My ambition has not been fulfilled. My ambition has not been fulfilled. May I
ask you when your ambition will be fulfilled? An ambition should grow endlessly
and should never be fulfilled. The progress of the world never stops, neither
will my expectations. New knowledge and sorrow grow continuously like tangled
threads, so does my sympathy 2. After I climb a mountain, another
looms. After I sail across an ocean, another appears. Even if I work
energetically like a dragon rising and a tiger leaping for a hundred years, how
much can I achieve? Even though it may be very little, I dare not underestimate
myself. A great accomplishment is built by little ones. When I put the future
into perspective, who should not feel the same way? Well, a man's aspiration for
an ideal world should only advance and never stop. A fulfilled ambition will no
longer be an ambition.
1
Zhuo-ru and Ren-gong were Qi-chao Liang's other first names. He called
himself the Room Owner Whose Only Drink Is Ice (a very poor man who cannot
afford a water pump). He was a native of Xin-hui City in Guangdong Province. In
1889, he passed the Advanced Exam at the age of sixteen. He was a pupil of You-wei
Kang. Both of them were the main figures of Wu-shu Coup (1898 Political Reform).
Queen Ci-xi opposed the reform and arrested the members of the reform party.
Liang fled to Japan. He was successively the executive editor of the newspapers:
the News of the Contemporary Affairs, the Forum, New Democracy, and National
Dignity. He advocated political reform for democracy and influenced his
contemporaries greatly. His style of writing, known as New-democracy Style, was
very popular during the end of the Qin dynasty. After Dr. Yi-xian Sun founded
the Republic of China, Liang became the Minister of Justice and then the
Minister of Finance. During his late years, he was successively a professor of
Peijing normal University, Nan-kai University, Dong-nan (southeastern)
University, and Qing-hua University. He was the author of The Collection of
the Room Owner Whose Only Drink Is Ice.
2
Liang was sympathetic with people who suffered from poverty and ignorance.