STROKES

He improved the furnishings, gave the designs for the accessories and the sketches for the paintings his personal attention, gathered the very finest craftsmen to execute them, and had everything brought to a high degree of polish. To fill her book chest he chose books that could serve her straight off as calligraphy models. They contained a great many examples that had made the best masters of the past famous in later generations.

“Everything is on the decline, compared to the old days,” Genji confided to his love, “and this latter age of ours has lost all depth, but at least kana writing is superb now. The old writing certainly looks consistent, but it conveys no breadth or generosity and seems always to follow the same pattern. It is only later on that people began writing a truly fascinating hand, but among the many simple models that I collected when I myself was so keen on cultivating the ‘woman’s style,’ a line quickly dashed off by the Haven, Her Majesty’s mother—one she meant nothing by and that I acquired—struck me as particularly remarkable.

(The Tale of Genji, chap. 32, pp. 552-553)