Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/209

Rh "There is no greater pleasure than alone, by the light of a lamp, to open a book and make the men of the unseen world our companions."

"Nothing opens one's eyes so much as travel, no matter where."

"I love to shut myself up in a mountain temple and attend to the services to Buddha. Here there is no tedium, and one feels that his heart is being purged of its impurities."

"It is change that in all things touches us with sympathy. Every one says, and not without some reason, that it is chiefly the autumn which inspires this feeling. But it appears to me that the aspects of nature in spring, more than at any other time, make our hearts swell with emotion. The songs of birds are especially suggestive of this season. With the increasing warmth the herbage in the hedge comes into bud, and as the spring grows deeper the hazes are diffused abroad and the flowers show themselves in all their glory. Sometimes with continual storms of wind and rain they are dispersed agitatedly, and nothing but green leaves is left. All this affects our hearts with constant trepidation.

"The flowering orange has a great fame. But it is the perfume of the plum-tree which makes us think longingly of the past. Then there are the gaily-coloured kerria and the wistaria of obscurer hues. All these have many feelings associated with them which it is impossible to leave unmarked."

"In our hours of quiet thought, who is there who has no yearnings for all that has passed away?