n,
and under the charms of the girl the man became a different being; the
old-fashioned mind brightened, the old-fashioned heart exposed its hidden
treasures of tenderness and wisdom and sympathy. Very much like playing
upon a long forgotten instrument, was the relation between the maiden and
the man--not only because he resembled such an instrument in the fact of
belonging emotionally and intellectually to another generation, but also
because his was a heart whose true music had long been silent, unheard by
the world. Undoubtedly the maiden meant no harm, but she caused a great
deal of pain, for at a later day, becoming a great lady of society, she
forgot all about this old friendship, or perhaps wondered why she ever
wasted her time in talking to such a strange old-fashioned professor. Then
the affectionate heart is condemned to silence again, to silence and
oblivion, like the harp thrown away in some garret to be covered with
cobwebs and visited only by bats. "Is it not time," the old man thinks,
"that the strings should be broken, the strings of the heart? Let the cold
wind of death now come and snap them." Yet, after all, why should he
complain? Did he not have the beautiful experience of loving, and was she
not in that time at least well worthy of the love that she called forth
like music?

There are several other poems referring to what would seem to be the same
experience, and all are beautiful, but one seems to me nobler than the
rest, expressing as it does a generous resignation. It is called
"Deteriora," a Latin word signifying lesser, inferior, or deteriorated
things--not easy to translate. Nor would you find the poem easy to
understand, referring as it does to conditions of society foreign to
anything in Japanese experience. But some verses which I may quote you
will like.

If fate and nature screen from me
The sovran front I bowed before,
And set the glorious creature free,
Whom I would clasp, detain, adore,--
If I forego that strange delight,
Must all be lost? Not quite, not quite.

_Die, Little Love, without complaint,
Whom honour standeth by to shrive:
Assoiled from all selfish taint,
Die, Love, whom Friendship will survive.
Not hate nor folly gave thee birth;
And briefness does but raise thy worth._

This is the same thought which Tennyson expressed in his famous lines,

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

But it is still