Izumi Shikibu's Diary is written with extreme delicacy of treatment. English words and thought seem too downright a medium into which to ren der these evanescent, half-expressed sentences and poems — vague as the misty mountain scenery of her country, with no pronouns at all, and without Verb in?ections. The shy reserve of the lady's writ ten record has induced the use of the third person as the best means of suggesting it.