Whatever doubts or vexations one has in Japan, it is only necessary to ask one's self: "Well, who are the best people to live with?" - Lafcadio Hearn

Any idealism is a proper subject for art.

They are hideous Golgothas, these old intermural cemeteries of ours. In other cities cemeteries are beautiful with all that the art of the gardener and sculptor can give....There the horror is masked. Here it glares at us with empty sockets. The tombs are fissured, or have caved in, or have crumbled down into shapeless bricks and mortar...[and] crawfish undermine the walls to feast upon what is hidden within.

The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to be free to do the very best that he can.