SOME FOREIGN POEMS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS The Western poet and writer of romance has exactly the same kind of difficulty in comprehending Eastern subjects as you have in comprehending Western subjects.

You will commonly find references to Japanese love poems of the popular kind made in such a way as to indicate the writer's belief that such poems refer to married life or at least to a courtship relation.
No Western writer who has not lived for many years in the East, could write correctly about anything on this subject; and even after a long stay in the country he might be unable to understand.

Therefore a great deal of Western poetry written about Japan must seem to you all wrong, and I can not hope to offer you many specimens of work in this direction that could deserve your praise.

Yet there is some poetry 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.