Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/177

 that of the woman, with a promise that the knot should never be loosened till they were reunited. It was also by her betrothed that a maiden's hair, which in girlhood flowed over her shoulders, was for the first time bound with a fillet. This last custom survives in a degraded form until the present day, as will be seen when the time comes to speak of public fêtes in which professional dancing-girls (geisha) act a prominent part.

Japan's borrowings from China were of course liberal in the sphere of literary culture. Having no books of her own, she depended entirely on the library of her neighbour. Compared with the barrenness of her intellectual realm, that library opened up to her an immensely fruitful area of science, philosophy, and belles lettres, and there would be no grounds for surprise had she lost herself in its multitudinous paths. But if we except the engrossing claim that Confucianism made upon her attention, the chief effect produced upon her by Chinese literature was to set her to writing poetry. Throughout the century culminating at the zenith of the Nara epoch, she abandoned herself almost deliriously to that occupation. To turn a couplet deftly became the test not merely of literary education but even of administrative competence. There is difficulty in conveying to the mind of a Western reader any exact idea of the habit that grew out of this poetic extravagance. If at a banquet given by