Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

you are very foolish; you don't seem to understand at all. I beg you to be
of a frank and honest heart: it really makes me quite sad to see a man's
heart warped in this way." What is his answer? He turns his sword in his
girdle ready to draw, and plays the devil's tattoo upon the hilt: it looks as
if it must end in a fight soon.
In fact, if you help a man in anything which has to do with a fault of
the body, he takes it very kindly, and sets about mending matters. If any
one helps another to rectify a fault of the heart, he has to deal with a man
in the dark, who flies in a rage, and does not care to amend. How out of
tune all this is! And yet there are men who are bewildered up to this
point. Nor is this a special and extraordinary failing. This mistaken perception
of the great and the small, of colour and of substance, is common
to us all—to you and to me.
Please give me your attention. The form strikes the eye; but the heart
strikes not the eye. Therefore, that the heart should be distorted and
turned awry causes no pain. This all results from the want of sound
judgment; and that is why we cannot afford to be careless.
The master of a certain house calls his servant Chokichi, who sits dozing
in the kitchen. "Here, Chokichi! The guests are all gone; come and
clear away the wine and fish in the back room."
Chokichi rubs his eyes, and with a sulky answer goes into the back
room, and, looking about him, sees all the nice things paraded on the
trays and in the bowls. It's wonderful how his drowsiness passes away:
no need for any one to hurry him now. His eyes glare with greed, as he
says, "Hullo! here's a lot of tempting things! There's only just one help of
that omelette left in the tray. What a hungry lot of guests! What's this? It
looks like fish rissoles;" and with this he picks out one, and crams his
mouth full; when, on one side, a mess of young cuttlefish, in a Chinese 110
porcelain bowl, catches his eyes. There the little beauties sit in a circle,
like Buddhist priests in religious meditation! "Oh, goodness! how nice!"
and just as he is dipping his finger and thumb in, he hears his master's
footstep; and knowing that he is doing wrong, he crams his prize into the
pocket of his sleeve, and stoops down to take away the wine-kettle and
cups; and as he does this, out tumble the cuttlefish from his sleeve. The
master sees it.
"What's that?"
110.Curiosities, such as porcelain or enamel or carved jade from China, are highly esteemed
by the Japanese. A great quantity of the porcelain of Japan is stamped with
counterfeit Chinese marks of the Ming dynasty.
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