Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/263

Rh of the next year, when he went again to his province, he set me a task, ordering me to write out every day in the day-time three thousand Chinese characters in the round or cursive script, and at night one thousand. When winter came on and the days became shorter, it frequently happened that the sun approached his setting before my task was finished. I would then take my desk out to a bamboo veranda which faced the west, and finish it there. Moreover, as I sometimes got intolerably sleepy over my nightly task, I arranged with the man who was told off to serve me to put two buckets of water on the aforesaid veranda. When I became very drowsy I took off my coat and poured one of the buckets of water over me. I then resumed my clothing and went on writing. The cold produced in this way for a while answered the purpose of keeping me awake. But after a time I became warm again, and the drowsiness came back, when I poured water over myself as before. With two applications of this kind I was able to get through most of my work. This was in the autumn and winter of my ninth year. . . . From my thirteenth year Tobe used me to conduct most of his correspondence."

Hakuseki was an ambitious youth, as the following saying of his shows: "If, alive, a man cannot become a Daimio, better die and be a king of Hades." In this spirit he refused an eligible offer of marriage to the daughter of a wealthy merchant, although both he and his father, who had retired on a small pension, were in great poverty. In 1682 he entered the service of Hotta, the Daimio of Furukawa, with whom he remained ten years. When he left him Hakuseki was almost destitute. His only property was a box containing three hundred cash, and three measures of rice (a week's