chrysanthemum

Chapter I In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said: "Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary, chose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable." The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death. The youth said, eagerly: "There is no need to consider"; and he chose Pleasure. He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth delights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing, vain and empty; and each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said: "These years I have wasted. If I could but choose again, I would choose wisely. Chapter II The fairy appeared, and said: "Four of the gifts remain. Choose once more; and oh, remember-- time is flying, and only one of them is precious." The man considered long, then chose Love; and did not mark the tears that rose in the fairy's eyes. After many, many years the man sat by a coffin, in an empt...

( Yoshitoshi, The moon and the abandoned old woman, 1892) Long, long ago there lived at the foot of the mountain a poor farmer and his aged, widowed mother. They owned a bit of land which supplied them with food, and they were humble, peaceful, and happy. Shining was governed by a despotic leader who though a warrior, had a great and cowardly shrinking from anything suggestive of failing health and strength. This caused him to send out a cruel proclamation. The entire province was given strict orders to immediately put to death all aged people. Those were barbarous days, and the custom of abandoning old people to die was not uncommon. The poor farmer loved his aged mother with tender reverence, and the order filled his heart with sorrow. But no one ever thought twice about obeying the mandate of the governor, so with many deep and hopeless sighs, the youth prepared for what at that time was considered the kindest mode of death. Just at sundown, when his day’s work was e...

SHE sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the odour of dusty cretonne. She was tired. Few people passed. The man out of the last house passed on his way home; she heard his footsteps clacking along the concrete pavement and afterwards crunching on the cinder path before the new red houses. One time there used to be a field there in which they used to play every evening with other people's children. Then a man from Belfast bought the field and built houses in it -- not like their little brown houses but bright brick houses with shining roofs. The children of the avenue used to play together in that field -- the Devines, the Waters, the Dunns, little Keogh the cripple, she and her brothers and sisters. Ernest, however, never played: he was too grown up. Her father used often to hunt them in out of the field with his blackthorn stick; but usually little Keogh used to keep nix and call out wh...

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas. There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating. While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad. In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal fin...

One day, in a heavily crowded place, a young man began shouting. “People, look at me. I have the most beautiful heart in the world.” Many people looked at him and were stunned to see his beautiful heart in a perfect shape, without any flaw. It looked quite amazing. Most of the people who saw his heart were mesmerized by the beauty of his heart, and praised him. However, there came an old man who challenged the young man, “No my son, I have got the most beautiful heart in the world!” The young man asked him, “Show me your heart, then!” The old man showed his heart to him. It was very rough, uneven, and had scars all over. In addition, the heart was not in shape; it appeared like bits and pieces joined in various colours. There were some rough edges; some parts were removed, and fitted with other pieces. The young man started laughing, and said, “My dear old man, are you mad? See, my heart! How beautiful and flawless it is. You cannot find even a bit of imperfection in my he...