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| Felice Beato Gateway - Kurohozon Shiba 1863-68 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"The news that Hyosan had taken her vows was the final blow to Kashiwagi's last flickering desire of recovery. He thought often of Ochiba, and wished that he could have had her with him. But his parents had now taken such complete possession of him that he feared she would feel her position more acutely here than at home, and instead he made the hopeless suggestion that he should be moved for a while back into his own house. To this they naturally refused consent. He discussed Ochiba's future with various people. Her mother had always been strongly opposed to the match, and had only yielded to the insistence of To no Chujo, and also of Suzaku himself, who thought that he had found in Kashiwagi the straightforward, steady-going husband that Nyosan's disaster had taught him to prefer – a man who would be so flattered by the offer of this connection with the Imperial Family that all his energies would be spent in proving himself worthy of the honour! Kashiwagi blushed when he remembered what had been expected of him."
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| Felice Beato View on Tokaido Road 1863 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Satsuma Clan envoys 1863 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"Orphans, as you know – and it is the same in all classes of society – are bound to be at a great disadvantage and are often obliged to content themselves with alliances far below what under happier circumstances they would have every right to expect. This is understood by everybody, and no girl situated as you are was ever thought the worse of for taking such chances as came her way. You ought then, if I may say so, to think yourselves uncommonly fortunate each to have the prospect of such a match as you could surely not improve upon in your wildest dreams. For even if, like the Prince your father, you shut yourself up and say your prayers from morning to night, you cannot live on air . . ."
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| Felice Beato Garden at Harra 1863-68 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Lose Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Ford at Sakawa-Nagawa 1866-67 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Village with stream 1862-65 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"I have noticed that people of quite common origin who have risen in the world can in a very short time achieve a perfect imitation of aristocratic importance. And similarly, if through some accident an aristocrat falls in low company, he generally exhibits a meanness so thorough-going that it is hard to believe he has been at any pains to acquire it. Of this second tendency the princess's aunt was a good example. She knew that after her unfortunate marriage the people at the Hitachi Palace had regarded her as a disgrace to the family. Now that the prince was dead and Suyetsumu herself was in circumstances of such difficulty, there seemed to be quite a good chance that the princess might eventually have to take shelter under her aunt's roof. This was what the aunt herself was looking forward to. It was her revenge."
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| Felice Beato Group of officers 1867-68 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Street actors 1866-67 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Family portrait 1862 albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"The weather was delightful, things were looking their best and everyone was in a good temper; moreover it was a time at which no particular fetes or ceremonies occupied the Court, so that uninterrupted attention could be now given to those lighter pastimes in which the Emperor so much delighted, and whole days were spent unrolling painting after painting. The one ambition of everyone at Court was to rout out and bring to the Palace some picture which should particularly catch the young Emperor's fancy. Both Akikonomu's partisans and those of Lady Chujo had brought forward vast numbers of scrolls. On the whole, illustrated romances proved to be most popular. Akikonomu's side was strongest in ancient works of well-established reputation; while Lady Chujo patronized all the cleverest modern painters, so that her collection, representing as it did all that most appealed to the fashionable tastes of the moment, made at first a more dazzling impression. The Emperor's own ladies-in-waiting were divided in opinion. Some of the most intelligent were on the side of the ancients; others favoured the present day. But on the whole, modern work tended to win their approval."
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| Felice Beato Curio Shop 1868 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Fishmonger 1866-67 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Two Women 1866-67 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
"But I have a theory of my own about what this art of the novel is, and how it came into being. To begin with, it does not simply consist in the author's telling a story about the adventures of some other person. On the contrary, it happens because the storyteller's own experience of men and things, whether for good or ill – not only what he has passed through himself, but even events which he has only witnessed or been told of – has moved him to an emotion so passionate that he can no longer keep it shut up in his heart. Again and again something in his own life or in that around him will seem to the writer so important that he cannot bear to let it pass into oblivion. There must never come a time, he feels, when men do not know about it. That is my view of how this art arose."
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| Felice Beato Two Samurai 1866-67 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Felice Beato Woman in winter dress 1868 hand-colored albumen silver print Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
– quoted passages are from The Tale of Genji, a novel composed by Murasaki Shikibu while serving as lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Japan – the entire text (which filled six volumes in the first English-language translation by Arthur Waley, from which the passages are taken) was read aloud, every word, to the Emperor of Japan in the year 1008.