Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/132

116 A drink of water when awake during the night.

When in a dull mood, to have a visitor neither so intimate as to be uninteresting, nor too great a stranger to be unreserved, who will tell us what is going on in the world—things pleasant or odious or strange, now touching on this, now on that, private matters or public—in just sufficient detail not to be tedious. This is very agreeable.

Here follow the "points" of carriage-oxen, horses, coachmen (who should be big men, of a ruddy countenance, and a consequential demeanour), footmen, pages, cats, and preachers. The last subject is treated at some length.

"A preacher," she says, "ought to be a good-looking man. It is then easier to keep your eyes fixed on his face, without which it is impossible to benefit by the discourse. Otherwise the eyes wander and you forget to listen. Ugly preachers have therefore a grave responsibility. But no more of this!" She adds, however, "If preachers were of a more suitable age I should have pleasure in giving a more favourable judgment. As matters actually stand, their sins are too fearful to think of."

If any apology is needed for the length of these extracts, it may be pleaded that they represent that which is best and at the same time most quotable in Japanese literature. They are taken almost exclusively from the first two of the twelve volumes (646 pp.) of which this entertaining miscellany consists. It is hard to realise that it was written in Japan nine hundred years ago. If we compare it with anything that Europe had to show at this period, it must be admitted