A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

Beside the Sea 26^
Wiser and kindlier to dream of them as mingling
with flood and wind and cloud, — or quickening
the heart of the flower, — or flushing the cheek
of the fruit, — or shrilling with the cicadas in
forest-solitudes, — or thinly humming in summer-
dusk with the gathering of the gnats. ... I do
not believe,— 1 do not wish to believe in hungry
ghosts Ghosts break up, I suppose, into
soul-dust at the touch of death, — though their
atoms, doubtless, thereafter recombine with other
dust for the making of other ghosts. . . . Still,
I cannot convince myself that even the grosser
substance of vanished being ever completely dies,
however dissolved or scattered, — fleeting in the
gale, — floating in the mists, — shuddering in the
leaf, — flickering in the light of waters, — or
tossed on some desolate coast in, a thunder
of surf, to whiten and writhe in the clatter of
shingle. . . .
As the ceremony ended, a fisherman mounted
lightly to the top of one of the awning-posts
and there, gymnastically poised, he began to
shower down upon the crowd a quantity of very
small rice-cakes, which the young folks scrambled
for, with shouts of laughter. After the uncanny
;