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 was the use of realism; that is, the practice of describing life as it actually is led, instead of resorting to the aimless fantasies and surprises of the past. Realism would inevitably affect not only the plots but the characters of the novels. In the didactic fiction of the early nineteenth century the heroes were always depicted as flawlessly, incredibly virtuous men who never knew a moment of hesitation much less of failing. Tsubouchi argued that such characters, being essentially unbelievable, forfeited their claims on the readers’ attention, and in the end the didactic interests of the book were thwarted. At the same time, the reader derived none of the pleasure from it that a European novel supplied.

The least satisfactory part of Tsubouchi’s study was that relating to the language suitable for novels. Tsubouchi was aware that Western novels were of necessity written entirely in the modern tongue, but he felt so strong an attachment to the beautiful phrases of the classical Japanese style that he found it unthinkable for a whole novel to be written entirely in the colloquial. By the end of the nineteenth century the gulf between the colloquial language actually spoken by the Japanese and the language found in books was almost as great as between Chaucer’s and contemporary English.