Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/198

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There is a little thing which I picked up just because I was only afraid somebody else might pick it up; again there is another thing which I threw away just because I liked to hear it whispered how foolish I was. The both cases I experienced in the matter of women and love.

My romance died away when I ceased to deceive myself or play a trick on myself; I cannot see myself to-day as if another person. I feel envy in over-hearing some young man who exclaims: “Why, she is most sacred!” I confess that when I spoke such words fourteen or fifteen years ago even for my fancy’s sake, I felt at least at the moment that I was speaking the nearest possible truth of the words myself.

Nearly all things can be bought, even cheaply. Really we are struggling how to buy them dear. That is one of the charms of us human beings.

It is a dying art in Japan how to compliment, especially to the fair sex; the Western

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