108 Shadowings 



are names expressing moral or mental qualities. 

 Tenderness, kindness, deftness, cleverness, are fre 

 quently represented by yobina ; but appellations 

 implying physical charm, or suggesting aesthetic 

 ideas only, are comparatively uncommon. One 

 reason for the fact may be that very aesthetic 

 names are given to geisha and to jor o, and conse 

 quently vulgarized. But the chief reason cer 

 tainly is that the domestic virtues still occupy in 

 Japanese moral estimate a place not less impor 

 tant than that accorded to religious faith in the 

 life of our own Middle Ages. Not in theory only, 

 but in every-day practice, moral beauty is placed 

 far above physical beauty ; and girls are usually 

 selected as wives, not for their good looks, but for 

 their domestic qualities. Among the middle 

 classes a very aesthetic name would not be con 

 sidered in the best taste ; among the poorer 

 classes, it would scarcely be thought respectable. 

 Ladies of rank, on the other hand, are privileged 

 to bear very poetical names; yet the majority 

 of the aristocratic yobina also are moral rather 

 than aesthetic. 



But the first great difficulty in the way of a 

 study of yobina is the difficulty of translating 



