East & West June 1911

Yet once again There is no greater appreciation of Japan than Azure Psychology" in his (:Hearn's) Exotics and Retrospectives: when he found something of all the aspirations of the ancient faiths and the power of the banished gods and the passion and the beauty of all the prayer ever uttered by lips of man ; in the vision of luminous blue of Old Japan I say his heart thrilled with her real life [...] And now as she sang the song of the rain she seemed to be the very daughter of the clouds a falling 'raindrop suspended on the tender mist of life all aglow with the light of the soul. [...] It was like a glimpse of the life of the spirit all pure and serene gently spreading over the darkness of the night—perhaps a p 'wise of the sweetnesstof the life beyond the darkness of the grave. [...] They sang hardly comprehending the meanie of the longings that the simple words awakened ; the shadow of unrealised desires and rays of newborn hops ' across the mind and the Monot nous sound of the little drum which interwove itself with these thot g w's to more than the music of an orchestra. [...] Its atmosphere is pure pnd bracing and through it the lark of genius soars high beyond the reach of the shafts of despotism and the clouds of ignorance and s: persittion I he oovertVof India stands as much in the way of the growth ()Icicliat genius as the 9 13ten e of self-government in the Empire.