Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/103

Rh was pleased to add his own endorsement to them. The admirable part is that his poetical attitude was always sincere, his conception of life grave and just, but without tenderness. He was the first to wrestle with Eternity, and he did not return without something to his profit. His intellectual faculties were very well balanced, almost to the discreetest degree; and under their right guidance he expressed his poetical thought, but that is not to say fire. So his poem was a result, not a first intention, whatever. His deliberation and thought were praiseworthy; ethics was always in his view.

We notice that many young poets grew nursed by wrong poets, and were carried away by the wild and fantastic passion and fire of a thoughtless youth. But there is no sounder poet than this Tsuchii, whose noble attitude of reverence toward