go so far as to say that there is an actual mixture of Truth and Error. But the purpose of these holy writings, namely the compassing of our Salvation, remains always the same. So too, I think, may it be said that the art of fiction must not lose our allegiance because, in the pursuit of the main purpose to which I have alluded above, it sets virtue by the side of vice, or mingles wisdom with folly. Viewed in this light the novel is seen to be not, as is usually supposed, a mixture of useful truth with idle invention, but something which at every stage and in every part has a definite and serious purpose.’
Thus did he vindicate the story-teller’s profession as an art of real importance.
Murasaki, who had first taken to reading romances in order to see whether they were suitable for her adopted daughter, the Princess from Akashi, was now deeply immersed in them. She was particularly fond of the Tale of Komano[1] and showing to Genji an illustrated copy of it she said one day: ‘Do you not think that these pictures are very well painted?’ The reason that she liked the illustrations so much was that one of them showed the little girl in the story lying peacefully asleep in her chair, and this somehow reminded Murasaki of her own childhood. ‘And do you mean to tell me,’ asked Genji, ‘that such an infant as that has already, at this early point in the story, been the heroine of gallant episodes? When I remember the exemplary way in which I looked after you during your childhood I realize that my self-restraint is even more unusual than I supposed.’ It could not be denied that his conduct was in many ways unusual; but hardly, perhaps, exemplary in the common sense of the word. ‘I hope you are very careful not to allow the little princess to read any of the looser stories,’ he continued. ‘She would realize, I am
- ↑ Now lost.
