Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/65

 language and literary mind. Last night, before I went to bed, I opened the pages of English translation of our hokkus, wherein the following piece was declared to be the most delicate:—

While I do not say that that is particularly poor, I never thought before, like many another Japanese I am sure, it was so good as a Japanese poem; if it means anything, it is the writer's ingenuity perhaps in finding a simile; but I wonder where is its poetical charm when it is expressed thus definitely. Definiteness is one of the English traits, I believe; and again, it is the strength of the English language and letters, but it is strange enough that it tums at once to weakness when applied to our Japanese thoughts and fancies of indefiniteness. To call the Japanese language ungrammatical, the Japanese mind vague, does no justice to them; their beauty is in their soaring out of the state of definiteness. Sadness in English is quite another word from joy or beauty; it is very Rh