… the sense of existence here is like that of escaping from an almost unbearable atmospheric pressure into a rarefied, highly oxygenated medium. That feeling continues: in Japan the law of life is not as with us, — that each one strives to expand his own individuality at the expense of his neighbour’s. But on the other hand, how much one loses! Never a fine inspiration, a deep emotion, a profound joy or a profoimd pain — never a thrill, or, as the French say so much better than we, a frisson. So literary work is dry, bony, hard, dead work. … … But how sweet the Japanese woman is! … Continue reading Lafcadio Hearn