told in the Taiheiki, of his writing for Kō no Moronao the letters which he addressed to the wife of Yenya Hangwan urging his adulterous suit. But the Taiheiki is a very dubious authority, and there are other reasons for questioning the truth of this story. Kenkō's admirers maintain that he was a truly pious man.
Judging from his writings, there would appear to have been two personalities in Kenkō, the shrewd, polished, and somewhat cynical man of the world, and the Buddhist devotee, the former element of his character having a decided preponderance. His religion was to all appearance sincere, but was certainly not profound. Like Horace, whom he much resembles in character, he had his pious moods, but was very far indeed from being a saint. A professor of the Tendai sect of Buddhism, he has much to say, and says it well, of the uncertainty of life, the folly of ambition and money-getting, and the necessity for putting away the lusts of this wicked world and preparing betimes for eternity. But the old Adam is never far off. His unregenerate nature is not to be suppressed, and gives evidence of its existence ever and anon in passages which his devout admirers would willingly forget.
His religion was not of that robust kind which thrives amid the cares and distractions of the world, and by which ordinary life may be made "a perfumed altar-flame." He has left on record his opinion (which is indeed a commonplace of the sect to which he belonged) that true piety is impossible except in seclusion from the world. The quiet of his own hermitage having once been disturbed by the visit of a hunting party, he composed a poem complaining that the world pursued him even there, and changed his abode to a
