Lady Murasaki Shikibu
Murasaki Shikibu, or Lady Murasaki as she is sometimes known in English (Japanese: 紫式部), was a Japanese novelist, poet, and a maid of honor of the imperial court during the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1008, one of the earliest and most famous novels in human history. "Murasaki Shikibu" was not her real name; her actual name is unknown, though some scholars have postulated that her given name might have been Takako (for Fujiwara Takako). Her diary states that she was nicknamed "Murasaki" ("purple wisteria blossom") at court, after a character in The Tale of Genji. "Shikibu" refers to her father's position in the Bureau of Ceremony (shikibu-shō).
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Murasaki Shikibu. (2007, October 8). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:03, October 19, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?t...
“Let us be sure that the lady of our choice possesses certain tangible qualities that we admire; and if in other ways she falls short of our ideal, we must be patient and call to mind those qualities that first induced us to begin our courting.”
“The number of those who have nothing to recommend them and of those in whom nothing but good can be found is probably equal”