Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/303

Rh No department but has yielded to the new influence. Even Japanese novel-writers nowadays draw their inspiration from abroad. The first European novel to be translated was (of all books in the world!) Bulwer Lytton's "Ernest Maltravers," which appeared in 1879, under the title of Kwaryu Shunwa, literally, "A Spring Story of Flowers and Willows." The most successful perhaps in recent years, among publications of this class, has been the version of "Little Lord Fauntleroy." Paraphrase is frequently resorted to: a plot is borrowed, and the proper names which occur in it are slightly Japonised, as Shimizu for Smith. O Risa for Eliza, and details altered to suit Japanese social conditions. The first original novel of Japanese life composed in imitation of the European style was the Shosei Katagi, by Tsubouchi Yūzō (1886), who seems to have put into it his own experiences as a student. Sometimes a more ambitious kind of historical romance is attempted. We would willingly wager ten thousand to one that not a single reader of these pages could ever guess the hero of a work which for several years enjoyed such popularity that its author, Yano Fumio, was able to take a trip to Europe and to build himself a fine house with the proceeds. The hero is Epaminondas!—The work in question, entitled Keikoku Bidan, takes the whole field of Theban politics for its subject-matter. That not a few of the allusions might be transferred without much difficulty to contemporary Japanese politics, was doubtless one reason for the immense sale which it had. Another successful novel, the Kajin no Kigū, has its opening scene laid in the Capitol at Washington, where one of the characters—a Japanese—reads aloud to his companion the Declaration of Independence. The Carlists, the wicked English who robbed Egypt of her native prince Arabi Pasha, etc., etc., all appear in kaleidoscopic variety in the pages of this work,