The Tsurezuregusa or Essays in Idleness of Yoshida no Keneyoshi (that is, Kenko) is a posthumous collection of essays and aphorisms on disparate topics, probably assembled in their existing sequence by Kenko himself. Kenko (1283-1350) realized the fleeting nature of his affectation. "Mine is a foolish diversion," he writes, "but these pages are meant to be torn up, and no one is likely to see them" (19). In his introduction, he elaborates: