tedly free from any stain of this kind. Of coarseness and pruriency, moreover, there is none in the Genji, or indeed in the literature of this period generally. The language is almost invariably decent, and even refined, and we hardly ever meet with a phrase calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of a young person.
It is difficult to give much idea of the Genji by quotation. The following passages may serve as well as any others for this purpose; but the writer is conscious that here, more perhaps than anywhere else in Japanese literature, the chasm which divides us in thought, sentiment, and language from the Far East forms an insuperable obstacle to communicating to a translation the undoubted charm of the original.
Genji, aged sixteen, discusses feminine character with a young friend:—
"It was an evening in the wet season. Without, the rain was falling drearily, and even in the Palace hardly any one was to be seen. In Genji's quarters there was an unusual sense of stillness. He was engaged in reading by the light of a lamp when it occurred to him to take out from a cupboard which was close by some letters written on paper of various tints. The Chiujō [his friend] was inordinately eager to have a look at them. 'There are a few of a kind that I can let you see,' said Genji, 'but there are others that are imperfect;' and these he refused to show him. 'Oh! but it is just those written without reserve and couched in moving language that I like. Commonplace ones don't count. What I wish to see are letters which reveal the various circumstances of the writers. When they are inspired by petulant jealousy or written at the hour of eve—a prey to passionate longings and the like—it is then that they are worth
