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寒夜围炉，田家妇子之乐也。顾篝灯坐对，或默默然无一言，或嘻嘻然言非所宜言，皆无所谓乐，不将虚此良夜乎？余识字农人也。岁晚务闲，家人聚处，相与烧煨山芋，心有所得，辄述诸口，命儿辈缮写存之，题曰围炉夜话。但其中皆随得随录，语无伦次浅辞芜，多非信心之论，特以课家人消永夜耳，不足为外人道也。倘蒙有道君子惠而正之，则幸甚。
It is quite a pleasure for the members of a peasant household to sit by the fireside on winter night. Face to face, with eyes gazing at the jack-o’-lantern, they now stay in silence by saying nothing at all, now talk about something inappropriate at ordinary time in a way of laughing or joking, only for the purpose of amusing themselves and not spending the good night in dullness.I’m in fact a farmer of literacy. By the end of the year, when nothing is left to be undone, all my family would get together to roast sweet potato for each other; and in case I am seized by sudden inspiration, I would relate it orally and let my sons to record it, and eventually creating a book titled Fireside Talk at Night. Honestly, what contained in this book are some of my random talks and incoherent speeches without any decoration,many of them are the things I myself am not so confident of,merely for the family to while away the hours in the long winter,not worthy of any attention of outsiders. Nevertheless, it would still be my great honor if someday my book can luckily be rectified by a man of virtue and learning.
以上这段文字传闻是清代文人王永彬为其自撰的《围炉夜话》所写的序，寥寥数语勾勒出了作者著书时的生活背景和心境，使读罢该序的人即刻就会有详读其书的欲望。
The above lines are said to be the preface written by Wang Yongbin himself, a literary man of the Qing Dynasty, for his book of Fireside Talk at Night . With words as brief as that, it roughs out the author’s living condition and status of the mind in the time he wrote this book, giving birth to the ones the desire to read the whole text immediately after they go over the preface.
王永彬（1792 年—1869 年），字宜山，人称宜山先生，王氏后人称其宜山公，一生经历了乾隆、嘉庆、道光、咸丰、同治五个王朝，享年七十有八。他不喜科举，很晚才恩获贡生科名，为修职郎，参与编修同治版本《枝江县志》，担任“分修”，后候选教谕。因深受儒家思想熏陶，在教学中，先令学生修身，次教其治学，不以科举应试为唯一目的，并能身先士卒，修养己身而后教。同时对于乡人见善必赏；见过必反复规劝，一定要使其彻底改正。他涉猎广泛，在著述授业之余，经史、诸子、书法、医学皆习，尤好吟诗。其同郡文友王柏心为其撰写《勅授修职郎宜山王公传》记载：“公著述外，尤好吟咏，与高安周柳溪、彝陵（夷陵）罗梦生结诗社，号吟坛三友。”
Wang Yongbin (1792-1869), styled Yishan and so called Mr.Yishan by the locals and esteemed as the Reverend Mr. Yishan by his descendants, went through five reigns of the Qing Dynasty in life, namely Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, Xianfeng and Tongzhi,and lived to the age of 78. He personally disliked the system of imperial examination and therefore was very late recommended as a tribute student and then nominated as an assistant editor in charge of compiling Zhijiang County Annals , and given the teacher’s qualification afterwards. Deeply influenced by Confucianism, he adhered to an idea in his teaching that moral cultivation should go ahead of cultural learning, and never thought the imperial examination was the only purpose of study.Meanwhile, he always paid high attention to cultivating himself when performing education and thus set a very good example for his disciples. In his hometown, he often rewarded those who had done good and more often admonished those who had errors and persisted in doing so till they had corrected them. Besides writing and teaching, he also spent much time to read a big variety of books including Confucian classics, historical records,philosophical writings and miscellaneous works, especially fond of poem chanting. Wang Baixin, one of the author’s pen friends of the same prefecture, recorded it in his Life of the Reverend Mr. Yishan, a Conferred Assistant Editor , saying, “Apart from authoring books, the Reverend Mr. Yishan had a special hobby in poem chanting, and together with Zhou Liuxi of Gao’an and Luo Mengsheng of Yi Ling, formed a poets’ club named the ‘Three Companions of Poetic Circle’.”
王永彬是个崇尚儒学的学者，修为奉行“立德、立功、立言”三不朽理念，所著《围炉夜话》凡 184 则，为“处世三奇书”的第三部。该书儒家色彩浓重，十分注重和强调儒教所倡导的、更具人生要义的耕读文化，对类似“竹林七贤”的玄学新风以及历朝历代离群索居、遗世独立的隐士做派多有不屑和针砭，个别篇幅甚至还有蔑视和贬低道佛墨杨四家的倾向，学术立场和意见不可谓不分明。但是尽管如此，书中涉及道德、修身、读书、安贫乐道、教子、忠孝、勤俭等多方面的锦言佳句却丝毫未减作者的智慧和人性光芒，对当代读者仍有颇多启迪。
Wang Yongbin advocated Confucianism all his life and pursued the realization of immortality in cultivating virtue,making achievements and establishing arguments. His book of Fireside Talk at Night is chronologically listed the third one of the“Three Canons of Personal Cultivation”, containing 184 pieces of sketches in all. With heavy Confucianist overtones, the book he wrote especially emphasizes the concept of farming and reading proposed and considered much more important than anything else in life by Confucians. It disdains and criticizes at the same time the metaphysics of the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove and the style and methods of those solitary recluses in the past dynasties, and even shows little inclination to agree with the views of Taoism, Buddhism, Moism and Yang Zhu in certain sketches, whereby we know clearly his academic position and opinion. But even so, the brilliance of his wisdom and humanity in his sayings about morality, personal cultivation, learning,contentment in poverty and devotion to the Tao, family education,loyalty and filiality, hardworking and practicing thriftiness is in no way diminished, and there are still many enlightenments for contemporary readers.
2017 年 9 月于上海
Shanghai, China September, 2017