obtained high
position and vast influence. He thought of these examples, and though
he had hitherto enjoyed his position and authority, as if he regarded
them as a compensation for his former fall, he began, as the Emperor
was now becoming older, to retire gradually from public life, so as to
prepare his mind and thoughts, and devote himself to the attainment of
happiness in the world to come, and also for the prolongation of life.
For these reasons he ordered a chapel to be built for himself on a
mountain side, where he might retire. In the meantime he had the
ambition to see his children satisfactorily brought out into the
world--an ambition which restrained him from carrying out his wishes
of retiring.

It is not easy to understand or define the exact state of his mind at
this period.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 125: A short romance, supposed to be the oldest work of the
kind ever written in Japan, as the authoress states. The story is,
that once upon a time there was an aged man whose occupation was to
cut bamboo. One day he found a knot in a bamboo cane which was radiant
and shining, and upon cutting it he found in it a little girl who was
named Kakya-hime. He took her home and brought her up. She grew a
remarkable beauty. She had many suitors, but she refused to listen to
their addresses, and kept her maiden reputation unsullied. Finally, in
leaving this world, she ascended into the moon, from which she
professed to have originally come down.]

[Footnote 126: This is another old romance, and Toshikage is its
principal hero. When twelve or thirteen years of age he was sent to
China, but the ship in which he was, being driven by a hurricane to
Persia, he met there with a mystic stranger, from whom he learned
secrets of the "Kin;" from thence he reached China, and afterwards
returned to Japan.]

[Footnote 127: This man was one of the maiden's suitors. He was told
by her that if he could get for her the skin of the fire-proof rat she
might possibly accept his hand. With this object he gave a vast sum of
money to a Chinese merchant, who brought him what he professed to be
the skin of the fire-proof rat, but when it was put to the test, it
burnt away, and he lost his suit.]

[Footnote 128: This Prince was another suitor of the maiden. His task
was to find a sacred island called Horai, and to get a branch of a
jewelled tree which grew in this island. He pretended to have embarked
for this purpose, but really conceale