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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 everyone 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-passengers 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 truth of Buffon’s dictum that “style is everything.” 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 the ordinary life of a traveller in Japan at the time when it was written. But these qualities have gained it a high rank amongst Japanese classics, and have ensured its being handed down to our own day as a most esteemed model for composition in the native Japanese style.
I may observe in conclusion that the Japanese of the Tosa Nikki is on the whole tolerably easy, and it may be recommended as a good book with which to begin the study of the ancient literature of Japan.
