say that those periods, I mean the time of Bunkwa and Bunsei, are the zenith of our feudal civilization in which we heard already the voice of the approaching fall.
I have been interested lately in the life of Hoitsu Sakai, one of the most distinguished decadents of the early nineteenth century, who, being born the second son of the fifteenth Lord Sakai, escaped from the formality or pretence attached to his birth into art and poetry by whose kind restraint his soul freedom-loving and even dissipated (it was the good old time when dissipation was thought quite natural) was distilled and ennobled; we always attribute it to the times that the high-minded exultation and decorative composure of Korin of the former age became a delicacy and refinement in Hoitsu’s art, and the care-unknown masculinity of Kikaku’s poetry turned to more frivolity and witticism at the best in his hokkus; but there is no denying the fact that his senses poetical or otherwise had become most sensitive. And it was indeed wonderful to know what delicacy (that artistic delicacy might be compared with that of Utamaro’s women who would appear
