But why did a difficult, temperamental girl like Shunkin suddenly begin to show such consideration for Sasuke? Some said that it was not really her idea, that those around her had persuaded her to act as she did. I suppose the blind little girl was often so lonely and melancholy, in spite of her happy home life, that even the maidservants (to say nothing of her parents) were at their wits' end, racking their brains to think of some way to amuse or divert her. And then they learned that Sasuke shared her taste for music. No doubt the servants, who had suffered bitterly from Shunkin's waywardness, wanted to lighten their own duties by having Sasuke spend more time with her. Might they not have appealed to her vanity by praising Sasuke and saying how wonderful it would be if she went to the trouble of teaching him, how gratefully he would receive such a favor? But since clumsy flattery only annoyed Shunkin it is not at all certain that she was responding to the influence of others. Perhaps she had at last begun to care for him, and to feel a strange new emotion stirring in her heart.

Li Qing-zhao, to "Note After Note"

Searching and searching, seeking and seeking,
so chill, so clear,
dreary,
      and dismal,
            and forlorn.
That time of year
      when it's suddenly warm,
            then cold again,
now it's hardest of all to take care.
Two or three cups of weak wine --
how can they resist the biting wind
      that comes with evening?
The wild geese pass by --
that's what hurts the most --
and yet they're old acquaintances.

In piles chrysanthemums fill the ground,
looking all wasted, damaged --
who could pick them, as they are now?
I stay by the window,
how can I wait alone until blackness comes?
The beech tree,
      on top of that
            the fine rain,
on until dusk,
the dripping drop after drop.
In a situation like this
how can that one word "sorrow" grasp it?

A human being is born calm: this is his innate nature endowed by Heaven. To be stirred by external things and set in motion is desire occurring within that innate nature. Only after things encounter conscious knowledge do likes and dislikes take shape. When likes and dislikes have no proper measure within, and when knowing is enticed from without, the person becomes incapable of self-reflection, and the Heaven-granted principle of one's being perishes. When external things stir a personal endlessly and when that person's likes and dislikes are without proper measure, then when external things come before a person, the person is transformed by those things. When a person is transformed by things, it destroys the Heaven-granted principle of one's being and lets a person follow all human desires to their limit. Out of this comes the refractory and deceitful mind; out of this come occurrences of wallowing excess and turmoil. Then the powerful coerce the weak; the many oppress the few; the smart deceive the stupid; the brave make the timid suffer; the sick are not cared for; old and young and orphans have no place -- this is the Way of supreme turbulence.