Liang Yu-Ch'un(梁遇春), A Chinese Elia (1934)
By Wen Yuan-ning(溫源寧)
My last recollection of Yu-ch'un was a chat I had with him on Milton in my study. Three days afterwards he died. Just 26 years of age. A few days later, his little daughter died. He leaves a widow and one child.
A short life and gentle! Quiet in manner, dress and speech, Yu-ch'un somehow sticks more in one's memory than many others who are out to make an impression. Not in the least bit showy. In a crowd, he just hides himself in anonymity and smiles. In a company of two, he makes no effort to be heard. Contradiction is indicated by avoidance rather than by denial. The absence of vehemence in him is not a matter of nurture, but of nature. Modesty itself is modest in him. There are some who are modest with a vengeance: their modesty is so self-conscious and so painful. But with Yuch'un, his modesty is the least obtrusive thing about him: it constitutes his greatest charm. It is a modesty which does not rebuke(i.e. deny), but puts one uncommonly at ease with oneself. The proof of this lies in those restful silences which occur when one converses with him. Whereas with others, one feels terribly fidgety and nervous, when there is a pause in the conversation; with Yu-ch'un, on the contrary, to be silent is to rest awhile, in order to talk all the better later on, reculer pour mieux sauter(draw back in order to make a better jump). The result is, one never tires after a long tête-à-tête促膝談心with him. There is no constraint, no striving after a point, no showing off —just a folding of the hands(palm to palm, with one’s own fingers interlocking), as it were, to see the Mondays and Tuesdays of life go by.
Yu-ch'un wears no mask. He is just himself. And that "self" is a very ordinary self, with this difference: the ordinariness does not try to pass off 冒充for something extraordinary. The usual run of people would do anything rather than be ordinary. Yu-ch'un, on the other hand, is not afraid of being ordinary: this is his title to distinction.
To look at him, Yu-ch'un is just one of the crowd of persons that one can see any day in a crowded street. There is nothing distinctive about his features, except perhaps a certain puzzled look on his face, when he listens to one's talk. This puzzled look is very flattering to one's vanity, as it implies a certain intellectual superiority in the speaker over the listener, who seems to have to listen so hard to understand. But, in reality, Yu-ch'un takes in everything at once. This puzzled look is deceptively complimentary.
Besides the above trait, there is another which makes Yu-ch'un likeable—a slight stammer口吃 in his speech. There are some defects, which are either formidable or ludicrous(ridiculous). Cyrano de Bergerac's nose大鼻子情聖, for example, is ludicrous, and Cromwell's wart疣 formidable. But neither Cyrano de Bergerac's long nose nor Cromwell's ugly wart makes the owners of them likeable. A stammer, however, belongs to that small, but select, class of physical defects, that endear the possessors of them to one's liking. Not a little of Charles Lamb's likeability in actual life is due to his stammer. Indeed, is not a good deal of the winsomeness(childlike charm or appeal) of the Essays of Elia due to the liberal use of parentheses in them? And what is a parenthesis but a stylistic stammer?
The mention of Elia reminds one of the many similarities that one can note between Lamb and Yu-ch'un. It is a well-known fact that Yu-ch'un is a great admirer of Lamb. He is one of the few Chinese who can really relish the Essays of Elia. This gravitation towards Lamb is an expression of affinities between them. For one thing, Yu-ch'un, like Lamb, is a great reader, but not of the omnivorous雜食性 sort: he browses only in certain chosen meadows— Berkeley, among the philosophers; Defoe(Daniel Defoe, an English writer most known for his novel Robinson Crusoe魯賓遜漂流記), among the novelists; Lytton Strachey, among the biographers; and Lamb, Hazlitt, and Montaigne, among the essayists. As one comes across Burton(Robert Burton) and Browne(Thomas Browne) and Shakespeare again and again in Lamb's essays, so also Yuchun's favourites turn up all over his writings, not so much in direct quotations, as in odd fancies and humours and in certain refinements of expression.
Yu-ch'un has not written much. A collection of essays (春醪集) and a few translations comprise all he ever did. But his influence remains in the subtle note of urbane(notably polite or polished in manner; suave) intimacy that meets one in some essays of the best among present-day authors.
From Wen’s Imperfect Understanding(不夠知己)
By Wen Yuan-ning(溫源寧)
My last recollection of Yu-ch'un was a chat I had with him on Milton in my study. Three days afterwards he died. Just 26 years of age. A few days later, his little daughter died. He leaves a widow and one child.
A short life and gentle! Quiet in manner, dress and speech, Yu-ch'un somehow sticks more in one's memory than many others who are out to make an impression. Not in the least bit showy. In a crowd, he just hides himself in anonymity and smiles. In a company of two, he makes no effort to be heard. Contradiction is indicated by avoidance rather than by denial. The absence of vehemence in him is not a matter of nurture, but of nature. Modesty itself is modest in him. There are some who are modest with a vengeance: their modesty is so self-conscious and so painful. But with Yuch'un, his modesty is the least obtrusive thing about him: it constitutes his greatest charm. It is a modesty which does not rebuke(i.e. deny), but puts one uncommonly at ease with oneself. The proof of this lies in those restful silences which occur when one converses with him. Whereas with others, one feels terribly fidgety and nervous, when there is a pause in the conversation; with Yu-ch'un, on the contrary, to be silent is to rest awhile, in order to talk all the better later on, reculer pour mieux sauter(draw back in order to make a better jump). The result is, one never tires after a long tête-à-tête促膝談心with him. There is no constraint, no striving after a point, no showing off —just a folding of the hands(palm to palm, with one’s own fingers interlocking), as it were, to see the Mondays and Tuesdays of life go by.
Yu-ch'un wears no mask. He is just himself. And that "self" is a very ordinary self, with this difference: the ordinariness does not try to pass off 冒充for something extraordinary. The usual run of people would do anything rather than be ordinary. Yu-ch'un, on the other hand, is not afraid of being ordinary: this is his title to distinction.
To look at him, Yu-ch'un is just one of the crowd of persons that one can see any day in a crowded street. There is nothing distinctive about his features, except perhaps a certain puzzled look on his face, when he listens to one's talk. This puzzled look is very flattering to one's vanity, as it implies a certain intellectual superiority in the speaker over the listener, who seems to have to listen so hard to understand. But, in reality, Yu-ch'un takes in everything at once. This puzzled look is deceptively complimentary.
Besides the above trait, there is another which makes Yu-ch'un likeable—a slight stammer口吃 in his speech. There are some defects, which are either formidable or ludicrous(ridiculous). Cyrano de Bergerac's nose大鼻子情聖, for example, is ludicrous, and Cromwell's wart疣 formidable. But neither Cyrano de Bergerac's long nose nor Cromwell's ugly wart makes the owners of them likeable. A stammer, however, belongs to that small, but select, class of physical defects, that endear the possessors of them to one's liking. Not a little of Charles Lamb's likeability in actual life is due to his stammer. Indeed, is not a good deal of the winsomeness(childlike charm or appeal) of the Essays of Elia due to the liberal use of parentheses in them? And what is a parenthesis but a stylistic stammer?
The mention of Elia reminds one of the many similarities that one can note between Lamb and Yu-ch'un. It is a well-known fact that Yu-ch'un is a great admirer of Lamb. He is one of the few Chinese who can really relish the Essays of Elia. This gravitation towards Lamb is an expression of affinities between them. For one thing, Yu-ch'un, like Lamb, is a great reader, but not of the omnivorous雜食性 sort: he browses only in certain chosen meadows— Berkeley, among the philosophers; Defoe(Daniel Defoe, an English writer most known for his novel Robinson Crusoe魯賓遜漂流記), among the novelists; Lytton Strachey, among the biographers; and Lamb, Hazlitt, and Montaigne, among the essayists. As one comes across Burton(Robert Burton) and Browne(Thomas Browne) and Shakespeare again and again in Lamb's essays, so also Yuchun's favourites turn up all over his writings, not so much in direct quotations, as in odd fancies and humours and in certain refinements of expression.
Yu-ch'un has not written much. A collection of essays (春醪集) and a few translations comprise all he ever did. But his influence remains in the subtle note of urbane(notably polite or polished in manner; suave) intimacy that meets one in some essays of the best among present-day authors.
From Wen’s Imperfect Understanding(不夠知己)
錄者按：真是寫得極好的一篇文章，也大概是我暫時在《不夠知己》裏讀到最好的一篇。（22/11/2022）
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