SOURCE: Colum, Mary M. “Old Culture Patterns.” Forum and Century 99, no. 1 (January 1938): 24-5.

In the following review, Colum finds The Importance of Living to be a delightful book and discusses how Westerners can learn much from the Chinese people in their understanding of life.

It is interesting to note that, in Huxley's plea for the revival of the monastic spirit, the form of religion he offers, to give sanction to detachment, is a theism; and he would add to the Christian rule something that has always been in the Buddhist: awareness—an openness to impressions from nature, art, and personality that the Chinese poets and sages constantly display. A good deal of this awareness you will find in Lin Yutang's delightful book, The Importance of Living.

The extracts he gives from Chinese poets, philosophers, and diarists all denote this awareness. According to Lin Yutang, the Chinese people love...