Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/242

238 There his friends and relatives, with his old mother, gathered at his bedside and wept and grieved—not that they thought he could hear! At last someone said, “Suppose he does lose his ears and nose, so far as living goes there is no reason why he should not survive. Let us then pull the thing off by main force.” So they thrust rice straw all round between his head and the metal, and pulled as if to drag off his head. His ears and nose were torn away, and he escaped with his bare life, suffering afterward many a long day.

A house should be built with the summer in view. In winter one can live anywhere, but a poor dwelling in summer is unbearable. Deep water does not give a cool sensation. Far cooler is a shallow running stream. A room with sliding doors is lighter than one with doors on hinges. When the ceiling is high the room is cold in winter and difficult to light. As for construction, people agree in admiring a place with plenty of spare room, as being pleasing to the eye and at the same time useful for all sorts of purposes.

As soon as we hear a person’s name we form in our minds a picture of his appearance; but when we come to see him, he is never the man whose face we had imagined.

I suppose we all feel, when we hear stories of ancient times, that the houses were more or less the same as people’s houses nowadays, and think of the people as like people we see about us. And am I alone in having sometimes within me a feeling that words I have just heard, or things I have just seen, have happened once before—when, I cannot recollect, but none the less certainly have happened.

When in the presence of a new acquaintance, to carry on a conversation in fragments, laughing and exchanging meaningful looks with a companion who knows the phrases and names of things you