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296 formalism in which it grew up. But we suspect that there was some original sin of weakness as well. Otherwise the clash of India and China with old mythological Japan, of Buddhism with Shintō, of imperialism with feudalism, and of all with Catholicism in the sixteenth century and with Dutch ideas a little later, would have produced more important results. If Japan has given us no music, so also has she given us no immortal verse, neither do her authors atone for lack of substance by any special beauties of form. But Japanese literature has occasional graces, and is full of incidental scientific interest. The intrepid searcher for facts and "curios" will, therefore, be rewarded if he has the courage to devote to it the study of many years. A certain writer has said that "it should be left to a few missionaries to plod their way through the wilderness of the Chinese language to the deserts of Chinese literature." Such a sweeping condemnation is unjust in the case of Chinese. It would be unjust in that of Japanese also, even with all deductions made.

 Little Spring. Ko-haru, or "the Little Spring," is the Japanese name for the Indian Summer, those beauteous weeks in November and December, when the burden and heat of the year are over, when the sky is constantly blue and the atmosphere golden, and the maple-trees (to borrow a favourite expression of the Japanese poets) put on their damask robes.

 Living used to be extremely cheap in Japan. It is so no longer. The general voice of grumblers among the residents