in an equally dilapidated condition. The fence between the two houses had been broken down, so that both seemed but one, and he appeared to have fulfilled his charge by looking in through the gaps. And yet I had supplied him by every opportunity with the means of keeping it in repair. To-night, however, I would not allow him to be told this in an angry tone, but in spite of my vexation, offered him an acknowledgment for his trouble. There was in one place a sort of pond where water had collected in a hollow, by the side of which grew a fir-tree. It had lost half its branches, and looked as if a thousand years had passed during the five or six years of my absence. Younger trees had grown up round it, and the whole place was in a most neglected condition, so that every one said that it was pitiful to see. Among other sad thoughts that rose spontaneously to my mind was the memory—ah, how sorrowful!—of one who was born in this house, but who did not return here along with me. My fellow-travellers were chatting merrily with their children in their arms; but I meanwhile, still unable to contain my grief, privately repeated these lines to one who knew my heart."
I shall not give the verses, but proceed to the last sentence of the diary, which is as follows: "I cannot write down all my many regrets and memories; be it for good or for evil, here I will fling away my pen."
The Tosa Nikki is a striking example of the importance of style. It contains no exciting adventures or romantic situations; there are in it no wise maxims or novel information; its only merit is that it describes in simple yet elegant language, and with a vein of playful humour, the ordinary life of a traveller in Japan at the time when it was written. But this has proved sufficient to give it
