There are two books that I often travel with; one is 'The Theory

Host: The train moved through the night like a slow pulse, its rhythmic hum a heartbeat of steel and motion. Outside, the landscape unfurled in shadows — mountains folding into plains, rivers slipping like silver threads through the dark. Inside the compartment, the light was warm and tired. A few passengers slept, their faces softened by fatigue and dreams.

At one of the narrow tables, Jack sat by the window, a book open before him, pen tucked behind his ear. Across from him, Jeeny sipped tea from a paper cup, her eyes reflecting the blurred lights racing by.

Between them lay two books: one thin and weathered — The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. The other, thicker, with creased corners and the faded title The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith.

Jeeny: “Wen Jiabao once said, ‘There are two books that I often travel with; one is “The Theory on Moral Sentiments” by Adam Smith. The other is “The Meditations.” It’s not that I agree with either views expressed in the books, but I believe ideas and thoughts of older generations can offer food for thought for the current generation.’”

Jack: (smirking) “So the former Prime Minister of China and I have the same travel companions. Except mine are coffee-stained and occasionally used as coasters.”

Host: Jeeny smiled, her fingers brushing the edges of Aurelius’s pages.

Jeeny: “He wasn’t talking about reading for agreement, Jack. He was talking about reading for conversation — the kind that stretches across centuries.”

Jack: “You make it sound like ghosts on paper.”

Jeeny: “Aren’t they? Every philosopher’s just a ghost with good handwriting.”

Host: The train’s rhythm deepened, the sound of wheels against tracks like distant thunder. Jack closed his notebook, eyes thoughtful.

Jack: “It’s funny, though. Wen carried books from a Scottish economist and a Roman emperor. Two men separated by a thousand years — both obsessed with morality, but from opposite sides of power.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Smith studied human nature; Aurelius practiced ruling it. One analyzed virtue. The other endured it.”

Jack: “And Wen? He read both to govern the modern world.”

Jeeny: “Because wisdom doesn’t expire. The questions just change their costumes.”

Host: The train slowed, lights flashing briefly across their faces as it passed through a small station. A family stood on the platform — the mother holding a sleeping child, the father clutching an umbrella, waiting for something that wasn’t this train.

Jack: “You think reading the ancients still matters? The world’s changing faster than they could have imagined. Marcus Aurelius never had to manage a social media crisis.”

Jeeny: “No, but he knew about distraction, vanity, and ego. He just called them by older names.”

Jack: “And Adam Smith?”

Jeeny: “He understood that empathy is the foundation of society — that moral sentiment comes before profit. Tell me that’s not still relevant.”

Host: Jack leaned his head against the window, watching the darkness ripple.

Jack: “I used to think philosophy was luxury — for people who had time to sit around thinking while the rest of us worked. But the older I get, the more I think it’s a kind of survival manual.”

Jeeny: “It is. That’s why Wen Jiabao read those books on trains, on planes, between summits. They remind you that even in motion, reflection has to travel with you.”

Jack: “So it’s about staying human in systems that make you forget how.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: A brief silence. The sound of rain began tapping against the window — soft, relentless, intimate.

Jack: “You think he agreed with them — Smith or Aurelius?”

Jeeny: “No. That’s the point. Agreement isn’t the goal of reading. It’s humility — to let someone else’s mind sit beside yours and show you your limits.”

Jack: “That’s hard for most people.”

Jeeny: “It’s hard for everyone. Because it demands curiosity instead of certainty.”

Host: She looked at him, her voice softening.

Jeeny: “You ever notice how every generation thinks it’s smarter than the last? And every one ends up rediscovering the same truths in new language?”

Jack: “That suffering humbles. That power corrupts. That love redeems.”

Jeeny: “And that wisdom never screams — it whispers.”

Host: The train passed over a bridge. Beneath them, a river shimmered in the moonlight, moving as if time itself was flowing backward.

Jack: “You know, there’s something strange about carrying old ideas through a modern world. It’s like walking with ancestors who never stop judging you.”

Jeeny: “Not judging. Reminding. They’re the echo of what we keep forgetting — that progress without reflection is just repetition at a higher speed.”

Jack: “So you’re saying philosophy’s not about answers.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s about better questions.”

Host: The conductor’s voice crackled over the intercom, soft and distant. The train would reach its next stop soon. They didn’t move. The books still lay open between them, centuries breathing quietly in the space of a single night.

Jack: “You ever think about what you’d carry, if you had to travel light — just two books for a lifetime?”

Jeeny: “I’d take one that teaches me how to forgive, and one that reminds me to keep trying.”

Jack: “No titles?”

Jeeny: “Those change depending on who I am.”

Host: He smiled, looking down at The Meditations, tracing the margin where someone — perhaps himself, perhaps a stranger before him — had underlined a line: ‘You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.’

Jack: “Maybe that’s why Wen carried these two. They balance each other — the heart and the reason, the mortal and the eternal.”

Jeeny: “And the reminder that we’re just a link in the chain. Our ideas aren’t original — they’re conversations continued.”

Jack: “That’s humbling.”

Jeeny: “It’s freeing. You don’t have to be the first. Just the next.”

Host: The train began to slow. The rain softened. The lights outside grew brighter, announcing another city, another station, another set of possibilities.

Jack: “You know, sometimes I think the best thing we can learn from old thinkers is restraint — that not everything we feel needs to be spoken, and not everything we can do should be done.”

Jeeny: “And that greatness is quieter than ambition.”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Host: The doors hissed open, a few new passengers stepping in, bringing with them the smell of night air and street food. Jack and Jeeny gathered their things, but the books stayed where they were — one resting on the other like hands in prayer.

As the train pulled forward again, Wen Jiabao’s words lingered in the rhythm of the rails — a dialogue stretching across centuries:

“Wisdom is not inheritance — it’s continuity. We read the dead not to agree with them, but to remember that thinking itself is an act of gratitude.”

Host: And as the train disappeared into the dark, the pages of those two books — one ancient, one Enlightened — fluttered slightly in the wind, whispering the same truth in two languages:

“To travel with ideas is to never b