Page:The Spirit of Japanese Poetry (Noguchi).djvu/79

Rh of later days began to deal with death as a state lifeless, or something hard and final, then the thought of death ceased to have a better, greater influence on life; I despise such a death or such a thought of death. Go back to the age when our ancient Japanese did not know death and shadow, or even when they knew them, did not think much of them, or scorned them, like children laughing with winds and sun. To return to the age of Kojiki is indeed a rare treat in a time like to-day, when our aspiration or ambition, I mean that of the Japanese, only wastes its energy under incongruities, contradictions, and confusions of wild cross-currents of East and West.

Here in the second volume of Records of Ancient Matters we have a story in Yamato-Take (not only that one story, but many other stories scattered in the first and last volumes) which will surely please a mind of Meredithian cast, epic-loving; one who fully endorses the so-called evolutional philosophy in the Woods of Westermain, or the cultivation of the power of the will, can find enough material for building his songs of tragic life; that rude philosophy of Meredith’s our forefathers practised unconsciously. They such a self-strengthening mind and will