Stylish appearance Does not bewitch me; Fruits pass, and flowers: I love the tree.
The Japanese word _ki_ signifies both “tree” and “spirit.” Quite commonplace, I own, is the consolation afforded by some lines engraven on a toothpick, but how many almond-eyed maidens visiting the tea-house which thus combined mental with carnal refreshment have tittered to read them!
In mine ears linger Words said at parting; Sleeping alone, I Hope for a dream.
Rather quaint is the following lament over conjugal incompatibility. But the wife knows that she must submit, on pain of divorce; and the word _kigane_, which I have rendered “trouble,” is used of little inevitable domestic worries. The terms “fire-nature” and “water-nature” are taken from Chinese philosophy.
Thou, cold as water, I, hot as fire; Till we to earth turn, Trouble is mine.
Mathematicians who revel in romance of the fourth dimension will note with pleasure this little sum in amorous arithmetic:
Longing to meet thee, Longing to see thee, Six and four inches, Passion’s a-foot!
Longing to meet, six inches, Longing to see, four inches, These, indeed, being added together, Make a _shaku_.
The word _shaku_ has two meanings: (1) a linear foot; (2) a woman’s hysterical desire. Ten inches go to a Japanese foot.
The separation of lovers is a fruitful topic. I select three poems which treat of it in divergent but equally piquant manners. The first might be called--
Would that my heart were Cut out and shown thee! Quarrelling leaves me Deeper in love.
The second contains a hint of that fondness for trees and flowers which permeates all classes:
If, from thee sundered, I roam the pine-wood, Can it be dew falls? Can it be tears?
Far from each other, Yearning for union; Good, were our faces Glassed in the moon!
Then it should be remarked that the wife figures as frequently as the sweetheart in this lyrical woodland, vocal with twittering sentiment. The European has been so long accustomed to regard romance as the province of young men and maidens, led through three volumes or five acts to the altar, that married life is either prosaic or only to be made interesting by a breach of the Seventh Commandment. More than ever does he presume that this convention must apply to domestic life in the East, for he has always been informed that there a girl must stifle the instincts of her heart and pass submissively from her father’s to her mother-in-law’s yoke. As the French saw puts it, _Fille on nous supprime, femme on nous opprime_. But this reasoning fails to take into account two modifying considerations. Custom is so tempered by practice that an affectionate parent (his name is legion) would not risk his daughter’s happiness by marrying her to an odious or notoriously evil person. Japanolaters will assert that no Japanese person can be odious unless corrupted by Western influence. But this is nonsense. What most makes for happy marriages is the strong sense of duty and the loving disposition of a Japanese girl. Neither husband nor wife regards the sexual instinct, however veiled, as the corner-stone of partnership for life. Obedience to parental wisdom is the first stage, mutual politeness the second, devotion to children, begotten or adopted, the third. From these unselfish elements a high average of felicity is attained, possibly even higher than elsewhere. However that may be, the wife’s fidelity, jealousy, affection recur as motives of popular poesy. That essentially feminine quality which every bachelor has observed in some otherwise perfect wife “wedded to a churl,” and of which I can find no better definition than the following verse affords, would seem common to both hemispheres: