[In the following review, Crow comments how The Importance of Living is a delightful book that details the beauties and joys of simple, homely things which anyone can read with pleasure and profit.]

It is appropriate that a book on the importance of living should be written by a Chinese, for no other people have given so much attention to the problem of living, nor, to my mind, have solved the problem so satisfactorily. In the midst of a struggle for existence they have managed not only to sustain life but to make that life beautiful, interesting, and full of simple happiness. They have learned to make the best of things, to find equal gusto in a bowl of noodles, a pot of hot rice wine, a poem, or a sunrise. They are not content that things shall be useful but also endow them with interest and beauty. A cup of tea does more than quench thirst. The details of its preparation form a simple ceremony, and enjoyment of the tea begins with the time the pot of water is put on to boil.

Most of them can and do work hard but, when opportunity comes, they enjoy to its fullest the privilege of loafing. A Chinese prefers loafing in company, or he can find complete contentment in idling away the hours watching the ripples of a brook or listening to the sound of the wind in the pines and bamboos.

Chinese have never been taught that they should patiently endure the sorrows of this life with the hope of rewards to come in a future existence. In fact some Chinese philosophers have looked with a certain amused contempt at a system of religion which encourages one to a life of virtue because of the implied promise of future rewards. There may be, as Confucius thought, a life beyond the grave about which little is known, but in the meantime there is no uncertainty about the present life, which should be lived nobly and joyfully because life is noble and joyful. Life offers its own rewards if we only know where to find them, and in this search we can learn much from the Chinese.

As Dr. Lin points out, while China has great philosophers, of much greater importance is the fact that the Chinese, as a whole, take things philosophically. The world is necessarily imperfect and while other people have sought to remedy its imperfections, Chinese have sought out and treasured what would give them the greatest happiness. They do not need a title deed to take possessive pride in a landscape but enjoy a sly humor in the fact that one can enjoy to the full the beauty of a tree which is growing on another's property.

It is perhaps because the Chinese problem of living has been confined to this life that Chinese philosophy is so close to the soil and the body has neither been glorified nor degraded but accepted as one of the facts of life.

This delightful book [The Importance of Living] might well have been called “An Appreciation of Life,” for in each one of the more than four hundred pages there are detailed suggestions as to the beauties and joys of simple, homely things. One comes to feel, with Dr. Lin, that the end of life is not the achievement of fame and fortune but the business of living itself—a business which is equally important to the beggar and the rich man and can be equally enjoyable. Life is salty and full of flavor for one who can savor it, and color, comedy, and beauty lie all about us, with little tragedies which are often comic. Many other books suggesting a pattern of life have been written by Chinese philosophers. In the production of books of philosophy China was fairly prolific three thousand years ago, and each century has added to the number of titles. Dr. Lin has performed the inestimable service of distilling the phiphilophy of generations of those Chinese sages and presenting it against a modern Occidental background, which makes it easily readable and understandable. It is, in fact, a charming text book on living which anyone can read with pleasure and profit. It will teach us that in America, as in China, happiness is waiting for those who know which way to turn their eyes.