Read it through once

‘I remember,’ said Genji, ‘that one year Lady Fujitsubo had a snow-mountain built in front of her palace. It is a common enough amusement in winter time; but she had the art of making the most ordinary things striking and interesting. What countless reasons I have to regret her at every moment! I was during the greater part of her life not at all intimate with her and had little opportunity of studying her at close quarters. But during her residence at the Palace, she often allowed me to be of service to her in various small ways, and I frequently had occasion to use her good offices. In this way we were constantly discussing one piece of business or another, and I discovered that though she had no obvious or showy talents, she had the most extraordinary capacity for carrying through even quite unimportant and trivial affairs with a perfection of taste and management that has surely never been equalled. At the same time she was of a rather timid disposition and often took things too much to heart. Though you and she both spring from the same stem and necessarily have much in common, I have noticed that you are a good deal less even in temperament than she.