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 death; and life will be more beautiful from the reason of contrast with death. And death, again from the contrast with life, will be more tender in pathos, more subtle in rhythm. My song is always with the falling leaves and the dying day.

I am not ready to say such is the poetry of modern Japanese poests [sic]; it is so at least with some of them. And it is a most striking contrast with the material civilisation of present Japan, which was brought at once from the West; the West, strangely enough, sent us at the same time her spiritual literature under the arbitrary name of symbolism. Now, that symbolism is not a new thing at all; for us, it is a continuation, of course with much modification, of our old thoughts and emotions. It is interesting to note that it came here when we were much criticised as matelialists [sic] without capacity of understanding any spiritual beauty. As somebody says, the real modem civilisation of Japan is nothing but the old civilisation which has changed its form; and I say that the true new literature is, indeed, the old literature, baptised in a Western temple. We have led, Rh