y so fine on the subject of
Japan that I think you would admire it and I am sure that you should know
it. A proof of really great art is that it is generally true--it seldom
falls into the misapprehensions to which minor art is liable. What do you
think of the fact that the finest poetry ever written upon a Japanese
subject by any Western poet, has been written by a man who never saw the
land? But he is a member of the French Academy, a great and true lover of
art, and without a living superior in that most difficult form of poetry,
the sonnet. In the time of thirty years he produced only one very small
volume of sonnets, but so fine are these that they were lifted to the very
highest place in poetical distinction. I may say that there are now only
three really great French poets--survivals of the grand romantic school.
These are Leconte de Lisle, Sully-Prudhomme, and Jose Maria de Heredia. It
is the last of whom I am speaking. As you can tell by his name, he is not
a Frenchman either by birth or blood, but a Spaniard, or rather a Spanish
Creole, born in Cuba. Heredia knows Japan only through pictures, armour,
objects of art in museums, paintings and carvings. Remembering this, I
think that you will find that he does wonderfully well. It is true that he
puts a woman in one of his pictures, but I think that his management of
his subject is very much nearer the truth than that of almost any writer
who has attempted to describe old Japan. And you must understand that the
following sonnet is essentially intended to be a picture--to produce upon
the mind exactly the same effect that a picture does, with the addition of
such life as poetry can give.

LE SAMOURAI

D'un doigt distrait frolant la sonore biva,
A travers les bambous tresses en fine latte,
Elle a vu, par la plage eblouissante et plate,
S'avancer le vainqueur que son amour reva.

C'est lui. Sabres au flanc, l'eventail haut, il va.
La cordeliere rouge et le gland ecarlate
Coupent l'armure sombre, et, sur l'epaule, eclate
Le blazon de Hizen ou de Tokungawa.

Ce beau guerrier vetu de lames et de plaques,
Sous le bronze, la soie et les brillantes laques,
Semble un crustace noir, gigantesque et vermeil.

Il l'a vue. Il sourit dans la barbe du masque,
Et son pas plus hatif fait reluire au soleil
Les deux antennes d'or qui tremblent a son casque.

"Lightly touching her _biva_ with heedless finger, she has perceived,
through the finely