How sordid the news is! How hot the summer! One yearns for escape. Is there an island remote enough?
Yes. A plane won't take you there but a book will. "In spring, it is the dawn." It's one of the most famous opening sentences in Japanese literature.
There's nothing quite like Japan's Heian Period (794-1185). Four centuries of peace set it apart; set it outside history. We're in another dimension. The governing class was an aristocracy of culture. Arms were foreign to them, courage an embarrassment, hatred unknown. Love, poetry, beauty — was there anything else in life? Nothing good.
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