Fortunately, though the upper classes did not consider the prints as works of art, that did not prevent them from buying them for the entertainment they afforded. The samurai, though they considered it degrading to take part in the amusements of the lower classes and affected to despise the vulgarity of the theatre, sometimes attended the performances in disguise. And when they returned to their home provinces with their feudal lords after the six months of every year spent in the capital, they usually carried with them large quantities of prints. Country people visiting Yedo rarely returned without taking many of these cheap souvenirs of the city to distribute among their neighbours. Of course many were destroyed, but the Japanese have always been accustomed to take care of their possessions, and so many thousands of prints were neatly packed away in boxes and placed in the kuras, or fireproof storehouses. There they were often spoiled by mildew, the dread foe of the Japanese housewife, and eaten by insects. Those pasted in albums, as were many of the noted series by Hokusai and Hiroshige, fared better than the loose ones. [HARUNOBU. Woman reading Letter.] HARUNOBU. Woman reading Letter. Thus it has come about that in spite of the enormous number printed, really choice specimens are very rare. Of many of the most important only two or three copies in good condition are known. Even at the time of their issue the number of those in what may be called the “proof” state could not have been large. The best printing, as has already been pointed out, was not only difficult and relatively expensive—perhaps prohibitively expensive in many instances except for a small number of impressions—but when the blocks had worn so that the edges of the finest lines had lost their sharpness, it was quite impossible. Collections of prints were rarely made. Literary men often saved such as were inscribed with odes of especial merit, or had recondite meanings that appealed to them, and to their care we are indebted for the preservation of the majority of those that have survived in perfect or nearly perfect condition. For those who have learned the elements of their language the charm of the prints is very great. I should perhaps say the charm of some of the prints is very great; for, as we learn what we ought to admire, we learn to discriminate, at first between the works of the different artists, then between different works by the same artist, and finally between different copies of the same work. The truth is that the prints are only in a remote sense to be spoken of as reproductions. Each impression is more or less an individual work of art; the difference in quality between one and another is often astonishingly wide.