disturbed even by one touch of your fingertip) not only Hoitsu but nearly all the artists and poets of that age had in all life’s questions, from the dress to the food. Now to return to their delicate taste of tongue. It was those people who could distinguish the place of origin of water from its taste, could tell where the tea was produced, by what sunlight it was fed, from the drinking of it; I was told that once Hoitsu ate a sashimi (slices of raw fish) of bonito at Yaozen and called the cook and asked him if he had not used a knife freshly whetted. The cook surprised by his words begged him to tell him how he knew it. Hoitsu said that he smelled a faint odour of whetstone on the fish, and then told him that he should dip the knife, when newly whetted, into a well for several hours before using.
The Tokugawa feudalism fell after long three hundred years of power, and the new regime has not arisen yet; the people were suddenly thrown into tumult and suspicion fifty or sixty years ago; how could they admire the green leaves of early summer, as I do to-day, in peace and content, and wish to hear mountain cuckoos
