ingredient of pie in Kerouac’s novel.  Wylie’s cherries and peaches are closer to unprocessed nature than Kerouac’s baked apple pie.  Wylie’s poem signifies the rootedness of the early European colonists in a land that provided ample foodstuffs.  Kerouac’s novel signifies the restlessness of urban Americans for whom food had become an uninteresting necessity. 

Wylie’s poem signifies abundance and therefore the value of bigness without the addition of speed that played such an important role in the life of Kerouac’s main character, Dean Moriarty.

In fact, Dean Moriarty was based on the real man, Neal Cassady.  In 1964, I was living in Palo Alto, California, having dropped out of Stanford University to try my hand at writing fiction and poetry.     I met a lovely young woman who was a first year student at Stanford and invited her to a party.  The party was in a house in the east side of Palo Alto that was increasingly known as a suitable place for non-conformists and beatniks.  The party featured many people whom neither my friend nor I knew along with much wine.  It also featured some very unusual people.  At one point during the party we were drinking wine in the small, brightly-lit kitchen.  In a commotion of laughing, talking people, a young man with a brilliant smile and ringing laughter, whose feet seemed barely able to stay on the floor, floated and flew through the room while the man who had invited me to the party introduced him to me as Neal Cassady.  He acknowledged me and disappeared out another door.  I never saw him again but retain to this day the vivid impression of light and speed that he also seems to have given to Kerouac.

The continuity between Wylie’s poem and Kerouac’s novel is indicated by the American saying, “It’s as American as apple pie!”  Another kind of continuity appears, moreover, when the verse after the one quoted above from Wylie’s poem is considered:

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones

There’s something in this richness that I hate.

I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.

There’s something in my very blood that owns

Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate

Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.4

Taken together, this verse and the one quoted at the beginning of this essay dramatically display all three themes.  There is continuity and discontinuity between the doctrines of a European religious heritage, Puritanism, that emphasized great worldly achievements but as little worldly display as possible.  One of Max Weber’s most important contributions to our understanding of the modern Protestant viewpoint is his clear delineation of the conflict in early Protestantism between acquiring great wealth to signify being in god’s favor and displaying only humility to the rest of the world without the material ostentation that the Pietists, the Puritans, the Luddites and many other Protestant groups found so distasteful in Catholicism.

Weber argues, convincingly, I think, that the “Puritan, like every rational type of asceticism, tried to enable a man [sic] to maintain and act upon his constant motives, especially those which it taught himself itself, against the emotions.”5   The goal of this action was to lead a certain kind of life “freed from all the temptations of the world and in all its details dictated by God’s will, and thus to be made certain of their own rebirth [in heaven after the last judgment] by external signs manifested in their daily conduct.”6 From the Bible as well as from all other religious literature, success in difficult tasks is a clear sign of God’s favor.  For Protestants, such signs do not guarantee salvation but they are the closest to a guarantee that a Protestant can get.  Indeed, that “God Himself blessed his chosen ones through the success of their labours was…undeniable…to the Puritans.”7  This doctrine that combined asceticism with success in worldly endeavors positioned Protestantism to be the driving religious force behind capitalism and the great creations and accumulations of material wealth that have occurred in modernity.  But it is no less true that this combination can be a rhythm, an oscillation, a confusion or conflict.  This combination clearly provides much of the historical substance for our themes of abundance and scarcity and purity and impurity.

A condensed example of the oscillation between abundance and the austerity of American Puritanism can be seen in a brief passage from the short story, The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether, by Edgar Allen Poe (1809-49).  This passage also underlines the way in which food and the activities surrounding food have been treated by many of America’s greatest male writers—as unavoidable but uninteresting necessities, even in a fictional setting:  “The table was superbly set out.  It was loaded with plate, and more than loaded with delicacies.  The profusion was absolutely barbaric.  There were enough meats to have feasted the Anakim.  Never, in all my life, had I witnessed so lavish, so wasteful an expenditure of the good things of life.”8

The tension between the narrator and his hosts in Poe’s tale is echoed by the tension between the narrator and the main character in On the Road.  The quote from Jack Kerouac is part of the first-person narration of the novel by Sal Paradise, the supporting, secondary character that is based on Kerouac himself.  For the duration of his cross-country hitchhiking trip, he lives on apple pie and ice cream.  This diet reflects not only Sal’s poverty, but also clearly situates the novel in a continuous American tradition that de-emphasizes the bodily, physical or material world.  A discontinuity, however, occurs between the naturalness of the fruits in Wylie’s poem and the impersonal, processed food that Sal Paradise ate.  A further discontinuity appears in the fact that Sal is taking his food on the road, on the run, at high speed, while Wylie is painting a picture of humans relating to trees that by their nature cannot move from where they are.

Wylie’s poetic picture is drawn from her life in New England.  Many of the first colonists stayed on or close to the coast because it allowed them to continue the seafaring lives and occupations they had practiced in Europe and because it provided an abundance of food.  However, their Puritan ideology often resulted in lives that were lived as far from that abundance as Wylie’s “cold silver on a sky of slate.”  Another American poetess, Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979), was born in Massachusetts and raised by her grandparents in Nova Scotia, the eastern, seafaring Province of Canada. Her life partly overlapped Wylie’s and she also paints the spirit of that area specifically in terms of food but with an emphasis on the austerity of their diet:

From narrow provinces

of fish and bread and tea,

home of the long tides

where the bay leaves the sea

twice a day and takes

the herrings long rides,9

Moreover, the abundance that Wylie hates is also rejected by Kerouac in an off-hand, casual way as though the less time a man spent on something as mundane as food the better or higher quality a person he was.  However, the oscillation between abundance and scarcity appears in Kerouac’s novel in the contrast between Sal Paradise and the main character of On the Road, Dean Moriarty.

“…but Dean just raced in society, eager for bread and love; he didn’t care one way or the other, ‘so long’s I can get that lil ole gal with that lil sumpin down there tween her legs, boy,’ and ‘so long’s we can eat, son, y’ear me?  I’m hungry, I’m starving, let’s eat right now!”—and off we’d rush to eat, whereof, as saith Ecclesiastes, ‘It is your portion in the sun.’” (Ch. 1 (italics in original))

It is also certainly worth noticing in passing that in both writers, differentiated by gender, by background, and by time, there is a strong connection between religion and food.  This commonality and this continuity clearly occur in the traditional American feast days of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter.  All three feature unusually large and lengthy meals as well as strong connections with the Christian, Protestant backgrounds of the early American colonists, settlers and pioneers.  As with the bodily functions mentioned before, bringing the topic of food and literature into the foreground also illuminates the strong presence of Judeo-Christianity in American life and literature.  Again, this innovative topic proves to be a powerful lens for viewing a wide range of signifiers that occur repeatedly and pervasively in American literature.

Indeed, the theological basis of Wylie’s hatred of “this richness” is the Puritan soul struggling for release from all of its attachments, involvements, entanglements and preoccupations to, with and in the material world.  Metaphysical battles are fought on empirical battlefields.  In this case, the metaphysical battle between the ontological powers of good and evil is fought on the empirical battlefield of the relationship between a poetess and edible, natural fruit.  The apple signifies the fall of man at the hand of woman.  The hatred of  “this richness” is therefore a self-hatred that drives the woman farther from impure nature and closer to the immaterial purity of the austere, unadorned Protestant soul.  The continuity of the human body with nature is displaced by the discontinuity of the immaterial soul with the body.  The abundance of human bodies and souls is displaced by the scarcity of the elect, those in Protestant doctrine chosen by God from the foundations of the world to survive the last judgment and live eternally in heaven.

Serious reflection on the relationship between food and literature brings us to a range of signifiers that underpins all literature, namely, religion.  Why?  Because writing originally served the purpose of passing on what is most valuable in the viewpoint and experience of the group.  The most valuable possession of all is that which most certainly promotes the survival of the group. All human groups discovered long ago that humans are dependent on greater powers for survival.  All humans need air, water, food, warmth and sleep.  The fear of, respect for, worship of and sacrifice to the powers that govern life, both visible and invisible, is the ancient substance of all religions.  The ancient truth and pervasive message of all religions is the dependency of humans on those powers, including the power of reproduction that is represented in ancestor worship.  Religion embodies, ritualizes and carries forward that fundamental truth of human dependency.  The denial of that dependency can lead to greatly innovative creativity and profoundly transformative spirituality as well as to self-destruction and madness.  Humans can imagine absolute freedom but to try to live it, as Nietzsche showed, leads only to self-destruction and madness.

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) struggled with madness all her life and eventually ended her life by committing suicide.  The following poem opens with the kind of paean to natural abundance that we saw in Wylie’s poem and closes with a similar feeling of empty space and cold silver.  The contrast between the terms “nothing” and “blackberries” in the first line signifies the tension between abundance and emptiness.  This signifier in turn connects with the tension between purity and impurity through the signifier of nothingness as a desirable and advanced spiritual state and as the material condition of spiritual devotees on earth.  In this poem, these themes are again carried by concrete, local wild food and abstract, created imagery that moves the reader away from an abundant present to an absent but implied purity above or beyond the physical earth:

Blackberrying

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries

Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,

A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea

Somewhere at the end of it, heaving.  Blackberries

Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes

Ebon in the hedges, fat

With blue-red juices.  These they squander on my fingers.

I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.

They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks—

Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.

Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.

I do not think the sea will appear at all.

The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.

I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,

Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.

The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.

One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.

From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,

Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.

These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.

I follow the sheep path between them.  A last hook brings me

To the hills’ northern face, and the face is orange rock

That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space

Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths

Beating and beating at an intractable metal.10

It is no accident, in this perspective, that Neal Cassady, the living person behind Kerouac’s character Dean Moriarty, died of a drug overdose on the hot, shining steel rails of a railroad track in central Mexico.  The use of drugs in all groups has traditionally been associated with personal and group alignment to the greater powers for the purpose of amplifying the ability of the group to survive.  Cut from their traditional moorings in religion, drugs have become a way to experiment with the physical, psychic and spiritual dimensions of absolute freedom.  The fact that many drugs, such as LSD, cocaine, methamphetamine and opium, make the user feel that they need no food or other natural supports for their existence, shows precisely how they fit into the attempt to deny dependency and achieve absolute freedom.  The discontinuity of the American experience in relation to older traditions, the abundance of material wealth and the usually unacknowledged background ideal of a pure, immaterial soul have worked together to produce in its literature characters like Dean Moriarty who make a life—and a death—of treading the edge between innovation and self-destruction.

Or, to condense our themes in the pithy and quintessentially American poetic language of William Carlos Williams:  “the pure products of America go mad” (from “On The Road To The Mental Hospital”)  

Apple pie and ice cream, moreover, also provide Kerouac with an opportunity to make a statement of value that clearly displays abundance as bigness:  “I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer.” (Ch. 3)  “Better,” “deeper,” “bigger,” and “richer,” work together to define a system of values that was both American—bigger is better—and Romantic—depth and richness.11

The theme of abundance can be found in all periods of American literature.  In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, Scarlet Letter, for example, a character who is the “father of the Custom House—the patriarch, not only of his little squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, of the respectable body of tide-waiters all over the United States—was a certain permanent Inspector.”12  The Custom-House was the official federal government office responsible for inspecting all cargo coming into the country by ship and determining what if any duties had to be paid.  In the novel, this particular Custom-House is located on a wharf in the harbor of Salem, Massachusetts.  In this particular character, Hawthorne signifies one of the most important aspects of the American diet that also repeatedly appears in its literature—the consumption of large quantities of meat.  The Inspector had the unusual ability to remember in great detail

“the good dinners which it had made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat….to hear him talk of roast meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster….it always satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher’s meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table.  His reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savor of pig or turkey under one’s very nostrils….A tenderloin of beef, a hindquarter of veal, a sparerib of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which had perhaps adorned his board…would be remembered….”13 

The dominance of meat in the American diet can be seen in several ways.  One is the following chart of specialty foods in the individual franchises of the top thirty fast-food companies in the US:

Type of Food Number of Franchises

Chicken 8,683

Hamburger/Hot Dog/Roast Beef           29,600

Pizza [usually served with a

meat topping]            11,593

Tacos [usually served with a

meat filler] 3,620

Seafood 2,630

Pancakes/Waffles [usually eaten

        with bacon,

        sausage or ham] 1,63014

Another view of this American food habit comes from considering the quantities of meat consumption and production in the United States.  For example,

“Americans spend about 25 percent of their food budget on red meat.  The per capita consumption of beef in the United States has increased steadily, while that of pork has declined….Only in Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina is per capita consumption higher than in the United States.  The United States normally produces about 27 percent of the world’s meat.” (Ibid., (13) 190)

From the United States Chamber of Commerce, the source of these statistics in Compton’s Encyclopedia and from the 19th century work of Hawthorne, we can move to the late 20th century.  In the late 1980’s, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, by a California writer, Fannie Flagg, was published.  In the first section of the novel, a reproduction of an article from the weekly newspaper in her fictional southern US town of Weems, Flagg describes the basic menu of the newly opened Whistle Stop Cafe:

…the breakfast hours are from 5:30 to 7:30, and you can get eggs, grits, biscuits, bacon, sausage, ham and red-eye gravy, and coffee….

For lunch and supper you can have:  fried chicken; pork chops and gravy; catfish, chicken and dumplings; or a barbecue plate; and your choice of three vegetables, biscuits or cornbread, and your drink and dessert….

…the vegetables are:  creamed corn; fried green tomatoes; fried okra; collard or turnip greens; black-eyed peas; candied yams; butter beans or lima beans.15

Later in the novel, the items in a particular meal served to a customer are described as “fried chicken, black-eyed peas, turnip greens, fried green tomatoes, cornbread, and iced tea.”16

The fatness, abundance and purity of meat in the American diet have also been used by some writers as a counterfoil to other kinds of scarcity and impurity.  Sylvia Plath uses the tradition of a large meat meal on Sunday, as a once a week special gathering for American families, that often features a large, oven-roasted turkey, to give stark contrast to another kind of oven:

Mary’s Song

The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.

The fat

Sacrifices its opacity…

A window, holy gold.

The fire makes it precious,

The same fire

Melting the tallow heretics,

Ousting the Jews.

Their thick palls float

Over the cicatrix of Poland, burnt-out

Germany,

They do not die.

Grey birds obsess my heart,

Mouth ash, ash of eye.

They settle.  On the high

Precipice

That emptied one man into space

The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.

It is a heart,

This holocaust I walk in,

O golden child the world will kill and eat.17

One of America’s most gifted and enigmatic of contemporary poets, the Pulitzer Prize winner John Ashbery (1927-), turns America’s abundance into a counterfoil not of impurity but of scarcity as a lack of certainty:

Hardly anything grows here,

Yet the granaries are bursting with meal,

The sacks of meal piled to the rafters.

The streams run with sweetness, fattening fish;

Birds darken the sky.  Is it enough

That the dish of milk is set out at night,

That we think of him sometimes,

Sometimes and always, with mixed feelings?18

Besides the prominence and priority of meat, the Plath poem and the lists from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café foreground an important continuity and discontinuity in American food.  The important continuity stems from the fact that the early colonists and pioneers, trying to live in a strange land before it had been developed for agriculture, made their bread primarily from locally available grains, especially corn.  Wheat and other related grains were too hard to grind by hand and required a heavy, complicated mill that the early settlers could not carry with them.  Corn became a staple food as important to the early European colonizers as it already was to the indigenous people:

Young, ripe corn was eaten as roasting ears.  In winter the husks of the kernels were soaked off with lye to make hominy.  For breakfast and supper there was boiled corn-meal mush.  Sometimes the mush was fried and served with butter or pork drippings.  The most common dish, however, was hot corn bread.  Baked on a hoe blade before the fire, this was called hoecake.  Mixed with water into a stiff batter and covered with hot ashes, it was ash cake.  From the Dutch oven it emerged as corn pone or corn loaf.  Small cakes of corn pone were called corn dodgers.19

In the passage from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter both fish and turkey are mentioned along with pork and chicken.  The fish and turkey were most likely caught and shot in their natural habitats.  The pork and chicken were most likely raised and butchered in a domestic animal keep.  This combination of wild and domestic meat began with the first colonists and continues to the present day.  Indeed, the pioneers who traveled by foot, wagon and horse from the east westward on the American continent found a great abundance of wild game for meat.  Still they tried to carry enough familiar, nutritious foodstuffs to last them for the journey to their new homestead and to carry them through periods when wild game was unavailable.  A typical load for one adult traveling by oxen-drawn wagon westward was:

“…200 pounds of flour, 30 pounds of pilot bread, 75 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of rice, 5 pounds of coffee, 2 pounds of tea, 25 pounds of sugar, half bushel of dried beans, one bushel dried fruit, 2 pounds of baking soda, 10 pounds salt, half a bushel of cornmeal.  And it is well to have a half bushel of corn, parched and ground.  A small keg of vinegar should also be taken.”20

In many rural or sparsely inhabited parts of America the mixing of wild and domestic meats continues to this day.  In Alaska, for example, where I have lived for many years and which is one-third the area of the entire contiguous forty-eight states of the US, many people still rely on hunting for a large portion of their meat supply.  John Haines, past Poet Laureate of the State of Alaska and Alaska’s best known poet, began homesteading near Fairbanks, Alaska in the 1950’s.  I have known him personally for many years and read poetry with him on the stage of the Loussac Library in Anchorage in 1986.  His poetry clearly reflects how the dependence on wild meat can crystallize the themes of abundance and purity in an identification with the predator:

If the Owl Calls Again

at dusk

from the island in the river,

and it’s not too cold,

I’ll wait for the moon

to rise,

then take wing and glide

to meet him

We will not speak,

but hooded against the frost

soar above

the alder flats, searching.

with tawny eyes

And then we’ll sit

in the shadowy spruce and

pick the bones

of careless mice,

while the long moon drifts

toward Asia

and the river mutters

in its icy bed.

And when morning climbs

the limbs

we’ll part without a sound,

fulfilled, floating

homeward as

the cold world awakens.21

Long before Haines or any other European settled in Alaska, however, the indigenous  people had long lived on whatever meat animals they could kill and prepare.  In fact, when the first French explorers met and spent time with the indigenous people in the north of what is now Canada, they were so impressed by the predominance of uncooked meat in their diets that they called them “Esquimeaux,” which is French for “eaters of raw meat.”  Further down the coasts of Canada and Alaska, however, salmon run by the millions up the great rivers and are caught and used by the local people.  These Americans now eat their salmon after it has been smoked or cooked, as told in the following poem, “Subsistence #2” by Andrew Hope, III (1949-), of Sitka, Alaska:

Dog salmon colors

Glistening

Evening sun

Incoming tide

Washing the beach

Dog salmon shine

Silver purple flash

Reaching

Lifting a big one

By the tail

Incoming tide

Washing the beach

Time to eat

Fried dog salmon

For dinner22

There are five kinds of salmon that migrate into Alaskan fresh waters and are used there for food.  Each kind has its own name and some kinds have different names in different areas of Alaska.  Thus, discontinuities through time in preparation—from raw to cooked—have occurred along with discontinuities in time among practices of naming the same foodstuff.  Dog salmon are so-called because they were once used by the thousands to feed the many dogs upon which the indigenous Alaskan people relied for transportation during the long winters.  This kind of salmon, however, is perfectly fit for human consumption and now that many indigenous people in Alaska travel only by motorized vehicles in all seasons, dog salmon have become a staple of human nutrition.  

These discontinuities connect with the discontinuity signified by the meal ingredients in the first and second quotes from Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café which is variation in regional foods.  Grits, for example, is a kind of cereal or mush made from corn or wheat that is coarsely ground.  Grits is considered by most Americans to be a food characteristic of the American South.  Its public presence in northern cities is usually the result of southerners moving north and opening restaurants that feature American Southern cuisine.  Other typical regional American foods are codfish associated with the northeastern seafood cuisine, key lime pie associated with the cuisine of the Florida Keys, tortillas and red beans associated with the southwest cuisine derived from America’s Hispanic heritage, and salmon associated with the northwest and Alaskan cuisines.

One of Alaska’s Native American poets, Charlie Blatchford, a Yupik Eskimo whom I knew personally and who is now deceased, stated the case for meat very simply in one of his few published poems:

Forgotten Words

Our language, of what I know,

has been prepared

with wisdom and grace.

The fine skin has been fleshed

and lies to one side.

The innards have carefully

been exposed.

Their sweet flesh

ready for feast.

Meat, the staple of life,

is consumed with satisfaction…

Sedating our need

for new words.23

In the hands of more contemporary poets who are not Native American, as Charlie Blatchford was, meat continues to signify substantial food and is often joined by a kind of substance that could serve as a separate topic alongside food—intoxicants such as alcohol and drugs.  In Whitman, Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg and many other writers, wine, beer and other kinds of mind-altering substances often accompany food and especially meat.  This range of consumable signifiers has a history in all literatures that is as ancient, as interesting and as important as that of meat and other foods.  Indeed, putting the light of interest on food has again brought into focus an important stream in the lives of all peoples that could well serve as a topic for extensive further research, discussion and writing.  In many poets, the connection between meat and wine is briefly made, as in the fourth verse of “Asylum” by Herman Fong (1963-):

At meals they barely feed her,

give her the smallest cuts of meat,

mostly fat, and a few red drops of wine.24

A concentration on the details of ordinary life characterizes the style of many American writers, both older and younger.  John Steinbeck, a Nobel laureate and one of the pre-eminent American literary voices of the 20th century, frequently drew for his characters and settings from the everyday lives of people in California.  Some of his best and most popular writings, novels such as Cannery Row, Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, and the short story collection, The Long Valley, feature characters and settings in coastal, southern and central California.  Tortilla Flats features the lives of “paisanos” who lived near the central California coastal town of Monterey.  According to Steinbeck, a paisano was a “mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican and assorted Caucasian bloods” (Ch. 1).  The main character, Danny, and his friends hear about a ship that has been wrecked on the nearby coast.  They go to the beach and salvage flotsam from the wreck then sell it.  The sale puts five dollars into Danny’s possession, an unusually large amount of money:

The five dollars from the salvage had lain like fire in Danny’s pocket, but now he knew what to do with it.  He and Pilon went to the market and bought seven pounds of hamburger and a bag of onions and bread and a big paper of candy.  Pablo and Jesus Maria went to Torrelli’s for two gallons of wine, and not a drop did they drink on the way home, either. (Ch. 5)

Part of Steinbeck’s genius as a writer and one of the aspects of his stories that set them apart from other American writings is the deliberate use of food items and activities for characterization and plot development.    Tortilla Flats provides an example of his style as well as continuing to demonstrate the importance of meat in the American diet across all geographic regions and ethnic groups:

Danny’s business was fairly direct.  He went to the back door of a restaurant.  “Got any old bread I can give my dog?”  he asked the cook.  And while that gullible man was wrapping up the food, Danny stole two slices of ham, four eggs, a lamb chop and a fly swatter.

“I will pay you sometime,” he said.

“No need to pay for scraps.  I throw them away if you don’t take them.”

Danny felt better about the theft then.  If that was the way they felt, on the surface he was guiltless.  He went back to Torelli’s [the wine merchant], traded the four eggs, the lamb chop and the fly swatter for a water glass of grappa and retired toward the woods to cook his supper. (Ch.1)

The particular food item of onions appears in the first passage from Tortilla Flats as a small detail that signifies a range of regional foods in an American southwest first colonized by European settlers from Spain not from England.  Between hamburger and onions are both the continuity of easily prepared and consumed meat and the discontinuity of regional American cuisines.  Another great American literary voice, that of William Carlos Williams, also picked out this range of southwestern signifiers on his one and only trip to that part of America.  Besides a fine ear for the peculiarities that distinguish American English from all other kinds of English, Williams also had a keen eye for the small details of place that brought the reader in close to the object of Williams’ writing.  The following passage is from “The Desert Music” which was based on Williams’ trip to the American southwest and his sojourning in towns that, at that time, were far more Hispanic than Caucasian:

–paper flowers (para los santos)

baked red-clay utensils, daubed

with blue, silverware,

dried peppers, onions, print goods, children’s

clothing     .      the place deserted all but

for a few Indians squatted in the

booths, unnoticing (don’t you think it)

as though they slept there      .25

The use of activities around food to develop plot and character is also part of the style of another American novelist who received a Nobel Prize for literature, William Faulkner (1897-1962).  From the deserts and sparse valleys of the southwest to the lush forests, swamps and meadows of the deep south, American literature, like the perduring literature of every language, has consistently insisted that the physical place and its features are part of the story.  In the following passage from Light in August, Faulkner uses Mrs. McEachern’s attempt to nourish Joe as a reflector for both characters:

He was lying so, on his back, his hands crossed on his breast like a tomb effigy, when he heard again feet on the cramped stairs….

Without turning his head the boy heard Mrs. McEachern toil slowly up the stairs.  He heard her approach across the floor.  He did not look, though after a time her shadow came and fell upon the wall where he could see it, and he saw that she was carrying something.  It was a tray of food.  She set the tray on the bed.  He had not once looked at her.  He had not moved.  “Joe,” she said. He didn’t move.  “Joe,” she said.  She could see that his eyes were open.  She did not touch him.

“I aint hungry,” he said.

She didn’t move.  She stood, her hands folded into her apron.  She didn’t seem to be looking at him, either.  She seemed to be speaking to the wall beyond the bed. “I know what you think.  It aint that.  He never told me to bring it to you.  It was me that thought to do it.  He dont know.  It aint any food he sent you.”  He didn’t move.  His was calm as a graven face, looking up at the steep pitch of the plank ceiling.  “You haven’t eaten today.  Sit up and eat.  It wasn’t him that told me to bring it to you.  He dont know it.  I waited until he was gone and then I fixed it myself.”

He sat up then.  While she watched him he rose from the bed and took the tray and carried it to the corner and turned it upside down, dumping the dishes and the food and all onto the floor.  Then he returned to the bed, carrying the empty tray as though it were a monstrance and he the bearer, his surplice the cut down undergarment which had been bought for a man to wear.  She was watching him now, though she had not moved.  Her hands were still rolled into her apron.  He got back into bed and lay again on his back, his eyes wide and still upon the ceiling.  He could see her motionless shadow, shapeless, a little hunched.  Then it went away.  He did not look, but he could hear her kneel in the corner, gathering the broken dishes back into the tray.  Then she left the room. It was quite still then.26

Faulkner lived and wrote in the Bible Belt.  The Bible Belt signified the fact that most people in the south were fundamentalist Christian Protestants who girded themselves with the spirit of austerity and yearning for an otherworldly paradise of simplicity and peace articulated so strongly by New England writers such as Wylie and Bishop.  Although food occurs frequently in Faulkner’s work, it is rarely ample, elaborate or wasted.  Usually it serves to highlight the physical scarcity and tenuous moral condition of people who live on the edge of a society whose abundance seldom appears in his work:

And Judith.  She lived alone now.  Perhaps she had lived alone ever since that Christmas day last year and then year before last and then three years and then four years ago, since though Sutpen was gone now…she lived in anything but solitude, what with Ellen in bed in the shuttered room, requiring the unremitting attention of a child while she waited with that amazed and passive uncomprehension to die; and she (Judith) and Clytie making and keeping a kitchen garden of sorts to keep them alive; and Wash Jones, living in the abandoned and rotting fishing camp in the river bottom which Sutpen had built after the first woman—Ellen—entered his house and the last deer and bear hunter went out of it, where he now permitted Wash and his daughter and infant granddaughter to live, performing the heavy garden work and supplying Ellen and Judith and then Judith with fish and game now and then, even entering the house now, who until Sutpen went away, had never approached nearer than the scuppernong arbor behind the kitchen where on Sunday afternoons he and Sutpen would drink from the demi-john and the bucket of spring water which Wash fetched from almost a mile away….”27

Another indication of Faulkner’s genius is his ability to see in an event as ordinary as a young man ordering pie and coffee from a waitress with whom he secretly wants some kind of relationship the potential for fine, deep drama.  Faulkner’s preference for scant food and small food items continues to display the themes of scarcity and purity that were inescapable in his social and historical environment.  In the following passage, Faulkner describes Joe, the boy in the passage just presented, who has come to a restaurant to be served by the waitress, in terms that transparently bring into play the signifiers of purity as immaterial dimension and food as binding, burdensome material necessity:

He believed that the men at the back…were laughing at him.  So he sat quite still on the stool, looking down, the dime clutched in his palm.  He did not see the waitress until the two overlarge hands appeared upon the counter opposite him and into sight.  He could see the figured pattern of her dress and the bib of an apron and the two bigknuckled hands lying on the edge of the counter as completely immobile as if they were something she had fetched in from the kitchen.  “Coffee and pie,” he said.

Her voice sounded downcast, quite empty.  “Lemon coconut chocolate.”

In proportion to the height from which her voice came, the hands could not be her hands at all.  “Yes,” Joe said.

The hands did not move.  The voice did not move.  “Lemon coconut chocolate.  Which kind.”  To the others they must have looked quite strange.  Facing one another across the dark, stained, greasecrusted and frictionsmooth counter, they must have looked a little like they were praying:  the youth countryfaced, in clean Spartan clothing, with an awkwardness which invested him with a quality unworldly and innocent; and the woman opposite him, downcast, still, waiting, who because of her smallness partook likewise of that quality of his, of something beyond flesh.  Her face was highboned, gaunt.  The flesh was taut across her

CHINESE WISDOM

ZENG GUANG

To My Wife, Faqin Wu, Who Inspires And Helps This Translation.

 CHINESE WISDOM is the translation of the Chinese booklet, ZENG GUANG, the most recited and quoted classic which has been circulating for about 300 years. Since it came out, it has been spreading throughout the

country and ,as well, the countries where there are overseas Chinese. The scholars have been looking for its authorship but in vain. If you do need an

Author, then, HE IS ECLECTIC. ZENG GUANG takes roots in and greatly

impacts on the Chinese culture. Like an eloquent mentor who travels incognito and teaches his folksy sayings that are timelessly practical and enlightening, that are more acceptable and influential than the elitist words of Saints Confucius and Mencius, ZENG GUANG transmits wisdom, imparts philosophy of life. Many of His words are paradoxical and polysemous, which makes the benevolent see benevolence and the wise see wisdom. Just the ambiguity and mysticism give the book ever lasting vitality. Alas, this attraction has given me troubles during translation. Here I beg to have audacity to present my interpretation of this Great Booklet.

Chongding Zhang 2009

 

 

CHINESE WISDOM

ZENG GUANG

 

These are sagacious sayings of the past,

They will exhort you earnestly.

The words are originally rhymed,

They will help you see and hear more.

The present is well mirrored by the past,

Today and yesterday are co-eternal.

 

People of capacities are the treasure of the country,

People of erudition are its jewellery.

All walks of life , working or trading,

Should stand by the moral disciplines .

 

Being filial to parents and loving siblings

Are the roots of ethics.

Respect your teachers and honor morals,

Love masses and endear yourself to benevolence.

 

Money and properties are only mucky trinkets,

Benevolence and righteousness are worthy of gold.

Do everything according to Nature’s Rules,

Say everything in consideration of the people.

Your plan and plot should not offend the Heaven and Earth,

Your words and deeds should set good examples for off-springs.

The rich and influential should care for the poor and needy,

The young and healthy must concern about the old and weak.

 

Try your best to do your filial duty,

Not just give foods to your parents.

The grown-up crows will feed the old,

The lambs will kneel to suck the mother’s milk.

Far away from parents you may shed tears,

But they yearn much stronger to see you.

Lose no time to make your parents happy,

Don’t wait to offer sacrifice before their wood statues.

Treating your parents now with chicken and pork

Is better than sacrificing an ox before their graves.

 

Friends are better than brothers

Who do harm to each other;

Most reliable are brothers

Who protect you against bullies.

Your meat and wine attract many pals,

But in trouble you hardly see one.

Every time we meet, we get older,

We have not much time to enjoy brotherhood.

 

A good father-and-son relationship makes a prosperous family,

Amiability keeps brothers close,

Affability avoids quarrels among neighbours,

Harmony of spouses raises family fortune.

Enjoying amid flowers the oriole-like songs of your wife,

You disperse the brotherly wild geese in the sky.

 

Never do any evil,

And always do good deeds.

Know yourself as well as others,

Have a heart and enter into others’ feeling.

Reprove yourself as you do to others,

Cherish others like you do to yourself.

You can never be more cautious,

First of all, never go against your conscience.

Others may let me down,

But I would never.

 

Indulgence in fondness is the abyss,

Burning desire for profit is the hell.

 

Go with the tide but not be the slave of fashion,

Shun the vulgarities but not try to correct them .

 

Get to the very roots of your poverty and misfortune,

You will not murmur complaint;

Find out the reason for your perished honour and wealth,

You will not linger upon them.

 

Sitting at leisure in daylight, you should value your time,

Sitting at your ease at night, you should use the lamp oil sparely.

 

Reading ,you should be totally absorbed,

For one word could be worthy of gold.

 

Drink your wine with your close friends,

Recite your poems to the appreciative people.

Everywhere you might be known,

But you could only have a few intimates.

Every time we meet as it were the first,

Then we bear each other no grudge till old age.

 

If you have not done anything against your conscience,

Nobody will hate you in the world.

 

Living in a thatched house ,you may not be well-informed,

But you are broad-minded;

Having mountaineers as friends, there might be a breach of etiquettes,

But you are always happy with their truthfulness.

 

The glow-worms illuminate themselves,

The wild geese never fly alone.

 

The seedlings grow from the roots,

The lotus rhizomas come from the sacred lotus.

 

Living near the river you know the behavior of the fish,

Near the mountain you are familiar with the bird songs.

 

Through a long journey you know the capacity of your horse,

Dealing a long time with a person you get to know the heart of him.

 

For an unlucky man, gold will turn to iron,

For a fortunate man iron is gold.

 

Emaciated horses can’t stand the long walk,

Poor people are restrained and unnatural.

 

The moon first shines over the waterside tower,

The spring first visits the plants facing the sun.

 

Forgiveness is not stupidity,

Stupid man knows no forgiveness.

Some people don’t think their pail rope too short to reach the water,

They just grumble about the deep well.

 

We like best the water of our hometown,

Though it may not be so pretty;

We love most the folks of our native place,

Though we may not be related.

Kinship can’t be cut off,

Neighbours can ‘t be kept apart.

 

It’s easy to meet and be intimate,

But it’s hard to sustain the friendship.

 

The guests come to you and you don’t attend to them,

You must be idiotic.

At home you don’t know how to take care of visitors,

Away from home then you know about being properly hosted.

 

Before people, mind what you say,

Alone by yourself, mind what you think.

 

High aspiration starts to leave from Epicureanism,

Serenity of mind begins with simple living.

 

You have money, you can be outstanding,

You have trouble, don’t look for relatives.

Far-away water can’t put out the near fire,

Far-away relatives are not so helpful as near neighbours.

 

Two with one heart ,

They have money to buy gold;

Two with different minds,

They have none for a needle.

 

If you are not physically strong, don’t carry heavy load,

If your words are not worthy, don’t try to persuade people.

Listening to people like tasting soup, then you know the real meaning,

Dealing with people on financial matters, then you see their true heart.

 

The mountain brooks ebb and flow,

The unworthy people are cranky and fickle.

It may be easy to draw tiger and dragon ,but not their bones,

And also to know the faces of people ,but not their hearts.

Behind everybody’s back, there are people talking about him,

In front of people, everybody talks about others.

 

Just do good deeds,

And don’t care what would happen.

 

Slow birds will fly early,

Men of great talent possibly succeed late.

 

One man alone can travel hundreds of miles,

But one tree can’t make the woods.

 

In the hustle city, paupers have few visitors,

In the remote mountains, the rich have relatives from afar.

Human relationships are like paper, every sheet is flimsy,

Human affairs are like chess, every game is new.

The worldly people make friends with money-bags,

Scanty wallets can’t make friends close.

They could keep their words for the time being,

But they are only your fellow travelers.

 

Persons involved are in the dark,

The on-lookers see more.

 

The river at narrow areas flows rapid,

The man in an emergency is suddenly struck with good ideas.

 

Over-fed and over-dressed people tend to be lascivious,

Under-fed and under-clothed people are prone to think of robbery.

 

Moths flinging themselves on the lamp commit suicide,

Silk-worms making cocoons get themselves entangled.

 

In the river the waves behind push the waves ahead,

In the world the new surpass the old.

 

Man lives for an expectation of life,

Grass lives for a life-span of a few seasons.

Coming to this world , we hurtle like wind and rain,

Leaving this world, we disappear like dusts.

 

Earn money in hustles,

Make home in quiet.

 

You know there are tigers in the mountain woods,

Then don’t go to the tiger’s den there.

 

Even the lush and pretty flowers are afraid of aging,

How could we let people fool around?

 

 

If we meet and part without a drink,

Even the peach blossoms at the entrance will laugh.

Flowers were in full blossom yesterday and wither today,

Man with a hundred years’ life-span yet cherishes ten-thousand-year hope.

Amid deserted graves in the wilderness there are neither rich nor poor,

The floating clouds over the mountain have been changing since ancientry.

 

Being famous by royal favor without morals is an ill omen,

Getting wealthy in troubled times is the roots of calamities.

 

Life affairs are perplexing and unpredictable,

You just watch the world in the breezy moonlight.

My advice to you is not to be a money-grubber,

You can’t carry a cent to the next world.

Our flesh and blood like bubbles will eventually burst,

Not to say our wealth, the illusional bubbles;

The Earth is just a dust

Not to mention your properties, the dust in the dust.

 

Don’t seek immediate results,

Don’t vie for small profits.

High-flown fame invites jealousy,

Ultra favor attracts slander.

 

It is dangerous to enrage the masses,

And improbable to satisfy high desires.

 

Getting to the ultimate , things will go in reverse order,

Fully filled containers will be brimmed over.

 

If you get lost at a crossroads,

You should ask the way from the travelers.

 

Before thirty we look for illness,

After thirty we are looked for by illness.

 

Big wealth owes to fortune,

Small riches owe to diligence.

 

Blame your leafless trees,

Don’t grumble about the sun for giving no shelters.

 

The crux of a year is spring,

Of a day is dawn,

Of a family is harmony,

Of a life is diligence.

 

Choose your son-in-law by his spirit and talent,

And daughter-in-law by her moral and virtue.

Generally prefer a good character,

Properties and positions are matter of little concern.

From many splendid houses come starved ghosts,

Out of many thatched cabins rise higher officials.

Imposing mansions change their masters,

Magnificent gardens welcome new owners.

 

 

You could hardly defend yourself before a multitude,

One man’s applause makes negligible effect.

 

They meet and talk about peace

And go back and resort to military action.

 

A stout body could hide all ugliness,

A small power could move a massy thing.

 

If you are healthy ,don’t worry about your leanness,

If you have an easy life, don’t grumble over your poverty.

 

We can’t meet everybody’s expectation,

But could seek to have a clear conscience.

 

The rain is helpless for rootless grasses,

The ill-gotten gains can’t make ill-starred people rich.

 

Things in careless keeping invite robbers,

Women in heavy make-up incite lusters.

 

One-sided view keeps one in the dark,

Multilateral viewpoint makes one bright.

Hearing is misleading,

Seeing is believing.

One dog barks at the shadow,

Hundred dogs will follow the barking.

Don’t believe the extra uprightness,

Guard against the faked benevolence.

 

We could get near to a strange tiger,

But should not be close to a vicious person.

One who comes here to talk about right and wrong

Must be the person involved.

 

The life’s roads could be wilfully dangerous,

I just keep my mind balanced.

 

Clever persons always fall short of their expectations,

Simple-hearted persons could be higher officials.

People who wrap themselves in silks and satins

May have nothing to do with sericulture.

 

Never harm a big matter for a small profit,

Never use public opinion to vent personal grudge.

Never over- measure others’ weak points with your strong points,

Never be jealous of others’ capability because of your inferiority.

Never override the helpless with your strong power,

Never wantonly kill animals to satisfy your voracity.

 

You have power and you override others,

You lose power and others override you;

You chase a dog to a blind alley,

The dog will bite you at the end.

 

Seeing a beauty you are incited with lusts of flesh,

Your wife and daughters will be retaliated;

Bearing grudge you underhandedly hurt a man,

You extend disasters to your off-springs.

 

The first comer is the monarch,

The next will be courtiers.

Don’t think you set out early,

Others start off even earlier.

 

Put out the fire in your heart,

And light a lamp before the Buddha.

If you do every thing with a good conscience

You will not be startled by the knockers at midnight.

 

Pretty peonies only display views,

Tiny date flowers are fruitful.

 

With multitudinous stars shining

It is not as bright as the lone moon;

With a multi-storey pagoda lightening

It is not as rewarding as an illuminating lamp in the dark.

With a thousand drummers beating

It is not as loud as a crash of thunder;

Having hundreds of acres of land

It is not as good as having a life-work skill.

 

Wealth and good luck merely console you,

Poverty and distress forward you to splendid completion.

 

 

Ill-fated people have meagre fortune,

Big trees have deep roots.

 

If you have no uppermost intelligence,

You can’t see through all the vanities.

 

Hiding your illness from doctors,

You play ostrich.

 

An aspiring man can yield one thousand chariots,

A greedy loon will vie for one cent.

 

Anger is the nameless fire,

Forbearance is your enemy’s ill-omened star.

Bequeath your kind heart to your off-springs,

They will cultivate this tiny heartland.

 

Never try to hoodwink,

God is just over your head.

Doing evil things you are afraid of exposure,

In which there is good road;

Doing good things you are eager for recognition,

In which there are evil roots.

 

Paupers feel proud, though bluffing,

Yet maintain some chivalry;

Arch villains deceive the world, though extravagant,

Yet have not a shadow of sincerity.

 

Sweeping and raising dusts

You clean the floor and mist your eyes;

Opening the windows and letting in the sunshine and moonlight

You make the room and your mind bright.

 

At the thought of goodness we start to tame evil desires,

Eventually we’ll bring it to completion.

 

Observe your limits and be contented with your fate,

Follow the auspicious and shun the ominous.

 

Only Seriousness knows Falsehood,

And Treachery reveals Loyalty.

 

 

Men can’t be ever lucky one thousand days,

And flowers can’t keep fresh one hundred nights.

 

Physically aged, we are young-old,

Financially poor, we are aspiring.

 

With wine-bowls filled

You often have a tableful of guests.

 

Etiquette rises with affluence,

Robbery comes from poverty.

 

Newly rich persons don’t know how to enjoy their appropriations,

Lately poor persons can’t change their old style of life.

 

In the sky stars surround the North Star,

On the earth waters flow east.

 

Black hair can’t stay with you aging,

Time flies, you are already silver-haired.

 

Leaky roof always meets with rain for nights on end,

Broken boat often gets into the wind.

 

Released from shells , bamboo shoot grows into bamboo,

Struggling against waves, fish metamorphoses into dragon.

 

You are not arrogant, nobody would try to over-shine you,

You are not bellicose, nobody would try to outmatch you.

 

Things being cleared up, don’t nitpick,

Things being straightened, don’t overcorrect .

Be kind-hearted but resolute,

Be incorruptible but tolerant.

 

People being happy with you, don’t outstay your welcome,

People being loyal to you, don’t outwear their faithfulness.

 

Never be self-conceited and display your prowess for show,

Never do a thing casually to get windfall.

 

Accept your due no more than your share,

Cultivate your mind no less than your demand.

 

We get along with people without any deception,

And always lead a self-composed life.

 

With heart as warm as spring breeze

And empty wallet,

A man still compassionates the lonely and destitute;

With mind as clear as autumn river

And house bare of anything,

A man still slights princes and dukes.

 

We can walk hastily or leisurely,

Since our journey is only that much;

We can gain smoothly or adversely,

For in the end all is in vain.

 

For the living, you don’t need to identify their souls,

For the dead, you don’t need to distinguish their corpses.

 

Good words are hard to come by,

Vicious remarks are easy to start.

 

Exquisite jade is commercial,

But you should wait for good price.

 

The clay steamer is broken,

What can you do to look back?

 

Heroes are walking up to dangers,

Honors are vase bouquets.

 

Be careful to say the relationship is as warm as spring,

For fear that Fall would bring you cold.

 

Parents with profound feelings will leave us eventually,

Spouses with deep love will part in the end.

Living a life is like birds staying together in the woods

And scattering hurriedly when the doomsday comes near.

In time serve your parents with delicious foods,

The setting sun will not linger long.

 

Honest people could easily be bullied,

Docile horses could easily be ridden.

Villains are fearsome to people but not the Heaven,

Well-doers are bullied by villains but helped by God.

The benignant and the villainous will get their returns at long last,

The retribution will happen sooner or later.

 

The dragon swimming in shallows is mocked by shrimps,

The tiger strolling in the open country is overborne by dogs.

 

Just watch how long the evil will run amuck,

Like watching crabs creeping sideways with a cold eye.

 

Some day the Yellow River will be clear,

How can a man not have his day?

A scholar could study a dozen years without an acquaintance,

Once he passed the imperial examinations he would be renowned.

 

A sparrow could never appreciate a swan’s aspiration,

A tiger could never bend to a dog’s bully.

 

Our doings and writings will sink into oblivion

Along with our ashes,

But our spirits will be immortal;

Our honors and wealth are marked with vicissitudes

From generation to generation,

But our moral courage will stand firm through the ages.

 

Highly favored, you should think of the possible humiliation,

Safely comfortable, you should consider some unexpected danger.

 

The country in chaos, people miss good premiers,

The family in poverty, people miss good wives.

 

Favorites are waited by humiliatiion,

Paupers are followed by fortune.

People always win their renown when poor,

And fail when satisfied.

 

Prostitutes get married in their late years,

Their life on the streets affects nothing;

White-haired women of chastity lose their widow constancy,

Their life of lonely suffering comes to nothing.

 

Mind your own business,

Having nothing to do ,go home early.

 

You may dye the counterfeit satin really red,

But people will show their different judgments.

 

Use the wine as a key to unlock your knitted brows,

And not the heart as a loom to weave grey hair at your temples.

Better not make one-thousand-year plans,

Life is full of vicissitudes.

 

Autumn insects and spring birds

All enjoy Nature’s bestowal,

Why should we feel too glad or too sorry for them?

Old trees and young flowers

All have their vitalities,

Why should we distinguish the pretty from the ugly?

 

If you promise someone something,

Never revoke even for precious gold.

Once you say a word,

The fastest horse can’t take it back.

 

Extremely miserly parents

Will have extravagant children;

Families of moral excellence

Will have worthy off-springs.

 

Everyday we should examine our thoughts,

And every night we should feel watched by beings divine and human.

 

Be versatile but devote to your expectations,

Be inquisitive but think deeply by yourself.

If you don’t work hard when you are young,

You will regret in vain when old.

 

Miserly parents can’t educate their children,

Partial parents can’t find good teachers.

You should know children are worthy of education,

Never say they are ignorant.

The first on the Proclamation of the Imperial Final Examinations

Will be high official closest to the Emperor.

 

To cultivate the mind,

You should be unmoved like wood and stone,

With a little conceit you will fall into indulgence;

To minister state affairs,

you should be detached like floating clouds and flowing water,

With a little avarice you will be netted in crisis.

 

Uncorruptible officials’ secretaries are poor and thin,

Blessing deities’ attendants are affluent and stout.

 

 

If you want to hide what you do,

The only way is not to do it.

Sitting by yourself, often think of your faults,

Chatting with people, make no comments on others’ mistakes.

 

Making friends should be like painters seeking after light style,

In a lovely hamlet quiet neighbors do not yell at chickens.

 

Don’t listen to the oriole’s provocative songs by the window,

She is trampling on the flowers of you love.

 

All my life I like most the silent fish

Swimming and causing no troubles in rivers and lakes.

 

Untroubled, alert yourself as if you would get into trouble,

Then you can cope with the unexpected;

Troubled, be composed as if everything is OK;

Then you can turn the tide.

 

Three of us walk together,

There should be my teacher.

I will follow the good turn,

And correct the bad habit.

 

The good way to cultivate your mind is to live an ascetic life,

With no perseverance you can’t pray and cure people.

 

Fooling around with ruffians

Later you will be put to troubles;

With the experienced near at hand

You will have people to rely on.

 

Say from your heart,

Never dupe people ,old or young.

The man who has a merciful heart

Will be protected by the Heaven.

 

Having committed errors, fear not to mend,

All alone, be not self-deceived.

 

People who fawn on me are robbing me,

People who criticize me are educating me.

 

Seeing the front courtyard we know whether people there are diligent or not,

Drinking their tea we know what kind of wife the host has.

 

Aged parents running about must have no filial children,

Well-dressed kids must have loving mothers.

We don’t need to ask about the host’s ups and downs of life,

From his face we could guess right.

 

We bring up children for our venerable age,

And keep grain in store for possible famine.

 

In the days of affluence we should think of the needy days,

And not vainly cherish the nostalgia when we are have-nots.

Satisfaction with no greed is the steady way of life,

Taking advantage of others is the way to suffering.

 

Stop drinking your delicious wine when you get tipsy,

Cease to enjoy the pretty flowers before they are in full bloom.

 

Don’t grow thorny brushes by the roadsides,

They could tatter the clothes of your off-springs.

 

Expecting help from the Heaven,

We should think of what we do;

Appealing for others’ aid,

We should consider what we give.

 

You crave for meats of animals,

You will hurt your conscience;

You take advantage of others,

You will be punished by Nature.

 

Being a monk and constant in faith,

Surely you will become a Buddha.

To do Buddhist cultivation,

Clear your mind from past-present-future consciousness,

Free from visions of yourself and others.

Adhering to nothingness means the roots of somethingness are not cut off;

Concentrating on staticness means the buds of motion are not hoed up.

 

While the snipe snips the clam and the latter clamps the former

The fisherman profits from the uncompromising struggle;

When the city gateway is on fire,

The fish in the ditch will not be saved from the disaster.

 

A man without trustworthiness

Is devoid of everything .

Someone may spout about saints and sages,

He may have a looter’s heart.

One who doesn’t like to practice what he learns

Is like beasts of burden learning to dress well.

 

If you want to have riches and honor,

You should be a painstaker.

Since the field has been tilled and sown,

Now is the time for study.

 

Associate with people better than you,

Friends similar at all points are not helpful.

A talk with a wise man

Is better than ten years’ booklore.

 

Ask help from the bounteous,

Render help to the needy.

For a thirsty man a drop of water is manna,

For a drunken man a cup more is none.

 

Do things with a good conscience,

Treat people the way you would be treated.

Ideas of harming people should never come into mind,

Ideas of preventing wrong-doers should never leave behind.

 

 

 

A true gentleman doesn’t let slip improper words when drunken,

A manly person is fair on money matters.

Hospitable persons brew delicious wine for guests,

Bookish persons expend their money on publications.

 

Bamboo fence and thatched house make tasteful scenery,

Taoist and Buddhist temples are not on a par with it.

All delicacies and homely vegetables are the same

After we put down our chopsticks;

Gold and jade ornaments are not different from debris

After we return to ashes.

 

The ancient people of virtue and renown sneered at official caps,

They disdained to serve the marquis;

Getting acquainted, yet they sheathed their swords

For fear of implication into darkness.

 

Favored , he is your bosom friend,

Disfavored, he would bear you grudge.

 

Younglings indulging in sexual desires

Very likely will die middle-aged.

 

If the water is the purest,

No fish will live there;

If the master is too picky,

No man will be his disciple.

 

Stupid husbands fear their wives,

Virtuous wives respect their husbands.

Absorbed in your family riches,

You would neglect your brotherly affection.

 

Rather be less upright

Than more crooked.

Earnestness makes things easy,

Dishonesty makes things hard.

Every day there is a lot of gossips,

But there is none if you don’t listen.

 

A long stay bores the host,

Frequent visits dilute the friendship.

You can see just within a few days,

The second meeting differs from the first.

Human feelings are like flowing water ever lowering,

Life affairs are like floating clouds drifted by wind.

 

One-hundred-year construction is not enough,

One-day destruction is more unbearable.

 

Educate your children from their foetus period,

Start to make them behave well at primary stage.

Rearing sons without education is raising donkeys,

Rearing daughters without education is feeding pigs.

With the land uncultivated, the granary is empty,

With the books unread, your off-springs are stupid;

Empty granary will leave you destitute,

Stupid off-springs will neglect rites and obligations.

 

In the world there is a sea of men,

But only a few are really manly.

 

To have fine descendants, we should increase our virtues,

To enhance the nobility, we should study hard.

 

Salvation of a life

Is better than building a seven-storey pagoda for Buddha.

Accumulation of large wealth

Is not as good as reading Confucian classics.

 

Quietly watching things in motion,

Leisurely seeing people on the run,

You can find the unearthly interest;

Getting relaxed in hustle and bustle,

Keeping calm in mobility,

You can be settled and get on well.

 

Teach your children in their babyhood,

Inspire your wife in the bridal chamber.

 

Be smart at heart ,

And silly in appearance.

Parading wits

Will stir up disasters.

 

Toleration is beneficial,

Forbearance is profitable.

 

Wealth starts from small accumulation,

Poverty comes from miscalculation.

 

Don’t stab people in the back,

Be cute but a little dull-witted.

 

The magisterial gate is wide-open like splay feet,

Poor people in the right will not cross its threshold.

 

Disasters do happen unexpectedly,

No people are exempted from them.

 

Don’t be unkind and harsh to your subordinates,

Otherwise serviceable people will leave;

Don’t associate with unworthies,

Otherwise the fawners will come.

 

 

Wealth is the source of grudge,

Greed is the embryo of disaster.

Gladness should not go to extremes,

Its extremity will turn to sadness;

Desire should not run amuck,

Its indulgence will turn to disaster.

 

One hundred years flee hurry-scurry,

Youthful years go for good.

 

Live ascetic, live energetic,

Worry a lot , weaken a lot.

Our silver hair urges us to leave,

Tons of gold can’t redeem the days spent.

 

Fortune hard-earned is real fortune,

Wit not self-imposed is real wit.

 

Disease for life starts usually from the wedding day;

World-famed merits are often achieved at old age.

 

 

Seeing is easy,

Learning is hard.

You may gain something easily,

But you can’t treat it lightly.

 

Debauchery is the number one vice,

Filiality is the foremost kindness.

A virtuous wife’s husband hardly encounters troubles,

A filial son’s father has little worry.

Helping our parents, we should not fall short of their expectation,

Loving our children, we should not let them loaf away their time.

Precious gold and jade are not the things to seek after,

But the sagacious off-springs are.

Methinks the road before my parents is not so long,

I must make time to wait upon them.

Bumper sacrifice is not as good as proper provision,

Late regret is not as good as early respect.

 

Flowers show off their springtime beauty,

Rain and wind send them to dusts;

Bamboos keep their refined integrity,

Snow and frost can’t bend their proud heads.

 

Consider what you have done before you say,

And what you have said before you act.

 

Man makes the start,

Heaven decides the end.

 

Improper words

Hurt like cutting flesh.

Massacring ten thousand people

Three thousand killers will die at least.

 

Hitting flint, you see sparks,

Aggravating grudge, you see rancour.

Tolerance augments virtues,

Asceticism nurtures peace of mind.

 

To avoid suspicion, neither tighten your shoe-lace in the melon field,

Nor adjust your cap under the plum tree.

 

Lack of learning incurs mistakes,

Hardiness makes things easy.

 

On the heads of dauntless generals and ministers

We might ride horseback,

In the stomachs of broadminded dukes and marquises

We might have boat race.

 

Though poor, save our books for the children,

Though advanced in age, plant bamboos for others.

Raise no hue and cry in the world,

Just leave virtues after you.

 

Don’t repulse a person’s opinion in which people are divided,

Don’t repudiate others because you don’t see eye to eye in views.

 

Opening up a step way

At the precipitous spot,

We see a broad road;

Giving a little support

In hard times,

We feel easy at heart.

 

Some people are too anxious to know the truth,

You just wait and they will be clear,

Lest you could stir up more enmity;

Some are too yearning to follow you,

You just let them go and they will change,

Lest you would arouse more resistance.

 

People are in different walks of life,

But they all need a way to support their families.

Some are natural and carefree

Seeking noble-mindedness;

Some are upright and proud

Defying any pity.

 

He is impatient but not me,

I am at leisure but not my mind.

 

The rich plan for next year,

The poor plan for today.

 

Haste makes waste,

Drunks talk truth.

 

Catching a tiger on the mountain is easy,

Advising a person is demanding.

 

If you are not a punter,

Then don’t handle the punt-pole.

 

A good word makes the cold winter warm,

An improper word makes warm June cold.

 

Chums reveal their secrets to their understanding friends,

Cronies keep their words inside their circle.

 

Scandals ruin true gentlemen,

Debaucheries wreck wanton youngsters.

 

You make fusses , you make mistakes,

Things reflected, things complicated.

 

 

Only there are willows to tie your horse to,

Every road leads to Imperial Capital.

 

Like mowing new grasses ,

Stamping out a new-sprung desire

Is an easy job,

If you set it loose

And get profited for the time being,

You will be in the suffering abyss;

Like glossing the bronze mirror ,

Cultivating a new-born Heavenly Conscience

Is to increase the mind’s brightness,

If you are discouraged and held off a little,

You are miles apart from completion.

 

The wind having subsided,

Don’t stir the water;

The bank having reached,

Leave the boat.

 

Hide evils and praise good deeds,

Act discreetly and speak cautiously.

 

Be unworldly when we are alone,

Be kind when associate with others,

Be humble when we succeed,

Be self-collected when we are disappointed,

Be young-old, though aged,

Be confident, though poor.

 

Once you have passed the Imperial Examinations,

Your humble thatched house will be an attraction;

Once the money in the drawer is used up,

Even a valiant hero feels humiliated.

 

From thrift to luxury is a happy gain,

And the reverse is a nasty pain.

Habits formed in childhood are like born disposition,

Accustomed acquirements are like innate talent.

 

Hosts should use simple utensils,

Guests should not linger about after dinner.

 

Withered trees will germinate in spring,

Young blood can never be enjoyed the second time.

 

A young person who controls desires has good and healthy looks,

An aged person who doesn’t pursue officialdom has relaxing dreams.

 

There are books I have not read,

There is nothing I can not tell people.

 

Sharing assets among relatives,

The widowed should be favored;

To senior and junior relatives,

Equal disciplines should be applied .

 

A grain in gruel or congee

Tells us the hardships for producing;

A thread of silk or cotton

Reminds us of the labour spent.

 

Learned men are knowledgeable,

Unlearned men are good for nothing.

Stupid persons are obstinate,

Despicable persons are arbitrary.

 

Really wealthy people keep books,

Quasi-immortals keep aloof from troubles.

 

The solitary cloud drifts to and fro above the mountain

Being carefree;

The bright moon hangs in the serene sky

Disregarding comeliness and homeliness.

 

Doing good things, you may be poor,

But facing disasters, you will be rich.

At good-and-evil junctures you must make right choice,

A mistake then may seal your doom forever.

 

Cultivation of virtues is like piling up earth to make a hill,

One basket less will spoil the whole project;

Tolerance towards people should be like the sea,

Ever accepting tributaries.

 

Doing good things you have great enjoyment,

Doing bad things you incur punishment.

 

Keeping the army for a thousand days,

The country might use it for one day.

 

Incorrupt countries value intellectuals

Wealthy families pamper children.

 

Upright men serve understanding friends,

Moral men remain the same under all weathers.

 

If not helped by the fisherman,

How could I see the gigantic waves.

 

We notice their sword -like words,

But not the dagger hidden in their sleeves.

 

Silkworm spins silk to the death,

Calumny incurs lasting grudges.

 

In the depth of mountain, tigers are not fearsome,

But double-dealers really are.

 

The silver hair is just and fair,

It creeps alike on the heads of the noble and the plebeian.

 

We don’t need to court friends everywhere

Abstainers are not afraid of rising wine price.

 

Paintings and calligraphy are of refined tastes,

But greedy money-grubbing will turn them into merchandises;

Wooded mountains are scenic spots,

But commercial exploitation will change them into markets.

 

Lust is wantonness,

After eliminating it,

Sincerity appears;

Arrogance is perverseness,

After subjugating it ,

Modesty prevails.

 

When there is a wind,

It’s easy to fan a fire.

 

Time flies like an arrow,

Sun and moon move like shuttles.

 

Propitious people weigh their words,

Impetuous people are chatter-box.

 

Gold is not that valuable,

Peace and comfort are much more valued.

 

If my off-springs are better than me,

What’s the use of money-grubbing for them?

If my off-springs are not so good as me,

What’s the use of money-making for their parasitism?

 

Good living lies not in wealth,

Refinement does not depend on dresses.

 

The powerful are conquered by the more powerful,

The vile are subdued by the viler.

 

Less news , less annoyance,

More acquaintances , more troubles.

 

All good words are contained in books,

Most world-famed mountains are seats of temples.

 

One hundred years’ cultivation of virtues has built up great livingness,

Three generations’ education has reared many refined scholars.

 

For parents, ourselves, and children,

We are duty-bound,

Thus realize our lifelong aspirations;

For up-most morals, medium positions and minimum enjoyment,

We are steady-going,

Thus keep our peace and comfort.

 

Maintaining morally clearheaded,

You can dodge devil arrows;

Remaining incorruptible,

You can escape plotting snares.

 

Wealth is ruthless,

The more you value it,

The more it damages you;

Poverty is faithful,

The better you treat it ,

The better it profits you.

 

The associating philosophy is modesty and courtesy,

The family heirloom is loyalty and filiality.

 

No learning, no skill,

Schooling makes you better off.

 

A man marries a woman as his wife,

A woman marries a man as her family.

 

Deep-rooted trees are not afraid of the strong wind,

Erect sun-dial column doesn’t worry about shadow slanting

 

If they know how to give up,

The worldly land is the Land of Purity,

If they haven’t freed themselves from human bondage,

The monks are learned laymen.

 

Accumulating family fortune is like picking up mud with a needle,

Dissipating a family fortune is like sands swept away by the torrent.

Filling the ponds with water can prevent drought,

Tilling the land meticulously can support the family.

 

Lecturing but not doing by yourself

Is void mouthing;

Engaging in your profession but neglecting morals

Is planting ephemeral flowers.

 

The moral courage of self-renunciation

Is the pillar of society,

The concept of commiseration

Is the burgeoning and nurturing roots of life.

 

Early risers have a bright day,

Late risers have a fluster day.

 

Compliance with Heaven

Is the way to survival,

Resistance to Heaven

Is the way to doom.

 

The wind-and-wave disturbances

Develop our mind;

The cold-and-warm relationships

Cultivate our forbearance.

 

Epicurean enjoyment incurs diseases,

Excessive satisfaction results in disasters.

 

The first kings of Shang and Zhou encouraged their liege subjects

To speak bluntly,

They were prosperous;

The last kings of Xia and Shang forced their vassals

To fawn on them,

They were doomed.

 

Intolerant persons are overbearing,

Reckless guys are ambitious.

 

Longevity completes charity,

Early death ends evil.

 

Working with disciplinal persons you will thrive,

Collaborating with riotous persons you will collapse.

 

The rich should be contented with what they have,

The poor should not be craving for what is improper.

 

You can’t invoke fortune,

Worshiping God of Happiness is the way to make it;

You can’t escape disaster,

Ridding yourself of evil attempts is the way to avoid it.

 

Coveting a dekalitre of rice,

You will lose half a year’s food;

Vying for a pig foot,

You will lose a sheep leg.

Unselfishness is the treasure,

It harms nobody.

 

From the painted water waves we feel no wind,

From the embroidered flowers we smell no fragrance.

 

When you are poor no VIP would give you money,

When you are sick some master-hand would tell you medication.

 

I am very fortunate,

I’ll never forget the bounty meal I starved for.

Benevolent deeds make me feel my inferiority,

Evil deeds make me feel like going through boiling water.

 

In the hermit’s woods there are no honor and disgrace,

On the road of morality there are no worldly warmth and coldness.

 

Autumn comes, the mountains turn gracefully golden,

Spring comes, everywhere the flowers send out fragrance.

 

Evil deeds should not be hidden,

Good deeds should not be flaunted.

 

To prevent fire, keep the cooking stove poor in faggots

And the vat rich in water.

 

You can hardly guard against the theft in the family,

It will deprive you of all provisions.

 

Idleness consumes your wealth like mountain collapsing,

Fooling around lays your profession waste.

 

We should not live in style,

And our children should be taught in good method.

You are wealthy but leave your children uneducated,

Your wealth will disappear;

You are noble but negligent of educating your children,

Your nobility will be cut short.

Following Mencius’ mother who moved three times for his better education,

Your children will be renowned like Dou’s five outstanding sons.

Wise and able officials make the country peaceful,

Stupid and unfilial children make parents annoyed.

 

The speaker remembers his words for a short time,

The listener remembers the words for a long time.

Some people just talk about others’ shortness,

Why shouldn’t they measure themselves?

Improper words incur grudge,

So speak less towards kith and kin;

Good books are enlightening,

So let your off-springs read more.

 

Forget about your bestowals,

Bear in mind others’ favor.

Unkindly they amass their wealth,

Surely they will enjoy a little time;

Perversely they run against moral principles,

Quickly they will go to destruction.

 

Don’t contradict the angry man,

Afterwards he will be cool-headed.

 

You can never judge a gentleman by his appearance,

And measure the sea water with a decaliter container.

Under wormwoods

There could be fragrant thoroughworts;

Under Thatched roofs

There could be born dukes and kings.

 

One family is wallowing in wealth

While thousands are grumbling in poverty,

They could plot for their thousandth generation

But the second would meet their doom.

 

Now foxes sleeping on the ruined platforms

Rabbits playing on the dilapidated stages,

This was the scene of songs and dances;

Now cold dew-drops on the yellow flowers

Smoky haze over the green grass,

This was the life-and-death battle-field.

 

With the worldly dusty fog dispelled

There are no fire singeing and water surging in your heart;

With the vulgarity in your mind eliminated

There are singing birds and fragrant flowers before you.

 

Poor and lowly people are self-contained,

Rich and noble people are sorrowful.

 

Let bygones be bygones,

Water spilt is water spent.

 

If a man has no future concern,

He must have present worry.

It’s late to dig your well when you are thirsty,

It’s timely to renovate your house before the rain.

 

Get your due in an upright way,

Never solicit by hook and crook.

 

Don’t wilfully deal with unreasonable people,

You could stop slanders through self-cultivation.

Forbearing a moment’s wrath,

You avoid one hundred days’ worry.

Often you are in trouble because you shoot off your mouth,

Often you are in distress because you are fond of the limelight.

 

Wine can cultivate and also mess up the mind,

Water can float and also overturn the boat.

 

The self-restrained people make everything remedy,

The complaining people always speak daggers.

Return uprightness for enmity,

Dispel rancur with morality.

Earnestness makes us stronger everyday ,

Wantonness makes us more and more ignoble.

Abiding by the laws we are happy everyday,

And violating laws we are always troubled.

 

If you don’t go when it is fine,

You will be weather-bound.

 

Our off-springs have their own fortune,

Better not be their draft horse.

From the immemorial not so many people can live to seventy,

How many springs and falls do you still have?

Make an effort when you should,

Make a retreat when you have to.

Man’s life-span is less than one hundred years,

But people often have one thousand years’ worry.

We should dismount at the bridge,

And not embark if there is a path to walk along.

At the dangerous spot, we must try to evade,

At the critical point, we must not take it leisurely.

 

The flowers of Kingdom Wu’s palaces were buried by the deserted paths,

The officials of Jin Dynasty became age-old knolls.

If fame and wealth could last forever,

The Han River could flow back to higher north-western hills.

The green graves overgrown with weeds pulverized thousands of ambitions;

Awaking from a fancy dream, they felt life like drifting clouds.

 

A man of peaceful mind prefers silence,

The level water is placid.

 

Never buy unmarketable things,

Nor gather the scums.

They don’t regard me as a virtuous man,

But as their enemy.

 

Sip your wine when there are flowers,

And refrain from climbing the tower when there is no moonlight.

 

A man has a few strong terms,

And a tree has a few meters of tough stem.

 

One family has a daughter and one hundred families make proposals,

One horse halts and one hundred horses worry.

 

High mountains hide ferocious tigers,

Great seas receive small tributaries.

 

From here You see things miles and miles away,

But you don’t know you have climbed only one storey.

 

To know the affairs of life, you just taste the bile,

Then you will nod consent with full understanding.

In the depth of favor, you should recoil,

Greatly satisfied, you should stop demanding.

Don’t wait till rumors gaining the ear of them,

And former favoritism turning into hostility.

 

Poor families keeping their floor spotless,

Poor girls neatly doing up their hair,

They may not be gorgeous,

But they are dignified and carefree.

 

House-hold utensils should be simple and clean,

Earthen pitchers are better than gold and jade pots;

Food and drink should be plain and nutrient,

Garden vegetables are the best dainties.

 

Never be a mouther of useless platitudes,

Nor a meddler of others’ business.

So long as we have moonlit lakes,

We don’t worry about where to go fishing.

 

Don’t fawn on gentlemen,

Their dealings are not based on favoritism;

Don’t stir up enmity with villains,

They have their own enemy.

 

Fame and gain are bridles and shackles,

Once you are involved,

Your misfortune incurs chagrin

And your success boosts wild fancies;

Honor and wealth are drifting clouds,

Once you see through them,

Your attainment is not happiness,

And your loss is not sorrow.

 

To ascend high

You must start low;

To travel far

You must begin nearby.

 

The knife sharper is not satisfied with the sharpness,

Not caring his fingers could be hurt;

The wealth grabber never thinks he is wealthy enough,

Not considering the hindrance that could incur.

The fortunate people damage their wealth,

The unfortunate people damage their bodies.

 

A little recuperation could reverse to worse illness,

A little dotage on your wife and children could mean less filialness.

 

For the unengaged, see what they hold dear,

For the successful, see what they hold out,

For the rich, see what they hold in,

For the poor, see what they hold off.

 

Feeling contented you are satisfied,

And then you will not be shamed for life;

Knowing your limits you are unruffled,

And then you will not be humiliated all life.

 

Gentlemen like money,

They obtain it with reason;

Villains profiteer,

They defy Heaven’s Laws.

Ill-gotten gains will be ill-spent,

Hurting arrows will boomerang against the thrower.

Unkind guys are unworthy of association,

Unjustifiable things are unacceptable.

 

Our bodies can be freed from the confines,

But our minds should be kept within limits.

 

Don’t trust one-sided views lest you be duped by the wicked,

Don’t be self-opinionated lest you be swung by emotions.

 

A miss is as good as a mile,

Making us far apart from the goal.

 

Footing it is better than mouthing the order,

Beseeching yourself is better than begging others.

 

Live in affluence and do kindness,

For life not for death.

 

Some people are sentimental when grey hair creeps on the head,

But I feel happy to be aware of it,

For quite a number of people die young,

Unable to see their silver head.

 

 

Thieves are villains,

Sometimes they could outwit gentlemen.

Poor gentlemen still behave well,

Poor villains’ violation knows no limits.

 

Partitions have chinks,

Walls have ears.

Good deeds keep house-bound,

Bad deeds spread on the wings of the wind.

 

Disregarding their social status,

Some people are extravagant in living,

Adored by the philistines , though,

But disdained by the knowledgeable.

 

 

 

On earth, parents are rarely to blame,

Under the sun, brothers are rare companions.

 

Blue proceeds from indigo but carries more hue,

Ice starts from water but gets colder.

 

In family discords,

Good parents -in-law are seemingly slow-witted and deaf,

The good way to get along well,

Is to be daughterly and sonly.

To deal with drastic change in blood relations,

Be calm, not flurried;

To face the decline of family fortune,

Be courageous, not disheartened.

 

As a man’s opportunity disappears,

He is being out of luck.

We should start from the low to achieve higher learning,

And not give up the nearby accomplishment for a far pursuit.

We should live within our income,

Every little makes a mickle.

Gullies are easy to be filled,

Hearts are hard to be satiated.

 

Employing and teaching people

Are opposite in ways,

The former applies their strong points,

The latter attends to their weak points.

Corporal punishment should be done in a face-saving way,

Verbal denouncement should not cut to the quick.

 

The fine rules of officialdom

Are incorruptibleness, cautiousness, and diligentness,

The good knacks of diet

Are slow-chewing, warm-eating, and soft-cooking.

 

 

The fish knows the water being warm or cold,

The spring doesn’t care the flowers blooming or fading.

There is no need to tell male or female snails from their feelers,

And it is futile to make every endeavor to get long or short flint sparks.

 

It is difficult to be as absorbed as the ancient sages,

Fangles could change your devotion.

 

Alleging yourself unmistaken every way,

You are mistaken this way;

Shielding your shortcoming every time,

You increase your shortcomings one at a time.

 

Sweep your courtyard

And keep the inside and outside clean and tidy;

Bolt the doors

And check yourself and make them fast.

 

No problem is too difficult to solve,

You just know how and why;

No man is too hard to deal with,

You just do three self-examinations.

 

To do everything well

You should get advice from three virtuous seniors.

Inquisitiveness makes broadmindedness,

Self-opinion makes bias.

 

Don’t keep luxurious house,

Don’t enjoy extravaganzas.

Contending for a small interest,

You will stray off from the Great Truth.

Keeping yourself within propriety,

You will never feel annoyed.

 

His words are not after your own heart,

He must seek something reasonable;

His words are of your heart

He must seek something unreasonable.

 

We gladly suffer,

We are well together;

We are friendly,

Somebody acts as nobody.

 

Aspire high but aim low,

Be gutty but cautious.

 

The learned are like cereal seedlings,

The unlearned are like overgrown weeds.

 

With the lips gone the teeth feel cold,

With the education lapsing the family will decline.

 

Making friends among your fellow students,

It is the chance of a lifetime;

Having a virtuously intelligent son,

It is the living treasure of the family.

 

You painstakingly obtained wealth,

And now live in idleness,

You gain but also lose;

You enjoy one hundred years’ longevity,

But spend in futility,

You exist long but are short-lived.

 

You are a man of merits in everything,

Be sure you have no demerit at the end;

You are credited by everybody,

Be sure you have not antagonized somebody.

 

It is better to supplement a dipperful

Than to add a mouthy fool.

Just make sure you can set your mind at ease,

Don’t show off your glibness.

 

To be morally best,

Find a good friend first.

If the ferment makes the grains sour,

The distiller can’t get good wine.

 

Rather be flogged at parents’ hand,

Than be cursed from their mouth.

Dogs never cold-shoulder their poor owners,

Children never show any dislike of their mother’s homeliness.

 

Don’t covet after windfall money,

And don’t drink to excess.

 

In progress, think of the possible retreat,

At the commencement, consider the probable renouncement.

 

It matters little to carve a swan like a wild duck,

It matters a lot to paint a tiger like a dog.

 

Good deeds should not be appraised with too high a standard,

Just think what can be done;

Bad deeds should not be condemned with too strict a criterion,

Just think what can be accepted.

 

Enjoying today’s fortune is like lighting the oil lamp,

Burning bright while burning up;

Raising tomorrow’s fortune is like increasing the lamp oil,

Adding more while burning longer.

 

Favor often incurs trouble,

So, shun it early when satisfied;

Failure is often followed by success,

So, don’t give up when suffering setbacks.

 

More associates more expense,

Less cronies, less cost.

A small gift sent from afar,

Though light, yet is heavy with affection.

 

Abusing or killing among kindred

Is like boiling soybeans with bean-stalks;

Sharing the burning pain of moxibustion

Shows the fraternal love of the ancient Chinese.

 

Teaching with your own example,

You will be followed.

Teaching with precepts,

You will be argued.

 

Meagre obtaining is better than amassing,

Thrift is better than reckless soliciting.

 

A word entered the government office,

Nine oxen can’t pull it out.

The word “Justice” is light,

But it can’t be moved by hundreds of people.

 

Two self-assertive persons talk,

They will keep hideously arguing,

If one could only say he is sorry,

Then both will be happy;

Two contradictious persons disagree,

They will keep destructively repudiating,

If one could only say he apologizes,

Then both will be benefited.

 

Good-naturedness brings about auspice,

Ill-naturedness brings about austerity.

Fooling around with playmates degenerates your virtue,

Fooling around with playthings ruins your will.

Fortune favors bright mind,

Disaster prefers gloomy mind.

With a favor bestowed upon us, we feel overwhelmed,

With our errors pointed out, we are pleased.

 

It is hard to pioneer an enterprise,

But even harder to keep it up.

 

Upright man inside 

the house,

The likeminded enters;

Villain inside the house,

The