When my brother, …, was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: ’Just my luck! ’ he would say. ’What a pity she was not born a man! ’ But then I gradually realized that people were saying ’It’s bad enough when a man flaunts his Chinese learning; she will come to no good, ’ and since I have avoided writing the simplest character. Murasaki Shikibu
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  5. You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world's decay.

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