to Kenko, but finally I got
it there. My friend ate chicken hash and tea; I had kidneys and bacon,
and cocoa with whipped cream. We both had a coffee eclair. We parted
with mutual regret, and I went back to the Hallbedroom street, intending
to do some work.

Of course you know that I didn't do it. I lit the gas stove, and sat
down to read Kenko. I wished I were a recluse, living somewhere near a
plum tree and a clear running water, leisurely penning maxims for
posterity. I read about his frugality, his love of the moon and a little
music, his somewhat embittered complaints against the folly of men who
spend their lives in rushing about swamped in petty affairs, and the sad
story of the old priest who was attacked by a goblin-cat when he came
home late at night from a pleasant evening spent in capping verses. I
read with special pleasure his seven Self-Congratulations, in which he
records seven occasions when he felt that he had really done himself
justice. The first of these was when he watched a man riding horseback
in a reckless fashion; he predicted that the man would come a cropper,
and he did so. The next four self-congratulations refer to times when
his knowledge of literary and artistic matters enabled him to place an
unfamiliar quotation or assign a painted tablet to the right artist. One
tells how he was able to find a man in a crowd when everyone else had
failed. And the last and most amusing is an anecdote of a court lady who
tried to inveigle him into a flirtation with her maid by sending the
latter, richly dressed and perfumed, to sit very close to him when he
was at the temple. Kenko congratulates himself on having been adamant.
He was no Pepys.

I thought of trying to set down a similar list of self-congratulations
for myself. Alas, the only two I could think of were having remembered a
telephone number, the memorandum of which I had lost; and having
persuaded a publisher to issue a novel which was a great success. (Not
written by me, let me add.)

I found my friend Kenko a rather disturbing companion. His condemnation
of our busy, racketing life is so damned conclusive! Having recently
added to my family, I was distressed by his section "Against Leaving Any
Descendants." He seems to be devoid of the sentiment of ancestor worship
and sacredness of family continuity which we have been taught to
associate with the Oriental. And yet there is always a current of
suspicion in one's mind that he is not reall