Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/24

Rh erudition and ideality displayed in choosing names the contest was ultimately decided. For example, each side having made a correct identification, one was found to have chosen the name "moonlight on a couch; "the other that of "water from the hill," the former being derived from the couplet When autumn's wind breathes Chill and lone my chamber through, And night grows aged, Dark shadows of the moonlight. Cast athwart my couch, Sink deep into my being; while the second was taken from the verse, Stream with scented breast From flower-robed hills that flowest, Here thy burden lay. Thy freight of perfumed dew-drops Sipped from sweet chrysanthemum. Between these two names the judgment was that, concerning the second, it was comparatively commonplace, the scent of flowers being an every-day simile in praising incense; whereas the first, while its derivation had no material allusion to anything suggestive of incense-burning, conveyed a rarely forcible idea of the profoundly penetrating influence of a fine aroma. Victory, then, went to the first. Sometimes the names were not necessarily taken from classical literature but were invented by the players. Thus,