(William George) Aston in his room. I was at the time occasionally babysitting Mr. Aston’s children. He had considerable understanding of Japanese literature. However Mr. Aston had brought into the Legation with him the scripts of various foreign plays. He had brought the complete works of Shakespeare though I doubted even though they were there that I would read them. So Mr. Aston, knowing the scripts of the various plays gave me readings, after all it was just the summary that I simply wanted to hear and as a consequence, based on that, I didn’t really end up appreciating the technique of playwriting. But that I didn’t appreciate the techniques of playwriting from just listening it was certainly kind of him and I certainly often went to his room to listen to and discuss drama. The following summer, July if I remember correctly, I went as usual to visit him when Mr. Aston, laughing, said 'similarly you don’t know about this person’s publications' and showed me five books containing six volumes in temporary bindings which had been published. They, the Kawatake Mokuami script series, had been published as articles by the Ginza’s Kabuki Shinpō (Kabuki News) Company. They covered 'Nakamitsu', 'Four Thousand Ryō' (Yonsenryō) (in Japanese) and ‘Kagatobi’. When I went I had no idea that they had been successively published and had been delivered from a Ginza bookstore. I leapt for joy and straight away started going to him and borrowing them so that I could indulge myself by reading them. Korea In 1884, Aston was the first European diplomatic representative to reside in Korea. Political instability caused him to leave in 1885. In 1885–1887, Aston continued Korean language studies in Tokyo with Kim Chae-guk. This Korean teacher composed a number of stories for Aston to use as practice. Aston donated these manuscript versions of Korean folk tales to the Asiatic Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and they were published in 2004. This part of Aston's personal collection is now preserved in the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. Later years After retiring from the consular service, Aston published books on Japanese literature and Japanese religion as well as a number of articles on Korean subjects. He died 22 November 1911 at Beer, Devon. Along with the Japanese books already mentioned Aston's substantial collection of Chinese and Korean books was acquired by Cambridge University Library after his death. Research