The French are far in advance of the English in the art of making anthologies; but even in such splendid anthologies as those of Crepet and of Lemerre the arrangement is of the most general kind,--chronological, and little more.
I was reminded to tell you this, because of several questions recently asked me, which I found it impossible to answer.

Many a Japanese student might suppose that Western poetry has its classified arrangements corresponding in some sort to those of Japanese poetry.

Perhaps the Germans have something of the kind, but the English and French have not.
Any authority upon the subject of Japanese literature can, I have been told, inform himself almost immediately as to all that has been written in poetry upon a particular subject.

Japanese poetry has been classified and sub-classified and double-indexed or even quadruple-indexed after a manner incomparably more exact than anything English anthologies can show.

I am aware that this fact is chiefly owing to the ancient rules about subjects, seasons, contrasts, and harmonies, after which the old poets used to write.