“In my studio, all formalities will be abolished, and only the most intimate friends will be admitted. They will be treated with rich or poor fare such as I eat, and we will chat and laugh and forget our own existence. We will not discuss the right and wrong of other people and will be totally indifferent to worldly glory and wealth. In our leisure we will discuss the ancients and the moderns, and in our quiet, we will play with the mountains and rivers. Then we will have thin, clear tea and good wine to fit into the atmosphere of delightful seclusion. That is my conception of the pleasure of friendship.

 

吾斋之中，不尚虚礼。凡入此斋，均为知己。随分款留， 忘形笑语。不言是非，不侈荣利。闲谈古今，静玩山水。清茶 好酒，以适幽趣。臭味之交，如斯而已。

 

In such a congenial atmosphere, we are then ready to gratify our senses, the senses of color and smell and sound. It is then that one should smoke and one should drink. We then transform our bodies into a sensory apparatus for perceiving the wonderful symphony of colors and sounds and smells and tastes provided by Nature and by culture. We feel like good violins about to be played on by master violinists. And thus “we burn incense on a moonlight night and play three stanzas of music from an ancient instrument, and immediately the myriad worries of our breast are banished and all our foolish ambitions or desires are forgotten. We will then inquire, what is the fragance of this incense，what is the color of the smoke, what is that shadow that comes through the white papered windows, what is this sound that arises from below my fingertips, what is this enjoyment which makes us so quietly happy and so forgetful of everything else, and what is the condition of the infinite universe?"

 

在这种同类相引的气氛中，我们方能满足色香声的享受，吸烟饮酒也在这个时候最为相宜。我们的全身便于这时变成一 种盛受器械，能充分去享受大自然和文化所供给我们的色声香味。我们好像已变为一把优美的小提琴，正待由一位大音乐家来拉奏名曲了。于是我们“月夜焚香，古桐三弄，便觉万虑都忘，妄想尽绝。试看香是何味，烟是何色，穿窗之白，是何影， 指下之余是何音，恬然乐之，而悠然忘之者，是何趣，不可思量处是何境？ ”