Kwaidan

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. It may be doubted whether any orien tal race has ever had an interpreter gifted with more perfect insight and sympathy than Laf cadio Hearn has brought to the translation of Japan into terms of our occidental speech. His long residence in that country, his flexibility of mind, poetic imagination, and wonderfully pel lucid style have fitted him for the most delicate of literary tasks. He has seen marvels, and he has told of them in a marvelous way. There is scarcely an aspect of contemporary Japanese life, scarcely an element in the social, political, and military questions involved in the present conflict with Russia which is not made clear in one or another of the books with which he has charmed American readers.