It is one of the curiosities of literature that Mr. Long, who has made his reputation as a writer of Japanese stories, has never visited Japan. Those who know that country say that his stories are not characteristic of it. The Japanese themselves smile amiably when their American acquaintances speak to them of the Japan of Mr. Long. But this is neither here nor there. His stories are charming and that is all that the reader cares for.
se you with the information that he also pretends to the sister art of poesy," laughed Asami. "He is the author of 'The Great Death'!"
"What!"
From half a dozen of them.
And they broke into the song: hoarse, iron, clanging, mongolian! Within the six notes of the old Japanese scale!
(Do not be surprised at this. The Japanese army is full of poets. Indeed, the Japanese land is full of them. They will spin you a complete comedy or tragedy between seventeen or thirty-seven syllables. And, to practise poetry is not there as here, heinous to one's friends. I know of a gunner who sat cross-legged under his gun behind Poutuloff and wrote a poem concerning The-Moon-in-a-Moat. It was finished as the Russians got his range and dropped a covey of shrapnel upon him. After the smoke cleared they found him dead. And he is forgotten. But his poem was also found and lived on.)
This was "The Great Death" of Shijiro Arisuga.
"Yell of metal, Strake of flame! Death-wound spurting In my fa
