Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/66

 seldom that it expresses the other; but more often in our Japanese poetry they are the same thing; but with a different shade. ‘Sadness in beauty or joy’ is a phrase created comparatively recently in the West; even when sadness is used with the other in one breath, it is not from our Japanese understanding; for us Japanese, the words never exist apart from our colour and meaning. Not only in langaugelanguage [sic] but also in real life's action, is it so; it was the art of poetry of Monzaemon Chikamatsu, the great Japanese dramatist, that he made the cases of double tragedy of two unfortunate lovers (this most favourite subject) most beautiful and joyous; for them it was a joy and beauty to go to death through love. We have a phrase: ‘We cry with our eyes, and smile in heart.’ As we have no right expresionexpression [sic], let us admit for a little while the phrase ‘the paradoxical Japanese’; such a main trait of the Japanese makes it difficult for the Westen mind to understand us; and again it is why our poetry is a sealed book in the West.” Rh