This is what he said in his letter to his son. He first wrote that people's temperament is innate and difficult to change. Only reading can change temperament.
Then he wrote that people who were proficient in physiognomy in ancient times said that reading can change physiognomy.
He didn't say he said it himself, but since he told his son, he should believe it.
Regardless of whether you can change your face, there is no doubt that reading changes your temperament. We often hear that we are full of poems and books.
The influence of reading on people's spirit and temperament is probably similar to that of eating on people's body.
* * People have strength when they are full, and depression when they are not full. Correspondingly, people who read a lot have temperament and don't study, just as Huang Tingjian, a famous writer and calligrapher in the Northern Song Dynasty, said: If you don't study for three days, your face is disgusting and your language is tasteless.
When we say that a person's stomach is empty, many times we are not talking about his stomach, but his mind.
* * Eating different meals and absorbing different nutrients have different effects on the body. Reading different books has different effects on people's spirit.
Bacon, a famous British thinker and philosopher, said that reading history makes one wise, reading poetry makes one witty, mathematics makes one thoughtful, science makes one profound, ethics makes one grave and logic rhetoric makes one eloquent. Anyone who has learned something will become a character.
In this letter, Zeng Guofan also told his son what kind of copybooks should be copied according to his own physique and Chinese characters should be used to treat physical diseases. The copied font is wrong, which may be harmful to your health. Reading is probably the same. Reading different books will have different effects on your spiritual temperament.
* * Pay attention to hygiene and science when eating. Rotten food is certainly useless. Eating too many so-called good things is not healthy. They eat "three highs", eat big bellies and eat greasy middle-aged men and women.
The same is true of reading. We say that reading is beneficial, and there is a self-evident premise, that is, reading good books. Bad books may have led people into the ditch.
Zeng Guofan wants to tell his son about his life experience and experience, and also tell our children to avoid detours. So what is said here should be true, not fooling others.
Whether we can change our faces is a matter of opinion, but everyone should admit that we are full of poetry and bookish spirit.
In order to become noble, imposing, symmetrical and elegant, let's read books!