{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_76241/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_76241","id":"gutenberg_76241","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76241","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Travel Writing","Japan -- Description and travel","Japan -- Social life and customs"],"text":"K A K E M O N O\n\n JAPANESE SKETCHES\n\n BY\n A. HERBAGE EDWARDS\n\n\n _WITH FRONTISPIECE_\n\n\n\n\n [Illustration: Printer\u2019s Logo]\n\n\n\n\n CHICAGO\n A. C. McCLURG & CO.\n LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN\n 1906\n\n\n\n\n [Illustration: COPYRIGHT 1906 S. L. WILLARD\n _A Daughter of Japan_]\n\n\n\n\n American Edition Published Sept. 15, 1906\n\n\n _Printed in Great Britain_\n _Bound by Lakeside Press, Chicago_\n\n\n\n\n TO MY TEACHERS\n THE PEOPLE OF JAPAN\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n THE FAITH OF JAPAN\n\n\n PAGE\n\n I. DAI BUTSU 3\n\n II. THE SHRINES OF IS\u00c9 5\n\n III. THE TEMPLE OF NIKK\u014c 8\n\n IV. KANNON, LADY OF MERCY 14\n\n V. RINZAKI\u2019S ALTAR 17\n\n VI. TWO CREEDS 19\n\n VII. THE LEGEND OF THE NOSELESS JIZ\u014c 22\n\n VIII. THE TEMPLES OF SHIBA 27\n\n IX. AMIDA BUTSU 31\n\n X. ST. NICHIREN 34\n\n XI. BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN 36\n\n XII. INARI, THE FOX-GOD 39\n\n XIII. THE ALTAR OF FIRE 42\n\n XIV. FORGOTTEN GODS 48\n\n\n LORD FUJI\n\n I. PROLOGUE 55\n\n II. THE ASCENT 57\n\n III. EPILOGUE 99\n\n\n THE ART OF THE NATION\n\n I. GRACE BEFORE MEAT 103\n\n II. IN A CLOISONN\u00c9 FACTORY 110\n\n III. FLOWER ARRANGEMENT 114\n\n IV. GOD\u2019S MESSENGER 119\n\n V. THE ART OF THE PEOPLE 122\n\n\n SCENES IN RAIN AND SUNSHINE\n\n I. THE MOAT 157\n\n II. A RAINY DAY 159\n\n III. MM\u00c9 (PLUM BLOSSOMS) 161\n\n IV. WET LEAVES 163\n\n V. ASAMAYAMA 165\n\n VI. CAMELLIAS 176\n\n VII. RAIN 178\n\n VIII. THE BLACK CANAL 181\n\n IX. THE INLAND SEA 184\n\n\n THE LAND OF THE GODS\n\n I. ACROSS THE LAGOON 193\n\n II. TO KIZUKI 199\n\n III. IZUMO\u2019S GREAT TEMPLE 204\n\n IV. KIZUKI\u2019S BAY 211\n\n V. IN MATSU\u00c9 214\n\n VI. THE TWO SPIRITS 235\n\n\n THE HEART OF THE PEOPLE\n\n I. TOKYO 243\n\n II. EAST AND WEST 255\n\n III. YON\u00c9\u2019S BABY 257\n\n IV. THE GRAVES OF THE R\u014cNIN 260\n\n V. THE DOLLS\u2019 FESTIVAL 263\n\n VI. WITH DEATH BESIDE HER 266\n\n VII. KYOTO\u2019S SOIR\u00c9E 269\n\n VIII. N\u014c 273\n\n IX. A JAPANESE BANK-HOLIDAY 278\n\n X. THE PALACE OF THE SON OF HEAVEN 282\n\n XI. AND SHE WAS A WIDOW 285\n\n GLOSSARY 293\n\n\n\n\n THE FAITH OF JAPAN\n\n \u201cIn my Father\u2019s house are many mansions.\u201d\n _John_ xiv.\n\n Tenshi ni kuchi nashi hito o motte iwashimu.\n \u201cHeaven has no mouth, it makes men speak for it.\u201d\n _Japanese Proverb._\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n DAI BUTSU\n (GREAT BUDDHA)\n\n\nThe great God Buddha sits peaceful and still, a line of dark bronze\nagainst the blue sky, and the length of the garden is flooded with\nlight. Two tall pink cherry-trees drop blushing snowflakes on to his\nbroad shoulders, and the sound of running water is a liquid prayer.\nUnder his heavy-lidded eyes he looks as one who saw not, or saw too\nwell, and his slow smile is inscrutable and still. The mystery of it\ndraws one nearer.\n\nWhat is thy secret, Great Lord Buddha?\n\nBut the heavy-lidded eyes droop lower, and the slow smile is still.\nOnly the cherry-trees send their pale pink petals floating downward\ninto the bronzed lap. And the murmuring water runs more swiftly.\n\nImmutable he sits, and still; enduring, unchanging, though the sea\ndestroy his temples and the earthquakes rock about his feet. Buddha on\nhis lotus-leaf is still.\n\nAnd the generations of men rise up, and pass away, fretted with life\u2019s\nfitful fever, and searching for his secret. Buddha is still, his slow\nsmile unchanging, his heavy eyelids drooped.\n\nIs that thy secret, Great Lord Buddha? The mystery we passion-swept,\never-changing mortals can never penetrate?\n\n\u201cGod is the same, for ever. The _same_, and _for ever_.\u201d\n\nAnd the murmuring water runs, the cherry-trees bloom and fade, the\ncenturies pass away. Still the heavy-lidded eyes are drooped, the slow\nsmile is inscrutable and still. Lord Buddha keeps his secret.\n\nOr is it only we who cannot read.\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n THE SHRINES OF IS\u00c9\n\n\nOn every side the circle of the hills shuts out all sounds, and the\nvast forest stretches solemn, sombre.\n\nThe long two miles of white road from the village are forgotten, the\ncrude sunshine of the public gardens fades away, the giant fir-trees\nstand as they stood two thousand years ago when the shrine of the great\nSun-Goddess first was born.\n\nThe broad grey path of unhewn stone, unshadowed in the darkness of\nthe trees, bends downward to the river\u2019s brink, where a grey still\npool lies silent on the edge of the rushing stream. It is the Pool of\nPurification where all who go up to the temple stay and wash. Even the\n_kurumaya_ who daily draws the pilgrim or the stranger to the shrine,\nstoops to plunge his hands and feet into the still grey waters. And as\nhe does so a great shaft of sunshine hits the weltering circle of the\nhills beyond the stream, and they quiver, blue as a distant mirage in\nthe blue sky; while the forest is the darker for that light.\n\nThe grey stone path is long and wide, the forest vast, unfathomable;\nprim\u00e6val, untamed, and yet kept with a care that leaves no trace\nbehind; the forest of a dream where Death is not, nor decay, nor any\nsign of man. From time to time the dark stern stems of the cryptomerias\nare broken with the glossy deep-green leaves of a camphor-tree; and\neach time my _kurumaya_ stays to pray, for camphor-trees are sacred,\nand their bark thrown into the sea has power to calm the waves.\n\nAnd the forest stretches on and on.\n\nIn the distance the grey stone path broadens into a flight of shallow\nsteps, and passes beneath an open gateway out of sight. A wooden wall,\nlike the sloughed bark of forest trees, stretches right and left; and\nagainst it, rigid in his discipline, the white uniform of a modern\nsoldier, bayonet fixed.\n\nI stand on the threshold of the most sacred spot in all Japan.\n\nBeyond the gateway is another gate, where a pure white curtain falls,\nfold on fold. It is the veil of the great Sun-Goddess. All through the\nages since first the nation was, the shrine of the Sun-Goddess has\nstood behind that veil. Every twenty years night comes, her temple\ndies, and again is born, unchanged, unaltered to the last least detail.\nAnd her priests are the carpenters. So through all the ages, the body\nof the great Sun-Goddess glows, in youth eternal, and none save her\nfar-off offspring, _Tenshisama_, the Son of Heaven, may pass behind the\nveil.\n\nThe Japanese soldier stays to guard, for did the stranger, sacrilegious\nin his foolish pride, so much as touch those long white folds, evil\nmight befall him. Viscount Mori died beneath the sword of a _samurai_\nfor lifting but the edge of the curtain with his stick.\n\nMy _kurumaya_ is on his knees before these fluttering, mysterious\nfolds, two claps, a bow, a little murmured prayer; another bow, two\nclaps, and he rises.\n\nThen he leads us along inside the wooden wall, and another grey-green\nwooden wall, built as it were of flattened tree-trunks, rises on the\nother side, leads us a few yards, and then he stops. The outer wooden\nwall runs round a huge imperfect square, then comes a broad band of\nspace where we are standing, and then the inner wall rails out the\nworld. Inside and opposite the curtained gateway, but with the whole\ndistance of the sacred square between, stands the shrine itself, a\ngrey-brown wooden building, unpainted, unadorned; a grey-brown roof of\nthatch, with the cross-beams of its roof-tree rising up through the\nthatch in two rough wooden anchors bound with gold. A building that is\nsimple, with a simplicity more strange to modern man than the strangest\ncomplexity, archaic, prim\u00e6val, a ghost from man\u2019s dim past.\n\nThe silent sombre trees stand thickly round. Beyond the circle of\nblue hills shuts out all sounds. The folds of the white curtain fall\nstraight and close.\n\nMy _kurumaya_ prays again.\n\nAnd there behind her veil the great Sun-Goddess dwells, untouched\nby time, of an age with the hills, more primitive than the forest\ntrees--and sacred still.\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n THE TEMPLE OF NIKK\u014c\n\n\nIn all the pomp of splendour and of power they buried Iyeyasu at Nikk\u014d,\nand the greatest artists of Old Japan came and built in his memory a\ntemple more beautiful than any in all the length and breadth of the\nland. For more than forty years they worked, and brains and money and\nlabour were poured out like mountain water, until the temple stood\ncomplete, the mausoleum of Iyeyasu and the eternal monument of this\nartistic race.\n\nWith Buddhist rites was the great _Sh\u014dgun_ buried, and for many hundred\nyears daily remembered in a ritual as solemn as it is effective, but\nBuddha himself has not anywhere a temple so splendid.\n\nThey buried Iyeyasu at Nikk\u014d, not in the town of his birth or of his\ndeath, not in the city over which he ruled, but four days\u2019 journey\nfrom Yedo in the midst of the mountains; and they did it that Japan\u2019s\ngreatest ruler might lie amid the nation\u2019s best in nature as in art,\nthat to the splendour of the temple the Land herself might add the\nglories of her mountains and her trees.\n\nAt Nikk\u014d is the great _Sh\u014dgun_ buried, and for twenty miles before his\nshrine a stately avenue of trees leads up to the temple, and up this\navenue prince and pilgrim yearly come; prince and pilgrim, priest\nand peasant they still come, up the great avenue of dark thick-set\ncryptomerias, the giant pine-trees of Japan.\n\nAt the temple\u2019s foot a mountain stream rushes in a deep green gorge,\nand two bridges cross the stream: one bright red, the bridge of the Son\nof Heaven, one painted green, for the rest of this world\u2019s humankind.\n\nAnd the reason is that when the Buddhist saint Sh\u014dd\u014d Sh\u014dnin pursued the\nvision that had been sent to him, he journeyed into the mountains many\ndays until the grey torrent of Nikk\u014d rushing tumultuously across his\npath barred the way; but the vision abode with him, and Sh\u014dd\u014d Sh\u014dnin\nknew that he must cross the stream, yet was there neither bridge,\nnor boat, nor crossing-place. So the saint kneeled down and prayed.\nThen there appeared to him an angel, clothed in black robes and blue,\nwearing a string of skulls around his neck, and holding in his hand two\nserpents, these he threw across the stream, and they became a bridge\nfirm and strong. So Sh\u014dd\u014d Sh\u014dnin passed over the torrent in safety,\nbut when he looked back, snakes, bridge, and angel had vanished and\nonly the rushing river remained. Then for a memory the two bridges were\nbuilt in the very place of the crossing.\n\nOf all the marriages of Art and Nature the Sacred Red Bridge of Nikk\u014d\nis the most beautiful. Scattered among hills and trees and river,\nbeauty lay; but this people coming through the mountains saw the one\nbond that had power to bind the pale blue hills, the dark green gorge,\nthe stone-grey stream together in an ordered whole of deep-thought\nartistic loveliness, planned, perfect, yet supremely natural.\n\nThen the avenue goes on, up the foot of the hill, till it widens and\nbroadens into a great gravel circle before the entrance-gate of\nthe temple. Here the great trees of the mountains spread out and up\non either hand, with the temple in their midst surrounded but not\noverwhelmed by the grace of the wood. Under the granite _tor\u012b_, the\nfirst gateway is guarded by two figures, the mythical lions gilded and\nlacquered; while above, the mysterious _baku_, with his four ears and\nhis nine tails, who has power to eat all bad dreams that pass before\nsleeping eyes, crouches alert.\n\nA flight of granite steps leads to the first courtyard, set at right\nangles to the gateway, and paved with rounded grey pebbles from the\nstream. Here are all the minor buildings of the temple, the stable\nfor the sacred white horse, the library for the two thousand _sutra_\nof the Buddhist scriptures, the tank-house for the purification,\nthe store-houses for the temple furniture; and stable and library,\ntank-house and store-houses are jewelled gems of carving and design, so\nrich, so splendid in the ordered magnificence of their colouring that\nwestern senses stand amazed. A blood-red lacquered fence aglow with\ncoloured carvings divides the temple from the sombre majesty of the\ngiant cryptomerias.\n\nThen the pebbled space contracts into a flight of granite stairs, and\nmounts between stone walls that end in painted friezes of carved wood\nto a second courtyard. This is almost square, and standing on the wide\ngrey sweep of rounded pebbles are three bronze lanterns from the three\ntributary kingdoms of Old Japan--from Korea, Luchu, and _Holland_; and\nthere in serried rows and ranged against the blood-red lacquered fence\naglow with gilded carvings, stand multitudes of bronze lanterns, which\nthe dead _daimy\u014d_ of Old Japan sent as offerings to the temple. Beyond\nthe lacquered fence the dark still stems of the pine-trees range out of\nsight.\n\nThen the pebbled space contracts again, and a flight of granite steps\nleads between granite walls set with coloured friezes of carved wood to\nthe third courtyard; and the colourless pause of the second court, with\nits bronze lanterns on grey stones, gains a new meaning as one mounts,\nfor in the third courtyard, between the blood-red friezes with their\nriotous coloured carvings, is the pure perfection of the Y\u014dmei-mon, a\ndouble gateway, of white lacquer, cream-white and supported by four\npillars of carved wood. And when they put the fourth pillar in its\nplace they planted it upside down fearing if the beauty of the temple\nwere all-perfect, evil might befall the house of Tokugawa through the\njealousy of high heaven.\n\nAnd the stranger as he draws near pauses in sheer amazement; the wild\nuntamable beauty of the mighty temple set in its giant framework of\ndark green trees is strange beyond believing.\n\nOn either hand stretches the tropical splendour of the blood-red\nlacquered fence, set with coloured carvings as with shining jewels.\nBehind is the pale glory of the Y\u014dmei-mon. All around the darkness\nof the forest lies like a still quiet tomb. And in front, rising in\nlines of sheer perfection, is the white beauty of the Chinese gate,\ncream-white, adorned with glittering yellow brass, brass in rounded\nsunken medallions on the lintel and the gate-posts, brass in quaint\ndesigns and shining points of yellow light, which break about the\nwhiteness as sunshine through a mist.\n\nThe carvings and the pattern, the picture-panels, the decorated eaves,\nthe chiselled heads and sculptured birds and beasts, the growing,\nglowing flowers, the hanging lotus-bells that tinkle at the corners\nof the tent-curved roof, and all perfect, are more than a man\u2019s mind\ncan perceive though he look for many years. Brains and money and labour\nwere poured out here like mountain water, and like the rushing stream\nof Nikk\u014d the drops go unperceived in the beauty of the whole.\n\nIn the short space of forty years were the temple and its fences, the\ngateways and the carvings, completed and set up; but forty short years\nfrom first to last, and the carving of one gateway is more than a\nlifetime\u2019s work.\n\nThen the splendour culminates. Beyond the Chinese gateway is the actual\nshrine itself, its cream-white gateway studded too with brass, while\nsuperb in the utter beauty of their carving, two writhing dragons\nstretch on either hand between the door-post and the pillar. Inside is\nthe temple of the memorial tablets, where with daily rites the Buddhist\npriests prayed for the soul of Iyeyasu. To-day the Buddhist emblems are\nall gone, the shrine is bare. A _shint\u014d_ rope of rice-straw stretches\nfrom post to post, the mirror of the Sun-Goddess shines above the altar\nfor her son, the \u201cSon of Heaven\u201d _Tenshi_, the Mikado, has come back to\nhis own.\n\nAll the magnificence of the temple now is in its walls, walls of panel\ncarvings where the springing ph\u0153nix and the crouching lion rise like\npale shadows from the pale unstained wood, so little are they raised\nabove the surface. And yet the artist\u2019s hand that carved them was\nwithout a rival in the world. They are real and living, delicate and\ntrue, and so entirely beautiful that the heart cries out with joy as at\na long-lost good. Here is no colour, the sweep of pale yellow matting,\nthe panelled walls of pale dust-coloured wood, are more light than\ncolour. Here the rich joy of sense is laid aside: the temple stands a\nbeauty immaterial.\n\nThrough three hundred years they prayed for Iyeyasu daily with long\nrites, but his tomb is not here.\n\nIt lies beyond the temple and above it. One climbs to it by a long,\nsteep stair of grey-green granite, set in the sombre hill. A stairway\nbuilt of granite in long slabs, so broad and thick that the balustrade\nwith its coping, base, and sculptured columns is all cut from one\nsolid block, with each block fourteen feet long. And the stairway took\nthirteen years to quarry and set up.\n\nThe hillside is steep, the stairs are many, and the tall dark pines,\nthe flame-red maples gather, gather till the temple\u2019s roof, the sound\nof praying bell or chanted hymn is lost. The little space which Art\nstole from Nature is completely hidden, even the forest has forgotten.\n\nAnd the grey stair climbs, climbs among the dark-green trees, then\nstops.\n\nOn the top of the hill is a rounded curve of stately pines. Alone,\nsolitary between sky and trees, stands the tomb of Iyeyasu, a domed\npillar-box of bronze glinting golden through the trees. A low stone\nwall surrounds the tomb, a bronze door solid but uncarved is its\ngateway, and that is all. Here among the quiet trees, in the stillness\nof the forest, above the splendour of the temple, lie the ashes of the\ngreat Iyeyasu.\n\nAll the days of his rule he dwelt among men, but his soul climbed\nthe steep stair of Life, casting off its splendours and its glories,\nclimbed above them, climbed back into the eternal simplicity of Nature,\nand there he laid him down to rest.\n\n\n\n\n IV\n\n KANNON, LADY OF MERCY\n\n\nIt was the _f\u00eate_ of Kannon of Asak\u2019sa, whose votaries are many. They\nthronged the narrow paved pathway set between the two long rows of red\nbrick stalls, and overflowed into the temple grounds behind, where the\njuggler and the wax-works, the two-headed porpoise, and the headless\nman, and all the long scale of attractions in between shouted and\ndrummed. All the fun of the fair was here, with the advantage of a\n_petit bout de messe_, to save the soul, over the way.\n\nKannon of Asak\u2019sa is a popular lady, and her doors stand wide open.\nYou may go in with your boots on. It is true that the goddess herself,\non her gilded altar, is railed off from public touch by a wire\nnetting--like the animals in the menagerie outside. But that is all\nthe privacy she enjoys, and the rest of her temple is as public as a\nrailway station, and just about as sacred. The people pour in up the\nsteps on all sides, the scraping of their _gheta_ on the dirty wooden\nfloor adding its quota of noise to the chink of money and the buzz of\nvoices, the ringing of bells, and the hurry and bustle of a surging\nrailway crowd. There is the same wide-open, doorless feel, the same\ndiscomforting, amphibious sensation of neither open air nor closed\nhouse. A large bookstall in the corner, selling the latest illustrated\nnumbers of the goddess, and the whole stock of Kannon literature adds\nto the illusion. Between two pillars a temple clerk issues tickets at\na substantial booking-office. A shaven official appears and rings a\nbell at intervals, reciting a prayer in the voice of a railway porter\nproclaiming stations. There is the same reasonless flux and reflux of\nthe crowd, the same rush and bustle, with its inseparable accompaniment\nof underlying roar that rises and falls, sometimes absorbing all the\nother sounds into itself, sometimes leaving them distinct and clear,\nbut never for a moment ceasing.\n\nA huge lacquered case like a square coffin, its lid replaced by thick\nmetal bars, stands between the bookstall and the booking-office, right\nagainst the wire netting. Into this each comer throws his coin before\nreciting his prayer, and the chinking of the money as it falls is as\nunceasing as the roar of the crowd.\n\nAway in a corner behind the booking-office a worn-out black statue\nsits huddled in rags. Around it, bands of invalids await their turn\nto rub the featureless figure with their hands, and transfer the\ncharm by rubbing themselves in the corresponding spot. As a method of\npropagating disease, this treatment for curing it can have few equals.\nBut the coffers of the temple profit greatly.\n\nBusiness, indeed, is brisk to-day. The shaven-headed booking-clerk is\nissuing tickets at a bank-holiday rate, and the bookstall is besieged.\nUp from all sides comes the tumult of the fair. Kannon must be a paying\ninvestment.\n\nAs I stand on the steps with the din of the temple behind me, a man in\nthe crowd below buys a cage of little birds at a stall, and, opening\nthe door, throws them up into the air. The startled flutter of their\nwings as they soar up over the heads of the crowd into the blue carries\nme back to Ober-Ammergau, to the memory of the overturned tables of the\nmoney-changers, and the overthrown cages of those who sold doves.\n\n\u201cMy house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a\nden of thieves.\u201d\n\nIs human nature the same all the world over? Are priests? Or is the\nfate of all religions alike?\n\nO Kannon of Asak\u2019sa! Kannon, Lady of Mercy! how long must thou wait for\nthy deliverer? O Lord Buddha, how long?\n\n\n\n\n V\n\n RINZAKI\u2019S ALTAR\n\n\nOn the edge of the dark hills is the temple of Rinzaki, and the green\nsea of the rice-fields washes up to its open doors. Overhead the grey\nsky of a sunless summer\u2019s evening dims all the colours in the land, and\nleaves them shadows. It is fresh and still, and the wide, green bay\nsweeps in smooth curves to the foot of the dark hills. On the pathway\nthe hosts of little green frogs hop like hailstones, and the startled\nsplash as they fall back into the rice-fields is sharp and clear.\n\nRinzaki stands alone, its _sh\u014dji_ walls pushed back, and the slender,\nsquare pillars at each corner are dark against the greyness. The open\nmatted spaces of the temple are deserted, and the stillness is pure and\nclear as freshly running water. In the sunless evening light the sombre\ncolours of the temple are but light and shadow, a sweep of pale matting\nunder a dark roof framed in grey. And the stillness grows purer,\nclearer, and more still.\n\nBeyond the open spaces of the matting, between altar wall and altar\nwall, the garden of the temple hangs, a living picture on the wall. Two\nkneeling-cushions on the matting mark the purpose of the garden, and I\nstay to look.\n\nA faintly running stream, stone-grey, a shaven slope of green, and on\nit three clipped azalea-bushes pink with blossom. So still, so clear, I\nstretch my hand to feel.\n\nIt is a garden--a garden painted by an artist who worked in earth and\nflowers. And the dim greyness of the temple, the pale spaces of the\nmatting, frame the garden as a shell its pearl. I could but look.\nThe pale pink of the azalea-bushes, the soft curve of the slope, the\nstone-grey of the running stream, were painted with the loving care,\nthe certain touch of a master\u2019s hand. There was no fault. Between altar\nwall and altar wall the living picture hung--perfect.\n\nLike David\u2019s harping to Saul distraught, the stillness of the garden,\nthe dim greyness of the temple, washed pure the heart. The sin-freed\nsoul floated out unfettered, and thought was not.\n\nAlone the garden lay, an earthly Nirvana in the stillness.\n\nRinzaki\u2019s true altar stood here.\n\n\n\n\n VI\n\n TWO CREEDS\n\n\nAbove the white cloud of the plum-blossoms, through the dark wood of\nthe cryptomerias, on the top of the hill lies the temple of Ikk\u00e9gami.\nThe broad spaces of its courtyards and its gardens are sunny and still,\nand the blue sky above is a bed of celestial forget-me-nots. Down each\nside the big, dark trunks of the giant fir-trees stand straight and\ntall--two rows of sombre pillars, shutting in a sunny aisle.\n\nIn front, at the end of the wandering white path of rounded stones sunk\ninto the bare earth, is the _Hond\u014d_ or main building with the tent\ncurves of its roof, and the polished floor of its veranda shining like\na sword in the sun. Behind is the big wooden gateway, and the hundred\nstone steps which lead from the hilltop to the village beneath. And\nscattered down the wide earth courtyard, and half hidden under the\ndark arches of the trees, are the innumerable little buildings which\nform the complete whole of a Buddhist temple; the belfry, with its\nbronze bell hung from the big wooden beam of the ceiling to within\nthree feet of the ground, and the polished wooden spar with which it\nis beaten; the quaint revolving library--like a dwarf windmill without\nsails--where the hundred volumes of the Buddhist Scripture can be dimly\nseen through the thick wooden lattice; the wide granite tank under its\ntiled roof, all hung with lengths of brown temple towels, where the\nfaithful pour water over their hands from bamboo dippers as a symbol of\npurification; the side chapels with their drums and offerings. All are\nquiet to-day and deserted, only by the side of the tank, in front of a\nworn-out stone statue, a peasant mother is standing, her baby tucked in\nthe back of her _kimono_--fast asleep. She claps her hands three times\nto call the attention of the gods, and then she prays, and the baby\u2019s\nshaven head nods heavily over her shoulder. Then she takes the bamboo\ndipper and pours water over the head of the stone statue, carefully,\nthat not a dry spot may remain, and prays again.\n\nBetween the dark pillars of the tree-trunks and the stamped earth of\nthe courtyard, a line of narrow, pointed laths runs like a wooden\nfencing round the temple precincts. I wonder what they are and leave\nthe stepping-stones of the pathway to see.\n\nTombstones? Yes. Set close together, and sometimes three or four deep,\nthe long line of thin pointed laths closes in the temple and its\ncourtyard with a fence of graves. Not a rich man\u2019s graveyard this, but\nthe last home of the peasants from the rice-fields and the fishermen\nfrom the sea. I look at the rows of Chinese characters running\nlengthwise down the narrow tombstones, and stop in wonder, for on one\nthe Roman letters with their familiar outlines stand out plainly.\n\n \u201cTo the Men of the Warship _Onega_.\u201d\n\nThat is all.\n\nTo the men of the Warship _Onega_! It was true then the story. The\nstory of the loss of the _Onega_ in the bay below, and the sale of\nthe sunken wreck with all its contents to fishermen along the coast.\nThe story of the finding of the corpses of the drowned sailors, all\nentangled among the wreckage, and of how the Japanese fishermen\ncollected them reverently, saying, with the faith of the ancient\nGreeks, that their souls would wander restless and distressed unless\nthey were laid in their graves and the funeral prayers sung over them.\nSo they sent a petition to the great _Ijin San_ in Tokyo praying him to\ncome to the temple of Ikk\u00e9gami, that his dead brothers might have some\none of their own race, if not of their own family, to perform the last\nsolemn rites. And the Ambassador came to Ikk\u00e9gami, and the long line\nof weather-beaten Japanese fishermen bore the western sailors up the\nhill to the temple, and buried them in the courtyard, under the silent\ntrees, with all the rites of the Buddhist church. And they set up the\nwooden lath as over the grave of a brother, among the long lines of the\ntombstones of their fathers; but they wrote on it in the tongue of the\nstranger so that God and their countrymen might know their own again.\n\nAnd all this they did out of their own hearts, and with the money of\ntheir own earning.\n\nSo the men of _Onega_ lie buried with Buddhist rites in a Buddhist\nchurchyard, and the wooden lath above their graves is but another rail\nin the holy fence of the Japanese dead which encloses the temple.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe long arches of the sombre trees are dark and still. The blue sky\nabove is without fleck or stain, and the peace of God which passeth all\nunderstanding is spread as a hand above the tree-tops.\n\nThe men of the _Onega_ sleep well.\n\n\n\n\n VII\n\n THE LEGEND OF THE NOSELESS JIZ\u014c\n\n\nIt was a great many years ago, but the stone Jiz\u014d stands there yet,\njust on the edge of the woods beyond the rice-fields. The blue cotton\nbib around his neck is new, the odd little piles of stones that balance\non his shoulders, cuddle in his arms, or lie around his feet are\nlarger, for kindly hearts have passed by since then, to pick up a stone\nand carry it to Jiz\u014d, who helps the souls of the little dead children\ncrying naked on the banks of the Sai-no-Kawara, because the old hag\nShozuka-no-Baba has taken their clothes away, and will not let them\npass over into the happy land beyond, but keeps them piling stones on\nthe banks of the Buddhist Styx, and crying bitterly.\n\nAnd Jiz\u014d sits there by the roadside still, the same benevolent smile on\nhis shaven face, still holding the pilgrim\u2019s staff with its metal rings\nin one hand, and the jewel which brings all wisdom in the other. Only\nhe has no nose. He lost it thirty years ago, the day little Dicky James\ncame running up the road, his new hatchet clutched in his hand.\n\nNow Dicky was the son of a missionary, and he had been brought up on\ngood books and Sunday schools, and the night before he had been taken\nto hear the wonderful experiences of a \u201cbrother\u201d from China, who had\nfilled his little head full of \u201cglorious martyrdom,\u201d \u201csinful heathen,\u201d\n\u201cthe overthrowing of idols,\u201d and \u201cthe abomination of desolation,\u201d which\nDicky didn\u2019t understand but thought meant the long stretch of muddy\nrice-fields down beyond Negishi. And that put Jiz\u014d into his head. And\nbesides, there was the new hatchet.\n\nAll the morning he had played Red Indians, until, in an access of\nrealism, he had almost brained the baby. The threatened loss of his\nhatchet and the great idea that was working in his head made him quiet\nand subdued all through dinner.\n\nHe was sorry about baby, \u201cpoor little martyr,\u201d as his mother called\nher; and the idea grew and grew. Why shouldn\u2019t he be a martyr too,\nand return to his family covered with glory? Then the thought of Jiz\u014d\njumped into his head. He would go out, like the \u201cbrother\u201d from China,\ninto the \u201cabomination of desolation,\u201d and \u201coverturn the idol\u201d of the\n\u201csinful heathen.\u201d Or, at least, if he couldn\u2019t overturn it, the new\nhatchet would cut off its head, and Dicky\u2019s fingers itched to try. He\nhad no idea martyrdom was so interesting.\n\nSo, dinner over, Dicky seized his hatchet, and started off, away from\nthe settlement, across the canal, up by the racecourse, and down the\nhill towards Negishi. Here he took to the shore, to avoid complications\nin the village; for Dicky was used to showing his Christian superiority\nby cuffing the heads of the heathen, and the boys of Negishi were his\nparticular enemies. So the tide being out he kept to the shore until he\nwas past the village, and the long stretch of rice-fields, nothing but\nsolid ponds of black mud, each surrounded by a little, low, mud bank,\ncame into sight.\n\n\u201cThe abomination of desolation,\u201d said Dicky.\n\nAnd it did look like it. He went on along the narrow path towards the\nhills, with the wide stretch of muddy ponds on each side of him. They\ndwindled away gradually as Dicky went up the valley, dwindled away\nuntil they only looked like a kind of mud river running between the\ngreen hills. And there beyond the last one, on the edge of the hill,\nwas Jiz\u014d. Jiz\u014d, with his broad smile and his funny little bib.\n\nDicky looked about him nervously; the great moment had come. No, there\nwas no one in the rice-fields, and no one coming after him from the\nvillage; and Jiz\u014d\u2019s smile was tempting. Up went the little hatchet\nand smash down with all Dicky\u2019s strength. But Jiz\u014d\u2019s head did not\nroll in the dust, as it ought to have done, so Dicky tried again. He\nwas getting excited now. It was so beautiful to feel his dear hatchet\ncoming down smash, smash, smash, and to know he was doing the \u201cgood\nwork\u201d at the same time.\n\nSmash, smash! This time something had smashed, and Jiz\u014d\u2019s stone nose\nlay at his feet. Dicky stooped to pick it up, exultant, and in the\nmomentary pause heard angry voices among the fields, and feet coming\nswiftly up the road behind him. Then Dicky forgot all about \u201cmartyrdom\u201d\nand ran as fast as he could go, across the bank of the rice-field in\nfront of him, up the hill beyond, his hatchet clutched in one hand, and\nJiz\u014d\u2019s stone nose in the other.\n\nIt was the rice-field that saved him, because the men had to go round,\nbut their shouts brought out the village, and the sight of Jiz\u014d,\nnoseless, sent all the angry \u201cheathen\u201d up the hill in chase. I do\nnot think they would have hurt him if they had caught him, for the\nJapanese are not fanatical, and they are very kind to children.\n\nIt was just this feeling that made them so angry now. To think that\nany one could injure Jiz\u014d; Jiz\u014d the friend of those in trouble, the\ncomforter of women in travail, and the keeper of the baby souls crying\nnaked on the dark banks of the Sai-no-Kawara. I do not think they would\nhave hurt Dicky, but the whole village came out to see, and the men and\nboys ran up the hills around shouting:\n\n\u201c_Nan des ka? Nan des ka?_ What is it? What is it?\u201d\n\nAnd Dicky in his terror ran until his little legs gave way under him,\nand panting he threw himself on the ground under the trees.\n\nThe shouts had died away a long while, and it was growing dark in the\nwood before Dicky stirred. It was darker still when at last he crept\ncautiously down the hill and over the rice-fields towards the stone\nstatue of Jiz\u014d. He was very tired now, and very hungry, but the memory\nof the angry voices calling after him in the hills made him afraid to\ngo back through the village, and by this time the tide was up. So Dicky\nsat down by the side of Jiz\u014d in the growing darkness and waited. And\nall his nurse\u2019s stories of Jiz\u014d and the little children came into his\nmind. He looked up at Jiz\u014d, smiling still his large benevolent smile,\nand crept nearer.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was quite dark that evening when they found Dicky, his head\npeacefully laid to sleep on Jiz\u014d\u2019s feet, utterly worn out with the\npangs and the excitement of his martyrdom, his little hatchet fallen on\nthe ground, but one grubby fist fast clutching something that even in\nhis sleep he held tight.\n\nBut Dicky\u2019s taste for martyrdom had gone, and once, to his father\u2019s\nhorror, he was heard to declare that he \u201cwished he was a heathen\nbecause he would like to say his prayers to Jiz\u014d.\u201d\n\nIn the deepest depths of his pocket, next to his clasp-knife and his\nfavourite ally taw, there lived for many years a small stone object\nthat he sometimes took out and looked at when he was quite alone. And\nDicky had serious doubts at times about the goodness of the martyrs,\nand the sinfulness of the heathen, while his ideas on idols underwent a\nradical change.\n\nIt is thirty years ago now. But the legend of the noseless Jiz\u014d and his\nfight with the _Onigo_ (the devil in the shape of a child) is still\ntold in the villages around Negishi.\n\nThe other day Richard heard it himself.\n\n\n\n\n VIII\n\n THE TEMPLES OF SHIBA\n\n\nA matchless blue sky overarches the world, pale, clear, intense, and\nthe twisted green boughs of the Japanese pine throw their gaunt, black\narms up into the blue, in the vain endeavour of a hundred years to\nreach it. The hush of cloistered calm in which the trees grew up is\nstill here, although the Tokyo citizen walks and rides where once none\nbut Buddhist priests might linger. The Red Gateway, with the tent\ncurves of its roof petrified into grey tiles, still claims for all\nwithin Buddha as its master.\n\nAnd the hush of cloistered calm grows stiller.\n\nThrough a wide space open to the sky, a space paved with rounded\npebbles, water-washed for many years ere they floored the courtyard of\nthe House of God, believing and unbelieving feet have beaten smooth a\nwide, brown pathway. All around, and arranged in serried rows, stand a\nmyriad grey-stone lanterns, the pious gifts of dead _daimy\u014d_. Between\nthese tall stone emblems of the five elements the pathway runs; cupola,\ncrescent, pyramid, sphere, cube--ether, air, fire, water, earth--and\nthe crude shapes of the primitive elements, touched and altered by\ngenerations of artists, are turned to curves of quaintest beauty.\nDiagonally across the space goes the black pathway, the standing rows\nof tall lanterns thickly set on either side, until beneath another gate\nit makes a pause. A gate of red lacquer this, with carvings of gilded\nwood on ceiling and wall. Carvings full of that oriental luxuriance of\ncolour and line which half shocks our sober northern senses; so shocks\nthem sometimes that we call it scornfully \u201cbarbaric,\u201d until we grow\nwiser with much looking and learn to see the truth and beauty of this\nexuberant splendour.\n\nBeyond the gateway, the black path leads out under the blue sky, a\npebbled square on either hand, set round with stately rows of bronze\nlanterns, the pious gifts of yet greater _daimy\u014d_. Another gate stands\nwaiting at the end of the pebbled square, a gateway with rounded wooden\ncolumns of red lacquer, like its fellow, and carvings of gold. But\nthe beams of its ceiling have been smoothed away, and in the centre\na much twisted and curled dragon, which, like Joseph\u2019s coat, is of\nmany colours, writhes across the ceiling. A carved and gilded gallery\nstretches away on either side past the gateway. Another yet more\nbeautiful, with its slender square pillars of red lacquer bound at base\nand crown with beaten brass, leads a rainbow shadow through the sunny\ncourt to the cool dark door of the temple itself. In the shade of the\ngilded galleries, suspended from the red-lacquered cross-beams, hangs a\nrow of still bronze lanterns. Dimly in their exquisite shapes can one\ntrace the symbolised elements.\n\nBehind a wooden barrier five steps lead straight to the temple\u2019s\nfront, closed now with dark blinds of split bamboo bound together with\na silken thread. The tiled eaves of the curving roof overhang the\nsteps, and between door and lacquered pillar writhes in many wriggles\nof green and golden carving two royal dragons, the Ascending and the\nDescending--the going-up and the coming-down.\n\nLeaning on the barrier, the glory of those golden dragons, of those red\ncolumns, of the carved beams and inlaid porch rushed riotously into\nthe soul. And now one understood the preparation of those successive\ngateways, set each between a sunny space of pebbled court; for the\nfirst had shown but red and gold, up in the ceiling of the second\nlingered lines of azure blue, the third added green to the other three,\nthe gallery gave glances of mauve and violet, while here, under the\neaves of the temple roof, the rainbow itself is glorious in carved wood.\n\nA culminating point of colour and splendour, what can the temple hold\nwithin?\n\nCool spaces of matted floor set round with black boxes on black stools,\neach box holding its portion of Buddhist Scripture; sombre pennants of\ndark blue and green brocade upon the walls; a sober light clear but\ncolourless; and which is more beautiful, the rainbow porch of many\ncolours riotous in carving and scrolls, or the sober quiet of the\ntemple, a beauty of spaces and restraint?\n\nThe colourless matted room is wide and low. In front between the sombre\npennants is the inner sanctuary. Gods on either side on lacquered\ntables set against the walls; at the end, beyond more lacquered tables,\ntwo brocaded masses rise like square coffins on a raised da\u00efs; between\nstand figures of the gods, white-faced Benten and Kannon, Lady of\nMercy. The red tables bear many-coloured sweets and biscuits heaped\nhigh on metal plates, in metal cups; offerings to the spirits of the\ndead _Sh\u014dgun_ whose tablets lie enshrined behind those masses of\nbrocade. A bronze bowl on the floor filled with grey ash sends forth\nfilmy clouds of incense. There is no sound.\n\nBehind the temple, through two open spaces of pebbled squares, each\nreached by a score of granite steps, is the tomb; a smooth, round mass\nof stone encircled with a breast-high parapet of bronze; all around a\nsweep of grey pebbles.\n\nThat is all.\n\nAnd yet standing here I wonder whether the dead _Sh\u014dgun_ have not\nrightly chosen? Whether their resting-place is not more truly beautiful\nthan the beauty of sombre ornament in the temple, than the riotous\ncarving of the gateways.\n\nThe porch was Beauty\u2019s body, arrayed, adorned; here lies Beauty\u2019s soul,\nnaked and eternal.\n\n\n\n\n IX\n\n AMIDA BUTSU\n\n\nBuddhism is not one but many; the same faith and the same nation\nwhich produces the squalor, dirt and commercial profanity of Asak\u2019sa\ncan create the peace and purity of Rinzaki, while Shiba\u2019s riot of\nimpossible colouring is born of the same religion and the same people\nas the stern beauty of the _Hongwanji_; for the temples of the _Shin_\nsect are severe as a Protestant cathedral, as a Presbyterian church,\nonly they are built by a race of artists.\n\nKannon of Asak\u2019sa is popular, but the beautiful _Hongwanji_ at Kyoto,\nfinished a few years ago, at a cost of eight million yen, was built\nmainly by the peasants, who contributed not only in money but in kind,\nsending their most beautiful trees to be cut into beams, offering\nthemselves to hew and to build, giving always of their best. And each\nbeam was raised to its place by long hawsers made of women\u2019s hair,\nthe soft black hair of youth or womanhood, with here and there the\nshrivelled grey hairs of age. And the hawsers are suspended in the\ntemple for men and missionaries to ponder on.\n\nBuddhism is not dead but living. The old, the weary, and the poorest\npoor creep into the _Hongwanji_ in Japan, and the pale matting of these\ntemples is covered with the square-holed copper coins worth a quarter\nof a farthing, which they roll over the matting towards the altar from\nthe corners where they kneel and pray.\n\n * * * * *\n\nNagoya\u2019s _Hongwanji_ is the glory of the town. It stands in the thick\nof the city, in a great wide courtyard of stamped earth set round with\ntrees. Its sculptured gates of bronze are always open, and once inside\nthem the busy town with its factories and its workshops, its quarter of\na million of inhabitants, is gone, for the wide courtyard sets a lavish\nspace of stillness between the city and the shrine. A space so wide and\nample that the temple\u2019s curves stand out clear and sharp as a solitary\ntower on an empty plain.\n\nBuilt all of wood, unpainted, unstained; and so faded by the sunshine,\nso worn with age, and weather beaten with the wind and rain, that in\nthe glow of the summer\u2019s sun the temple stands against the brilliant\nlight faded and grey, a beauty of pathos, not of joy.\n\nUnder the eaves the saints and sacred animals are carved in tender\nlines of love. Age has touched and left them colourless, and the\ninfinite pity of the Buddha which enwraps creation, enfolding man and\nhis brother the beast, looks from their eyes.\n\nInside there is peace and sober quiet. A wide low space suggestively\ndivided into three with slender square pillars of wood, and behind,\nalong the whole width of the temple a blaze of gold, sombre and rich.\nNo riot of impossible colouring here, no profusion of design and\ndecoration; sober, almost stern in its beauty, the centre and the two\nside altars shine in the dim light.\n\nA bronze figure of Buddha, dead black against the gold, stands on his\nlotus-leaf with uplifted hands. It is Buddha as the God of Mercy, the\nliving, loving god, Amida Butsu--Eternal Buddha.\n\nDull gold and black, alive in the altar, shadowly repeated in the pale\nyellow matting and in the grey age-stained wood, are all the decoration\nof the temple, save perfect purity and peace, and an atmosphere of\nquiet, enduring charity. For the Shin sect teaches that the law cannot\nbe altered, that the eternal chain of cause and effect goes always and\nfor ever on, that the wages and more than the wages of sin is death,\nthat an act and its consequences roll ever onward through the world,\nand neither man nor time can stay them; it teaches that a man\u2019s sorrows\nare made by his sins, but that Buddha is merciful and just, that he who\nis love gives love; love knows no sin, nor sin\u2019s child, sorrow; without\nsin and sorrow is the world at rest.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOutside, the city labours, toils. Within, the workers kneel on the pure\npale matting, and praying, roll their square-holed coins towards the\nimage of Eternal Buddha, whose hand is raised to bless.\n\n\n\n\n X\n\n SAINT NICHIREN\n\n\nUp a hundred steep stone steps lies the temple of the Lord Buddha, for\nNichiren, his servant, whose head the executioner\u2019s sword refused to\ncut off, died here.\n\nNow Nichiren was a man of faith. And his faith was the faith of the\naverage man--he knew he was right. But Nichiren did more, for he had\nthe courage of his opinions; and he said, \u201cI alone am right; the rest\nare all wrong, unfaithful servants of the Lord--kill them.\u201d\n\nAnd the people believed Nichiren, for is not such faith in one\u2019s own\nopinion a sign of divine inspiration? And did not the Lord Buddha send\nlightning from Heaven to turn the edge of the executioner\u2019s sword and\nsave his pious servant?\n\nSo they followed after Nichiren and despised the rest of the church,\nand built temples of the true faith throughout the length and breadth\nof the land. And the priests of Nichiren walked in the steps of\ntheir master, and are--for the tolerant Japanese--almost bigoted and\nfanatical.\n\nNow the Nichiren priests delight in noise. Perhaps they think--like\nmany a politician--that it takes the place of argument. And so their\ntemples for ever re-echo with the banging of big drums, the clapping of\nwooden clappers, the booming of big bells, and the eternal chanting of\nthe _Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d_, the formula of the faith of Nichiren.\n\nIn the little side temple to the left, wreathed with paper flowers and\ncheap ornaments--for Nichiren has even strength to blur the national\nsense of art--they are busy now.\n\nA priest in the middle crouches on the ground; on either side, before a\nbig drum like a yellow barrel lying horizontally on the ground, sit two\nbelievers. Behind are grouped three more, all provided with clappers or\nbells. The drumming is incessant, the clapping nearly so, while all,\npriests and people, keep up one never-ending drone of\n\n\u201c_Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d, Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d, Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d._\u201d\n\nI can only see the backs of the group, and the arms of the two drummers\nas they raise them up above their heads to beat the big barrels in\nfront of them. Suddenly, from round the corner of the drum, an old face\npeers--priest by its costume and its cunning. An unshaven, unkempt\nface that blinks--dirty, ignorant, bigoted. It crouches there on the\nmatting, the old cunning eyes opening and shutting with each repetition\nof the never-ending formula,\n\n\u201c_Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d, Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d, Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d_,\u201d\nuntil sense and meaning are lost in a wave of wild, brute fanaticism.\n\nThe drums bang louder, the clappers clap shriller, the bells boom\nquicker and quicker, and I stand there convinced.\n\n_Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d, Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d, Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d._\n\nI too am of the faith of Nichiren, for I know that I am right. All\nthese are wrong, unfaithful servants of the Lord--kill them.\n\n\n\n\n XI\n\n BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN\n\n\nFive hundred feet of wall, and the temple\u2019s courtyard hangs a balcony\nabove the world.\n\nThe thousand steps by which I climbed are hidden, and the _chaya_, in\nthe width of the brown road that touches cliff and sea, is so beneath my\nfeet that its roof seems resting on the ground. My _kurumaya_, in his\nwhite hat, is a growing mushroom on a dark blue stalk. The man is but a\nhuman atom crushed between two immensities.\n\nFrom cliff to distant sky the wide sea spreads out, a vast still plain\nof shimmering blue. This ball of earth is rolled out flat before my\neyes, and its mysterious ends are a far-off rim, dark blue and clear.\nOverhead the burnished sky shuts down a domed cover on the flattened\nearth. The very sea seems hot. My _kurumaya_, sitting on the slender\nshafts of his _jinriksha_, fans himself with his hat, and I am startled\nto see how perfectly the three-inch figure works.\n\nThe world lies all spread out below me, here is nothing but the temple\nand the sun.\n\nAcross the burning courtyard where the sun smites the rounded pebbles\nwith hard shafts of light, and through the open doorway in the temple\u2019s\nwall, I go, and then the silent shadows of the trees fall all around.\nThe sky above their tops is bluer, the very sunlight brighter for the\nshade.\n\nThe temple\u2019s shrine is built upon a polished raft of wood, moored three\nfeet above the ground. Its walls are dark with matted blind. Only the\nsquare door-posts stand clear against the light, and through them I see\nthe bareness of the shrine--a sweep of pale matting on the floor, and\nthen dim space. Alone, the burnished mirror of the great Sun-Goddess\nhangs above the altar.\n\nOn the threshold of his temple stands the high priest, attended by two\nacolytes. He wears a head-dress of black lacquer like a perforated\nmeat-cover, but the face beneath is old and very calm. He bows as I\nmount the shallow polished steps which lead up from the ground, takes\nfrom the black-robed acolyte a slender silver vase, and a shallow\nterra-cotta bowl. Standing shoeless on the threshold of the naked\nshrine he slowly pours the sacred _sak\u00e9_ from the silver vase into\nthe terra-cotta bowl, and gives me to drink. The bowl is black with\nage, the _sak\u00e9_ thick, like distilled honey; and I notice, as I drink,\nthe carved figures running round the rim, and the faint scent of\nplum-blossom.\n\nWithout a word the white-robed priest takes back the cup, and offers\nme a thin rice-wafer which I break and eat. I wonder what the rite may\nmean that I, a stranger, may partake, and look up to see the calm old\neyes looking down at me, at my outlandish clothes and foreign face; but\nhe does not speak. Then with a gesture which is almost a blessing, the\nwhite-robed priest is gone, and the acolytes follow after.\n\nThe temple\u2019s shrine stands bare and bare, only the burnished mirror of\nthe great Sun-Goddess glitters.\n\nWas it a Passover that we have eaten together? Or a Eucharist? Or\nmerely the symbol of our human brotherhood?\n\nWe are all children of the Sun; and Faith is One.\n\nYet it needed a Shint\u014d priest in far Japan to show me a religion above\nnation, beyond race, above sect. But his shrine is bare. The Mirror of\nTruth hangs solitary above his altar, and his temple\u2019s doors are open\nto the Sun.\n\n\n\n\n XII\n\n INARI, THE FOX-GOD\n\n\nThe green tongue of the rice-fields thrusts itself deep into the blue\nsea, and its tip is lacquered red.\n\nHaneda-no-Inari is a temple whose gateways have swallowed up its\nshrine, and on the low, flat, headland its many thousand _tor\u012b_ in rows\nof scarlet dolmens walk inland from the sea. The green point lies a\nhenna-stained finger in the lap of the ocean.\n\nBeyond the red tip, a ridge of pearl-grey sky rests on the water, while\noverhead the clouds, like piled-up snowflakes, melt into the blue.\n\nIt is the end of September, and wide through the land the rustle of\nripening rice-ears comes and goes. Haneda-no-Inari, the Rice-God, is\ncalling the peasants to his shrine. And they come; broad-shouldered,\nbullet-headed men, in short, blue tunics and dark blue hose, with brown\nweather-beaten faces, seamed and lined; and always their hard hands,\nhalf shut, half open, as though still holding hoe or plough. Old most\nof them, and with that half-deaf look which years of fieldwork brings.\nIntelligences half shut too, shutting fast on the primary ideas of\nlife, on the traditions of their fathers; for a thought, like the\nhoe or plough, is too precious a thing to be lightly laid aside; it\nis bequeathed from generation to generation as are the rice-fields\nbeneath their feet.\n\nInari calls, and the peasants come. Not only for the sake of the\nRice-God, though the rustle of the ripening rice-ears is a music in\nthe land, but because the image of the fox has dwelt so long in the\nRice-God\u2019s temple that to the peasant Inari is both Fox-and Rice-God.\nAnd the fear of the _Kitsun\u00e9_ is a power in Japan. The _Kitsun\u00e9_,\nwho can take a woman\u2019s shape and bewitch you; the _Kitsun\u00e9_, who can\nbeguile a man that he follow to the fox\u2019s very hole and stay there\nliving on snails and worms. The _Kitsun\u00e9_, who, entering a man\u2019s body\nunder his finger-nails, will possess it, so that he howls like a fox,\nslowly changes into one, and dies. And so they come to the temple, up\nfrom the rice-fields, up under the scarlet tunnels of the _tor\u012b_, for\nthe passing through each tunnel means a wish fulfilled.\n\nThe gateways indeed have swallowed up this shrine. There is no temple,\nonly a low matted booth; at the back two white china images of the\nFox-God, his tail curled high above his head, and a priest on the\nmatting, as a shopman at his stall, selling charms, multitudes of\nminiature china foxes, words on rice-paper, and mounds of earth, a\nwhole shopful of charms and amulets.\n\nOpposite is a row of rabbit burrows, each roofed with a shelving\nstone; just a hole in the ground, but full of meaning to the peasant,\nfor it is the home of the _Kitsun\u00e9_, and he crouches on the ground in\nfront of it, his head between his knees, or thrust far into the big\nburrow in the eagerness of his prayer. And his face works; the priest\nbehind him watches. _Kitsun\u00e9_ is a reality to him, a force strong as\nNature\u2019s laws, but capricious; so he prays. Then half in fear, half in\nreverence, he thrusts one arm as far as it will go into the hole, and\nscraping softly brings back a handful of brown earth. His face lights\nup, and the priest behind leans forward.\n\nStill on his knees the peasant wraps the magic earth in layers of clean\nrice-paper and puts it carefully away in the breast of his patched\ntunic. Then he gets up. He has his charm, a remedy against sickness and\ndisaster, a charm for his rice-fields and himself. The priest behind\nreaches out his hand. He makes a keen shopkeeper, and his celestial\nwares are never stolen. The temple terms are \u201ccash down, and prayers\nnot taken in exchange.\u201d\n\nThrough the long scarlet tunnels of the _tor\u012b_, back to the ripening\nrice-fields the peasants go. The green point lies a henna-stained\nfinger in the lap of the ocean. Haneda-no-Inari, the temple of the\nsuperstitious, glows a living tip of red.\n\nFor its sins are as scarlet.\n\n\n\n\n XIII\n\n THE ALTAR OF FIRE\n\n\nIt all happened in a suburban temple in the town of Tokyo, at the time\nof the blossoming cherry-trees; and the prosaic din of a modern city\nfull of trains and tramcars hemmed us round. We had been conscious of\nit dimly throughout the long ceremonial within the temple, where Shint\u014d\npriests in brocaded robes chanted in twos and threes, in solo and in\nchorus; where the old High Priest had blessed with long strange rites\nthe four elements, earth, which is the mother of all things, fire,\nwater, air; had blessed the rice by which the people live, salt, and\n_sak\u00e9_; but now that we were all assembled in the outer courtyard the\nnoise of a busy city came distinctly to the ear. Tokyo was working hard\nthis April afternoon, and the cries of the newspaper boys pierced up\nshrilly from the street below.\n\nIn the courtyard the ancient vestments of the priests showed strangely\nbeside the modern frocks of American visitors, the tweed suits of a\nparty of Cook\u2019s tourists, even beside the _kimono_ of the Japanese\ncrowd, so markedly Tokyo and _Meiji_ (age of enlightenment), in their\nfelt hats, cloth caps, and \u201cbowlers.\u201d\n\nThe courtyard was big, the native crowd railed in at one end left a\nlarge space bare, and here in the centre of the stamped brown earth\na great pile of burning charcoal was heaped. Twenty feet long, and\nnearly as many broad, it glowed a solid mass of quivering heat, while\npriests at each corner stood fanning the sullen red to an ever fiercer\nflame. It was not hot enough yet, and in the sunshine of that April\nafternoon we waited.\n\nAt the further end of the courtyard a broad band of salt lay on the\nbrown earth like a white step to the altar. The great fans of the\nfanning priests sent puffs of heat across the court that made the\ndistinguished guests shrink back. And yet the glowing charcoal pyre was\nnot hot enough.\n\nBehind us, in a corner of the courtyard, stood a bamboo ladder, whose\nevery rung was made of the razor-blade of a Japanese sword, set edge\nupwards. As we all stood waiting, watching the solid altar of red flame\ngrow redder, a young man came out of the temple and crossed the court.\nHe was dressed in the short white tunic of religious festivals, and his\nlegs and feet were bare. He bowed to the party of distinguished guests,\nto the priests, to the old High Priest, and from his manner I judged\nhim not a priest, but a temple attendant.\n\nAmong the crowd there was a murmur, a sway of intense excitement, and\nthen a dead stillness. In the stillness the young man put his bare\nfoot upon the lowest rung of the ladder, and an involuntary shudder\nwent through us all. A large-checked tourist, pushing every one aside,\nrushed up to the ladder, and felt a sword-rung with his hand. Then he\ncame back, and across his open palm a ruled red line of blood rose up\nswiftly.\n\nThere was a whispering among the priests, a commotion in the crowd, but\nthe polite expressions of regret from the old High Priest were courtly\nwith honorifics. The large-checked tourist tied his hand up clumsily in\nhis own pocket-handkerchief, and looked annoyed. The fanning priests,\nwith rhythmic movements of their hands and bodies, chased the living\nheat across the court, and did not pause.\n\nAgain there was a murmur in the crowd, a stretching of necks to see,\nand a dead silence.\n\nThe white-tuniced attendant, who had stood quite still beside the\nladder, placed his bare foot upon the lowest rung, and I saw the\nlarge-checked tourist wince as though his injured hand were there\ninstead. Lightly as a sailor climbs, the young man ran up the ladder\nrung by rung, and neither hands nor feet grew red. On the top he\nstayed, looking down, and a shudder like a cry of pain went through the\ncourtyard. Then he turned, hanging for one brief moment by his knees on\nthe topmost rung--turned, and came down again.\n\nIn the April sunshine the sword-blades, from top to bottom of the\nladder, glittered spotless.\n\nFirmly on his bare, brown feet the young man walked across the court,\nbowed to the party of distinguished visitors, to the priests, to the\nold High Priest, and disappeared within the temple.\n\nThe crowd behind the railings exclaimed in admiration, but the\ndistinguished visitors were above surprise. The party of Cook\u2019s\ntourists who had just \u201cdone\u201d India were full of explanations. It was\n\u201cmere jugglery,\u201d they said, though each man differed in his theory. One\nwas eloquent on hypnotic suggestion, and though the damaged tourist,\nhis hand still bound up, \u201ccouldn\u2019t go so far as that, sir,\u201d was not to\nbe persuaded. The injured tourist had apparently only been hypnotised\na little more effectually than the rest of us. The American guests\nfavoured \u201cacrobatic training from infancy,\u201d which \u201cmade the bones just\nlike jelly.\u201d Somebody said he had heard it was \u201cdone with oil,\u201d but was\nquite vague as to the how, and all the more insistent in consequence.\nAnd so we explained and argued while the level rays of sunshine fell\non the spotless sword-rungs of the ladder, and on the vestments of the\nShint\u014d priests. They had watched and were impassive. The climbing of\nthe ladder was not a sacred ceremony, not a rite, rather an amusement\nallowed the multitude, as the Catholic Church offered _jongleries_ in\nthe Middle Ages.\n\nBut as the sun fell lower and lower in the April sky, a hush came among\nthe little group of priests, and growing, travelled slowly over the\ncourtyard. Even the damaged tourist stopped his explanations. The great\nred altar of heat that lay a fallen pillar of fire across the courtyard\nwas glowing now white-hot with life. The fanning priests at each corner\nhad moved further back to escape the scorch of the flames, but still\nthey fanned. In waves and gusts the heat was borne across the court,\nto flicker, as it were, upon the air, steady itself and then drive\nsolidly forward. The Cook\u2019s tourists who had seized upon the front row\nof seats, twisted uneasily on their chairs, unwilling to give up their\n\u201cbest places,\u201d unable to endure the burning. But the fierce scorch\nof the heat came steadily onwards, and before it the tourists ran,\ndragging their chairs after them.\n\nStill the fanning priests fanned on, chasing the quivering flames on\nthe red altar of heat, till it pulsed with a white-hot breath like a\nthing alive.\n\nIn the pale April sky the swift sun was dropping golden through the\nlast arcs of heaven to a grey band of clouds upon the horizon. In half\nan hour it would be night.\n\nThere was a stir in the crowd beyond the barriers; the fanning priests\nbeat out their rhythm slowly, and with the shadows the gathering sense\nof awe deepened. Only the altar of heat burned brighter, gathering to\nitself all the colour from the world.\n\nApart from the crowd the High Priest stood, the gold on his vestment\ngleaming, and he watched the sun. The peace upon his face was like\nan unsaid prayer. Did his soul go out to _Amaterasu_, the great\nSun-Goddess?\n\nSwiftly the sun dropped through the bank of clouds leaving them golden,\nshowed a red circle on the horizon, and passed beneath. The faintest\nflicker of emotion stirred for a moment the grave reverence of the\nold man\u2019s face. Then he turned. The rhythmic beating of the fanning\npriests died into silence. The red altar stood a burning fiery furnace\nin the courtyard, where already twilight was. He spoke no word, but\nthe religious calm of a perfect trust was in all his being. It touched\nthe straining multitude behind the barriers, even the tourists in\ntheir chairs. Breathless we stayed gripped by the powers of an awed\nsuspense, of a great belief, as he came on. There was no hurry, no\ntremor in his movements, on through the hot scorched air he came, on,\nover the threshold of strewn salt, and on, over the altar of heat.\nWith naked feet he trod from end to end the white-hot pathway, and the\nburning charcoal snapped beneath his tread. With naked feet he walked,\nunscathed, over that fiery furnace; and the breath of a passionate\nprayer passed like a sob through the courtyard.\n\nThen one by one the priests in their embroidered vestments stepped\nfrom the threshold of salt on to the fire. From end to end of the altar\nthey too trod that white-hot pathway slowly, unhurt, and the living\ncharcoal glowed like a thousand suns in the twilight.\n\nSlowly behind their distant barriers the crowd stirred irresolute. An\nold man whose face showed rapt in the circle of firelight approached\nthe priests. Hesitating he was led up to the altar, over the white salt\nstep, and faltering, he too trod the white-hot pathway. Then a coolie\ncame through the shadows, he too stepped up to the altar, passed over\nthe threshold of salt on to the living charcoal.\n\nIn twos and threes the crowd was coming now. Some of them hesitated on\nthe white salt step, some hurried along the fiery pathway. A few, a\nvery few, walked away as though their feet were singed. But all came,\neven the children. The big children who went resolutely alone, the\nlittle children whom the priests led.\n\nAnd the twilight in the courtyard deepened into night. The broad altar\nof heat glowed ruddy, a deep sun-red as its life pulsed slower. The\ntourists were all quiet on their chairs, not one of them would venture,\nthough the little children went before. The Faith was not in them, nor\nthe power of that great Belief. But those behind the barriers, this\nTokyo crowd in _kimono_ and \u201cbowler,\u201d they believed. With the sounds of\na modern city humming in their ears, fresh from the western education\nof their Board Schools, they, as their forefathers for two thousand\nyears, passed over the fire. This burning symbol of a spiritual\npurification had meaning for them. They _had faith and were not afraid_.\n\nUnto such is the Dominion of the Earth; unto such is the Kingdom of\nHeaven.\n\n\n\n\n XIV\n\n FORGOTTEN GODS\n\n\nNeglected by the river side the Buddhas sit, in one long silent row.\nThe rain is beating on their unprotected heads, and down their granite\nfaces little rills of water trickle. The river at their feet runs swift\nand strong, grey among the boulders, as it rushes down to Nikk\u014d. And\nthey sit forsaken.\n\nThe moss is thick upon their shoulders, the granite faces are all\nscarred and battered, blotched with pallid growths, spotted with dusty\naccumulations. But the Buddhas smile. Beneath their heavy-lidded eyes\nthey smile, a slow, still, changeless smile.\n\nOn the green bank above the tumultuous river there is no shrine, no\npriest; the forgotten gods sit still, in one long silent row, and the\nrain beats down relentless. Over their battered heads it runs, and\ndown their moss-grown shoulders; the soiled stone laps are full of it,\nand it stands in ever widening pools about the lotus-leaves of each\npedestal. For in Nikk\u014d the rain, tropical in vehemence, is persistent,\nas in the Outer Hebrides. It lies to-day in slanting lines, thick as\nwillow-switches, across the dull grey sky.\n\nI could not well be wetter, so I stop to look, and the whole long\nsilent row of Gods Forgotten smiles gently back at me.\n\nRemindful of the legend which calls them numberless, I try to count.\nOnce, twice, several times; but the legend is right. Each time my total\nvaries. Perhaps the rain confuses me; the willow-switches lie so thick\nacross the sky. So I give it up and look at the long desolate row of\nthe numberless Buddhas. I wonder if they envy the Buddha who fell from\nhis pedestal into the stream and was carried down to Imaichi, where the\nvillagers, finding him uninjured, reverently set him up with his face\ntowards Nikk\u014d. Now the country-side adores him, and he wears a large\npink bib.\n\nAcross the madly rushing river, churned grey between the boulders,\nthe Buddhas smile.... It is a smile of understanding. Yes, the slow,\nstill smile of One Who Understands, who understands All Things, and\nunderstanding, is content.\n\nAnd who should understand, and understanding rest content, if not the\nEternal Buddha? Is not the Godhead wise? Does it not see the meaning\nand the path of All Things? And seeing, were it not then content the\nDevil triumphs?\n\n \u201cGod\u2019s in His Heaven,\n All\u2019s right with the world.\u201d\n\nIf God be in His Heaven, and God be God, then must the Godhead\nunderstanding smile.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThrough the thick-falling rain the long still row of granite Buddhas\nsmile back at me. I have thought so long upon that smile, which strikes\non western senses oddly, almost irreverently. Do we ever conceive of a\nsmiling God? In all the long picture galleries of Europe I have never\nseen a Christ who smiled. With sword-pierced side and thorn-crowned\nhead He hangs before us--suffering, always sad. The Man of Sorrows;\nyet He redeemed the world; He saved mankind. For pure joy a soul could\nsmile at such a thought. Yet with us the Redeemer suffers; He never\nsmiles.\n\nThe peasant S\u014dgor\u014d, from his cross where he had watched the killing\nof his children, laughed gaily as he bade his dying wife farewell;\nfor he had saved three hundred villages from unjust taxation. In his\nintensest suffering a Japanese is taught to smile. He comes to tell you\nthat his child is dying, and he smiles. Perhaps his eyes are red, but\nhe smiles, that the sight of his suffering may not pain another. It is\nthe sublimest unselfishness and self-control. S\u014dgor\u014d dying on the cross\nbade his crucified wife farewell, laughing gaily, and no Japanese would\npraise or wonder at the fact. S\u014dgor\u014d died as a martyr. Yes, I have seen\na smile on the faces of our martyrs, rarely, it is true. Sodoma\u2019s _St.\nSebastian_ smiles; it is a smile of the eyes. He sees a vision--the\nLamb of God and all the choirs of the angels. But Christ never smiles.\nI cannot think of one picture, one conception of a smiling God. Sad,\nweighed down with the sins of mankind; pitiful, pleading; or stern,\nimplacable, the Just Judge, the Ruler of the Universe, immovable\nOmnipotence, scales in hand. Can either Godhead smile?\n\nBuddha suffered much and endured much, but still he smiles. He too is\nmerciful and full of pity. He too suffers with each sin man sins. Here\ntoo the Just Judge judgeth the World. And the patient Buddha suffers\ntill the wicked are redeemed. There is no end to his suffering till all\nare saved. Only when the wicked cease from troubling, cease because\nthey are the good, is mortal life completed, till then the complex\nworlds spin on and on. Yet Buddha smiles. For man\u2019s birthright is not\nsin, not sorrow, but Joy. The Godhead smiles.\n\nThis long silent row of granite gods, fashioned by the hands and the\nhearts of this nation, smile. And all the bronze and granite statues,\nall the gilded images, all the Buddhas of this island smile too, for\nthe people who made them and conceived them believe in Joy, in the\ninnate as in the ultimate goodness of man; in the innate as in the\nultimate Joy of the Godhead. Verily these are forgotten Gods in western\nlands.\n\nAcross the raging mountain river, through the fast-falling rain, on\nthe desolate green bank the numberless Buddhas battered and forsaken\nsmile, that slow still smile of One Who Understands, who understands\nAll Things, and understanding is content.\n\nGreat Buddha, _Dai Nippon_, teach us.\n\n\n\n\n LORD FUJI\n\n \u201cWhere on the one hand is the province of Kai,\n And on the other the province of Suruga,\n Right in the midst between them\n Stands out the high peak of Fuji.\n The very clouds of Heaven dread to approach it;\n Even the soaring birds reach not its summit in their flight.\n Its burning fire is quenched by the snow;\n The snow that falls is melted by the fire.\n No words may tell of it, no name know I that fits it,\n But a wondrous Deity it surely is.\n\n * * * * *\n\n Of Yamato, the Land of Sunrise,\n It is the Peace-Giver, it is the God, it is the Treasure.\n On the peak of Fuji, in the land of Suruga,\n Never weary I of gazing.\u201d\n\n Japanese poet, eighth century.\n (\u201cJapanese Literature,\u201d by W. G. Aston.)\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n PROLOGUE\n\n\nFrom Pole to Pole the waters of the wide Pacific surge, unending and\nalone. Over the shifting plain the silence of the ocean broods. Here is\nman nothing; for the endless spaces of the ocean, the self-sufficiency\nof the unresting sea remain for ever outside of man, coldly non-human.\nA river or a hill can be loved into companionship, but the sea stays\nalways strange.\n\nWithout ends or boundaries, the shifting waters sweep from Pole to\nPole, solitary, changeless. Only the curve of the earth itself, or the\nweakness of man\u2019s eyesight draws imaginary boundaries on the horizon.\nAnd the waste of the waters lies empty and still.\n\nColdly blue is the sea below, and the sky shutting down is blue too and\nbare. Two empty infinities which meeting set bounds to each other.\n\nAnd within there is nothing. Only space; blue, bare space.\n\n\u201cIn the beginning,\u201d says the Scripture, \u201cthe waters below were\nseparated from the waters above,\u201d and out of the void came this world\nof two dimensions, so cold, blue and beautiful. It is immensity--empty.\n\nThen did the spirit of God move on the face of the waters, move slowly\nand pass.\n\nInto the empty blue came a white, still splendour. Softly it grew\nin the dome of the sky, unreal in its beauty. But two pale curves\nthat stayed in the heavens, as the wandering snowflake seems to rest\non its fall. Midway between blue and blue it stayed, this soft white\nsplendour, stayed dreaming a pause.\n\nFor the spirit of God had passed; and the empty, blue vastness was\nfilled with a sense of joy and elation. Earth\u2019s fairest presence had\nrisen high to the heavens. And it lay, two curving lines of exquisite\nsplendour, breathed light on the sky; and white as the wing of a gull\nin the gleam of the sunshine, all shining with whiteness.\n\nAnd the infinite plane of the waters stretches on to the Poles. And the\nendless space of the sky wraps the water around.\n\nBut the empty, blue vastness is gone.\n\nIt is blue sea. It is sky. They are framing a world, for Lord Fuji has\ncome.\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n THE ASCENT\n\n\nGeologists state that Fuji San is a volcano, a young volcano, 12,365\nfeet high. Philologists add that _San_ is derived from a Chinese term\nmeaning mountain, and is not the familiar Japanese title which we\nrender by Mr., Lord, or Master; while _Fuji_ is, they declare, a word\nof Aino origin. And then they all fall silent.\n\nThese are the facts: the material, provable facts, such as western\ntext-books publish. But to Japan, Fuji San is much more, and most of\nthis is not text-book fact.\n\nNational tradition says that Fuji arose in a single night, and at the\nsame time Lake Biwa, one hundred and forty miles away, was suddenly\nformed. There is a legend that, in those far-away days of _mukashi,\nmukashi_--once upon a time--the Elixir of Life was taken to the top\nof the mountain, where it still remains. And popular belief declares\nthat all the cinders and ashes brought down by the pilgrims\u2019 feet are\ncarried each night back to the summit of Fuji.\n\nTo the people, Fuji is sacred; holy to some as the abiding-place of\nthe Goddess _Ko-no-hana-saku-ya-hime_, She who makes the Blossoms of\nthe Trees to Bloom, but sacred to all for its majesty, its unutterable\nbeauty. The peasants of the country-side call Fuji _Oyama_, Honourable\nMountain; and to the people Fuji San is Lord and Master. Deep in their\nhearts, and unassailable by western facts, the worship of his beauty\nand his power lies throbbing. During that brief six weeks of summer\nwhen Fuji\u2019s wind-swept sides alone are climbable, the pilgrims come in\nthousands, in ten thousands. They dress themselves in white from head\nto foot. They carry long staves of pure white wood in their hands, each\nstamped with the temple crest, and in bands and companies they climb\nthe mountain. And always the leader at their head, his staff crowned\nwith a tinkling mass of bells, like tiny cymbals, chants the hymn\nof Fuji. From base to summit, as the white-clad pilgrims climb, the\ntinkling cymbals clash, and the voice of the leader rises loud at each\nrefrain:\n\n\u201cWe are going, we are going to the top.\u201d\n\nAbove the clash of the bells the chorus echoes:\n\n\u201cTo the top, to the top, to the top.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are going,\u201d chants the leader, and the tiny cymbals clash--\u201cWe are\ngoing, we are going to the top.\u201d\n\nThe western facts of modern text-books cannot touch the meaning of\nthis mountain; the love of its long curving line which permeates the\nnation\u2019s art, the adoration of its beauty, and the reverence of its\npower.\n\nAlready in a time which to us upstart western nations is almost\n_mukashi, mukashi_, in the days before King Alfred burnt the cakes, a\nJapanese poet had caught and expressed the feeling of the nation for\nits mountain: for he wrote of Fujiyama as\n\n \u201cA treasure given to mortal man\n The God Protector watching o\u2019er Japan.\u201d\n\nAnd to-day the God Protector watches still, and yearly the people come,\nin the white garb of pilgrims, chanting to his shrine.\n\nFor six short summer weeks they come. Then the winds rush down,\nthe snow falls, the tempests rage, and Lord Fuji lives alone. No\nhuman being has yet stayed a winter on his summit, and even in the\nsummer weeks the winds will blow the lava blocks from the walls of\nthe rest-houses, and sometimes the pilgrim from the path. For Fuji\nstands alone, not one peak among a range, but utterly alone. Rising\nstraight out of the sea on one side, and from the great Tokyo plain\non the other, his twelve thousand three hundred and sixty-five feet,\nin two long curving lines of exquisite grace, rise up and up into\nthe blue, and not one inch of one foot is hidden or lost; it is all\nthere, visible as a tower built on a treeless plain. It dominates the\nlandscape. It can be seen from thirteen provinces; and from a hundred\nmiles at sea the pale white peak of Fuji floats above the blue.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was a day in the beginning of August, in the very middle of those\nhot three weeks which are the great festival of Fuji San, in the\nsimmering dawn of a summer\u2019s day that we left Tokyo for Subashiri. As\nthe train approached Gotemba the whole crowded carriageful of Japanese\nlooked eagerly for Fuji. The train was climbing slowly by a mountain\nstream, and we were all looking, looking, beyond the dark green\npine-trees of the river\u2019s bank. Suddenly, for one dazzling moment, the\ndeep blue cone of Fuji lay pillowed on a bank of clouds in the middle\nof the clear blue sky. Then, swiftly, the clouds rolled up and up. Fuji\nSan was gone. The whole carriageful gave vent to those long strangled\n_h\u2019s_ of admiration and delight, and with a murmured \u201cFuji San seeing\nhave\u201d sank back on their heels on the cushions.\n\nGotemba is the nearest railway station to Fujiyama, and the highest.\nIt lies a thousand feet up. Being the most accessible, it is the most\nusual starting-point for the climb, but it is not the most picturesque.\nA wonderful line of trams now connects Gotemba with Subashiri, and\neven with Yoshida, a place half round the base of the mountain. We\nwere to start from Subashiri and come down to Yoshida, and return by\nthe lakes. So from the station we walked up the straggling, badly kept\nstreet of Gotemba, where every house is a hotel and every hotel hangs\nout many advertisements in the shape of cotton streamers twelve feet\nlong and six inches wide, which are attached by rings to bamboo poles.\nSo through groves of white and blue and brown banners all adorned with\nbeautiful Chinese symbols we walked to the tramway.\n\nA dive through a wooden archway between two tea-houses, where a\nticket-hole and a wooden barrier composed the station, and we were\nthere. The trams stood under the archway; the lines were lost in the\nblack cindery mud--and they were both Japanese--the tram-lines, just\nrows of knitting-needles and laid very close together, the trams\ndiminished by the national taste for the national needs to a little\noblong box like a stunted bathing-machine. Our tram stood from ground\nto roof perhaps some five feet high. By taking off our hats we could\njust manage to sit down, and by judiciously fitting our knees into\none another like elaborate dovetailing we got in width-ways, and we\nonly got in at all by entering the door sideways. Fat people do not\ntravel in Japanese trams--not unless they have a ladder and sit on\nthe roof. The only way to insinuate luggage is to coax it through the\nwindow-frames, which, as there were only two to a side, were almost\nonce and a half times the width of the door, not more. In the Fuji\ntramways pilgrims\u2019 hats are not admitted. This is no prohibition. It\nis an impossibility, for the diameter of the pilgrim hat, which is\ntwice as large as the largest halo, is equal in size to the width of\nthe entire tram. So the pilgrims hang their huge circles of straw hats,\nlike scooped-out orange halves, outside; and our tram before it started\nbecame a new kind of armoured train.\n\nIn this dumpy bathing-box we had room for four a side. We took five and\nthought it empty; smiled at six; submitted to seven; where an eighth\nwould have disposed himself I do not know, he would certainly have got\nin, but the puzzle would have been to have found a vacant cubic foot\nof space for his occupation. Trams are never full in Japan. There is\nalways room for more, if the more arrive. In this case the more got in\nat a small junction outside the back lanes of Gotemba. They got in,\nthree of them, and with huge bundles too. Then the conductor looked\nround inquiringly and smiled, whereupon two polite pilgrims of lighter\nbuild than the newcomers gave up their seats and wedged themselves into\nthe window-frames, while the bundles were deposited on the continuous\nstrata of passenger. What happened to the third I do not know. He got\nin.\n\nThen we started, really started, for there was no other halting-place,\nno village or station between here and Subashiri. Nothing but a broad,\nbare sweep of upward-tending common, where multitudes of wild flowers\ngrew out of the cindery soil.\n\nAs we went on, the faintly curving common, which always sloped round\nand up, grew wilder and wilder. There were fewer flowers on the black\nsoil. Sometimes the cinders lay all bare in large dull patches against\nthe coarse grass. We were on the broad swelling slope of Fuji, on the\nedge of the first ripple before it dies away into the smooth water\nof the plain below. And we were crawling slowly from the first to\nthe second ripple as a fly crawls round the curve of an orange. Fuji\nhimself was invisible. For all we could see he did not exist. Spread\nout before our eyes was only the endless swelling line of the green\ncommon, always curving round and up. From time to time our driver blew\na melancholy thin note from a tiny copper horn shaped like a thickened\ncomma and ornamented with a worked band of brass, a pathetic far-off\nnote unknown to western scales.\n\nOur tram-line was laid among the ample cinders of Fuji\u2019s burnt-out\nfires, and sometimes the curves were very sharp. Then the conductor,\nbalanced on the step and grasping the window-frame with both hands,\njerked the tram towards him to keep it on the lines; and we rounded the\ncurves in triumph. The compact mass of passenger which filled the tram\ninterior looked on unperturbed, while those in the window-frames kindly\nadjusted their weight to assist the conductor. And the melancholy\nthin note of the copper horn travelled over the long slope of the\nupward-tending common as we crawled slowly on.\n\nIn the midst of a perfect stocking-heel of knitting-needles, which all\nlooked as though they were about to begin violently knitting at once,\nthe tram stopped, and the compact mass of passenger disintegrated\nitself slowly. Having been the first to enter we were the last to\ndetach ourselves from the general lump, and when we did recover a\nseparate entity the knitting-needles lay gleaming in the cindery\nmud--and there was nothing else. We stumbled on over them for some\ntime, until a ticket-hole in a sentry-box restored our belief that it\nwas a stopping-place and not an accident. So we stood still and shouted\nfor our tea-house boy by name. He came running, in long, tight-fitting,\nblue trousers like thick cotton hose and a blue tunic; and he was a\ngirl, a pretty bright-coloured girl with daintily coiffured hair; and\nwe all set off for the tea-house.\n\nSubashiri is another straggling ill-kept street, all tea-houses and\nlong cotton banners tied to bamboo poles, and our tea-house was the\nlast of them all. It lay on the very edge of Fuji, and when we left\nit, after all our preparations had been completed, our lunch eaten,\nour guide engaged, we stepped straight on to the endless curve of\nupward-tending common.\n\nI should have said our horses stepped, for the first stage of Fuji\nSan is climbable on horses, pack-horses of a unique Japanese breed,\nwhich bite. They are harnessed with elaborate trappings in scarlet and\ngold, saddled with huge wooden saddles, rising like the prow of a ship\nbehind, and sloping so steeply that the middle is one long knife-blade\nridge, and only a tight hold of the stirrups prevents the rider\nfrom falling. All ride straddle-legged. I do not recommend Japanese\npack-horses for pleasure, comfort, or security.\n\nWe plodded along over the bare common with its eternal long sweep\nupwards, like the swell of a great Atlantic roller, and the freshness\nand the coldness seemed to lift us out of Japan and carry us miles and\nmiles north, to the chill summer of a northern land. The path which cut\nwinding across the long up-sweep of the green common was black as ink,\nand shining with the wet of mountain clouds. Fuji was invisible, but as\nthe deep rumble of the thunder, deadened behind the thick white clouds\nwhich bounded path and common, rolled slowly out of hearing it was as\nif Great Fuji spoke. Behind the mist the presence of the \u201chonourable\nmountain\u201d could be surely felt. Already the world seemed sunk away and\nthe pilgrimage begun.\n\nOver the green common the pack-horses plodded. Our guide and the\nlittle girl groom, in her thick blue hose and dark blue tunic, were\nfar behind talking in peace. The big drops of rain which the thunder\nbrought had ceased to fall, and the freshness and the chill coming\nafter the tropical heat of the plain stung strength to life again.\nEven the pack-horses grew less sulky, and urging made them shuffle\ninto something near a trot. But this outbreak of energy, which lasted\nperhaps eighty yards, was more than enough for comfort, though it added\nto experience, for like the knights of old who \u201cclove\u201d their enemies\nin two, we too \u201cclove,\u201d but in another direction. It was painful. So\nthe horses sank back into their bad-tempered pace, and the wide common\nswept onwards and upwards.\n\nAfter awhile the monotony of the black path crossing the green common\nwas varied by stunted bushes which, gradually growing bigger and\nbigger, actually enclosed the cinder-track as English hedges an English\nlane. But the change was brief and the sloping green world with the\nlong black line of path winding across it came back again.\n\nThe pack-horses plodded bad-temperedly on, and the structure of\nthat saddle seemed to be petrifying in my frame. A blot in the path\nwhich had lain for so long on the edge of the common came gradually\nnearer until it widened into a deep oblong pit filled with the\nrakings of a thousand fires. Through this we ploughed our way, and\nthe loose cinders came over the feet of the horses. With a good deal\nof exertion we climbed out again, then a few yards, a sharp turn,\nand we passed an empty row of sheds, for we had reached the _Mma\ngaeshi_--\u201cHorse-turn-back\u201d station. My horse evidently understood the\nChinese characters of the tea-house sign, for no sooner did he see\nthem than he promptly walked into one of the sheds, with me clinging\naffectionately to his neck to avoid the shock of the roof on my chest.\nBut promptly as he walked in, the little girl groom and the boy guide\nwere prompter; with a rush they were at his head, hauling him out\nagain. He objected strongly, snarling like an ill-used dog, and so did\nI, but we were backed out of the shed at last.\n\nWe did not \u201chorse-turn-back,\u201d we were going to take our steeds on one\nmore station. The stations on Fuji, which are nothing but the native\ntea-house, rougher, ruder, and less scrupulously clean, are mostly\nbuilt right across the actual path itself. You go in at one side and\nout at the other.\n\nUp to the very threshold of the tea-house the sweep of the wet green\ncommon rolled, like a gigantic, motionless wave that never breaks. It\nwas a bare wild world bounded only by the pale walls of the distant\nclouds. But on the other side the path plunged steeply into a thick\ninterminable wood, where the great trees dripped slowly, with the heavy\npersistency of Fate, and the dark trunks glistened uncertainly with\nwet. The little girl groom and the boy guide came and led the horses\ncarefully, for the path was very steep, and the thick roots of the\ntrees stretched like cords above the cinders.\n\nThis stage was short. At the next tea-house, which lay confined as\na lake between the walls of the mountain, we said \u201cgood-bye\u201d to the\nill-tempered horses and to the little girl groom. The boy was to take\nus to the top and down to Yoshida. Then the wood, which the tea-house\nhad interrupted no more than a buoy the ocean, stretched on. The great\ntrees dripped coldly, with that chill feel of damp green things that\nmakes the springtime of the north: coldly fresh as though the running\nsappy life were chill as mountain water, as though the growing trees\nwere enwrapped in invisible ice and the very air made of impalpable\nsnow.\n\nIn the midst of the wood stood a little desolate shrine, its floor was\nnothing but the black stamped earth, its roof of roughest thatch kept\ndown with lava-stones, and only the tiny altar had walls at all. Behind\na sort of wooden bar the gods sat dim, and a mournful old priest was\ntheir only attendant.\n\nStraight towards the altar led the mountain path. This was the gateway\nof Lord Fuji. Each path that climbs the \u201chonourable mountain\u201d leads\nthrough a temple to the temple on the top. At the first shrine the\npilgrim buys his long white staff, stamped with the temple crest, which\nhe carries with him upwards to the summit.\n\nWe bought our staves. And the old man, thrusting a thin bar of iron\nlike a stick of sealing-wax into the charcoal fire, burnt the crest of\nSubashiri\u2019s shrine into the clean white wood, and with a courteous\ngesture he said the prayer which we, unknowing, had left unsaid.\nLord Fuji is neither fierce nor exclusive, all the world may come as\npilgrims through his gateways. From the great Sun-Goddess the Mikado\nsprang, and the people of Japan are all kin to the Shint\u014d gods, but\nthe Shint\u014d gods themselves welcomed the Lord Buddha when he came.\nSide by side with the older gods Buddha\u2019s temples stand to-day, and\nLord Buddha, too, once said, \u201cAll men are one\u201d; and again, \u201cAll\nliving things are brothers to mankind\u201d; for Buddha, like the modern\nscientists, declared the world, all worlds, and all that in them is,\none, in substance one.\n\nThree steps from the temple and the trees of the wood shut over it\nas waters over a stone. It was lost. Lord Fuji is greater than his\ntemples. With the help of our staves we climbed on up the steep\ncinder-path, till the great green trees, dripping slowly, dwindled,\ndrew back, were ended.\n\nOn the very edge of the wood was a tea-house, the _Ichi-g\u014d_, No. 1\nstation, a roughly built wooden-walled tea-house, on the edge of whose\nmatting, with our feet on the path, we sat and drank tea, innumerable\negg-bowls of hot green tea. While we were sitting here a whole party of\npilgrims, in their white hose trousers, their white tunics tucked into\ntheir white _obi_, and their wash-basin-big straw hats, came down the\npath. They turned into the tea-house, and one old man, dropping on to\nthe matting, rolled himself into a corner and was covered with _futon_.\nHe had caught cold on the top, and was perfectly exhausted with pain\nand fatigue. But as he lay in the corner, clutching the _futon_ to\nhim as though to press a concrete warmth into his numbed bones, there\nwas in his eyes a look of dwelling content that not all the pain nor\nall the fatigue could overcome. He had climbed from the threshold to\nthe sanctuary of Fuji; had knelt by the cloud-swept altar; felt the\nmight of the God in the winds of his summit, in the still depths of\nhis crater; caught up with Lord Fuji on high, he had looked down upon\nearth. What now was pain or fatigue?\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe path from the tea-house struck out abruptly across the mountain,\nand we soon stood above the trees, stood on the bare cinder-slope\nthat is Fuji. It was very much like walking up an ash-heap or a\nballast-mound, and about as beautiful. Below us everything was hidden\nin a shifting mist; above, twenty feet of cinder-slope ended in a white\nwall. It was like climbing a black rope hung between two clouds.\n\nAfter the ballast-heap came a lava-bed, where a molten river of lava\nhad dried itself into high rocks and deep cracks, as the ice of a\nglacier. We crossed it obliquely, and in the twilight saw neither\nbeginning nor end, neither from where it came nor to where it went; but\nits pinnacles and crevasses, its tumbled waves and jagged, piled-up\nridges, lay lustreless and dark, as though of coal-black ice.\n\nOnce across this lava-glacier, and out of the dip formed by its bed, we\nstood on a sort of self-contained ash-heap, and looked down that long\nslope of Fuji which already lay below us.\n\nDimly through the faint floating veil of mist we could see all\nthe green earth bare and smooth, with a darker line of hills as a\nchild\u2019s bank of mud curving round the black surface of the lakes. We\nwere so high up, the lakes so far away, and the whole air so heavy\nwith moisture that they looked in the misty light like polished\nslabs of black rock dropped into the green earth as one might sink\nstepping-stones into a lawn. As we watched the light seemed to thicken,\nthe white mists spread through it as motes in a sunbeam, gathered\nthemselves together. Swiftly they hid the black lakes; and boiling\nwithin the dark curve of the hills in billows of smoke, boiled over the\nmud-bank of hills, and blotting them out; submerged the green earth,\nand flowing rapidly upwards hid all the long slope of Fuji beneath a\nshoreless sea of fog.\n\nAgain we stood on a steep cinder-heap on the black rope which hung from\nvoid to void--alone.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd impenetrable Fuji remained. We simply climbed a cinder-path which\nran from end to end of a never-ending, ever-retreating circle of cloud.\nAnd still within this grey-white circle we reached the _Ni-g\u014d_, or No.\n2 station. Here we were to stop the night, because No. 2 is larger and\nmore comfortable than No. 4, and No. 8 was too far away.\n\nNo. 2 lay on the side of the path, its face looking over the precipice\nand its three sides well within a scooped-out hole in the cinder-heap.\nIt was nothing but an ordinary Japanese room, only its walls were of\nsolid wood, protected outside by cut blocks of lava, and inside with a\nlining of folded _futon_ on shelves. Far away in the back of the room\nthe charcoal fire was sunk in a sort of earth well, so that you could\nsit on the matting with your legs in the hole, absorb warmth, or do\nyour cooking. Otherwise the tea-house was bare matted space on which\neach comer staked out a claim for himself with his luggage.\n\nHaving chosen a good site in a corner less draughty than the rest of\nthe enclosure, we proceeded to unpack and wash. Just outside the middle\nof the open wall of the house, and full on the pathway of Fuji, stood\na large waterbutt. Having been directed by the family--an amiable man,\nan indifferent wife, and an inquisitive boy--to wash outside, I stepped\non to the pathway. The tub was half full of water and looked very like\nthe ordinary bath-tub of Japan. It was the first time I had seen a bath\nout of doors, though they figure so largely in travellers\u2019 tales; still\nthere was nothing else, so boldly I plunged the top half of myself into\nthe water.\n\nA simultaneous scream from the man, the wife and the boy, brought me up\ndripping and bewildered.\n\nWhat had I done?\n\nNot sinned against their moral code, surely. No--worse. Washed in the\ndrinking-water!\n\nLuckily there was more, enough for endless tea that night, and\nto-morrow fresh water could be fetched. But my wash came to an abrupt\nend. Of course what I ought to have done was to unearth a brass\npan tucked away behind the tub, take down a bamboo dipper from a\nlava-block, dip out water from the tub into the pan and wash in that.\nQuite simple, naturally, when it was all explained and the pan and\nthe dipper produced, but all problems always are simple after the\nexplanation.\n\nThe amiable man remained amiable even after this catastrophe, and the\nindifferent wife had not been shaken from her indifference save for the\nspace of one brief scream, while the small boy, at such an exhibition\nof curious manners on the part of the _Ijin San_, grew more inquisitive\nthan ever, and we fried ham, ate tinned tongue, cut slices of bread,\nand drank foreign wine under a close and exhaustive series of comments\nwhich were questions.\n\nIt grew dark rapidly as we ate. And as relays of pilgrims came in out\nof the night to fling themselves down on the matting, swallow cupfuls\nof hot tea and exchange long compliments with the man, the wife,\nand the guide, and disappear again into the night, we congratulated\nourselves. No. 4 must have been very full. At eight o\u2019clock, when the\n_amado_ were drawn and the tea-house became a compact box, No. 2 had no\nguests but the _Ijin San_.\n\nIt was time to go to bed. The man put out the one smoking lamp by the\nfire-pit which had cast such lurid yellow lights on the white clothes\nof the pilgrims as they sat and drank, and such murky, gigantic shadows\non the rest of the room; the boy went to bed in a corner, and we rolled\nourselves up in our carefully Keatinged _futon_ and tried to sleep.\n\nIt was cold. There were fleas. And Fuji sent us down a draught which\nsimply whistled through the wooden walls, the folded _futon_ and the\nlava-blocks. And the sense of the unusual, of the rest-house, the\ncinder-path and of Fuji, crept into our slumbers, holding back sleep.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen we awoke it was already five o\u2019clock and the _amado_ were open.\nThe boy, careering over the matting, was detailing how the _Ijin San_\nslept.\n\nWe shook ourselves out of our _futon_ and went outside to wash--not in\nthe waterbutt.\n\nAlready, when we stepped upon the cinder-path, the unseen sun had\ntouched the white clouds lying like islands in the blue beneath.\nAnd as we watched they coloured blushing, till in blood-red pools\nthey studded thick the air below. They lay away out over the land,\nmoving slowly through the vapoury mist. It was as if the air was half\nprecipitated, the atmosphere made visible. We looked down on to the\nworld below and saw it as one sees white stones at the bottom of deep\nwater.\n\nThe hidden sun was rising swiftly, and as he rose the blood-red pools\nfaded out; the vapoury white air grew thinner, seemed slowly drying,\nuntil clear and invisible, we looked through it and saw the green earth\nstretching away and away to the level line of the horizon; while midway\nthe little lakes lay sepia-black upon the green, curving so comfortably\ninto the tiny crescent of the hills all dark with purple shadows. A\nfresh-washed world lying green and flat at the bottom of 7,000 feet of\natmosphere.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was cold, the water in the brass pan colder, and tingling with\nsudden chill we ran rapidly up the path past the scooped-out hollow\nwhere the rest-house hid--and stood transfixed.\n\nAbove us, touching us, and black against a sky all blue and liquid as\nthe living sea, was Fuji San.\n\nHis clear-cut lines rose up quickly, and the mountain, whose slope our\nhands were holding, seemed to draw back its summit that our eyes might\nsee it, so close it lay, so steep above. Round as a tower it rose in\ncurves of grace, a black lighthouse springing towards the sky, delicate\nas Giotto\u2019s lily tower: slender in its grace and fragile. This was no\nrude Colossus, mighty with brute strength, but a god, great in grace,\nand strong, because divine.\n\nUpwards the soaring lines rose up, coal-black, and the growing light\ncaught faintly at a wine-red patch where the sullen fires were\nsleeping, caught and turned it redder; redly it glowed, smouldering\ninto life, the living life of Fujiyama.\n\nBeneath the rounded dip of the summit were two tiny cracks, and the sky\nwhich lay so blue within the crescent curve seemed straining through.\nHere was neither tree nor rock, neither snow nor glacier, nothing to\nhide the form and substance of the mountain. Quite smoothly it rose,\ndeep black, one great dead cinder.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was perfectly fine when at last towards six o\u2019clock we started to\nclimb; and the pale blue sky lay flat behind Fuji, as the background in\na picture.\n\nOur path was narrow, just a foot-wide track beaten firm in the steep\ncinder-slope. And we climbed, till at No. 4 we stopped to rest.\n\nThe stations on Fuji are all much alike. A matted room lined with\n_futon_, and always a square well at the back with a charcoal fire\nand an ever-boiling kettle. As you go up the wooden walls are hidden\noutside beneath huge blocks of cut lava, hidden deeper and deeper,\nwhile the roofs are fastened down with lava-stones. Yet every winter\nFuji blows down the built-up walls, tears off the roofs, and sends the\nbig blocks hurtling down the slope. Even in summer the roof and walls\nlose portions of themselves, which, rolling, rolling, rolling, roll\nfor ever downwards. Some of the stations are smaller, some larger,\nsome cleaner, this is the only difference. In each you sit down on the\nmatting to rest, and the crouching man over the fire brings you hot\ntea, and rice-paste cakes, while a far-away figure dimly seen through\nthe smoke of the charcoal fire asks your guide where you come from,\nwhere you are going to, when you started, and what time you will be\nback. And your guide replies, with endless details as to your behaviour\nif you are an _Ijin San_, and the amount you have already expended on\ntea and tips.\n\nIt was a glorious morning and one with the added charm of uncertainty.\n\nFloating in the blue above and below us were clouds, large white clouds\nwhich would swoop down on the land, suddenly, and hide it as under a\nnapkin. Then the black cone of Fuji, a cone with its top bitten out in\ntwo little bites, would pull down a thick flap out of the blue, and\ndisappear. Mountain, sky and land shifted and shone, passed in an eddy\nof broken glimpses, stayed in a still-set picture, or were lost under\ncovering clouds.\n\nBut always the steep little path led up through the loose cinder-slope,\nand always we climbed.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe steepest and most tiring part of the climb, except the natural\nstaircase below the summit, is between the sixth and eighth station,\nwhere the path, leaving the cinder-slope, runs along a ridge of solid\nlava, rising like the long root of a tree high up out of the cinders,\nand loses itself among great black blocks. To cross this was something\nlike jumping over sea rocks when the tide is out, only instead of lying\nflat these went steeply upward.\n\nAs we went toiling painfully along, feeling very like ants crawling up\na tree-trunk, the clash of tiny cymbals, the faint echoes of talk and\nlaughter came floating up. It was a whole party of pilgrims who came\nswinging up hand over hand, as it were, and as easily as if they were\nskating on good ice. We first saw them as we stood propped against\nthe lava-blocks, panting, and they were far below us, tiny as dwarfs,\nlittle spots of white on the dead-black slope, away down in the second\nstorey as we were in the sixth. But as we laboriously climbed our\ninches they came on swiftly--on, up, on, past us; the little bells\nclashing and chiming gaily to the talk and laughter. Our guide told us\nthey were _kurumaya_ who had started from Gotemba that morning at two,\nand who would get back there again before dark, to work the next day\nas usual. Anything like the pace at which those men came up the steep\nslope of Fuji--for the most part straight over the long beds of loose\ncinders--I have never seen. It was like sailors running up a rope. They\ncame up more swiftly than most people would care to go down, without\nan effort, with plenty of breath left to talk and laugh, and with that\nsupreme ease which only comes when doing something well within the\nmargin of one\u2019s power.\n\nWe were very glad to rest at No. 8, though our friends the _kurumaya_\nhad gone on cheerfully. It was such a nice large tea-house, beautifully\nclean, and the hot egg-bowls full of tea were peculiarly refreshing.\nWithout the continuous tea I do not know how one would climb Fuji at\nall. The air at 13,000 feet freezes, but the sun of Japan pours down\nrelentlessly, fierce as the tropics, while the hot dust drifts down\none\u2019s throat, into one\u2019s very skin; and when the wind blows you need to\ncling to the shifting cinders with the very soles of your feet. Shelter\non the bare slopes of Fuji there is none. Frequently the wind is so\nfierce even in the six brief weeks of summer that to stand upright is\nimpossible, for Fuji\u2019s summit is in the heart of the storm.\n\nBetween the eighth and the ninth station the path was easy, but we\nclimbed it wrapped in a sudden cloud. All the long sweep of earth below\nwas gone. The green Tokyo plain, where the dark thunder-clouds lay\nbrooding in the still blue air, and the great fingers of light which\nstruck so fiercely on the little lakes beneath the mud bank of the\nhills, the dark cone, so near above us, all were gone, sponged out by\na big cloud. And we were only climbing up a steep black rope that hung\nbetween two infinities, climbing out of space, into space.\n\nFrom the ninth and last station you climb into Fuji\u2019s stronghold by a\ngiant staircase of rough lava. It is necessary here to hoist yourself\npainfully up by the aid of guides or your own two hands. We climbed on\nslowly. The lava was quite hot, for the staircase lies cut within the\nslope, and gets and keeps the heat.\n\nOn the steepest step of the staircase we passed an old, old man, and\nan old, old woman, both in the white garb of pilgrims, and each with\na guide on either side to help them on. The last pitiful effort of\nthe old woman to drag herself up on to a lava-block had exhausted her\ncompletely; she lay huddled against the stones gasping, her eyes shut.\nThe old man kneeling by her side was holding the wrinkled hand in both\nof his trying to encourage her. The cracked old voice, broken with\nquavering pants for breath, sounded strangely on the desolate black\nstaircase as we came by.\n\n\u201cWe are going,\u201d he chanted--\u201cwe are going to the top.\u201d\n\nAnd the four guides in their fresh young voices sang: \u201cTo the top, to\nthe top, to the top.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe are going,\u201d repeated the old man, softly stroking the hand he\nheld--\u201cwe are going to the top.\u201d\n\nAnd again the four young voices rang out vigourously: \u201cTo the top, to\nthe top, to the top.\u201d\n\nIt was the pilgrims\u2019 hymn, and the old woman heard it. Slowly she\nstirred, her mouth opened with a sigh of utter weariness, but still she\ntoo sang in the thinnest trickle of a voice, broken with quavering sobs:\n\n\u201cTo the top, to the top, to the top.\u201d\n\nIt was the most pathetic music I have ever heard. Indeed the wave of\nfaith was great which could carry such as these to the top of Fuji San.\n\n * * * * *\n\nUp the steep steps, cut so deep within the lava, we hurried panting,\neager we, too, to reach the top. But the summit of Fujiyama is a\nsanctuary, and on its threshold stood two priests.\n\nAs we stumbled up over the last step, and on to the path which runs\naround the crater, they barred our way, standing motionless behind a\nwhite-wood wicket. In the breeze their black robes fluttered, their\ntonsured heads were bare.\n\nSurprised we paused. All the climber\u2019s hurry fell away. This was not\nanother peak to be raced up and raced down by the indifferent tourist,\nnot another ascent to be added to the list of the mountaineer. Fuji\nSan is sacred. Enter into his courts as into the temple of the Lord,\nhumbly, reverently, or at least with a sincere respect.\n\nThe two priests leaned over the wicket as we came up and bowed; but\nthey did not open it. One stretched out his hand for our staves to\nstamp them with the temple\u2019s crest. On the summit of Fuji San the crest\nis stamped in vermilion ink. In the temples at the foot it is burnt\nwith a red-hot iron: vermilion is a royal colour.\n\nThe other priest, holding a bamboo dipper, came slowly towards us.\nSomething he was saying as he moved, in the nasal sing-song of the\npriest. Then he motioned to us to put out our hands and slowly,\ncarefully, he poured the ice-cold water over them. And they bade us\nenter. It was the rite of purification, the symbol of the contrite\nheart which all who cross great Fuji\u2019s threshold must surely bring.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOnce inside the wicket the path, beaten wide here, ran between a\nbreast-high wall of lava which, built like a rampart on the edge of\nFuji, hid the sheer sides of the mountain and a row of low wooden huts,\nthe rest-houses--ran between these and on, up to where the black edge\nof the crater, like the rim of a broken cup, cut the sky in sharp clear\nlines.\n\nFor the moment it was fine, and leaving our luggage in one of the huts\nwe hurried on, past the rest-houses, on past the rampart wall, on along\nthe little beaten track which still led steeply upwards. Then sharply\nit turned, and we stood wedged within a crack in the crater wall, with\nthe sharp black rim rising high on either hand.\n\nWe were alone on Fuji\u2019s side, before his altar. And there was no sound.\n\nIn a stillness as of death the vast crater stretched 800 feet below,\nand the grey ash-dust gathering through two centuries lay thick and\nsmooth as sand upon the shore. Steeply the cinder-walls rose up, rose\nround, and held the ash. Only in front of us, across half a mile of\nsilent dust, a wide crack in the cup-like rim showed two tall poles\nand many floating banners, there where the temple\u2019s wicket crossed the\npathway from Gotemba.\n\nGrey ash and cinder, that was Fuji San. Once a mighty fire, a fire\ntwo and a half miles round, with 13,000 feet of cinders, and a bed\nof ash 2000 feet across. And now, dying or asleep, rigid as death,\ngrown grey and cold, but yet mighty as the sea, powerful as the storm;\nNature\u2019s eternal force made visible. And that still life which rolls\naround our human incompleteness, mysterious and unknown, drew near.\nAlmost it seemed as though we touched the force without, the unresting\nnaked flame of being which threads through the spheres. Almost we\ntouched--but saw only the corpse of Life, for Nature keeps her\nsecrets....\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn a silence as of death, the vast still crater stretched for a circle\nof two miles, and the grey ash-dust gathering through two centuries lay\nthick and smooth--the pall of a mighty God.\n\nSteeply the cindery walls rose up, rose round in jagged points like\nthe rim of a broken cup, and into the crack there came two white-clad\npilgrims. They knelt bareheaded on the edge of the crater, looking\ndown, and the murmured sing-song of their prayers broke the silence.\nOld and grizzled, their bullet-heads were bent before the altar in a\nFaith reverent and sincere.\n\nTruly the might of God had dwelt on Fuji; the breath of Eternal Life\nhad rested here--rested and passed, or was passing; and the pilgrim in\nhis faith holds sacred the print of that footstep. He prays to that\npart of the Godhead incarnate in Fuji--Fuji so perfect in his grace, so\nstirring in his strength.\n\nIn western lands the Roman Catholic peasant prays before his altar, but\nthe symbol of his Godhead is often reduced to a composite Christ in\npink and white plaster. If Truth must have a form--and mankind believes\nwith difficulty in abstract nouns--it surely is a purer, grander faith\nto feel God visible in Fuji\u2019s curves, dwelling in his sleeping fires,\nthan to hem Him in a building made by man and seat Him on an ugly altar\nbetween groups of tawdry flowers.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe little narrow path which led down into the crack led also round\nthe summit below the jagged edges of the crater\u2019s rim, and we followed\nit. Outside the crack it went steeply downwards before it turned, for\nabove, the cindery slopes of Fuji were steaming white in the sunshine,\nand the ground was very hot. It is but a patch, still evidence that\nFuji sleeps. He is not dead.\n\nThen the wandering pathway, a black thread on the loose cinder-slope,\nled up again, round and down into a tiny fold among the cinders, and\nsuddenly, quickly as a camera snaps, the white clouds, loosely piled\nupon the mountain, were riven asunder, and the whole world shimmering\nin a golden haze that touched but did not hide it, lay at our feet.\n\nStraight down below, 13,000 feet away, it lay. All the long line of\nthe river Fujikawa, gleaming blue-black as rough-cast iron, among the\norange sand-flats of its mouth. And the soft curves of the Yokohama\npeninsula, a smaller but more graceful Italy, floating, floating, on\nthe water, purple-blue on azure blue.\n\nAnd all beyond was the blue intensity of the infinite sea.\n\nSo near it looked, so clear that the steely line of the Fujikawa seemed\na sword-blade one could stoop and reach. And leaning we looked from\nFuji\u2019s top as from a tower; but Fuji\u2019s self we could not see. His\ncinder-slopes had vanished.\n\nStraight down below there was the world, and we above it hung suspended\n13,000 feet above the earth. Beyond, above, outside of it. Dear Earth,\nhow still it lay, how beautiful!\n\nAnd into my mind there floated the old, old words: \u201cAnd He divided the\nland from the waters, and the dry land He called Earth.... And God\nlooked and saw that it was good.\u201d\n\nAbove the world, beyond it, we too could look and see, and we too \u201csaw\nthat it was good.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nThen the little wandering track, beaten firm by the feet of the\npilgrims, led on, up and down, among the cinders of Fuji\u2019s sides, and\nround to that great crack in the cup\u2019s rim where the pathway from\nGotemba reached the summit.\n\nHere were crowds of people, all the pilgrims on Fuji San, pouring\nthrough the white-wood wicket, or buying draughts of the sacred \u201cGolden\nWater\u201d which is born in the depths of the crater.\n\nAs we stood drinking our little bowlful of the ice-cold water, the low\nboom of a Japanese temple bell came swaying through the air, and each\njagged peak round the crater\u2019s rim added its muffled echo to the bell\u2019s\ndeep boom.\n\nThe level space which formed the floor to this big crack was full of\npilgrims old and young, men, women and little children, and they were\nall pressing forward between the tall poles, where the long banners\ntied top and bottom were stirring in the wind, to the little temple\nlying under the very edge of Fuji, as a nest beneath the eaves. The\ntemple seemed full already, but the crowd, courteous for all their\nzeal, pressed forward gently, content, if they could not enter, to stay\noutside.\n\nAgain the low liquid boom came swaying through the air, prolonged by\nthe muffled echoes of the jagged peaks. And we too walked towards the\ntemple. But the patient crowd without reached already to the pathway,\nand must press back against the cinder sides as the long procession\nof black-robed priests, with copes and stoles and vestments of rich\nbrocade, swept into the temple.\n\nThen the liquid booming bell swayed out again--and was still; and the\nmuffled echoes of the peaks, subdued and faint, lingered in the intense\nsilence.\n\nThe priests had passed within.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe ash on the floor of the crater was soft and very thick. It lay in\nthin round flakes that broke between the fingers, and the feet sank\ninto it, drawn under as on sand that is half-quick. It was like walking\non piles of those sunlit flecks that carpet a beech-wood; but the\nlight had gone out of these and left them pale and grey.\n\nAll around the black walls of the crater rose up into the sky, five\nhundred feet of sheer height. Shut into the crater pit with the dead\nash sucking our feet we seemed to have come to the region where death\nlies behind--and birth is yet to come. We stood in the Place of Pause,\nin that Between which is Nothingness.\n\nSmooth as the sand of the shore the ash stretched along. Loose and\nthick the flakes were piled, and the feet, drawn under, grew heavy.\n\nWhat was beneath? Nothingness?\n\nAnd a strange fear of falling through the loose ash into that\nNothingness grew with each empty moment.\n\nFaintly, far away, the stir of Life\u2019s Birth reached into the void. It\ncame from below, deep through the ash where a little clear trickle of\nwater sang in the silence. Distinct, but so soft that the senses must\nneeds strain to hear. Through the ash, beneath the ash, the water\ntrickled, faint as a new-born breath. And its name it was Golden.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe hut when we reached it was empty, and it lay facing the lava-wall,\nthe last of the row, and all of them were open in front, like cages at\nthe Zoo.\n\nThe square pit with its charcoal fire was in front here, and we had to\npass behind it to reach the unoccupied space at the back. As we crawled\nover the matting darkened by our own shadows, for the only light came\nthrough the open front, we almost stumbled over some one rolled up in\na bundle of _futon_. It was the old, old woman of the morning. She was\nasleep, in the deep, dull sleep of utter exhaustion, and her wrinkled\nchin, dropped down, trembled, as she slept.\n\nIt was very cold in the hut, and we too were glad of _futon_ and\negg-bowls of hot tea, glad to eat our tinned tongue and slices of\ndry bread, and gladder still just to stay wrapt in the _futon_, and\nsleepily rest.\n\nThe landlord, like an image, sat on his heels in the well and never\nstirred. From time to time he put fresh pieces of charcoal on the fire\nwith a pair of brass chopsticks; then the smoke, sweeping in dense\nwaves through the room, would make us all cough abruptly, till it\nmelted slowly away and the room was still.\n\nBeyond the lava-wall the grey-white clouds lay herded as a fold of\nsheep, and we watched them mounting up and up, rolling against the\nwall, rising above it, sending thin wreaths and wisps of mists across\nthe pathway, which stayed like ribbons in the air, and then sinking,\ndropped down again. Often they came up, and always rolled back beaten.\nFuji\u2019s summit is above the clouds, they could not scale it.\n\nIn twos and threes and little groups, the white-robed pilgrims stopped\nto sit on the edge of the matting and drink tea, and eat innumerable\nballs of rice rolled in a soft grated substance that looked to be, but\nwas not, cheese--a thing unknown in this milkless land. So the pilgrims\nsat on the matting and ate their rice-balls, which the landlord,\nwithout moving his body a hair\u2019s-breadth, produced and rolled, and\nsprinkled, and handed. And the acrid smoke from the charcoal fire\ndrifted across the room, filling it.\n\n * * * * *\n\nQuite suddenly I awoke out of my sleep, to find some one on the floor\nbeside me waking the old, old woman. It took her a long time to\nstruggle out of that dense, deep sleep into a state of even drowsy\nconsciousness. She sat up, bewildered, and when they told her she must\ngo, get up, climb all that weary way down again, the old face seemed\nto shrink together in hopeless despair. There was a long dreary pause.\nThen the old, old woman bowed, the smile of courtesy upon her worn old\nface.\n\n\u201c_Yorosh\u016b gozaimas_\u201d (\u201cAs it honourably pleases you\u201d), she said. And\nrising, she tottered out.\n\nThis flesh was more than weak, but the spirit was the spirit of her\nrace--it sacrificed all things.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe were to sleep in Yoshida that night, and for us too it was time to\ngo. So leaving our money on the edge of the fire-pit we crawled out\nof the hut. The image sitting on its heels never stirred; with one\nswift glance beneath the eyelids, he had reckoned the money to the\nlast _sen_, but whether more or less than he expected, he remained\nimmovable, magnificently unconscious, occupied solely in bowing us\nout. Had it been less than the proper charge we certainly should have\nheard of it through the guide, but as tea is never charged for, each\nvisitor pays for it according to his rank, exigencies, generosity, and\nthe status of the tea-house. In reality, of course, it is payment for\nattendance as well as tea.\n\nThe Japanese hold that no service performed can ever have a money\nequivalent. In their economy, money was never a real asset, as courage,\nknowledge or art, and they ignored it, when they did not despise it. So\nin the old days, those trades which had most to do with money, whose\naim seemed to be the getting of money, were looked down on. Shopkeepers\nand merchants ranked below swordsmiths, peasants and artisans. Only the\nignoble would choose such as a life\u2019s work, and if to-day this idea has\nhindered commerce, if it has produced the low standard of some business\nmen, and consequently the foreigner\u2019s bad opinion of them, it has, on\nthe other hand, lifted the nation out of the rut of sordid greed, made\nit seek after, and lay fast hold of, that which seems to it true--made\nof its people a race of men, of gentlemen, honourable, high-principled,\nand capable of indomitable devotion to their ideal.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe stepped off the summit of Fuji San into a wet white cloud, which\nwas the sky of the earth below. For the first two stages the way down\nwas the same as the way up, but at No. 8 the paths divided, the one to\nYoshida leading away to the left.\n\nAfter we had made a sort of semi-tour of the mountain we climbed over a\nlava-ridge and found ourselves in the centre of a black scoop in Fuji\u2019s\nside that, coming from above, stretched interminably downwards. And\nthe whole of the huge groove was a mass of the loosest, most shifting\ncinder. There was no path. One went down. At each step all the cinders\non that part of Fuji slid bodily, tumbling over each other in their\nhaste. You slid too, until the cinders, piling themselves up and up,\nreached the knee, and abruptly you stopped, only to pull out that leg\nand begin to slide again with the other. The rate at which one shot\ndown was prodigious, and the method alarming. Each step seemed to start\nhalf the mountain rolling, rolling, for ever downwards, and there\nseemed no particular reason why the other half with you on it should\nnot roll away too. Positively, as the torrent of cinders rolled and\nrolled and rolled, the conviction that Fujiyama must look smaller next\nmorning grew upon me. Until with a flash of understanding I remembered\nthe legend of the dust brought down by the pilgrims\u2019 feet flying each\nnight back to the mountain. And it seemed a very necessary explanation,\nand quite convincing too, when I looked at the tons and tons of cinders\nwhich my feet alone were sending down Fuji\u2019s side.\n\nAfter awhile the slope grew even steeper, and the cinders from black\nbecame a deep dull red. And still one shot downwards. Small patches of\npowdery, grey snow sprinkled with tiny round spots were tucked away\nhere between the red cinders, and the whole slope was covered with the\nstraw sandals of former pilgrims. They were scattered over the red\ncinders like a new kind of vegetation hardier than the rest, and there\nwere thousands on thousands of them.\n\nAnd still we shot downwards. At too steep an angle now to be brought up\nmerely by the weight of the cinders, so that we were obliged to invent\nbrakes with our more or less free foot, our extended arms, or the\nangle of our bodies; and we were very glad indeed of our staves to put\nany sort of term to the long uncomfortable slide.\n\nIt was a long while before we passed out of the zone of the _waraji_,\nand saw real little green things growing between the cinders. They\nlooked utterly miserable and degenerate, but they did make the ballast\nsolider, and the sliding easier.\n\nIt was a gigantic slide, but we brought up at last on a ridge of grey\nrock, over which we had to climb carefully, for it was full of holes.\nOn the other side of this ridge the degenerate green weeds had grown\ninto degenerate green plants; and after a few more slides and climbs\nthe plants became bushes, stunted and miserable, but bushes, and we\ncame out on to a sort of natural grass platform, before the rest-house\nof No. 4, Yoshida side. It was dirty, the first dirty house I had ever\nseen in Japan. Below us, as though stopped short by a word of command,\n\u201cThus far and no further,\u201d were the trees; the tops of the nearest were\non a level with the platform, but not one grew upon it.\n\nWith the cinder-slope behind us we stepped off the grass platform\nstraight into the forest. It was a beautiful forest. First firs, and\nthen, as we went downwards, green trees, small oaks and cryptomerias of\nall kinds.\n\nTo feet weary of ballast-heaps, the forest footpath was a rest\nrefreshing, and the delight of growing trees and green fresh leaves\nafter _waraji_ and cinders, an enchantment. But Fuji had not finished\nhis surprises or his trials. Soon the pathway disappeared from under\nour feet, and only the roots of the trees remained. On these we had\nto walk, and they were slippery, knotted, and far apart, and full of\ntangled holes that caught and tripped the feet.\n\nA polite Japanese student came and walked with us a little way \u201cto\nimprove his English,\u201d but his feet in their _waraji_ stepped over the\ntree-roots faster than ours in our boots, and we were soon left alone\nagain.\n\nGradually, as we went downwards, the forest altered from the austere\nwood of the mountain to the rich luxuriant wood of the plains, green\nwith moss, covered with creepers, dripping with big juicy drops of\nwater as though rich sap were oozing from every vein.\n\nAll through the wood there were tiny tea-houses, set under a tree and\nlost among the branches. We passed No. 1 at least seven times, each\ntime certain that it really must be the real original No. 1, and that\nthe \u201chorse-turn-back\u201d station, where we could get a _basha_ to carry us\nto Yoshida, was necessarily \u201cthe next.\u201d After the weary sliding down\nthat abrupt slope, the muscles of one\u2019s legs were all trembling with\nthe strain, and the tree-roots, slippery and uncertain, became doubly\ndifficult. We were still going down so steeply that the hollow of the\npathway lay like a green chimney below us. Slowly up through this\nliving funnel came the pilgrim\u2019s chant.\n\n\u201cWe are going,\u201d and the little bells clashed out triumphant--\u201cwe are\ngoing to the top.\u201d\n\nThen the deep sing-song of the chorus, coming nearer with each\nsyllable, grew louder:\n\n\u201cTop ... the top ... to the top.\u201d\n\nWe waited while the chant coming up from the green depths below came\nnearer, came past us, went on.\n\nFrom the green heights above it sounded down.\n\n\u201cWe are going,\u201d and the tiny cymbals clashed--\u201cwe are going to the\ntop.\u201d\n\nAnd faintly echoing from above came the answer: \u201cTo the top ... the top\n... top.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd still the first stations succeeded one another, and the tired feet\nand the aching muscles grew more weary. The wood was dense as ever, but\nless steep, and at last there came earth as well as tree-roots for a\npathway.\n\nWe passed through another station, half tea-house, half temple, where\na man sat behind a tray of thin irons stamped with the temple\u2019s crest,\nand where gods and tea-bowls filled the shelves. The path went through\nit and out again, under the trees, a path of good stamped earth. Then\ntwisting suddenly it ended in four smooth green steps that led down\ninto a natural amphitheatre, with tea-houses on each side. This was the\n_Mma gaeshi_--\u201chorse-turn-back\u201d station--Yoshida side. Away to the left\nwere several square boxes on wheels, otherwise the stage was empty. It\nwas, indeed, exactly like a \u201cset\u201d in an opera.\n\nWe hobbled, it was so difficult to walk on _flat_ earth, to a tea-house\nand sat down demanding _basha_. Slowly a man entered right front, and\ncrossing left centre tipped up a square box and waited. Then another\nman, entering left front, harnessed a horse to it. This took them half\nan hour, because they wanted four times too much for the drive to\nYoshida, and at each refusal, at each expostulation, at each rebate,\nthe one man dropped the square box down on the ground and the other\ngave up harnessing the horse. Meanwhile we drank tea and monotonously\nrepeated our price. After half an hour the _basha_ was finally\nharnessed, and crossing left front we got in.\n\nThis _basha_ was simply a square box without a lid, mounted on wheels.\nYou sat on a piece of matting spread at the bottom, leant against\nthe wooden back and clutched hard at the sides to keep yourself in.\nThe driver sat on the shaft and used his feet as a brake. The reins\nconsisted of one length of straw rope attached to the left side of the\nhorse\u2019s head.\n\nFor the first half-hour the relief of stretching out one\u2019s miserable,\ntrembling legs was pure bliss, after that, _basha_-driving was\npleasant but jolty, and after that it became renewed torture to endure\nthe jolting, and the aches in one\u2019s back and arms were vigorous and\npersistent. Road there was none, only two large ruts, in, over and\namong which we wandered.\n\nThe trees stopped as abruptly above the natural amphitheatre of _Mma\ngaeshi_ as they had begun below the platform of No. 4. And for the\nwhole two hours of our journey to Yoshida we travelled over an immense\nfar-reaching common, one of the soft ripples at Fuji\u2019s base. There was\nnot a house or a village to be seen, nothing but the wide stretch of\ngreen common.\n\nIt was half-past five when the _basha_ started out among the ruts,\nand the clear, colourless light of a northern evening--we were 3000\nfeet up--which is not cold, yet is so colourless, enclosed the earth.\nThe sky was as bare of clouds as the common of landmarks; the one lay\npalely blue above, the other stretched subduedly green below. Here and\nthere the green was crossed by long flushes of colour, with the red of\ntiny tiger-lilies, and the pale yellow of the evening primrose. Behind,\nLord Fuji rose majestic. At first a line of fleecy cloud had lain above\nthe deep green of the forest, and Fuji\u2019s head was lost in mist, but at\nthe sunset the clouds fell away lower and lower, until the whole long\nsweep of Fuji rose up triumphant into the blue.\n\nIt was but slowly that the _basha_ jolted among the deep-cut ruts of\nthe common, and but slowly that we travelled on, downwards.\n\nLooking out across the wide flat land we saw that the whole world was\nslightly rounded, slightly tilted. It was like journeying over a large\ngreen apple. The globe in fact palpable, visibly rounded. Away on\nthe left the sun was setting in straight streamers of pale red edged\nwith shining gold. And the green common, with its pools of little red\nlilies, and its bands of pale yellow primroses, grew greyer and greyer.\n\nFuji San, perfect in long smooth curves, stood purple-blue behind.\nClear-cut as a jewel in a setting he rose up, rose up, until the\nrounded strength of his summit lay bright sapphire on the azure sky.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOver the ruts the _basha_ stumbled, endlessly jolting.\n\nThe sun set slowly, and slowly the colours died. Grey lay the common in\nfront of us, on each side. Lord Fuji was but a dark, still shadow. And\nover the ruts the _basha_ stumbled in long, slow jolts.\n\nWe were very tired, our backs ached with the jolting, and our arms were\nnumb with pain. All around us the grey spaces of the common stretched\nuninterruptedly, without house or village. Where was Yoshida?\n\nStill the _basha_ lumbered and stumbled, and we looked for lights and\nhouses.\n\nNothing. Only in front of us the grey level of the common grew tall\nand black.... In a few more jolts the deep black had engulfed us, grey\ncommon and all, and we were wandering among dark shadows that were\ntrees.\n\nIn the very pitch of the blackness the cart suddenly stopped. We were\nasked to get out. The _basha_ went no further.\n\n\u201cBut Yoshida?\u201d\n\n\u201c_Yoshida yorosh\u012b!_--all right,\u201d replied the man, unconcerned, as\nthough every traveller to every town arrived in a dark wood without\nsight or sound of houses; and he drove off.\n\nOur guide picked up the luggage, and we followed stumbling, straining\nour eyes to tell the deeper shadows that were trees from the paler dark\nthat meant pathway.\n\nSlowly the deeper shadows receded, and in their place came the dim\nforms of houses. Then a sharp turn and we were walking along a real\nroad with the familiar knitting-needles of the Japanese tramway shining\nin the twilight. After a while the houses grew denser, and some of\nthem had lights; but the contrast only made the pale dark of the open\nroadway seem still blacker.\n\nLarge trucks, like kitchen-tables with their legs cut short, came\nsliding past us as we stumbled on, gliding slowly down the road alone\nand unattached.\n\nParties of pilgrims in white, with white staves in their hands, came\nunexpectedly out of the darkness, and the lighted paper lanterns in\ntheir hands warmed their white clothes into a rich cream-yellow,\nprecipitating them into solid bodies from the waist downward, while\ntheir heads and shoulders drifted slowly on through the pale night like\nimpalpable ghosts.\n\nWe had reached the top of the hill, and the road, in a sudden turn,\nran sharply away from us. The houses were on both sides now in one\ncontinuous line, and the shock of meeting trucks jarred through the\nstreet. There was a flare of orange light where the knitting-needles\nbecame a shunting-yard.\n\nThis was Yoshida.\n\nOur landlady was aristocratic to her finger-tips. She had the long\nslim neck, the long thin face, with its pure outlines, the long\nnarrow eyes, the long graceful body, and the delicate poise which is\nthe ideal type of the aristocrat--and rare even among them. When she\nknelt on the matting to receive us, she did it with the distinction\nof a queen, and all her movements showed that clean-cut grace, that\ncourtesy without effort, that refinement of pose and gesture which\nonly the continued culture of long generations can produce, and which\nis to mere politeness or mere beauty as the subtle music of the poet\nto Monsieur Jourdain\u2019s prose. Her husband was a bullet-headed man\nof the people, stubby and plebeian. His manners, like his Japanese,\nwere polite of course, but undistinguished, while our hostess spoke a\nlanguage as courtly as her ways. When she glided over the matting, her\nlong sleeves swaying, or stretched out her thin slim-fingered hand to\ntake our tea-cups, we felt like beings of a lower evolution, and this\nhigher product, evolved by centuries of self-control and a living love\nof beauty, was the human form made perfect, to which we might, perhaps,\none day attain.\n\nEven the inn possessed something of her grace: the matting was whiter,\nthe woodwork smoother, the steep stairway--set like a ladder between\nthe walls--more polished than elsewhere. The tiny medallions set deep\nin the _sh\u014dji_, which are as the handles to our doors, were works\nof art. The miniature garden of the courtyard, with its hills and\ntrees and swift grey stream, was a living landscape, perfect in form\nand colouring. Even the shallow brass pans in which we washed, the\ncommonest of hotel furniture, had an elegance of their own. And in\nthe refined and beautiful inn our graceful, courtly landlady knelt\nand offered us platefuls of \u201cmixed biscuits.\u201d They were certainly\ncheap ones, but never did the utter vulgarity of their shapes, or the\ncrudeness of their colouring, strike so sharply on my senses. If they\nhad tasted like manna from the wilderness I could not have eaten one.\nThey were too ugly.\n\nIt is vivid still, the bliss of that hot bath in fresh mountain water\npumped from a stream which comes from Fuji\u2019s sacred slopes, and the\njoy of that long dreamless sleep under the green mosquito curtain in\nour white matted room. Vivid still, the breakfast cooked over the\n_hibachi_, with our aristocratic landlady, every line of her graceful\nform looking purer and more refined as she stooped to hold the handle\nof the frying-pan, while her stolid husband on his knees before his\noffice desk in the corner looked on good-naturedly, and the stout\nlittle maid watched the foreign cooking of our ham as though it had\nbeen a sacred rite.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe were to return by the lakes which encircle Fuji, and we set out that\nmorning along a dull dusty road between dull dusty banks.\n\nIt was but a little way to the first lake, but hot beyond believing,\nand when we reached it, and pushed out in our boat beyond the narrow\ninlet which ran deep into the road, the heat settled down like a roof\nabove our heads.\n\nThe sky was one superb arch of azure blue; the earth in front of us a\nwide, bare flat, glittering with heat. And from out of that gleaming,\nquivering mist which hid the level land Great Fuji rose dark blue on\nblue. Naked and superb he stood against the background of the sky\nsecure in his strength, perfect in his beauty, beyond words, beyond\npraise, in sober truth--divine.\n\nIt took an hour and a half to cross the lake, and all the time Fuji\nSan, set in the framework of the turquoise sky, with the gleaming,\nglittering mist of light sweeping like an iridescent cloud to the edge\nof his dark blue slope, stayed with us. For an hour and a half we\nlooked, and the form and the soul of the mountain sank deep within our\nhearts.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe second lake is divided from the first by a natural wall of hill\nover which we climbed, the sun striking fiercely on the pathway where\none small patch of shade lay black on the thick white dust.\n\nThe second lake was set deep within the circle of the hills, and we\ncrossed it in company with three men who had drunk much _sak\u00e9_, and\nanother who stuck fuses into a row of dynamite cartridges and then,\nleaving them under a corner of the matting in the bottom of the boat,\napparently forgot their existence. These four passengers and the two\nboatmen were continually stumbling up and down the boat to row in\nturns, and always within a few inches of the dynamite.\n\nIt was a somewhat agitating row, although we were assured the\ncartridges were \u201conly for fishing.\u201d\n\nIt ended at last, after a long two hours of suspense, among the quiet\ngrey boulders which stretched for a hundred yards between the water and\nthe wood.\n\nDown the little valley beyond the stones, a winding river of\nrice-fields ran like a grass-green stream, and we followed it, as one\nfollows up a mountain brook, till it dwindled and disappeared. Then the\nwood closed in above it, and we were in the middle of a weird uncanny\nforest, all grey and wrinkled, where multitudes of thick-set pole-like\ntrees, covered with a powdery dust, ranged ghost-like out of sight.\n\nAnd here we walked, the only living things in a spell-bound world,\nwalked until the earth grew thin beneath our feet and the rough grey\nboulders came up through the soil.\n\nThen for a long, long while we went beside a grey lava-river flowing\nbetween the grey tree-stems, a wide and furious river arrested as it\nswept in angry tumult through the wood, stopped dead, and each breaking\nwave turned into stone. We looked at this still, dead river and saw\nhow the years had covered the waves with a thick white crust of dust.\nBuried deep lay that tempest of passion which once had swept burning\nfrom Fuji\u2019s sides, buried deep beneath blocks of grey lava and the\ndrifting ash-grey dust.\n\nYet the very stones that buried it were carved in its image. And the\nface of that passion, petrified and deadly, looked up from the river.\nAnd all around the grey wood stood dead too, and very still, coated\ndeep with a powdery dust, ash-grey. For the spell of the river was over\nthe wood, and it was the death of Destruction.\n\nFor miles we walked beside that Medusa river, sometimes we left it,\nsometimes we crossed it, then losing it between the trees we wandered\nwhere the ghostly pole-like trunks grew thickest. But always the river\ncame back with the dead passion that made it staring rigid beneath the\nstones.\n\nMiles and miles of lava, wide, and long, and deep. The ghostly trees\nwere rooted in it, the very lakes lay cradled in it, the world for far\naround was made of it. Verily the fires of Fuji San were mighty in\nthose days.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe third lake was black, ink-black, black as strong-cast shadows in\nthe moonlight. Tarnished and still it lay, without a glitter or a\ngleam; yet the washing wavelets, as they poured over the stone at our\nfeet, were pure and clear, and the high steep hills that half encircled\nit were dense with the greenest trees.\n\nThe ghostly wood was ended, the petrified river gone; on the banks of\nthis sombre lake living trees were growing. Tangled and thick and high,\nthey walled in three sides of the lake, and, sweeping round in a long\nthin promontory, divided the ink-black waters with a sword of green.\n\nAlong the hill there ran no pathway, the trees stood too thick, the\nhill too steep. There was no boat upon the lake nor any road around\nit. The black waters washed to the foot of the trees, the trees\nstretched green to the top of the hills, and lake and wood were still\nas undiscovered country.\n\nAnd behind us lay all the long silence of the ghostly wood.\n\nOn the very edge of the promontory a white house rested, poised like a\ngull on the water, but the dead-black lake gave back no reflection, and\nthe dark-green hills caught no colour from the sun, nor stirred a leaf.\nSilent as the waters the house poised white beneath the evening sky.\n\nOn three sides the high hills shut in the lake, but on the fourth the\nlava-stones met the marsh, the marsh the common, and wide and flat the\ncommon stretched away to the beyond.\n\nA little while and the setting sun was down behind the hills, and all\nthe sky was darkening into night. Far over the common, and purple as a\nking\u2019s raiment, rose Fuji San. Grand and lonely he stood between dark\nearth and darkening sky; far off on the edge of the world, and all the\nsolemn stillness of the evening wrapt him round.\n\nGently fell the twilight on lake and hill. The grey spaces of the\ncommon stretched more vast and wide. The night was coming fast.\n\nBeneath my feet the blackness of the waters opened as the deep abyss.\nBehind, the horror of the spell-bound wood waited wide-eyed. Sweeping\nonwards in the twilight the indistinctness of the common passed out of\nsight, the pathless hills closed round me.\n\nThen the spell of the ghostly wood reached out to clutch. I looked\ntowards the light.... Dim as Life\u2019s hope it lay, far off beyond the\nhorizon, while all the blackness of the lake and hill surrounded me.\n\nI strained my eyes across the indistinctness, and from that far-off\nheaven a lofty Presence leaned.\n\nIt was the Great God Fuji.\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n EPILOGUE\n\n\nThe blue sea lies sleeping warm and still; the sky, another sea, sleeps\ntoo; only the green headlands standing between blue and blue watch,\ntheir feet in the water. And the heat is the heat of a summer\u2019s noon.\n\nSo still the sea, so quiet the sky, so calm the earth that the soft\nbreath of the sleeping ocean comes as a rippling sigh towards the land,\nwhile the blue sea above floats lazy.\n\nFrom their low hill Tesshuji\u2019s forsaken Gods look out. The temple walls\nare bare, its altars dumb, and the grass-grown court has shod even\nsilence with a velvet shoe. Dreaming, the Gods sit undisturbed, and the\nhush of the noonday\u2019s heat is deepened.\n\nIt is long since the clang of the praying-bell overhead called them to\nlisten. Still they sit, and look.\n\nIn the shadow of the doorway at the still Gods\u2019 feet, I, too, sit and\nlook.\n\nOver the sleeping sea, blue and still, beyond the watching headlands,\nout into the liquid sky above, where in utter majesty great Fuji\nrises one sheer line of beauty in the blue. The rounded curve of his\nsnow-crest shimmers white as a sun-caught sail, and the long slope of\nhis perfect form is a deep blue line on blue. Fuji rises as a tower, he\nfloats in that limpid sea above a mist-clad iceberg. And the glimmer\nof his snow-crest is a shining crown of glory in the sky. So real, so\nsimple, so beautiful. Just a crescent of white snow floating thirteen\nthousand feet above the world, and two long lines of blue sloping\ngently downwards, outwards to the earth. So simple, so beautiful, is it\nreal?\n\nA faint stir in the sleeping sea and I drop my eyes to the blue below.\n\nBeauty, said the Greeks, was born of the waves and the foam. Once in\nthat clear sea above, a great blue wave came leaping with a crest of\nfoam. It was Beauty\u2019s self, all-perfect, and they called it Fujiyama.\nBeauty content to be but beauty.\n\n * * * * *\n\nTesshuji\u2019s Gods look out over the sea, beyond the green headlands into\nthe blue. They dream undisturbed. They have looked so long.\n\nThe noonday heat has spread the land with a quivering haze of blue. It\nsleeps. The softly breathing sea sleeps too. No prayer has roused the\nGods, they too are sleeping.\n\nThe whole world, says the Scriptures, is but a dream of the great Lord\nBuddha. Tesshuji\u2019s Gods are dreaming, and Fuji is.\n\nDream Gods for ever.\n\n\n\n\n THE ART OF THE NATION\n\n \u201cAll that is superfluous is displeasing to God and Nature;\n all that is displeasing to God and Nature is bad.\u201d\n DANTE, \u201cDe Monarchia,\u201d bk. i. chap. xiv.\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n GRACE BEFORE MEAT\n\n\nThe _kuruma_ running quickly through the narrow opening in the high\nbamboo fence curved into a tiny garden set with dark green shrubs, and\nstopped abruptly.\n\nIn front of us, where a square recess broke the long line of wooden\nwall, a pile of _gheta_ lay heaped on a grey stone block. At the sound\nof our coming the wooden wall opened, and a Japanese in _kimono_ and\n_hakama_ stood bowing before us. He came with pairs of soft woolly\nnight-socks to cover English feet, and, sitting down on the narrow\nknee-high platform of polished black wood, we took off our boots. Two\ngiant curb-stones at right angles made a solitary step to reach the\nplatform, and leaving our leather boots, looking caricatures of feet\namong the wooden sandals, we followed the waiting _kimono_ along the\nthree-foot-wide platform.\n\nRound the corner of the square recess, and shut off from the tiny\ncourtyard by a thick screen of fence and shrubs, was a white garden,\nsunny and still, where, under a pale blue sky, the tall shadows of\nthe trees fell black across the pure white snow. Sliding back the\npaper-paned wall the waiting _kimono_ bowed us to enter.\n\n\u201cCome in, come in,\u201d said our friend the professor, his familiar face\nlooking strangely unfamiliar from out the wide-sleeved silken _kimono_\nand pleated silken skirts of his _hakama_, as he laughingly bowed us a\nJapanese welcome.\n\nThe first sensation on coming into that low matted room, bare of all\nfurniture, was one of intense awkwardness, all one\u2019s limbs seemed to\nhave swollen to ungainly proportions, and to have grown correspondingly\nwooden and jerky. In a flash I had slipped back to a child\u2019s years, and\nwas lying in my little iron bedstead in the dark, the haunting terror\nof the unknown upon me, as I stealthily pinched a mountainous leg with\na hand twelve feet thick, and trembled to feel the bedstead giving way\nbeneath me. That old sensation of unaccountable largeness, of bursting\none\u2019s surroundings, stayed as the unreal background to my mind until\nthe paper-paned walls closed behind me again.\n\n\u201cIf you would like a chair, there are just two--\u201d began the professor.\n\nBut we had come to be really Japanese, and Japanese we intended to\nremain at all costs. So, getting gingerly down on our knees on the\nsquare cushions that lay on the matted floor, we tried unsuccessfully\nto sit on our heels with the same grace as little Miss Hayashi\nopposite. There she sat, demure, serene, and, above all, supremely\ngraceful all through lunch, while we, like chestnuts on hot bricks,\nhopped from knee to knee, bobbed up and down, tucked our legs under us\nlike Turks, or bunchwise like children, leaned on one arm, then on the\nother, enduring untold horrors of pins and needles as we became more\nintimately acquainted with our own anatomy than we had ever done in all\nthe previous years of our existence. And my admiration of Miss Hayashi\ngrew as she sat there, one line of pure grace from the curves of her\nslender neck, rising from the folds of mauve and white, to the thick\nwadded hem of her _kimono_.\n\nAs I looked I grew more and more conscious that the dress and the room\nwere one, each the necessary complement of the other, the right frame\nfor the right picture, and the right picture in the right frame.\n\n\u201cThe soul of Japan,\u201d they say, \u201cis the sword of the _samurai_.\u201d \u201cThen\nthe soul of the _uchi_,\u201d I thought, \u201cis the _kimono_ of the housewife.\u201d\n\nThe simplicity of the straight-falling lines, the perfection of the\nembroidery on the innermost of the folds around the neck, the richness\nof the _obi_ at the waist, there was the same severity of design\nwith richness of decoration which characterised the room, where two\npaper-paned walls, one of sliding wood and the fourth stained a subdued\nbrown, enclosed the bare matted space. Against the one solid wall was\nbuilt a slightly raised platform of polished black wood, forming with\nthe two low pillars of wood a wide recess, the _tokonoma_. Within the\n_tokonoma_ hung a long silken scroll where pale storks flew across the\nmoon, a _kakemono_ of price. On the black wood of the platform, which\nwas raised but a few inches from the ground, were set the two swords\nof the _samurai_, a bronze horse of exquisite workmanship, and in the\ncorner some long branches of white plum-blossom in a vase. In these\nfour objects (as in the _obi_ and the embroidery of the neck-folds)\nlay the entire decoration of the room. And looking, one realised that\ngreat truth, almost unknown to us, but a truism in Japan--the artistic\nvalue of space. In a European drawing-room you often cannot see one\nornament for its fellows: here the bronze horse and the _kakemono_\nheld the eyes; one looked, and one _saw_; their beauty filled the soul;\nnext week, next month, they will go back to the store-house, and others\nwill take their place. I could never forget the curved lines of those\ntwo swords against the polished black floor under the white fragrance\nof the plum-blossoms, any more than I could forget the soft half-moon\ncurves of Miss Hayashi\u2019s _kimono_, white below mauve, as she glided\nover the matted floor.\n\nOur lunch, we had come to lunch, opened with tea, pale amber tea\nin little round bowls on bronze stands, and sugar chrysanthemums,\nrice-paste storks and dolphins, cakes and sweets as perfect in design\nand colouring as though they were intended to last for ever. A\nrosy-cheeked maid, who bumped her head so vigorously on the floor that\nI thought she must get a headache, presented the tea, a bump for each\nguest and three as a salutation, while Miss Hayashi, folding squares of\nwhite paper in double triangles with one sweep of her hand, delicately\nheaped them full of sugar flowers and fishes, and passed them round,\none to each of us.\n\nThen came a long pause, while we asked all the questions that occurred\nto us about _kimono_ and _hakama_, and swords and etiquette; and then\nour lunch, a whole lacquered trayful of bowls for each one of us, with\nall the courses served together, and all irretrievably and, to us,\ninexplicably mixed. I pass the hot soup in a lacquered bowl, and the\nhot rice in a china one, but the rest--a golden bream on a pale blue\nplate set round with oranges in jelly; slices of pink raw fish, and a\ndesign in brown seaweed and green roots; a deep bowl of pale yellow\ncustard, its surface ruffled with silver fishes, oriental whitebait,\nand its depths filled with bamboo shoots and lily bulbs and other\nsurprises; and one dish, a triumph of design and colour, where an oval\nslab of pounded fish, white as snow, rested against a green mound of\npreserved chestnuts, while in front, arranged in a curving crescent\nlike the tail of a comet, were purple roots, brown ginger, and slices\nof a red radish. And all this you eat as you please, a bit here, and a\nbit there, now a drink of salt soup, then a mouthful of sweet chestnut;\ncustard, vegetables, fish, sweets, with relays of rice for bread, and\n_sak\u00e9_ for wine, paper napkins, and withal two penholders to eat with,\nand your Japanese dinner is complete.\n\nHaving tried everything with the greatest perseverance, and wriggled\nour chopsticks until our hands were as tired as our toes, we gave in\nand rested from our labours. The little maid, rosier than ever, removed\nthe trays of food, and brought in bowls of oranges and dried persimmon.\n\nAt this moment there was a rustling of screens, and a dear, little old\nlady with shaven eyebrows and blackened teeth slid into the room, and\ninstantly went down on her knees, and putting out her hands bowed her\nhead right down on to them.\n\n\u201cThis is my aunt,\u201d said the professor, \u201ca real old-fashioned\nwoman--there are not many left nowadays--who blackens her teeth and\nshaves her eyebrows.\u201d\n\nThe little old lady laughed, and made many polite speeches, asking\nafter our \u201chonourable healths\u201d and our \u201caugust appetites.\u201d At every\nword she made another bow, until I felt as if I really must get down on\nmy knees and hit my forehead against the ground as well. Luckily the\nprofessor, after a moment\u2019s consultation, suggested we should see the\nhouse, and we all got up. The little old lady was on her feet in a\ntwinkling, but our half-dead limbs sent pins and needles up our legs,\nas we stumbled on to them and awkwardly walked away.\n\nThe sliding paper wall of our room hid another absolutely bare, no\n_tokonoma_ here, only a poem painted on a long narrow board fastened\nagainst the door-post, and in the further wall, shut off by sliding\nscreens, a large cupboard, full of the household linen, which means the\nsilk-wadded quilts or _futon_, on and under which one sleeps. Sliding\naside the door-panel we found ourselves on another three-foot-wide\nplatform, looking out through more paper-paned walls into another\ngarden. This house was just a long series of rooms with a platform and\na garden on each side, and a little square bunch of rooms at one end.\nIn one of these we cuddled down under a silk quilt thrown over a square\nhole in the middle of the room, and felt the heat coming up from the\nglowing charcoal sunk in a sort of pit beneath the floor.\n\nThen we peeped into the bathroom, containing a high wooden wash-tub\nwith a stove-pipe running down one end. The wash-tub is filled with\ncold water, and lighted charcoal put down the stove-pipe, and in a few\nminutes the water is hot, and you get in, and the longer you stay the\nhotter grows the water, until having boiled yourself in the approved\nJapanese way you step out and wipe yourself dry with a yard of white\ncotton adorned with blue storks.\n\nThen we invaded the kitchen, bare of everything like the other\nrooms, and with only a two-fold brazier to cook over; one brazier\nhas permanently fixed above it a coppered wooden tub, dedicated to\nrice-boiling, the other brazier cooked everything else. That was\nall. Wooden pots, pans and dippers were hung up inside the sliding\ncupboards, or were washing in the yard outside. A tiny shrine, like a\nmantelshelf over the sliding door, held minute gods in a dim light; a\npaper-framed bamboo lantern, like an afternoon-tea cake-table, with\nshelves between the legs for plates, stood in a corner. This is the\n_andon_, and inside the paper panes a floating wick in a saucer of oil\nburns all night.\n\nOur advent into these regions was attended with much excitement\npunctuated with peals of laughter, it striking the dear old lady as\nirresistibly funny, that it was all funny to us.\n\nIn the midst of our hilarity came the summons of the _kurumaya_, and\nout we had to go, take our boots from the friendly company of the\nwooden _gheta_, and laden with mysterious boxes neatly tied with red\nand white strings, and bunches of plum-blossom, say stiff English\n\u201cGood-byes,\u201d while the little old lady, the rosy-cheeked maid, and the\nrest of the household bowed us graceful Japanese _sayonara_ and _mata\nirasshai_ (Come again).\n\nThe _kuruma_ curved out through the tiny snow-covered garden set with\ndark shrubs, the paper-paned walls shut with a soft thud; the picture\nwas gone, but the memory of it will remain with me always.\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n IN A CLOISONN\u00c9 FACTORY\n\n\nNagoya is a manufacturing town with a quarter of a million of\ninhabitants. It is full of porcelain and fan factories, cloisonn\u00e9 works\nand cotton mills. It is the centre of the celebrated potteries of Seto,\nand is famous for its embroideries and its silks. It is bigger than\nNottingham or Hull, and is almost as large as Dublin. Nagoya is both\nStaffordshire and Bradford--and yet a city clean and still. A town of\nsunny streets and pure fresh air, whose sky is blue and clear, whose\ntrees are green. Its 250,000 inhabitants are mostly factory hands--and\nthere is neither dirt nor din. The golden dolphins on its castle\u2019s roof\nare three hundred years old, and they glitter in the sunshine like\nnew-fired gold.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOn the edge of the growing rice-fields the porcelain factory lies.\nIts doors are open to the sun; and in the corner of the low, white\nroom, where the workmen sit cross-legged like Buddhas, each beside his\npotter\u2019s wheel, a yellow vase of purple iris stands.\n\nThe room is still and fresh and clean. The whirr of the turning wheel\nis soft as the drowsing of a bee. There is no hurry as there is no\nidleness. And each worker, as he moulds his clay, looks towards the\npurple iris in the yellow vase.\n\nThe cloisonn\u00e9 works are built in the heart of the city, in the middle\nof a busy street, where blue-clad coolies continually load and unload\nthe wide coster-barrows which are the waggons of Japan. The hum of\nworking life is in the air, and the wide road which stretches without\ndivision of pavement across from side to side, is thronged. Business\nmen in grey _kimono_ and foreign hats go out and in; the loaded\nbarrows drawn by the blue-clad coolies pass up and down; fast-running\n_kurumaya_ steer in and out among the foot-passengers and the traffic.\nAnd the occasional collision is followed by mutual bows and polite\n_Gomen nasai_ (\u201cI beg your honourable pardon\u201d), on the part of either\ncoolie or _kurumaya_.\n\nNagoya factories and cotton mills are hard at work.\n\nThe gateway of the cloisonn\u00e9 works leads down a wooden passage into\na tiny court, a garden set round with the workshops of the factory.\nAnd such a garden. It is not larger than the front lawn of a suburban\nvilla, but the skill of a Japanese gardener has planted a whole\nmountain side with forests of pine and bamboo, has spanned with an\narching bridge the stone-grey stream at the mountain\u2019s foot. From\ninside the tiny matted rooms, no bigger than bathing-boxes, which shut\nin three sides of the garden, the illusion is complete. And the shade\nand coolness of the real trees and water, of the imaginary forest\nand stream, brings a sense of calmness and repose, of quiet peace\nand beauty, to all the many workers of the factory. It is a living\nlandscape growing unspoiled in the heart of a workshop in the centre of\na manufacturing city.\n\nEach on his mat in the clean, bare, matted rooms the workmen sit, the\nrice-paper _sh\u014dji_ pushed open to the mountain stream, and the forest\nof pine and bamboo. In the first room sit workers outlining the design\non the bare metal vase with metal wires, silver wires on silver vases,\ncopper wires on copper vases. And each design is different, and many of\nthe men are old. In the second room the bare metal vases are getting\na coat of coloured paste, and now the design stands out rough as a\ncave-man\u2019s drawing. Here the workers are younger, while boys fill in\nthe body of the vase. In the third and fourth rooms the matted floor at\nthe back is replaced by a large hearthstone, and a round earthen oven;\nin this the vases are baked, passed back to the men and boys to recoat\nwith the coloured paste, and then rebaked, recoated and rebaked many\ntimes, until at last the vase is handed over to the workers in the last\nrooms. It has lost all trace of design by now; the metal wires are no\nlonger visible; the colours have bubbled over in all directions, the\nvase is an unmeaning mosaic of a thousand shades. Then the workmen,\nsitting on their heels on the kneeling-cushions in their clean, bare,\nmatted rooms, tiny as bathing-boxes, polish, polish, polish, sometimes\nfor a whole year, until the worker\u2019s hand wears down the hard smooth\nsurface and the design shows through clean and true once more. The\nworkmen here are grey and old.\n\nBut the oldest of all sat by himself in a little room just opposite the\narching bridge which crossed the mountain stream. He wore a pair of\nquaint horn spectacles, and his face was the face of an Eastern sage.\nHe sat with his tools before him fixing silver wires on to a silver\nvase, with a certainty and a rapidity beyond his fellows; and all that\nis most beautiful and most difficult in the cloisonn\u00e9 works of Nagoya\ncomes from his hands. The old man pushed back his horn spectacles as\nI stopped before the open _sh\u014dji_, and his eyes rested on the still\npicture of the garden with a smile.\n\nI, too, turned to look at the row of tiny paper rooms stretching out\nlike arms on either hand, at the living landscape lying in their midst,\nat the blue sky above, and at the old face beneath the horn spectacles.\nI did not wonder at the peace which lay upon it, nor at the exquisite\nbeauty of the finished vase standing on the matting beside him. For the\ngarden was still as a cloister, though the cloister was a workshop for\ncloisonn\u00e9 ware in the manufacturing town of Nagoya.\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n FLOWER ARRANGEMENT\n\n\nWe sat opposite each other on the matting, and she laughed. The polite,\naudible smile of the Japanese. All around us lay cut branches of fir;\nand on the long wooden footstool they call a table stood a shallow\nbronze dish and a wonderful cleft stick of bamboo.\n\nShe was a little bent old lady, with the courtly politeness of a\nthousand Grandisons refined to a subtle essence, and she gave lessons\nin flower arrangement. The close-cropped grey hair gathered into a\nslide behind told its own tale of widowhood, and the withered careworn\nface its story of work and want.\n\nThe _sh\u014dji_ were shut, and the light through the rice-paper panes\nsent a warmed white light into the room that knew no colour, a light\nas though one sat inside a luminous mist, or in the heart of the\nplum-blossoms. A passionless, lifeless light which was simply light.\n\nAnd the little old lady laughed again.\n\n\u201cThere is much to learn,\u201d I said, stopping to watch her bending the\nwarmed fir branches over the _hibachi_ always to the exact curve, never\ntoo near or too far, and mine snapped at the first touch.\n\nShe handed me another branch in place of the one I had broken, and\nwatched while I wedged it into the cleft bamboo stick with little chips\nof wood.\n\n\u201cVery much,\u201d she said. \u201cIt takes three years of learning for the pupil\nand seven for the teacher. And the _Ijin San_ has had four lessons.\u201d\n\nThe fifth and last branch being successfully wedged into line, I got on\nto my knees to admire the effect, while Arabella, from her camp-stool\nin the corner--she considered it lowering to sit on the floor--bridled.\n\n\u201cOh, the _Japanese_,\u201d she said; \u201cbut any European could learn in half a\ndozen lessons.\u201d\n\nThe little old lady bowed, letting her forehead almost touch the\nground, as she sat on her heels on the kneeling-cushion.\n\n\u201cThe august stranger----\u201d she began, when I interrupted.\n\nThe contemplation of my five branches of fir, two curving to the left\nand three to the right, had not filled me with any satisfaction. They\nwobbled. All their curves were wrong, and the five stems, instead of\nbeing hidden one behind the other, so that the illusion of a single\nbranch growing out of the bronze dish was created and kept, were all\ndistinctly and decidedly visible.\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look a bit right,\u201d I said; \u201cbut what is the matter?\u201d\n\nThe task of sticking five branches of fir, already bent to the\nprescribed curves for me, into a cleft stick had not seemed difficult,\nespecially with three lessons behind me, and I had worked hard and been\nvery confident that morning.\n\nWith a thousand apologies the little old lady pulled the bronze dish\ntowards her, while Arabella cleared her throat.\n\n\u201cIn Europe,\u201d she said, in the tone of voice adapted to a kindergarten\nclass--her Japanese voice, \u201cwe do not learn such a simple thing, we do\nit naturally. Every European woman can arrange flowers, and they are\nflowers\u201d (with a glance at the fir branches in the little old lady\u2019s\nhand--she was busy correcting) \u201cnot trees.\u201d\n\nThe little old lady was putting back the five fir branches into the\ncleft stick with the deftest of deft fingers. Arabella unclasped the\nbrooch at her neck and pulled out what she called a \u201cnosegay.\u201d A bamboo\nvase, just a piece of the stem hollowed out, in which the fir had come\nfrom the florist that morning, lay on the floor. She picked it up.\n\n\u201cIt should be of glass,\u201d she said forgivingly, \u201cbut I will make it do.\u201d\n\nAnd then with her own hand she proceeded to arrange the Yokohama\nnosegay in the slender bamboo stem. There was a bit of spir\u00e6a, one fat\nred rose, and some miscellaneous leaves, which Arabella referred to\ngrandiloquently as \u201cgreen.\u201d These she crammed tightly into the bamboo\nstem, and then placed it, with a \u201cwho-shall-deny-me\u201d air, upon the\ntable.\n\nI looked at it. No, it was not a good specimen even of Western flower\narrangement, but in how many buttonholes, on how many tables, had I\nseen something like it.\n\nFlower arrangement is taught in the schools in Japan, and every\nJapanese girl learns. If she did not, she would not \u201carrange\u201d anymore\nthan we should paint or play.\n\nThe little old lady had finished, and she pushed the bronze dish along\nthe table beside the bamboo vase. Then, with many compliments and much\nbowing, she thanked the _Ijin San_ for her \u201caugust kindness\u201d and her\n\u201chonourable condescension.\u201d And the smooth phrases ran on and on, while\nI sat back on my heels and looked.\n\nEast and West, they stood there before me. At the best, what we aimed\nat was a scheme of colour, and at our worst no scheme at all. And what\nthey strove after was line, whether in fir branches or lily leaves, in\nplum-blossom or iris flowers, line, and a coherent whole. Each branch,\neach twig, each flower, nay, each curve of the branch, each petal of\nthe flower, each leaf of the twig, were parts, essential parts of the\nwhole; for in Japan they draw with flowers and fir branches as we only\ndraw for \u201cdesign.\u201d And line is beyond colour as sculpture is beyond\npainting.\n\nThe sun through the walls of rice-paned _sh\u014dji_ spread a warmed white\nlight through the room, a limpid, liquid light in which there was no\nshadow.\n\nThe little old lady had been busy tidying up. The room was one clear\nsheet of pale yellow matting. On the low empty _tokonoma_ stood the\nbronze dish and its pure line drawing in fir. Arabella was offering the\nbamboo vase and its mixed contents \u201cas a model,\u201d and the little old\nlady bowed to the ground.\n\nOnce more I looked at the bronze vase and the pure outlines of the fir\nbranches, at the bare room perfectly proportioned, at the rice-paned\n_sh\u014dji_, and the snowflake whiteness of that light which knew no colour\nand no shadow struck on my consciousness.\n\nI think I understood. Colour, as colour, in that luminous, shadowless\nroom, whose beauty was its line and its proportion, would have been not\ncolour but a blot. Outside the rice-paned _sh\u014dji_ lay life and colour\nenough. Here was but light and line.\n\nArabella was removing the white night-socks from her boots, she always\nrefused to take them off, on the veranda. The little old lady, down on\nher knees with her forehead to the ground, was saying sweet Japanese\n_sayonara_.\n\nI looked back one last time--and Arabella\u2019s nosegay vanished.\n\n\n\n\n IV\n\n GOD\u2019S MESSENGER\n\n\nThe first fresh heat of summer is here, and outside the city the\nrice-fields spread in quivering pools of green. It is the month of the\nIris, _Hana-sh\u014dbu_, and along the raised causeway, between the fields,\nthe miniature hansoms, drawn each by the bent dark figure of the\n_kurumaya_, silhouette against the blue sky.\n\nYou pay as much as three sen (three farthings) to enter an Iris garden,\nand they are an hour\u2019s _\u2019ricksha_ ride from the city, so that the\n_f\u00eate_ is select. In the covered court of the entrance the _kuruma_\nare stabled in long lines under a pale yellow roof of mats, while\nthe _kurumaya_, their black mushroom hats on their knees, sit on the\nslender shafts and smoke their pipes--three whiffs from the metal\nthimble in the bamboo stem, and then the sharp _tink_, _tink_, as\nthe ash is knocked out against the shaft. Inside the garden the blue\ntunic of the coolie is absent, three farthings and the long _kuruma_\nride proving prohibitive; but the grey _kimono_ of the classes, Tokyo\nshopkeepers for the most part, is everywhere. The gardens are large and\nfull, but in no sense crowded, for the Japanese, by the very polish of\ntheir politeness, contrive to create a sense of space and repose around\nthem even in a crowd. But the gardens are full, and the deadened clack\nof the wooden _gheta_ on the earthen pathway, as the little _musm\u00e9_\ncarry the \u201chonourable tea\u201d and the \u201chonourable cakes\u201d to the mat-roofed\nsummer-houses, is incessant.\n\nWe do not sit on our heels on the flat cushions on the low matted\ntable, under the bamboo roofs; we sit _on_ the cushions, with our feet\non the ground, and the little waitress laughs, her polished black\nhair shining like a metal mirror in the sunshine. It is so ridiculous\nto see the _Ijin San_ sitting on the tables with their legs hanging\nuncomfortably down in front of them, when all the world agrees it is\nmuch more natural to sit on your heels with the cleft toes of each\nlittle white _tabi_ sticking up behind like rabbit\u2019s ears. The idea\nof getting cramp in such a comfortable position makes little O Haru\u2019s\nbrown eyes open very wide indeed. I believe she revolves the idea,\ninside that metal-polished head of hers, that the _Ijin San\u2019s_ legs are\nnot made aright, or why do they hide them so? And surely the civilized\nboot could only have been invented by people without toes?\n\nThe open summer-houses, behind the bamboo bushes, or on the tops of\nthe miniature hills, are full of family parties, with children in\nall stages of age and coiffure, from the shaven baby heads and the\nstiff horsehair ribbon bunches of the children, up through the flat\nfronts and the first freehand designs of the schoolgirls, to the black\ncockscomb fronts and the elaborate polished rolls of the grown-up\ndaughters. And they are all content to sit in the sunshine, drink tea,\nand look at the flowers. They do not want to be for ever restlessly\ndoing something, not even the children.\n\nIn the summer-house over the way a party of bachelors, students from\nthe University perhaps, are also drinking tea and smoking cigarettes;\none of them is writing a poem. And a _bourgeois_ Sabbath peace is over\nthe land.\n\nThe tap of the tiny tea bowl on the lacquered tray, the deadened clack\nof the _musm\u00e9\u2019s gheta_ on the pathway, is hushed, for I have left the\nsummer-house, and am standing close down by the river of flowers.\n\nIris, the messenger between Gods and men, said the old Greek legend,\nIris, _Hana-sh\u014dbu_. And surely this swaying river of lavender-blue\nflowers, floating out from the fleckless blue of the summer\u2019s sky, on\ninto the young green of the rice-fields, is a living message from the\nGods. A message of beauty and peace, and of the holiness that springs\nfrom these. A message which this cultured, courtly, beauty-loving\npeople alone know how to create--and how to read. For many generations\nhave lived and died, tenderly caring for God\u2019s Messengers, before these\nflowers learned to unfold their petals in a hundred ways, and wear a\nthousand hues from pink to purple, from blue to grey, from grey to\nblack or to the purest white.\n\nThe river of exquisite blossom flows on, straight out from the\nfleckless blue, on into the delicate green, bearing God\u2019s message of\nbeauty to man. And these who see it know how to read.\n\n\n\n\n V\n\n THE ART OF THE PEOPLE\n\n\nIt is usual in judging the art of a nation to consider solely the art\nof the artists and never the art of the people. The first is naturally\nof greater importance; it affords moreover an easy method of comparison\nand enables art critics to register the high-water mark of a country\u2019s\nart, and this being found, the question is considered settled and\nthe nation judged accordingly. We say the French are artistic and\nthink promptly of Corot, Meissonier, or Puvis de Chavannes, not of\nthe people of France. But the art of a nation, always something less,\nis often something very different from the art of its artists, and\nthough the artists\u2019 art will give you the high-water mark, it does not\nand it cannot give the general art level of the people. The English\nnation produced the greatest dramatist who ever lived, and several\nfine comedians, yet the level of the nation\u2019s dramatic instinct is\nacknowledged to be far below that of the French. If we wish to get\na true opinion of French and English dramatic feeling we must study\nsomething more and something other than the dramatists. For it is not\nthe presence or the absence of a certain number of celebrated men, or\neven the greater or the lesser value of their works, which necessarily\nmakes a whole nation dramatic or artistic, but it is the general level\nof the dramatic or artistic feeling in the average individual of that\nnation. That a truly dramatic or artistic nation has more chance of\nproducing a greater number of dramatists or artists is certain, the\nconditions under which they would work being so much more favourable,\nbut to consider no one but the artist and nothing but his art, and\nthen to transfer the judgment on the artist\u2019s art to the whole nation,\nis surely a confusion of ideas. It is a confusion to which art seems\nparticularly susceptible. For most people, in England any way, seem to\nregard art as comprising only expensive objects suitable for exhibition\nin museums, and not as an integral part of every article used in\ndaily life. Museum art is the product of a nation\u2019s artists, for the\nenjoyment of the rich and the cultured, but the art of a people is as\nwide as its life, it touches everything and is for the joy and the\npleasure of all men.\n\nArtists\u2019 art is an end in itself, its whole reason for existence is to\ncreate beauty, but the art of a people is not an end, but a means. The\nproblem before it is very different and really more complicated, for it\nis to add beauty to mere utility, and by force of art to create art in\nobjects whose _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ is usefulness. And the greater the number\nof useful objects made beautiful, and the more beautiful the useful\nobjects, and the further removed from beauty and the more sunk in mere\nutility the useful object is, so much greater will be the people\u2019s art.\n\nTo add beauty to mere utility, art may be said to use three ways. It\ndoes it\n\n(1) Directly, by moulding the shape (the material of useful objects\nbeing already determined);\n\n(2) Indirectly, by decoration; and\n\n(3) Extra-directly, by arrangement.\n\nAnd if art be truly in a people, even the most ugly and stubborn of\nuseful objects will, by one of these three methods, be made beautiful.\n\nI suppose that any one who has ever seen a rice-field will allow that\nfor at least some six months in the year it is one of the ugliest\nobjects in the world. Made of liquid mud, it lies for half the year a\nslimy, greasy black pond shut in by low mud walls. On its oozy surface\ngather unwholesome growths that shine with metallic reflections, while\nthe manure, in Japan mostly human, decomposes in the thick mud. There\nis nothing, I suppose, much uglier, nothing more useful, and its\nugliness is the condition of its utility. The Japanese cannot change\nthe thick black ooze, they cannot change the low mud walls which embank\nthe slimy pools. These, with all their ugly consequences, are fixed and\ndetermined. But the art of the Japanese people has yet rendered the\nrice-fields beautiful. They change the shape. Those embanking walls of\nmud are moulded as a potter moulds his clay. A series of dead square\nfields I have never seen. Two, three, four, five, six, even eight-sided\nrice-fields can be found in Japan, and often the curves of the mud wall\nitself are graceful as the lines of a Greek vase.\n\nBeneath the temple of Tesshuji, which looks towards the wonder of\nFujiyama, with its two pure lines of exquisite grace, is a great\nfertile plain, a plain of innumerable rice-fields, one of the richest\nin the country. When I stood on the steps of that deserted temple and\nlooked down, the fields were all black and naked, and yet the plain\nwas neither ugly nor monotonous, for the peasants had curved their\nrice-fields into exquisite lines, and not two were alike.\n\nA wall has certainly more possibilities than a rice-field, but our\nmodern walls, the high brick atrocity of a prison or an embankment, is\nnot usually beautiful. We make spasmodic attempts to beautify their\nmonotonous ugliness with creepers or other coverings. That is, we do\nnot beautify the wall, we take something less ugly and conceal it.\nNow the Japanese beautify the wall. (We are only considering here\nwalls of mere utility, where all decoration or ornamentation is out of\nthe question.) Except for the brick walls of the foreign buildings,\nwalls in Japan are made of hewn stone usually shaped like pyramids\nand hammered base outwards into a bank of earth. In a country whose\narchitecture, from the most glorious of its temples to the humblest\nof its houses, is all of wood, a clumsiness, a _gaucherie_ in its\nstonework might be well excused, yet Japanese walls are a wonder to\nall who see them, for the hard enduring granite is plastic beneath\ntheir fingers. Their walls are never dead straight. The line always\ncurves softly outward as it touches the ground. And this not only in\nthe strong walls of the _daimy\u014d\u2019s_ castle, or the long moat walls of\nthe Mikado\u2019s palace, but in the embankment walls of the tiniest shrine,\nin the modern walls of the modern temple of the modern coaling port of\nMoji.\n\nTo beautify a useful object indirectly by decoration is a great deal\neasier, at any rate the means and the possibility of doing so are more\napparent; and yet, do we draw designs on our sacks, on our flour sacks,\ngrain sacks, potato sacks, as they do in Japan?\n\nFor many months I passed regularly every day through a street of\nwarehouses where sacks of all kinds, and containing all sorts of\nproduce, were lying on the ground, were being carried into the\n_godown_ or were loading or unloading. It was some time before it\nreally struck me that the sacks were decorated, that their blank yellow\nsides were made beautiful with a design; but when I had once realised\nit, I used to look carefully to see if I could find sacks without.\nThey were extremely rare. The designs varied considerably. A flower,\nconventional or natural, a maple leaf, a broken branch of plum-or\ncherry-blossom, the delicate outline of the bamboo in a thousand\ndifferent shapes, were the most common, but there were others, birds,\ngeometrical patterns, rice-ears, Fujiyama. These designs were with\ntrue decorative feeling in one corner, rarely in the exact centre, and\nadmirably proportioned to the size of the sack. They were mostly drawn\nin, in soft blues--the commonest colour in the Far East--sometimes in a\npale but very beautiful green; colours which, on the unbleached cotton\nor pale yellow matting of the sack, made complete harmonies.\n\nBut a sack, whatever its business in life, is at least an article of\nconsiderable duration, it is not made to be used and thrown away the\nnext moment like the paper wrapping of a parcel. Yet it is very few\nparcels in very few shops which are not wrapped up in paper whose\nmonotonous surface is broken by just one tiny design. The papers in\nwhich piece-silks are wrapped, the equivalent to those whitey-brown\ncovers which drapers seem perpetually doing up on our counters, are\noften really beautiful in both colour and design. I do not think a\nJapanese can see a blank surface without wanting to design something on\nit, something little, something beautiful, just to redeem it for art.\n\nThese designs are to be found, if one looks for them, in the most\nunexpected places, on the axle-heads of your _kuruma_ for instance.\nA casual and rather dilapidated _kuruma_ in an out-of-the-way town in\nJapan had such exquisite flying storks beaten on to the bronze metal of\nits axle-head that I had to get out and look at them. The _kurumaya_\nwas amused at my enthusiasm, and entered into a detailed comparison\nof these axle-heads with all the other axle-heads of all the other\n_kuruma_ of his acquaintance, explaining their respective merits and\ndefects. If there is no actual design the metal is usually beaten in\nsuch a way as to form an irregular pattern.\n\nWhen a Japanese cannot mould the shape of an object, when he cannot\nredeem it by a design, when in fact he has no control over its creation\nat all, but it is placed in his hands as it is, finished, he will\nstill contrive to add beauty to it merely by arrangement. I first\nnoticed this on board the steamer going out, where the Japanese \u201cboy\u201d\narranged the extra blanket on the berth in a new design each day. He\nfolded it into lotus leaves and chrysanthemums, into half-opened fans\nand half-shut buds. He had one wonderful arrangement which, being\npatriotic, was more often repeated than the rest. The blankets of the\nsteamship company had, instead of the usual stripes at top and bottom,\njust two thick wavy lines of deep red--the steamer\u2019s flag was two wavy\nred lines on a white ground; by some wonderful twist of his fingers the\n\u201cboy\u201d would fold that blanket into the rising sun, with the four red\nlines coming out of it like blood-red rays. It sounds difficult, but\nhe did it so perfectly that I recognised the flag of Japan the moment\nI saw it. Nor was he exceptional; the other \u201cboys\u201d on board were just\nas artistic, all the other cabins, for in the course of the voyage I\nentered most of them, were equally decorated, though in most cases the\nart had been quite lost on the occupants.\n\nA Japanese servant, any servant, even one in a hotel, will set out your\nhair brushes, clothes brushes, nail scissors, collar box, tooth-powder\ntin on the ordinary average hotel dressing-table and make a design\nof them. The toilette table will somehow be a picture, an artistic\nwhole. It was an application of art I tried hard to learn, and failed\ndismally. After awhile I could manage something with the brushes;\nbut the nail scissors, and more especially the tooth-powder tin,\nremained, in my hands, the unbeautiful necessary articles which they\nintrinsically are.\n\nWe make in Europe various attempts at beautifying our food. We put\nparsley on white dishes round cold mutton, and paper frills on ham\nbones where the pins are dangerous. On special occasions, such as a\nLord Mayor\u2019s banquet or a cookery exhibition, we serve pastries as\nTower Bridges, or jellies as broken lutes, but we do not consistently\narrange our food so that each dish is a colour scheme and an art design\nof its own.\n\nI lunched once with a professor in Tokyo; it was a modest meal in\nthe house of a man badly off, according to our ideas, but when the\nred-lacquered trays came in, each lunch on its own tray, and all the\ncourses served together, I could not restrain a cry of delight. The\nwhole set out in its red-lacquered tray was a picture, each dish in\nitself was another. The golden bream lay on a pale blue dish; an oval\nslab of pounded fish, pure white in colour, rested against a mound\nof lime-green chestnuts; in front and lying in a crescent curve were\npurple roots, brown ginger, and tiny slices of red radish. It was\nsimply a triumph. I have eaten pinky brown soup in which the curved\npeel of an orange floated like a golden dolphin; pale yellow custards,\nserved in delicate blue bowls, whose surfaces were ruffled with\nsilver fishes; white rice-moulds wrapped in the delicate tendrils of\na vine-green seaweed; thin slices of pink raw fish, the colour of an\nuncooked salmon, laid out on green dishes and garnished with little\nheaps of olive seaweed shaven fine and eaten with a burnt-sienna\nsauce. The very hawkers in the streets serve their one-_rin_ (10 to a\n\u00bc_d._) sweetmeats or their snow-white _t\u014dfu_ daintily, on plates of\nappropriate colour, artistically set out. The rice-paste biscuits are\nveritable works of art in shape and colour. You can eat almost every\nvariety of chrysanthemum, as well as see it, and the colouring, all\nvegetable, is almost as beautiful.\n\nWe have, I believe, in England, a profession called \u201cwindow-dressing,\u201d\nand in a few cases this does truly attain to art. But with us it always\nends at the windows. Enter the shop and, unless it is a showroom, you\nstand in the midst of undigested cargoes of goods; and whose eye has\nnot been pained by heaped rolls of stuff where a post-office red will\nlie, as often as not, on the top of a crimson and underneath a magenta?\nThat is a thing which could not happen in Japan; the eye of the young\nman behind the counter would forbid it.\n\nI once watched a whole consignment of silks being put away on shelves\nin a shop in Tokyo. It was the European side of the establishment, so\nthat the shop was fitted with counters, chairs, and the usual drapers\u2019\nshelves, the silks, too, told the same tale in their width and pattern.\nIt was only a boy who was putting them away, sixteen at the outside,\nyet he did it with a conscious choice, and when he had finished,\nthe silks, which ran through the whole gamut of colour, harmonised\ndelightfully. But the real Japanese shops are more beautiful still. To\ngo over the Mitsui is to walk through a gallery of pictures in still\nlife. Here are no heaps of undigested goods, no mere piles of articles,\nbut a definite and deliberate setting forth of certain things which\nleft the impression that the clerks of the Mitsui posed their silken\ngoods as an artist his model. The Mitsui is one of the best shops in\nTokyo; to be perfectly fair compare it with one of our \u201cart salesmen.\u201d\nBut the best of our shops tie up their parcels in whitey-brown paper\nwith tow-coloured string, thinner or thicker according to the weight of\nthe parcel. In the Mitsui the string is all pure white or scarlet-red,\nand each parcel is tied with a strand of both laid side by side, the\nheavier the parcel the greater the number of scarlet and white strings,\nalways laid side by side, until sometimes they make a wide white line\nabove a wide red one, kept evenly together by a skilful knot. The ends,\ntoo, are not snapped off anyhow after tying an ugly knot, but are cut\nslantwise, to form a V or a point, and even the knot is beautiful\nbecause it is a coherent whole, and not a conglomeration of successive\nties.\n\nSo far, all these things, rice-fields, sacks, and food, with the sole\nexception of the blankets and hair brushes, have been exclusively\nJapanese, the nation has evolved them in itself, and by itself, and\nconsequently in comparing them with things European it has only\nbeen possible to take similar and not identical objects. But since\ntheir first contact with Europe, and more especially during the last\nthirty years, the Japanese have borrowed a certain number of articles\ndirectly from the West. They have borrowed beer-glasses, windows, and\nwall-papers. And from the Dutch, three-hundred years ago, they took\npipes and tobacco pouches. A light kind of _lager_ beer is rapidly\nbecoming a universal drink in Japan. There are several native breweries,\nand those places where beer has not penetrated are considered hopelessly\n\u201cold-fashioned.\u201d After the beer came the beer-glasses, and though the\nart of the nation has not been long at work upon them, they are already\nvery different from their European models. It must be remembered, too,\nthat glass was unknown to the Japanese until it was introduced from the\nWest. The first thing which the nation did when it set to work upon\nbeer-glasses was to reduce the size, otherwise they would have been\nout of all proportion to the rest of the dinner service, and so the\nbeer-glasses of Japan are small as dolls\u2019 tumblers in which, if you are\nlucky, you will find three sips of beer under the egg-white froth.\n\nIf this example illustrates the love of the little, generally supposed\nto be the chief characteristic of the Japanese, the case of the windows\nwill show their dislike to unredeemed blank space, and at the same time\ntheir knowledge of the artistic value of space in design. So long as\nwindows only existed in houses built in the style called \u201cforeign,\u201d\nthey remained severely Western, just another European object like the\nrailway or the telegraph set up in the land, but when they began to be\nintroduced into Japanese houses, then the art of the nation set to work\nupon them. They are still rare, but in a few private houses and in some\nof the best native hotels windows exist. They do not open. They were\nnot introduced to supply ventilation, an unnecessary consideration in\na Japanese house, which is all draughts, nor really for light, the\npaper panes of the _sh\u014dji_ admitting light readily; but just in order\nthat the person inside might have another picture before his eyes--the\npicture of what lies without. The window then is not a glass fitting to\nan oblong hole knocked into a wall, but a broad band of glass running\nround the whole length of the _sh\u014dji_ at just that distance from the\nground which will allow anyone sitting on his heels on the floor to\nsee through comfortably. A pattern on this glass window would have\ninterfered with the view, and the window was there expressly for the\nview. So the glass is empty and clear, but not blank. Then it would\nhave been merely useful, and the Japanese never stop at utility; it\nhad to be made beautiful, and so the pure perfect curves of Fuji were\ntraced upon the glass. The design was quite small and only occupied\none end, but the area of the glass was no longer blank space, but the\ndemanded setting to a picture.\n\nThere is no place in a Japanese house for wall-papers, but the number\nof foreign-built hotels and houses has created a certain demand for\nthem. Also the Japanese are beginning to export wall-papers abroad. As\nthe patterns are mostly supplied to them direct from European firms, or\ncopied from models sent them on order, they have to please their market,\nand yet I have seen a wall-paper in a hotel bedroom where two golden\ndragons drawn back to back studded a white ground. It was a perfectly\nconventional pattern, and at first there seemed nothing remarkable about\nit. The tiny dragons, looking something like a _fleur de lys_, occurred\nat six-inch intervals. Then it dawned gradually, the intervals were not\nregular, they differed both lengthways and width-ways. It took indeed\nten feet of wall before the pattern absolutely repeated itself.\n\nBut windows, wall-papers and beer-glasses are new growths, only just\nengrafted on to the life of the people. They are still thought of\nas something foreign, whereas pipes and pouches, although coming\noriginally from the West, have in the course of three hundred years\nbecome thoroughly absorbed and transformed by the genius of the nation.\nTo judge from the old pictures the first pipes were three or four feet\nlong, with a bowl to correspond, in size and capacity suggestive of\nthose long wooden pipes with china bowls smoked by the traditional\nDutchman. At the same time we in the West have also been evolving our\npipes and pouches, as the art and the convenience of Europe demanded,\nand to-day the British navvy has arrived at his clay and the city\nclerk at his briarwood, and both at the gutta-percha pouch. When bent\non \u201csomething tasty,\u201d they may indulge in skeleton-head pipes with\ncarbuncle eyes, or magenta plush pouches embroidered in apple-green\nsilk. In Japan the navvy (or his wife, for smoking is equally common\nto both sexes) uses a doll\u2019s pipe made of a slender bamboo reed, whose\nbowl and mouthpiece are of metal, beautifully finished, and holding\njust three whiffs of their fine-cut red-brown tobacco. The pouch is\nmade of leather, fastening like a purse, and the metal snap is always\nfashioned into a design, however simple--two birds flying, a fish, a\ngrasshopper. There is also a leather case to keep the pipe in, like\nan open spectacle-case, and the two are fastened together by means of\na twisted silken cord. The pipe-case is stuck into the _obi_, and the\npouch hangs over. It was to allow of the free hang of the pouch, and\nalso as a finish to the silken cord, that the _netsuk\u00e9_ was invented,\nand some of the most beautiful of museum art objects produced. But\n_netsuk\u00e9_ are not for the navvy or the people, or if they do occur in\nthe cheap pouches of the poorer classes they are nothing more than\na rounded bead only valuable artistically as a spot of colour. The\npouches, the pipes and the pipe-cases are genuinely beautiful in shape,\nmake and proportion. They also have the merit, rare in gutta-percha, of\nendurance. A pouch bought four years ago by a careless European, and\nin use ever since, shows to-day no sign of wear. It is not cracking at\nthe seams, and the snap is as firm as ever. A smoker, I believe, has no\nparticular hankering after the Japanese pipe with its metal bowl and\nmouthpiece, but anybody with a sense of form must enjoy the delicate\nrefinement of even the commonest native pipe with the gentle yellow of\nits bamboo stem, the finish of the metal mouthpiece, and the perfect\nshape of its acorn bowl.\n\nThese are, after all, only a few examples, sufficient perhaps for the\npurpose, but any one who has lived in Japan and looked at the common\nobjects of daily life used, owned and produced by the people would be\nable to multiply them almost indefinitely.\n\nIn thinking them over perhaps the thing which occurs most frequently\nto the mind is the simplicity of the means used. The whole artistic\neffect of the rice-fields consists in the variation of their shape, in\nthe curve of the mud wall; in the shops and in the food simply in the\nright choice of given articles. But through all Japanese art, even the\nmost elaborate, this same simplicity of means is noticeable. I have\nseen the most elaborate imperial brocade which produced an effect of\nrunning water, and it was done by simply throwing over the original\nblue brocade a rough mesh network of brown silk. Every garden in Japan\nis an illustration of this point, for a Japanese in a dull back yard\nas big as a bath-towel will, by the judicious planting of two small\npalm-trees, the setting up of a stone lantern, and the careful making\nof a puddle, convey to the mind of those who look the greenness and\nthe coolness of a dense forest, the freshness of clear water, and the\ndelight of hills and dales. I have seen it often in wayside inns, in\nshops, in big towns, in factories, everywhere.\n\nExactly the same thing is true of their flower arrangement. Putting\naside all other points of beauty and charm, a Japanese with three\nchrysanthemums, with one branch of fir, will produce a whole which we\nshould only think of attempting with a shilling\u2019s-worth of flowers and\ntwo penny bunches of \u201cgreen.\u201d\n\nOn the characteristics of Japanese art European writers have varied\ngreatly, but in considering only the art of the people there are\nperhaps fewer difficulties or differences, and we come, I think,\nto four--value of space, desire for line, sobriety of taste, and\nthoroughness of workmanship. I do not include the dislike of symmetry,\nbecause a want can hardly be called a characteristic. Symmetry is more\nproperly a characteristic of our art. The Japanese dislike it, they\nmake nothing in pairs, and if certain things, such as candlesticks, are\nrequired in twos, each one, though resembling the other in the main\nidea, always differs from it in detail.\n\nThe sense of the artistic value of space shows itself everywhere, in\nevery form of decoration and design, as well as in every object of art.\nIn Japan there is no such thing as overcrowding. It is one small leaf\nwhich decorates the sheet of paper wrapping. It is the scarcity of\narticles in the Mitsui which accounts for nine-tenths of the artistic\neffect of that draper\u2019s interior. If ever a nation has thoroughly and\n\u00e6sthetically realised the psychological fact on which much of our\ntheory of backgrounds is based, that we only really see an object by\nits outlines, it is the Japanese. They have worked out this fact to its\nlast artistic value. In a Japanese room there hangs one picture; on\nthe raised and polished platform of the _tokonoma_, the artistic altar\nof the room, there is set one bronze or porcelain vase of flowers,\none ornament. These are changed as often as the fortune or the taste\nof their owner permits. When a Japanese comes to Europe he complains\nthat our drawing-rooms, with their dozens of pictures and their scores\nof ornaments, are \u201clike warehouses\u201d; and after this first disturbing\nfeeling of crowd, when he has lived in that drawing-room for several\nmonths and finds that the ornaments are never changed, only perhaps\nadded to, he complains then of the monotony. For he knows and has\nrealised another psychological fact, that it is in the freshness of\nobservation that the eye sees clearest and the brain works best.\n\nWith the sense of the supreme value of space comes an intense feeling\nfor line. Whether this has something to do with the climate, which is\nclear, and the landscape, which is mountainous, I do not know; but\ncompare the purity of outline in the Italian painters, more especially\nin the Tuscan and the Umbrian, Botticelli and Perugino, with the\nNetherlands School, Rembrandt and Rubens, where light and shadow, and\ncolour as colour, play so great a part. But whether it is due to the\nlandscape or not, personally I should be inclined to attach a great\ndeal of importance to the artistic value of Fujiyama, a mountain\nwhose exquisite outlines, visible from thirteen provinces, have simply\npermeated Japanese art; but landscape or no, the desire for line is a\nfact. The Japanese draw with everything; with the mud embankments of\ntheir rice-fields, with the granite stones of their walls, with the\ntrees in their gardens, with the flowers in their vases. The whole\nessence of flower arrangement is not colour mass, but line drawing. It\nis the same with their trees, the dwarf trees in their pots, or the\ngrown trees in their gardens. Both are trained and educated to produce\na beautiful outline, and they succeed. It is perhaps interesting in\nthis connection to notice the number of illustrations in Japanese books\nwhere the trees are simply silhouettes washed in in Indian ink on a\nblank background. We should have, I think, a great disinclination to\ntreat our trees in this way.\n\nThe feeling for line is very strong, and it is perhaps perpetuated by\nthe daily use of those dead pictures, the Chinese ideographs. Several\nhundred years ago the Japanese invented the phonetic syllabaries called\n_kana_. It is interesting from an artistic point of view to compare\nthem with our alphabet. A very short contemplation of the alphabet as\nused in our books and handwriting will show that it is mainly composed\nof straight lines, often parallel, with a certain admixture of circles.\nNow, although a straight line is the nearest way between two points, it\nis rarely or never the most beautiful; did not some one once say, \u201cThe\nline of beauty is a curve\u201d? I do not think any one\u2019s artistic soul has\nreceived much nourishment from a contemplation of the letter \u201cm,\u201d three\nparallel lines, or \u201ct.\u201d Compare them with the corresponding _kana_, and\nthe difference will be felt at once. Indeed, we are all unconsciously\nwell aware of the artistic failing of our ordinary alphabet, for\ndirectly we carve or write an inscription, or introduce it in any way\ninto something which claims to be an object of art, then we discard it\naltogether, and either fall back on the Gothic letters, or adopt some\nkind of fancy alphabet. As the average Japanese child is taught writing\nfour hours a week for the first three years, and three hours for the\nnext two, and as their writing is really painting, their feeling for\nline has at least a chance of development.\n\nOf the thoroughness of Japanese workmanship I do not think anybody\nwould disagree; when the wing of the stork on your rice-bowl is\nfinished inside, when the chrysanthemum petals on your wooden tray\ncurl over the edge, when the bottom of your flower vase has a design\nas well as the outside, you are convinced that the Japanese knew\nRuskin\u2019s dictum long before he said it. I have seen the feet of a\nbronze statuette, the feet which were entirely hidden under the folds\nof the _kimono_ from in front, carefully finished off underneath. The\nstatuette in question cost 50 _sen_ (1_s._), and was sold by a street\nhawker. Nobody really sees the designs on the _kuruma_ axle-heads,\nnot unless they look for them, except perhaps the _kurumaya_ himself,\nwhen he squats on the ground waiting for a fare; but they give a\nthoroughness of finish to the _\u2019ricksha_ which it would miss without.\n\nMost people are agreed, I think, upon the thoroughness of workmanship,\nbut sobriety of taste is a more disputed point. We are very fond of\ntalking of the \u201cgorgeous colouring of the East,\u201d and using terms like\n\u201cbarbaric splendour\u201d and \u201coriental luxury.\u201d These terms may have had\nsome truth as applied to the art of India, but because Japan is also\nsituated in the East, they do not necessarily apply to her. We do\nnot sufficiently realise over here that there is considerably more\ndifference between China and Japan, let alone India and Japan, than\nthere is between any two European countries whatsoever, be they Greeks\nor Dutch, or what you will; that they are not of the same race, nor do\nthey belong to the same linguistic family. Therefore, to transfer an\nadjective applicable to India to Japan, just because both are Oriental,\nis like applying an adjective suitable to the Turks or the Laps to the\nEnglish, on the ground that both are European. This is, I think, one\nsource of error; the others are more subtle. There is first of all\nthe climate. Now a colour, any colour, under a bright blue sky in a\ndazzling yellow sunshine, will always look more subdued than that same\ncolour under a grey sky and in a cloudy atmosphere. This is simply an\neffect of contrast. Therefore, Japanese colouring must be judged as it\nis seen in Japan, not as it may look when transferred to England. And,\nagain, a study of the actual colour itself will show that the Japanese\nhave learnt how to make the very brightest colours soft in tone. This\nfact has been well rubbed into me lately, for I have tried both in\nParis and in London to match certain Japanese stuffs, or at least to\nfind something in the same note of colour which would go with them.\nIt was quite impossible. All our soft colours, the so-called artistic\nshades, are too dull in tone, while none of our bright ones are soft\nenough; by the side of the Japanese colours they look simply crude.\nThese are all quite material reasons, objective facts, but there is\nanother which only those who have stood and looked at the glorious\nsplendour of a Japanese temple such as Nikk\u014d or Shiba, where the whole\nrainbow is resplendent in carved wood and gilded lacquer, and that is\ntheir matchless power of combination and of background. The temples of\nNikk\u014d or Shiba are both built in the midst of a wood; the dark, deep,\nsober forms of the giant pine-trees stand all around. This is the\nsetting; then between each gorgeous gateway comes a still clear space\nof court, paved with quiet grey pebbles; and when the glory culminates\nin the temple\u2019s interior the building is of unstained, unpainted wood,\nsoft as the dust-brown carpet of the beech-leaves when the sun\u2019s\nrays are level. But the temples, supreme in their way among all the\nproducts of Japanese art, are exceptional. The average Japanese room\nis colourless, luminous, but practically colourless. The floor is of\nthe palest yellow matting, the one or two solid walls of the room are\nwashed in the softest of bark browns, the wood of the _tokonoma_ is\ndark and polished, and the other walls are _sh\u014dji_, that is, composed\nentirely of small panes of rice-paper. Through this paper the sunlight\ncomes luminous but colourless. To sit in that room is like living in\nthe heart of the plum-blossom, or within the petals of a warm white\nrose.\n\nIn their dress the Japanese are equally subdued: the men wear mostly\ngrey or dust-coloured silks, the women soft mauves, blues and greys.\nIt is only the children who are dressed in bright colours and gay\npatterns. All the working classes, both men and women, wear a dark\nindigo blue. The Japanese wear no jewellery. Precious stones they have,\nexquisite mauve and purple amethysts, crystals of blood-red splendour\nor soft and milky as flushing pearl. And the rich man buys these,\nnot to wear, but to look at, as works of art, as exquisite natural\nobjects. He never hangs them round his own neck, or enmeshes his\nwomankind in them. The Japanese are, I believe, the only nation on the\nearth who know and value precious stones, and yet wear no jewellery.\nMight not this be considered convincing evidence of their essential\nsobriety of taste? Even the landscape, though supremely beautiful and\nsunny, is never flaunting. There are too many sober green pine-trees,\nand pale, bewitching bamboos for that. I have never seen anywhere in\nJapan, in the poorest house, in the cheapest shop, anything that was\ntawdry or even \u201cloud,\u201d except in that part of porcelain and other\nfactories which supply goods, mostly from \u201cforeign\u201d patterns, for the\nEuropean market.\n\nIn this enumeration of the characteristics of Japanese art, you will\nperhaps wonder why I have omitted the very popular one of their love of\nthe little, the small, the minute. I have left it out simply because\nI do not believe it exists as such. Many writers have exclaimed in\nparagraphs sprinkled with interjections on this passion for the little\nwhich they say the Japanese possess; and they have apparently seen in\nit nothing but a blind unreasoning prejudice for the something small as\nopposed to the something great. I think this opinion is mostly due to\nthe \u201clittle knowledge\u201d of the tourist or the restricted knowledge of\nthe specialist. It leaves also entirely unexplained and inexplicable\nthe _Dai Butsu_ of Kamakura, a bronze statue of Buddha, fifty feet\nhigh and of the most exquisite workmanship; the Buddhas of Kyoto and\nof Nara; the big bronze bell of Kyoto, the largest hanging bell in the\nworld, besides that at Chion-in, the second largest, and at Nara, the\nthird; the _Hongwanji_ at Kyoto, the walls of the castle at Osaka--and\nthe battle of Mukden. A wider acquaintance with the Japanese people\nand the realities of their daily life will show, I think, that this\nso-called love of the little is really a highly cultivated and acute\nsense of proportion, where it is not purely ethical.\n\nThe Japanese beer-glass, you will remember, was the size of a doll\u2019s\ntumbler. \u201cWhy?\u201d \u201cOh, because they have a passion for little things\u201d\nis certainly the easiest and most obvious answer. But follow that\nglass to its home on its Japanese dinner tray, in its Japanese room,\nand you will see that its littleness is in exact proportion to the\ntray and the room. Nor are the rooms so small, but because we insist\non bringing our encumbering \u201cforeign\u201d ideas into them. There is no\nfurniture in a Japanese room, no furniture of any kind whatsoever. Two\nkneeling-cushions and a round box, a brazier, are the only possible\nobjects which could come under that heading, therefore the whole space\nwithin the four walls of a room is space for movement. If a measurement\nwere taken of the actual feet of free space in many a modern European\ndrawing-room, I believe that it would be found to be something _less_\nthan that in the \u201ctiny\u201d Japanese apartment.\n\nAnother thing to be borne in mind is that life in Japan is lived, not\nabove the floor on chairs, but on the floor itself. Try living on the\nfloor and you will find the whole horizon of a room opening out in the\nmost astonishing way. What we call a stool, for instance, represents\nthe same level as a table. The actual difference in the height of the\neyes sitting on one\u2019s heels on a Japanese floor and on a chair is\nreally between two and three feet, while it must also be remembered\nthat Japanese eyes, belonging as they do to a body shorter on the\naverage than our own, come still nearer to the ground.\n\nThus a careful examination of the things which are small in Japan,\nwhich they have deliberately chosen to make small, copied smaller than\nthe foreign originals, will show, I think, that it is due to their\nacute sense of fitness and proportion. There is also another reason,\nwhich is not artistic but ethical.\n\nThe Japanese are a sober and abstemious race, a race of high culture\nand of ancient civilisation. When we were running about clad in the\ninadequate skin, gorging off half-raw oxen, and drunken with seven-day\nfeasts of mead, they lived already under an ordered and an organised\ngovernment with most, if not all, of the essentials of civilisation.\nAnd after all, is not one of the hall-marks of real civilisation the\nlearning to take \u201ca little\u201d instead of \u201ca lot,\u201d in extracting from each\natom the whole of its use, enjoyment and pleasure? Children and savages\nare always wasteful. We do not now try to eat whole oxen or drink mead\nfor seven days, we have learnt to get as much if not more pleasure out\nof one glass of wine and one slice of beef, and the reason is that we\nare slowly learning _not_ to gulp. If you watch the working man drink\nhis beer, or the working woman her tea, you will see that they usually\ngulp it down in big draughts, imagining, I suppose, that it is sheer\nquantity which produces flavour. They have not yet learnt that profound\nethical truth, expressed by the old epicure when he said approvingly of\nsome young man that he \u201chad already learned to sip his wine and not to\ngulp it.\u201d The Japanese have learnt to sip. Their wine-glasses, which\nare china bowls, hold perhaps two tablespoonfuls, their tea-cups three,\ntheir pipes just three fleeting whiffs. Drunkenness is exceedingly\nrare; it does exist, but with a glass holding two tablespoonfuls there\nis time for reflection. It is also more economical than the foreign\nvariety, the actual quantity required to produce intoxication when\ntaken in small doses being, I believe, considerably less.\n\nThere is always another side to a people\u2019s art, a side which is\nfrequently overlooked, and that is the art, not in the object, but in\nthe workman. A people\u2019s art will show itself, not only in the actual\nobject produced, but in the life of the producer and in the conditions\nof production.\n\nIn the cloisonn\u00e9 works of Nagoya, an industrial centre of a quarter of\na million of inhabitants, the workers sat in peace and solitude, not a\nsound of the busy streets penetrated to the long series of matted rooms\nwhere they worked. Each room and each workman looked towards a quiet\ngarden, cool with running water, and still with the deep mystery of the\npines. In the modern porcelain factory, dedicated to the production of\ngoods for the \u201cforeign\u201d market, the long white room looked out through\nopen doors upon the waving rice-fields, and each potter\u2019s wheel was\nturned to see the branch of purple iris standing in its yellow vase.\nThere is a cotton factory in Japan which is a positive addition to the\nbeauty of the landscape.\n\nNor is it only the big and wealthy workmen who produce good art.\nSome of the most beautiful silver enamel-ware in Tokyo was made by a\nlittle man who owned the smallest and poorest of general shops, where\nhalfpenny tooth brushes and farthing sheets of paper formed the richest\nportions of his stock. All this beautiful silver enamel-work was done\nin the back parlour, and at no time could he have had more than ten\n_yen_ (\u00a31) worth of such goods in hand. Yet he was an artist to the\ntips of his fingers, and the sheen and colour of his enamelled silver\nlotus flowers were a joy to the beholder.\n\nIn Nikk\u014d there was a carpenter who made wooden trays for the\ninhabitants. His stall, the merest shanty, was the littlest imaginable,\nyet he carved me a wooden box with a design in chrysanthemums which was\nskilled artistic work, and even his cheap wooden trays had the stamp of\nart. He did them with a penknife, and the whole surface of the tray was\ngrooved in shallow curving lines.\n\nAnd the worker himself? If there is art in the product and in the\nconditions of production, what of the producer? Is there art in his\nlife and his tastes? Is there art in the life of the labourer, of the\ncoolie and the _\u2019ricksha_ man? Is there art in the daily life of the\ncommon people as well as in the things they use?\n\nA man\u2019s tastes are known by his pleasures. When the common people\nof Tokyo make \u201cBank Holiday\u201d they go to see a handful of pink\ncherry-blossoms against the blue of an April sky. They walk politely,\nlooking up at the trees, and though the crowd is thick, endless, nobody\npushes or fights or swears. No special posse of policemen is turned\nout to keep order. Down the long two-mile avenue of cherry-trees at\nMukojima the crowd wanders amiably, and the municipality of Tokyo has\nnever thought to invent a single penalty for the destruction of young\ntrees and shrubs. The world stares contentedly, drinks tea, and goes\nhome again. And this is considered to be the rowdiest crowd at the most\npopular resort on the favourite \u201cBank Holiday\u201d of the year.\n\nThe blossoming of all the other flowers, plum, peach, azalea, peony,\nwistaria, iris, lotus, convolvulus, maple, chrysanthemum, are equally\nvisited, and advertised daily in the newspapers. The people of Japan\ntake few holidays, but those they do take are almost always at the time\nof the flower festivals.\n\nWhen they can afford something more expensive they go to the \u201cRoyal\nAcademy,\u201d which opens its doors twice in the year for the aristocratic\nsum of 3 _sen_ (\u00be_d._) _gheta_ (wooden clogs) and umbrellas\nleft outside, 5 _rin_ (10 _rin_ make \u00bc_d._). The other picture\nexhibitions, not having the status of the Tokyo \u201cRoyal Academy,\u201d are\nmore moderate, averaging 1 to 2 _sen_ for admission, and _gheta_, free.\nThe entrance to the exhibitions of bronze, lacquer, porcelain and\nother arts is the same. Even on the basis of Japanese incomes, where a\nGeneral earns \u00a3300 a year, the Headmaster of a Public School \u00a3160 and\na coolie 6_d._ a day, the charges are exceedingly moderate. And the\npeople, the real working people, go. I should be curious to find out\nhow many working men have paid at the turnstiles of Burlington House.\n\nBesides art exhibitions, Japanese workmen go to the theatre, but this\nis a taste they share with many other nations; what is all their own is\ntheir love of pilgrimages, not only to temples of religious repute, but\nto places of celebrated beauty. Fujiyama is yearly ascended by hundreds\nof thousands of pilgrims. Here religion and beauty are mingled. For\nthe great mountain is sacred. So is almost every spot in Japan that\nis particularly beautiful. As one journeys through the country, the\ntraveller will always find that the most beautiful point of view,\nthe grandest scene, the loveliest nook, has a temple, or at least a\nwayside shrine, set up by the common people and tended by them. There\nnever was a nation since the days of Ancient Greece who so entirely\nbelieved that beauty is sacred, or who so entirely disbelieved that\nart can be divorced from ethics. They have the love of beauty innate\nand inalienable. A man I knew was once crossing Tokyo in a _\u2019ricksha_;\nhe was a prosperous, commercial being with a vast contempt for the\n\u201cheathen.\u201d It was late afternoon. His _kurumaya_, after looking round\nat him several times, suddenly stopped short, and waving his hand to\nthe west said respectfully but firmly:\n\n\u201cHonourably please to observe the unusual glory of the sunset.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd I told him to jolly well get on,\u201d was the end of the story as I\nheard it.\n\nA favourite pastime of the _\u2019ricksha_ men on the cab-stands as they\nwait for a fare is to draw in the dust of the roadway one against the\nother. If sand has been spilled from a cart anywhere within reach\nthe whole _\u2019ricksha_ stand migrates and has the happiest time. I\nhave seen really good outlines of Fujiyama and of flying birds, or\nblossoming flowers, all on the roadways by the _\u2019ricksha_ stands. And\nwhatever their faults, they at least had life, for the _\u2019ricksha_ man\nhas knowledge, knowledge based on intelligent observation and on the\ninherited training of his race.\n\nIn the Japanese language there is a word, _edaburi_, which means \u201cthe\nformation or the arrangement of the branches of a tree.\u201d Merely to\npossess such a word shows the long training in art and observation\nwhich the nation must have undergone. But this word is not a technical\nterm used only by artists and the cultured classes; it is a living,\nbreathing expression, part of the vocabulary of every Japanese, even\nthe Board School educated. _Kurumaya_ discuss _edaburi_ in the streets\nof Tokyo. Railway porters at wayside stations argue the matter with\nthe stationmaster. Every peasant knows, understands, and talks of the\nmatter as though he had brought himself up on long courses of Ruskin.\nIt has often been a subject of great regret to me that Ruskin did not\nknow the Japanese, for in them he would have found the living proof of\nso much of his teaching.\n\nBut the people of Japan not only discuss _edaburi_, they write poetry.\nThere is an exceedingly simple form of poetry called _hokku_. It\nconsists of only three lines of five, seven, and five syllables, and\nis written in the language of daily life. The _hokku_ was invented by\na man called Bash\u014d, for the definite ethical purpose of cultivating\nthe taste and improving the morals of the people. He believed in the\ncomposition of poetry as an ethical force, and he wished to bring\nit from the home of the educated into the lives of the poor. He\nsucceeded. Not because the _hokku_ is a so much easier form of poetry\nthan the English couplet, but because the people have taste, and art,\nand civilisation in the very cells of their brains. Every one writes\npoetry, even the typical _jinricksha_ man, who is to the Japanese\nwhat the _charbonnier_ is to the French or the coster to us. When\nthe _kurumaya_ and his wife go to visit their relations the whole\nparty amuses itself by composing these tiny poems. On all occasions\nof joy and grief, on birth, death and marriage, at the time of each\nflower festival, or of any other happening, the people compose poetry.\nLiterary composition has always been inculcated as the best medicine\nfor sorrow, and as such is practised daily.\n\nThis is a little poem taken from the diary of a woman who died in\nTokyo a year or two ago. She lived with her husband, a doorkeeper, on\nan income of \u00a31 a month, and she was very delicate. She bore him three\nchildren, who all died shortly after birth; then the poor mother died\nherself. Her diary came into the possession of Lafcadio Hearn, who\ntranslated it under the title of \u201cA Woman\u2019s Tragedy.\u201d This poem was\ncomposed on the death of the third baby and runs:\n\n \u201cTanoshimi mo\n Sam\u00e9t\u00e9 haka nashi.\n Haru no yum\u00e9.\u201d\n\n \u201cAll my delight has perished, and hopeless I remain.\n It was a dream, a dream of spring.\u201d\n\nHere is another poem which is more typically Japanese. It was composed\nby the same woman after the death of her second baby, and runs:\n\n \u201cSami dar\u00e9 ya\n Shimerigachi naru\n Sod\u00e9 no tamoto wo.\u201d\n\n \u201cOh, the month of rain; all things have become damp;\n the ends of my sleeve are wet.\u201d\n\nWhich being interpreted is: \u201cOh! the time of grief. All things now seem\nsad. The sleeves of my robe are moist with tears.\u201d[1]\n\n [1] The long sleeve of a Japanese _kimono_ is always held before the\n face to hide emotion.\n\nIt is this very allusiveness, this saying of something simple and\ncommonplace, and hiding behind it a whole meaning of intense emotion,\nwhich makes this poem so typically Japanese, for Japanese art is always\nsuggestive, it always needs the observer to bring his share of thought\nand mind to its interpretation.\n\nIt is interesting to speculate how much the two most universally\nrecognised characteristics of the Japanese, politeness and cleanliness,\nowe to their sense of art. If one looks into the psychology of the\nrace, one sees, of course, that this national trait of exquisite\npoliteness was built up, or at least assisted, in many ways. There was\nthat stern training of the _samurai_ which taught eternal, never-ending\nself-control. There is the whole Buddhistic teaching, which is one\nlong gospel of unselfishness and kindness. But other nations have had\ntraining in self-control, we ourselves among the number--think for a\nmoment of the Puritans and our public schools. And other religions\npreach kindness and unselfishness, our own again, and yet there is no\nother nation so widely recognised, even by the snappiest of tourists\nwho ever wrote his \u201cmemoirs,\u201d as universally polite from the Emperor to\nthe coolie in the streets. It is a hypothesis which I put forward with\nsome hesitation, because the origins of national psychology are not for\nthe amateur, but I do think that a certain stress is to be laid upon\nthis innate and instinctive, but much cultivated sense of art. Has not\nthe politeness something to do with that love of a beautiful outline,\nthat desire for a perfect curve in the relations between man and man\nas well as between man\u2019s eye and his drawing? Is not, in fact, a rude\naction a something inartistic in the social whole, a blot of crude\ncolour that jars?\n\nThe whole of the _cha-no-yu_, or tea ceremony, one of the few Japanese\nthings of which Europeans have heard more or less vaguely, is an\nillustration in point. The tea ceremony, divested of its subsidiary\nand attendant growths, is in essence nothing more than the proper\nmaking and the proper drinking of a simple cup of tea. This, in the\ncourse of centuries, has been elaborated into an imposing and very\ncomplicated ceremonial. Nowadays the _cha-no-yu_ is regarded mainly as\na useful reservoir of etiquette and politeness, and is taught as such.\nBut the whole idea on which it rests is that for every given action\nthere is always one, and only one, right and proper attitude, that is\nto say, the most graceful. So that the curve of every finger in the\nmere passing of a tea-cup is the result of careful thought and long\nexperience. Everything has to be considered, the room, the person, the\nrelation of the body to the arm, of the arm to the hand, of the hand\nto the tea-cup, the position of the person serving, and of the person\nserved, the place of the tea-cups, of the teapot, and the tea-kettle;\nall have been taken into consideration by the tea ceremonialists, and\nthe proper, the most graceful attitude carefully evolved.\n\nThat you may not think politeness a matter of social caste in Japan,\nI may say that the _kurumaya_ when they run into one another at the\ncorners, the coolies hauling carts when they collide, bow profoundly\nand beg one another\u2019s pardon.\n\nAnd the exquisite cleanliness? Some one once defined dirt as \u201cmatter\nout of place.\u201d Is not much of art just the putting of things in their\nright places, in their best and most appropriate and consequently their\nmost beautiful place; in the putting of a thing in such a place that\nyou feel it never could have been otherwise. As the child said when\nlost in admiration of his birthday cake, \u201cIt\u2019s so beautiful I think God\nmust have made it.\u201d It is this cleanliness, this neatness, which the\nJapanese possess, a neatness which has passed beyond mere precision,\npassed on into its essence--grace.\n\nAll this may perhaps sound far-fetched to English ears. If we are\nclean and polite it is on sanitary or on ethical grounds, not for\n\u00e6sthetic reasons, because \u201cit is healthy or right,\u201d not \u201cbecause it is\nmore beautiful,\u201d and we make a broad distinction between ethics and\n\u00e6sthetics. In Japan, on the contrary, there is the most intimate of\nrelations between them. The whole modern controversy of \u201cart for art\u2019s\nsake,\u201d all the dearly cherished views of French critics that art has\nnothing to do with morals, is simply unmeaning to them. You might as\nwell say that the sun had no relation to light.\n\nI have already mentioned how the _hokku_ form of verse arose as a moral\ninfluence, how literary composition is always recommended as the best\nmedicine for sorrow; but what of a nation whose gardens are arranged to\nexpress an ethical abstraction such as courage, resignation, obedience,\nor to suggest a saying of Buddha, the Blessed One; whose dwarf trees\nare not merely grown to make a design, but also to express an idea\nand suggest a reflection; where every single tree, and flower, and\nbird, and beast is a moral symbol and is commonly used as such; where\na simple candlestick of a stork standing on a tortoise and holding\nthe stem of a convolvulus in its mouth is a whole philosophy: the\nstork, representing Life, standing upon the tortoise, Eternity, and\nholding in its mouth the Morning Glory, a flower whose brief life, only\nblooming for the few hours after dawn, is typical of mortality, and\nthe impermanence of all things. From Life based upon Eternity springs\nMortality, whose joys are fleeting. Here is the kernel of the whole\nBuddhistic faith. The impermanence of phenomena and the eternity of\nlaw, that is, cause and effect.\n\nEven such an ordinary art as that of arranging flowers is deeply\nethical. The whole of Chinese philosophy is bound up with it. Each stem\nis known by the name of some tenet in this philosophy, and at the end\nof the lesson on flower arrangement the teacher sits down and talks to\nthe class of the underlying ethical ideas.\n\nI do not think there is any art in the world into which so much thought\nand meaning has been poured as into that of the Japanese. Every design,\neven the simplest, even the most stereotyped, has behind it a whole\nworld of symbol, of suggestion which speaks to the mind of the beholder\nas the outlines to his eye. And this is the reason why no design is\never unmeaning, haphazard, as it so often is with us. It is there not\nonly because it is beautiful, but because it is appropriate to the\nplace and the occasion, because it has some connection with the object\nit decorates, with the person who gives or the person who receives\nit, with the time and the circumstances of the giving. Their art, in\nfact, regarded from the ethical point of view, is often a sort of moral\nshorthand, a very beautiful, finely wrought shorthand, which men can\ntake away and think upon.\n\nAnd this brings me to my last point. John Addington Symonds, in one of\nhis wonderful essays on the Italian Renaissance, says that painting\ninevitably fell from its high estate among men because modern life\nis too complex to be expressed by it. That just in the same way as\nthe Renaissance required something less simple than the sculpture of\nthe Greeks to translate its thoughts and feelings into outward form,\nso we in this century cannot express our own more subtle and complex\nthought in terms of painting, and therefore never again can we hope\nto rival the perfection of that old Renaissance art. And he concludes\nby remarking that it is in music, more plastic and suggestive, that\nwe must seek our best expression. Now Japanese art is not dead but\nintensely living, and it has always seemed to me that it lives, it\nholds its place in their life, thought and culture just because it has\nlearnt to express those complex and subtle emotions which make up our\nworld to-day. And it does it, not by imaging them forth defined and\ndefinite as our painting seeks to do, but just as our music would by\nsuggestion.\n\nTo every Japanese painting a man must bring his own soul and his own\nthoughts, and where he has none or little, then he will turn away\ncomplacently, saying, \u201cHere, there is nothing.\u201d For his are not the\neyes to see all the dim eternal problems, all the vistas of unwritten\npoetry which the artist has but shadowed forth; the artist whose part\nis not to portray, but infinitely to suggest.\n\n\n\n\n SCENES IN RAIN AND SUNSHINE\n\n \u201cWhat it is\n That dwelleth here\n I know not;\n Yet my heart is full of gratitude,\n And the tears trickle down.\u201d\n SAIGIO.\n \u201cJapanese Literature,\u201d by W. G. Aston.\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n THE MOAT\n\n\nIt is winter, and yet a summer sky of clearest blue, faint and pure. A\nwhite sun rides in the southern sky, winning me to believe it summer\nuntil the cold northern wind lifts the edge of my cloak, and I know it\nwinter.\n\nIt is warm here in the corner of the bridge, full in the sunlight, and\nI linger. The dark, still waters of the moat creep stealthily along\non either side of me; in the distance I can see the rounded arch of a\nbridge, so arched is the span and so white that I could believe the\npeople had stolen the young crescent of the moon to span their waters.\n\nI lean on my bamboo parapet and look. The dark still waters run between\nbrown stone walls all overhung with the twisted limbs of the fir-trees,\nsuch big strong branches lying almost along the ground, and twisted as\nif in a vain endeavour to get back to the earth beneath. I watch the\nthick strong branches, soberly green, the masses of foliage riotously\nso, a green line and its shadow.\n\nThe stone banks of the moat are unhewn and uncemented, but their\nsurface is one unbroken line of sober brown; and I look at the long\nwave of muddy finger-marks traced by the tide\u2019s edge, and now high up\nthe wall, and drop my eyes to the deep mud-brown of the waters below.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe bamboo parapet grows hot, hotter. I wonder who laid those stones,\nand who keeps them so free of grass and weeds. On the whole they are\nnot more silent and solid than the big limbs of the trees above. Past\nthe bridge in the distance is an unkempt space of yellow grass, then\na tall red building shoots abruptly into the sky. The small brown\npoliceman, hidden by his military cloak and sword, stands motionless as\nI. Am I dreaming that this is a city of a million souls?\n\nBlue, green, brown, black; sky, trees, stones, water; a white sun, a\nwhite bridge--and suddenly the two seem to meet in a whirl of dust,\nmy scale of colours vanishes and with it the dreamy quiet and the\nsummer sun. A clatter of _gheta_ on the bridge, two _kuruma_ past the\npoliceman, a boat on the moat, the voice of the _t\u014dfu_ man following\nhis bell along the road, the shadow of the tall house over the\nworld--and I awake to winter and the town.\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n A RAINY DAY\n\n\nRain!\n\nAnd the world lies like an impressionist picture washed in with\nwhite. Shut up in my miniature hansom, with the apron up to my eyes\nand the roof down to the brim of my hat, it passes before me in misty\nunreality. But for an occasional bob of the black mushroom hat of my\n_kurumaya_ as he pulls the _\u2019ricksha_ out of a hole, I am drawn by an\ninvisible force.\n\nIt has rained for a week, and the streets are bogs, the puddles--ponds.\nThe wind drives the rain with a murmured \u201c_ssssh_\u201d against the\ntarpaulin sides of the _kuruma_, but in front there is no rain, only an\nintangible, shadowy whiteness between the world and me.\n\nThe green bank of the moat, the dark water, even the fir-trees whose\ngreen arms stretch down long fingers into the water, are uncertain\nand swollen as the world to sleepy eyes. Black _kuruma_ splash past\nme, with the large glass eye in their aprons shadowly suggestive. The\ncoolie in his straw raincoat, just a walking sheaf finishing in two\nbare brown legs, plods on, a golden figure against the grey. A long\nstring of carts pass by me, long narrow carts drawn by long thin\nhorses; cart and horses hidden under a structure of yellow oil-paper,\nuntil they look like huge golden bats or mythical dragons. And with his\nback to the head of the horse, a halter in one hand, a yellow paper\numbrella in the other, his bare brown legs lost in the mud, the walking\nsheaf moves on.\n\nAll the world to-day is four inches higher than its wont; and the\nstilt-like _gheta_ seem an uncertain footing for their owners. Bare to\nthe thigh is the _kurumaya_, and his brown legs look like the statues\nof Greece sunned into life, so perfect are their outlines.\n\nDown the vanishing road are two pale yellow umbrellas, gold on grey,\nand I marvel at the beauty of the colour. Suddenly round the bend of\nthe street comes a third--foreign, _black_--and in a flash the beauty\ngoes; a muddy road in the drenching rain alone is left, cold, prosaic.\nAnd I shiver in my _kuruma_.\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n MM\u00c9 (PLUM-BLOSSOMS)\n\n\nThey lay in fleece-white purity down the hillside, and the brooding\nstillness of that garden was as a sheltering wing above the world.\n\nBeneath one\u2019s feet the six-sided tiles set in the brown earth were\nclean with a Dutch cleanliness, and the soil all around had been raked\nwith the same quaint precision. Not a fallen leaf, nor the foot-mark of\na bird, marred the soft brown surface--only the narrow line of glazed\ntiles ran on and on under the trees.\n\nOn every side the curve of the hill sloped upwards, outwards, drawing\nthe white garden nearer as a mother draws her child close within her\narms.\n\nA hot sweet scent is in the air, delicate as honeysuckle, fragrant as\nthe pine, half-soft, half-spiced--the scent of the blossoming plum,\n_mm\u00e9_, the emblem of chastity, of womanly purity and strength.\n\nThe pale grey stems of the trees are bent and old; some are covered\nwith a grey-green moss, and between their silvered stems I walk as in\nthe cloistered calm of ruined abbeys.\n\nUp through the white fleece of blossom overhead bright stars of blue\nshine down. The sun-warmed presence of the living earth draws her\nchildren near. In all the world there is no sound....\n\n\u201cLike as a hen gathereth her chickens.\u201d ...\n\nIs not that the white wing of the eternal mother overhead? And the\nwarm, sweet fragrance of herself is all around.\n\n\n\n\n IV\n\n WET LEAVES\n\n\nIt had rained all night and all day; big, solid drops of rain that\nfell as compactly through the air as battalions of small shot, but at\ntwilight the raindrops dwindled, slackened, dwindled, ceased.\n\nThe clear, colourless sky, which the whole day long had shot down\nits drops of rain, drew together in grey clouds, growing momentarily\ngreyer, thicker and more grey, and shining with a pale light as though\nfar away behind those thick coverings a great white light was burning.\n\nThe stones on the pathway were all wet and shining and crunched down\ninto little pools of water under one\u2019s heels. The trees were dripping\nraindrops at each leaf, the trunks of all the pines were a dark brown\nwith wet.\n\nIn the garden there was peace, a peace of plants weighed down with\nraindrops, and very tired. Up on the damp hillside the note of a\nsolitary bird sounded forlornly. _Uguisu_, the Japanese nightingale was\ncalling. One sweet short song, and then a greater silence.\n\nAbove the little grey shrine to Inari, the Fox God, two golden oranges\nswayed out against the dark green bush. The raindrops on their under\nsides trickled slowly over the little temple, and down the miniature\nsteps, while those on the upper sides stood out in little clusters\ngrowing larger and larger until an imperceptible stir of the heavy\nfruit sent them chasing their fellows down the temple\u2019s roof.\n\nAnd the sky above grew greyer. The golden oranges, larger for the\nraindrops, swayed mysteriously out, bright yellow against dark green,\nin a damp, dark world.\n\nAt the path\u2019s edge another pathway of clear water encircled the temple\nand the orange trees; a water so clear that it hardly seemed to exist,\nwhile the brown banks and the brown stones showed wet and dark as the\npathway under foot. And round the temple and the orange trees in ever\nsilent motion along the brown pathway swam strange fishes; bright blue\ncarp with black sides and designs in creamy white, large orange carp\nwith tracings in silver, golden carp with six or seven waving tails,\nand solitary in their midst one white patriarch whom age had turned to\ndriven snow.\n\nAnd the damp, dark world turned slowly darker. The wet hillside grew\na black, blurred line; the light behind the cloud was going out; the\ntrees had lost their colour.\n\nAll silently the blue carp moved along the dark pathway, and the golden\norange globes dripped above the little temple. Bright blue, orange; the\nlight behind the clouds was out.\n\n\n\n\n V\n\n ASAMAYAMA\n\n\nWe were to climb Asamayama. The plan seemed simple and delightful;\nto take horses in the cool of the evening and ride by moonlight to\nthe last green frill of trees upon the mountain side: to climb the\nnine thousand feet to the very edge of the crater; and then in those\nblackest hours before the dawn to look into the volcano\u2019s mysterious\ndepths, all red and glowing, where flame and smoke strive ever for the\nmastery, where the long orange tongues leap up through rolling purple\nmasses of the smoke; and all around and all below, as far as eye can\npierce, is lurid glowing red. And still on the crater\u2019s treacherous\nsides which hold smoke and flame unsteadily as a drunkard holds his\ncup, to look down fascinated until they crumble beneath one\u2019s feet, and\nthe thrill of terror bites in the memory of the mighty force indelible.\nThen to breakfast under the sheltering walls of the old crater; to\nwatch the darkness melt before the coming day, to see the sun rise\nswiftly in his strength, and the long circle of the hills stand clear\nand blue and liquid on the upland plain; to see the giant ridges of the\nmountains stretching from sea to sea with the faint white cone of Fuji\na dream upon the distant sky; to look in the freshness of the morning\nupon the beauty of the land, and standing on the cinder slopes of\nAsama to trace the tortured lava beds stretching like long grey snakes\namong the green till the trees grow over and the forest engulfs them.\nAnd still in the first hours of the dawn to ride back slowly with the\nmemory of the crater and the sunrise making pictures in one\u2019s mind,\ntired but contented.\n\nThe programme was delightful, perfect, it only remained to carry it\nout. So we started, on the sorry horses of the upland regions of Japan,\nand the full moon fitful behind thick clouds shone sadly. It was\ndistinctly chilly, for the table land of Karuizawa is 3000 feet above\nsea level, and in the air was the damp shiver of coming rain. Still\nwe started, out of the village and along the wide still plain where\nthe dark shadow of a hill showed round as a basin on our right. This\nwas Asama\u2019s satellite, born of her fires, made of her ashes, a round,\nsmooth, green hill, cruelly deceitful.\n\nThe empty plain stretched dark to the edge of the misty clouds and\ndiffused through it was a pale grey light that shimmered, trembling.\nOver the plain and the mountain, through the air and the shadows, the\nlight filtered mistily, swaying and rounding the outlines till they\nlooked like solid bodies seen through a vast perspective of clear\nwater. As we plodded on, the paper lanterns held by each boy at the\nhorses\u2019 heads turned all the wet black path to shining silver pools\nwhich gleamed as the light fell on them, quivered like spreading veins\nof ore, and disappeared into the blackness. The limpid flowing air that\nswayed above the plain, all luminous and clear, grew darker, shrank as\nit were together, lost its liquid light, turned slowly into rain, and\ncame down steadily.\n\nWe passed through a second village, and went on, over a rutty road,\nbetween high banks, persistently upwards. All the sounds of the world\nhad died away, and the life of the woods, the rustle of leaves and of\ngrasses, the long thick hum of the insects was dead. Nothing moved.\nEven the rain made no sound as it fell in great wet clouds upon the\nground.\n\nHigh up on the rutty road we halted, while the two boys plunging\ndownward through the bushes in the darkness drank of a silent stream\nwhich flowed below, the last water we should pass that night. The\nleaves of the bushes cut sharp green silhouettes upon the blackness,\nstiff and metallic as tinfoil, as the boys, lantern in hand, plunged\ndownward. But we did not go, for the soft cloud of rain was falling\nthicker, wetter, and we were cold. When each had drunk his fill, and\nthe metal green leaves of the bushes had flashed back into darkness\nagain, we plodded on, over the common, under the trees, along another\npiece of road, looser, more rutty than the last, and definitely among\nthe dripping trees we climbed upward.\n\nThe moon was gone now, hidden deep behind the falling layers of cloud.\nAnd there was a hush, a stagnancy upon all things as though an unseen,\nunknown force were terrorising life to stillness. Not a tree had leave\nto stir. The branches huddled dumbly, and all the seething insect\nlife which makes the woods so full of sound lay stricken, lay dumb,\nparalysed; and among the damp trees we journeyed on.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAt midnight the horses stopped, in a fold of the hills on the edge of\nthe trees, where the blackness lay solid, and we slid down. One boy\ntied the horses together and sat down patiently to await our return\nnext morning. The other snuffed the candle in his paper lantern and\nprepared to lead the way. By this time it was raining hard, in distinct\nmaterial drops, which splashed sharply on face and hands, and it was\npitch dark. The boy, lantern in hand, went first, and all the light of\nthe lantern so carefully trimmed was cut off from us by his stout round\nbody. We knew by the crunch there were cinders under foot, by the cold\nwet dabs that ghost-like pressed our hands that there were bushes, and\nthat we climbed.\n\nFrom time to time the boy would sway his lantern to one side or the\nother, and stunted shrubs like London laurel trees would start into\nbeing, and disappear. With each swing of the lantern the stunted shrubs\ngrew scarcer and more stunted, till they dwindled to bushes, to mere\ngreen weeds like dandelions, to nothingness. Then the light fell on\ncinder, piled up, half-burnt cinder with ends of broken brickbats,\nand all the rubbish of a dust-heap. And at each step the wind came up\nand up; colder, stronger, wetter it tore down the bare steep slopes\ndriving us backwards. Then we would sit down upon the cinders, our\nbacks to the mountain, our feet on the brickbats, and pant. It was\ndistinctly exhausting. Each footstep was a launch into the unknown,\nand a searching for a foothold, each pause an adding to the weight of\ncinders that drifted down boots and clothing. And it rained with fierce\nsplashes when the wind blew, with dull persistency when it died away,\nbut still unceasingly. And that sense of an unseen, unknown force,\nparalysing all things, grew with each footstep. The chill of a dumb\nterror lay upon the world, and the utter desolation struck colder than\nthe wind.\n\nWe rested again while the icy wind rushed screeching through the\ncinders; and, as it died away, the chirp of a Japanese grasshopper came\ninto the stillness. We were far above the weeds now, in the region of\nperpetual cinder, and still that grasshopper chirped weakly. But the\nspell was too real, the terror too deathly; the unseen, unknown force\ntook a step nearer in the darkness, and the weak wee chirp seemed only\nthe voice of the horror, the breath of the dumbness giving it life.\n\nThe cinders grew looser and looser as we climbed, more difficult to\ntread, and the stagnant silence was filled and filled with sulphur.\nIt did not come in breaths or gusts, or driving before the wind, it\nwas there in the silence, part of it, and it wrapped us round. If dead\nsilence can grow more deathly, then did that stillness die again. The\ndumb terror tightened on the world, and the unknown force came nearer.\n\nFrom far below the sound of pouring heavy stones drove up and up. The\nmountain rumbled in its depths, rumbled and was still. The presence of\nthat unseen force was manifest. Before it terror crouched still as a\nbird beneath the swooping shadow of the hawk.\n\nWe climbed up heavily, up through the thick sulphur and the loose\nsteep cinders, up till we turned, and the full force of the wind came\nsweeping round the side of the mountain. We were walking on the edge,\nthe real edge over which you could fall, and it was all of lava, sticky\nas clay and crossed with deep black cracks that had no bottom. The wind\nswept down here undisturbed, the gusts of rain broke sharply on the\npaper lantern as it swayed from side to side to peer out a way. The\nsticky lava softened rapidly until it sucked around our feet, drawing\nthem down. Then a long fierce gust blew out the lantern and we stood\nstill.\n\n\u201cHonourably please stand very still,\u201d called the boy quickly.\n\nAnd we stayed dead still.\n\nThe gust of wind rushed by us, rushed on. Then another blew till we\ncowered on the sinking lava. It was so long in passing that the moments\nseemed as hours. We stood like statues. Insidiously the lava crept\nabove our feet, crept stealthily, and motionless we waited.\n\nThe gust died down but the wind still blew, still blew. A light\nquivered for a moment in the darkness and went out. The boy had lit\na match. He struck another. It flickered in little yellow leaps that\nshowed the lantern and his face and went abruptly out. Again the tiny\nmandorla of light shot up, the boy was holding the lantern in his hand\nall ready. We could see the flame double as the candle caught, then\nboth went swiftly out, for again the wind came rushing down. It blew\nand blew. Then it blew so fiercely that to blow again it stopped to\ntake its breath. Quickly in the second\u2019s pause the match flared up, the\nlantern lit, and we could move.\n\nAs we drew out our feet the wicked sticking lava sucked, and the boy\nheld the lantern low to peer out the cracks. Then he turned sharply to\nthe left, and the wind was gone.\n\nWe stood in a narrow roofless cave whose sides were overhanging rock,\nwhose floor was lava ash, wet with big rain pools. This was the old\ncrater. Asama has three craters, and two are at present in disuse. We\nwere sheltering in one of these. It was a still haven of refuge after\nthe fury of the wind outside, and a sure. There were no cracks, no\nsticky sucking lava here. With relief as from a heavy burden we sat\ndown upon the wet ash to rest and eat, the lantern in our midst.\n\nIt was now 3 o\u2019clock. Since midnight we had been climbing, our clothes\nwere soaked and heavy with rain and cinders, and we were very tired.\nThe boy prosaically unpacked the hamper, and by the flickering light\nhe set out plates and food. But before we could take one mouthful, the\nwind rushed down the roofless cave, upset the hamper, swept the lantern\nalong the ash before it, tore like a whirlwind from end to end, and\nleft us in an unearthly livid darkness that lighted nothing.\n\nFor a moment we all stayed numbed, then the boy sought the remnants of\nhis lantern and we the remnants of our meal. They were both embedded in\nthick lava dust.\n\nWe could not go on up the crater now, for every minute the wind blew\nfiercer, and the paper lantern was torn in several places. We must wait\nfor the dawn to show us the way. So we huddled under the shelter of the\noverhanging rock and waited.\n\nThe livid darkness that lay upon the mountain grew more livid and less\ndark to our watching eyes, till we could distinguish the faint outlines\nof things, though not the things themselves. It was, oh! so cold, and\nthat sense of stagnant terror, dispersed for a little by the wind and\nthe food, crept back and back, intenser, dumber than before.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThen the mountain rumbled in its depths, and the sound of pouring\nheavy stones came up again. This time it did not die away, it stopped\nabruptly, as though by force of will. And we waited.\n\nIt was so cold that I could sit still no longer, and, wrapping my cloak\naround me, tired as I was, walked up and down, up and down.\n\nThe overhanging rocks, whose outlines showed so ghostly against the\nlivid darkness, rose high above our heads. From time to time the\nsulphur thickened in the air, making us cough.\n\nAnd the deathness of that silence, the dumb horror of that stillness\nspread and spread and spread. It was all afraid.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe boy, curled under his rock, slept peacefully. We walked and waited.\n\nThen, in an instant, two great tongues of flame shot into the darkness,\nleapt high toward the sky, and two reports, as of the heaviest thunder,\nshook the mountain. The boy, awakened, jumped up quickly, looked at\nthe flames as they sprang into the darkness, and the thunder of the\nsecond report shook the ground beneath his feet, turned to speak, when\na sudden sharp clatter came like a hiss past all our ears, calling\n\u201cStones, stones,\u201d he threw himself flat on his face and rolled right\nunder the rock.\n\nWe, too, rushed to the overhanging rocks and crouched down quickly, and\nthe sharp clatter of stone on stone went on all around us.\n\nAsama had rumbled to some purpose, and she was resting.\n\nThen the utter silence, the dead, dumb horror came back, came back\nagain. Fear breathed beside us in the darkness.\n\nSlowly the little stars above the rocks dropped out of the sky, the\nlivid darkness changed to livid light, and it was dawn, a cold, grey\ndawn, but little lighter than the night had been. Still we could see,\nsee the lava and the ash, so, rolling out from under our rock, we shook\nourselves together, chattering with cold.\n\nThe ground at our feet was sprinkled with pinky-grey stones, daubed\nwith bright yellow sulphur, and glowing hot. They were as large as\na clenched fist, with edges sharp and jagged. We stooped to pick up\none--the least hot--and carry it wrapt in handkerchiefs, which it\nburnt, and mackintoshes which it singed, back to Karuizawa.\n\nThe boy looked at the stones, looked at us, looked towards the crater,\nand asked with many warnings if we were to go on. We, too, looked at\nthe stones, and thoughtfully towards the crater, and, as we looked, the\nmountain rumbled slowly in its depths.\n\nSeizing the basket, the boy fled, our one and only guide. We followed\nhim, over the cracks and the spongy soft lava, too occupied with\nwondering how we had ever passed over it safely the night before to be\nafraid now--too busy, too, watching the boy fleeing in front of us,\ntoo occupied marking his path to think even of eruptions. And somehow\nwe got over safely, back on to the solid cinder slope of Asama again,\nthe slope that went down straight as a shoot, and fell away as abruptly\non each side as a bridge. It was ground, and after the cracks and the\nsucking lava, solid, though the cinders did shift beneath our feet.\nWe had leisure to look round us, and found the mountain wrapped in a\nthick white mist. By this time the boy had disappeared entirely, but we\ndid not trouble now. There seemed no choice of paths down. Our cinder\nbridge went on, sloping steeply downwards into the hidden world below,\nand we followed it.\n\n * * * * *\n\nA little way below, the mist sank suddenly beneath our feet, and we\nwere walking in the yellow sunlight--walking down a cinder slope that\nshone jet-black against a pale blue sky, while all around and all\nbeneath, and surging up against the cinder slope, floated a wild wide\nsea of dead white clouds--a dead, still sea, with its waves stiffened\ninto frozen snow. Tossing, it lay beneath the clear blue sky, and\nthe pale sun glinted on its snow-white crests, glinted on the still\ngigantic billows that stretched from cinder pathway to the far blue\nsky. It lay a silent sea of milk-white frozen waves that was such stuff\nas dreams are made of.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd we went on, down. As the gods of old along a sloping bridge that\ncrossed the clouds and stretched from the blue heaven to the hidden\nearth beneath, like Izanagi and Izanami, as they crossed the rainbow\nbridge from the High Plain of Heaven and stirred the floating brine\nwith their jewelled spear--stirred till it went \u201c_koro, koro_\u201d--till it\nwent \u201ccurdle, curdle,\u201d as the old chronicle says, and the drops that\ndripping fell from the celestial spear piled up into the firstborn of\nthe islands of Japan.\n\nA sudden peal of echoing thunder shook our cinder bridge, and we turned\nabruptly. Somewhere on the other side of the topmost edge of cinder\nrose up a huge column of thick smoke. The wickedest dead-white smoke,\nwhich, slowly curling over at the tips like ostrich feathers, showed\nshadows of deep mauve and dull blue-purple, while from below the heavy\npouring of great stones drove up and up. Asama rumbled, rumbled in her\ndepths. Half an hour sooner we should have been up there still. Had we\ngone on to the crater we should have been on the very edge. The memory\nof the sharp-edged clattering stones, red-hot and big as fists, came\nback to us. We looked at one another silently, and went on, downwards.\n\nSlowly the gigantic plumes of thick curdled smoke drifted up into the\nblue, and they were very beautiful. It was as though Asama wore a\nsweeping white _panache_ in her coal-black helmet. But the thundering\nroar of the eruption had torn our sea of frozen snow, to pieces. The\nblank white mist shut swiftly down, and hid the mountain and the smoke,\nthe cinders and the sky; only the wide black bridge was left sloping\nstraight downwards.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe reached our horses drenched, to sit on high-peaked saddles and\njourney back through dank dripping trees, over rutty roads, across\nthick green commons heavy with mist, back cold, wet and hungry to\nKaruizawa again.\n\nBut we kept our stone, and though we had not seen into the crater,\nwe had perhaps come nearer to that mysterious force, itself unseen,\nunknown, which dwells beneath the lava and the ash, and terrorises\nlife.\n\n\n\n\n VI\n\n CAMELLIAS\n\n\nBlue bay below as far as eye can reach. Blue sky above, blue to the\nedge of the horizon. And in between a steep cliff of green: dark fir,\npale bamboo, and that impenetrable undergrowth for which alone a\nbotanist has a name--or names.\n\nThe time of the plum blossom has been, is gone, and the world is\ndrowsing in the dream of summer. Up here in the green the quick sappy\nlife is stirring, I can hear it plainly; for in all the world there is\nno other sound.\n\nThe trodden green path runs up, from blue to blue. Midway between the\ntwo I stop. And the green world closes in around me, shutting out the\nblue I came from and the blue to which I go.\n\nThe tall dark firs sway slowly. The pale bamboos wave slim fingers,\ngreen as March lime leaves in the sun, their golden stems are elusive\nand bewitching, sunned dryads of the East.\n\nThe green world has me in its hold. I forget the steep path to the blue\nabove. It is warm and still, and the bamboos beckon as they sway.\n\nHow green it is! All the greens a painter ever dreamt of ... and the\ngraceful bamboos beckon Eastern Vivians to bewitch.\n\nI stay to look and look--never trees so graceful nor the green world\nso fair. A step. I have left the pathway,--and then--I stop. Beyond the\npale bamboos and above them, its dark green branches rising upwards to\nthe blue, is a camellia tree. Each glossy handful of leaves holds a\nsingle blood-red flower. And the tree stands there beyond, above the\nswaying, beckoning bamboos, stern, severe.\n\n\u201cAnd the Wages of Sin is Death.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nI turn back to the path. The blue below spreads out as far as eye can\nreach, the blue above lies shining at the end of the pathway. The green\nworld between is still.\n\nBut the path is very steep.\n\n\n\n\n VII\n\n RAIN\n\n\nThe world is wet as when first parted from the waters; and the\nfirmament above, uncertain in its new position, seems slipping bodily\ndown to join the waters below. The sound of falling rain, unformed,\ncontinuous, seems to have come from the time before Time was; while\nthe tiny squelch of liquid mud oozing up between the bare toes of the\n_kurumaya_ alone marks the present.\n\nIt is dark. The paper lantern, swinging at the end of the shaft, lights\nup the pools of the roadway with a transient gleam. For the rest, alone\nin my miniature hansom, with the apron up to my eyes, and the roof down\nto my eyebrows, the world, with the rushing swish of falling rain,\nseems dissolving slowly into the waters, and the history of creation\nmarching backwards.\n\nA splash of wheels behind me, and the black mushroom hat of my\n_kurumaya_ bobs up above the apron, for the hill is steep. A shout, and\nthe _\u2019ricksha_ behind me stops. My _kurumaya_ stands still, holding\nthe thin lacquered shafts in his hands and shouts back. Then he drags\nme to the roadside, and, putting the shafts on the ground, steps over\nthem and disappears with his lantern. Balancing in my _kuruma_ like the\nmonks on the miserere seats I am left all alone.\n\nWhat is the matter?\n\nA splash of wheels, the heavy panting of two men. They are pulling\nthe other _kuruma_ up the steep hill, and will come back for me. So I\nwait, rigid; for the hill is steep, the mud slippery and the angle of\nthe seat precarious. I strain my eyes to see--a corner of muddy road,\nhalf the blurred outline of a hedge. And not all the light in all the\nworld could show me more, for the roof above my head is as a hand on my\neyelids pressing them downwards.\n\nThe wheels have splashed their way up the hill, and I can hear them no\nlonger. Only the sound of the falling rain, driven momentarily away by\nthe sharper splash of the moving wheels, comes back, slowly, steadily,\nirresistibly, submerging the world and me.\n\nI am all alone, a stranger in a strange land, behind me an unknown\nroad, in front--I strain my eyes to see. Even the hedge has grown\nunfamiliar. It is no hedge, nothing but impenetrable undergrowth. I am\non the edge of a forest.\n\nAnd the road?\n\nFor the first time I notice how strange even the mud of a road can be.\nThis is trodden all over with the prints of naked human feet, and the\nendless knife cuts of the _gheta_.\n\nThe loneliness is wrapping itself around me as a pall.\n\nThe dull swish of the rushing raindrops goes on and on. How long have\nthey left me in a dissolving world alone. No sound above, no sound\nbelow. And the rush of the falling rain is drumming in my ears.\n\nA hideous nightmare possesses me. Surely the trickling pools are\ncarrying away the mud from under my wheels. I shall slip down, down\ninto nothingness with the falling rain.\n\nI dare not move. My eyes are fixed on the narrow strip of muddy road in\nfront of me. The shafts are surely slipping----\n\nThen the rush of the falling raindrops drowns the world.\n\n\n\n\n VIII\n\n THE BLACK CANAL\n\n\nThe handle of the Japanese guitar, from which Lake Biwa takes its name,\nis at Otsu, six miles from Kyoto and three hundred feet above it.\nBetween stands all the thickness of Kyoto\u2019s girdle of mountains. Built\nin the flat bottom of an immense bowl, dark green with pine-clad hills,\nKyoto, the ancient capital, is still the artistic centre of Japan. It\nis a city of 350,000 inhabitants, and many manufactories, but with\nlittle water or water transit, while only six miles away, beyond the\nmountains and above the town, Lake Biwa stretches a long arm from the\nports of the west coast towards the city.\n\nIt was in 1890 that Tanabe Sakuro, piercing the heart of the mountains,\nbrought the waters of Lake Biwa, running swiftly under the hills, into\nKyoto. And the Black Canal begins at Otsu.\n\nDeep down in the last of the rampart of locks which shuts out the lake\nlies the long narrow _sampan_, a white gondola, carpeted and cushioned,\na large torch flames on either side, and the boatman stands ready\nbehind. We sit on the cushions on the carpet, for the canal is but\njust the height of a man, and but just the width of two _sampan_. The\ncement sides of the lock rise up like walls; in front is the black arch\nof a tunnel, cut like a tiny doorway in the base of the great green\nmountain. A moment, and we are inside, in the pitch blackness; rushing\nswiftly, silently along in the freshness of a subterranean night. The\ntwo huge torches that we carry show the darkness falling like a thick\ncurtain before, behind us; and the silence is the silence of infinite\nages asleep.\n\nThe rhythm of the rushing water passes like a breath through the\ndarkness, but the speed is unfelt. Move your hand beyond the side of\nthe boat, and the contact of the wall will tear all the skin from the\nknuckles in one swift scrape. For the water rushes, rushes silent in\nthe darkness, not a current but a force.\n\nSuddenly in the blackness there is a light; three nude figures poised,\ntheir muscles strained, human strength pitted against the water\u2019s\nforce. Their boat moves but slowly, we are by in a flash. The naked\norange figures form but one picture, one posture against the blackness,\na living red group from the black urns of Greece; seen, gone; and the\ndarkness drops down in thick curtains all around.\n\nSwiftly the water rushes, silent, the rhythmic breathing of black\nnight. The darkness deepens, deepens; then cracks. A thin, thin slit\nparts black from black, and slowly grows a narrow streak of faintest\ngrey.\n\nIt is light; light like the thinnest edge of a sword set in the\nfar distance. But the crack broadens, widens, rounds, and grows by\nimperceptible degrees into an open archway, showing the bright water\nand the green hills beyond. And swiftly we rush towards the light,\nwhile the little picture no bigger than the reflection on a camera\ngrows curves and outlines, swells here, retreats there, and passes from\na flat reflection into a rounded reality.\n\nThe tunnel itself is no longer black. The walls, the rounded roof, lie\nlike shadows, deep brown, growing quickly greyer. And above, on either\nside, the bats are clinging thickly, in long rows.\n\nWe shoot into the light and see that walls and boat are covered with\na fluttering half-dead mass of ghost-grey moths. They coat the tunnel\nfrom wall to roof, they lie in struggling heaps on boat and carpet, our\nclothes are full of them.\n\nWith one last swift glide we are out of the grey shadow, out under the\nblue sky. The green hills rise on either side, the water dimples in the\nsun. Slowly the grey moths flutter back to the darkness. For through\nthe heart of the mountain Lake Biwa has come to Kyoto.\n\n\n\n\n IX\n\n THE INLAND SEA\n\n\nThe little steamer lay tilted up against the end of the pier, for all\nthe waters of the ocean were rushing madly through the Straits of\nShimonoseki into the Inland Sea. The waters lay encircled as a lake,\nfor the space between the inner and the outer strait is narrow, but\nthey ran swift as a mountain river. The square-sailed junks, all sails\nset, were racing down the stream in the very eye of the wind, while\nthose coming up with a strong breeze behind them hardly seemed to stir.\nAnd the little steamer at the end of the pier tilted herself up higher\nand higher.\n\nShe was a foreign-built boat, though only about the size of a launch,\nbut she looked like a Moorish house afloat, for all the boat was\ncabin, and all the deck was roof, whitewashed, ribbed roof, with a\nstriped awning. As we left the pier and struck the full force of the\ncurrent, the striped awning and the uneven deck dipped down and down\nuntil the Moorish roof turned Gothic. We were in the full force of the\ncurrent now, and tearing down the stream with, as somebody said, \u201call\nour engines going the wrong way.\u201d Up the side of the boat the water\nclimbed, pulling it down with long strong hands, until the flat deck\nwas turned to a gable roof.\n\nFor five breathless minutes we balanced between air and water, and then\nwe were through the inner strait which turns the waters of the Inland\nSea between Moji and Shimonoseki into one big lake, and the coast of\nthe South Island began to fall away. The tide was running less swiftly\nnow, the ridge of our gable roof sank slowly into the water, and the\nlittle steamer floated a white, flat-roofed, Moorish house once more.\n\n\u201cThere is nothing,\u201d said the steward, \u201cfor the _Ijin San_ to eat.\u201d\n\nHe had been standing behind us, balancing himself on the steep gable\nroof, for some while, but the current and the laws of gravitation had\nbeen absorbing all our attention, and like a true Japanese he was much\ntoo polite to interrupt.\n\n\u201cThere is nothing, nothing,\u201d said he, \u201cto eat.\u201d\n\nFor the rare missionary, or the rarer tourist, who patronises the\ncoasting steamer of the Inland Sea comes provided as for an Arctic\nexpedition.\n\n\u201cBut we shall eat Japanese food,\u201d we explained.\n\nHe bowed, a low, polite bow, but I do not think he believed us. Then he\nwent away, and returned bearing foreign cups with saucers, full of a\nhot brown liquor called, he told us triumphantly, \u201ccoffee.\u201d It was of\nthe kind bought ready mixed in cakes, and made with hot water. We were\npleased to know it _was_ coffee, and the attention touched us, still,\nJapanese tea would have tasted better. We thought the pinky-brown soup\nflavoured with orange peel, the fried fish with chestnut preserve, the\ncustard stuffed with shrimps, and the bowls of rice eaten with salted\nplums and spiced roots off which we dined infinitely preferable; and\nthe steward who fanned us with one hand, and served us with the other,\nsaw that there was \u201csomething for us to eat.\u201d\n\nIt was eight o\u2019clock when we climbed the steep ladder which led to our\nMoorish roof, eight o\u2019clock on a July evening, and already the tall,\ndeep-dented mountains of Kyushu lay dark and indistinct. They lay cut\nsharp against a twilight sky as though they had no thickness. And\nslowly the coast-line fell away grey into the sea. Kyushu was dying as\nthe ship and sun moved on, Shikoku was but a blur upon the ocean, and\nbetween them the open sea made a pathway to the sky, all silver-grey\nand trembling, a road of light to that sunken light beyond.\n\nThe sun had set, and the fleeting twilight of the East was night\nalready. Japan\u2019s green hills were turning grey. Night held sky and\nislands fast, but the pathway shone and trembled until it died in the\nlast long streaks of light on the edge of the horizon. Night was come.\n\n * * * * *\n\nFrom Kob\u00e9 to Shimonoseki stretch the two hundred and forty miles of\nthe Inland Sea; and in it are gathered together most of the islands\nof Japan. Continuous as a mainland the coast of the big island runs\ndown, while on the other side Kyushu and Shikoku with ancient Awaji,\nthe firstborn of the Gods, dip their high green mountains in the sea;\nbetween, in lines and clusters, lie thousands upon thousands of baby\nislands; some large enough to hold a village, others too small for a\nsingle house; some green with trees and rice-fields, others a mere\nspeck of rock reaching up out of the water. From morning until night\nwe sat under the striped awning of our roof top, and watched as they\nglided past, green islands on the blue water; and always on our left\nhand the tall, deep-dented mountains of the mainland ran on and on.\n\nIn the morning sunlight Miyajima\u2019s granite _tor\u012b_ stood knee-deep in\nthe pale blue waves. Its temple roofs were brown against the dark,\ngreen pines, and the sacred island, where neither Birth nor Death may\ncome, slept blue-black with shadows in the dawn.\n\nAnd still they glided by, the green islands on the blue water. The sun\ntravelled up the sky; it grew hot--hotter.\n\nAt mid-day we had reached the narrow channel, where mainland and island\nare so close that the sea is but a canal between the houses; and the\nchildren of the two villages throw stones across the stream. Here, at\nthe end of the passage, a great stone lantern stands deep in the idle\nwater. Then, abruptly, as we turned, the canal was gone; and the wide,\nblue sea lay shimmering among the green islands in the summer sun.\n\nUnder the striped awning of our roof-top it was cool, but outside the\nsun was smiting sea and land, until sea and islands quivered, quivered,\nlosing themselves, colour and outline, in one mist of shimmering,\nshadowy blue. And the ship and the sun travelled on.\n\n * * * * *\n\nFive sturdy naval cadets shared our luncheon with us, and knew the\nnumber and the tonnage of England\u2019s smallest gunboats, and for all\ntheir blue uniform and \u201cforeign\u201d dirk, their _Sayonara_ as they left us\nwere courteous with an old-time courtesy.\n\nAnd the sun grew hot and hotter. The light like a mist wrapt sea and\nislands round. The continuous quivering hurt. On the other side the\ndeep-dented mountains of the mainland, grown bare and scraped now,\ncaught the sunshine on their rocky patches, and sent it in glittering\narrows of light across the still air. And yet in the brown villages,\nat the mountains\u2019 feet, the blue-tuniced, brown-legged peasants were\nworking in the sun; and at each stopping-place the bareheaded men and\nwomen came off in boats to offer their fruit and _sak\u00e9_ in long-handled\nfishing-nets, scent-bottles full of _sak\u00e9_ flavoured with plum-blossom,\n_sak\u00e9_ flavoured with chrysanthemum or peach-blossom, white rice,\n\u201cwoman\u2019s\u201d _sak\u00e9_, _sak\u00e9_ to ward off old age, or all and any of the\nnine different kinds of _sak\u00e9_ for which Tomotsu is famous, and all in\nscent-bottles, artistically tied up and labelled, and costing, bottle\nand all, _is-sen_. One old lady was highly indignant when after much\nexcitement we had contrived to haul up in the fishing-net the exact\nscent-bottle we coveted, and had sent her down one sen in return,\nfor the patois of the district makes _is-sen_ of _jis-sen_ (10 sen =\n2\u00bd_d._), to the unaccustomed ear.\n\nAnd the ship and the sun travelled on.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAs the shadows grew the quivering ceased, the light no longer like\na veil of darkness hid the land and sea. The islands grew a gradual\ngreen, as they drowsed on the clear blue water. And slowly the still\nsea opened wider; the islands passed more slowly until they ceased to\npass at all; and then on the blue water there grew that indefinite look\nof ocean space. The Inland Sea was ending. Away on the still sweep of\nwaters lay Awaji, the First-born of the Gods, the Eden of Japan.\n\n\u201cAnd when,\u201d says the legend, \u201cthe first man and the first woman met\nafter they had journeyed round a pillar set upon the land the woman\ncried, \u2018How joyful a thing it is to meet a lovely man!\u2019 Whereupon the\nman, displeased that language had been invented by a woman, required\nthe circuit to be made again, that he might speak first. So again\nthey journeyed round the pillar, and again they met, and loudly the\nman cried out, \u2018How joyful a thing it is to meet a lovely woman!\u2019 And\nthus,\u201d says the chronicle, \u201cwas Speech invented, and the Art of Love\nand the human race begun.\u201d\n\nDim grey on a grey sea lay Awaji; before us stretched the broad sweep\nof the landless ocean; the Inland Sea, dreaming among its islands, lay\nbehind.\n\n\n\n\n THE LAND OF THE GODS\n\n \u201cThat which I saw seemed to me a smile of the Universe.\u201d\n \u201cParadiso,\u201d canto xxvii.\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n ACROSS THE LAGOON\n\n\nWe sat still on the deck, with our backs propped against portions of\nthe ship\u2019s cargo, and watched.\n\nIt was necessary to sit still, for a rise of only a few inches would\nhave sent the awning over our heads into the blue waters of the lagoon;\nand each newcomer, as he stepped from the wharf on to this Kensington\nGarden craft, doubled himself in two and stayed so. First-class\npassengers lay flat, for a square hole in the side of the boat opened\ninto a three-feet-high saloon elegantly carpeted; we had matting. When\nthe first half of the passenger was inside, a big-headed boy removed\nhis _gheta_ and piled them up on the deck, reshoeing him in the same\nway when he emerged. The difficulty of extracting foreign boots in this\nmanner would alone have deterred us from using our first-class tickets;\nand then the deck passengers under the awning had at least six inches\nmore room, besides ventilation. So we sat on the matting and watched.\n\nAnything out of a toy-shop so tiny as this absurd little steamer was\nnever seen. She might with generosity have been fifteen feet long; yet\nshe carried some twenty passengers besides cargo down the lagoon and up\nthe river, from Matsu\u00e9 to Shobara, with safety and Oriental speed; and\ndid it twice a day too.\n\nThe carpeted saloon was reasonably filled with half a dozen passengers;\nthe deck overflowed with the rest. The brown-skinned, bullet-headed,\nugly, good-natured Japanese peasant, sitting on his heels with his dark\nblue _kimono_ tucked up above his brown legs, and his fan in his hand;\nor his little wife, wrinkled and meek, her white cotton towel, with\nits bamboo design in blue, folded round her head and tucked up under\nher hair behind in something between a night-cap and a sun-bonnet;\nquiet and sweet, but never abject, and always respected. Here and\nthere a shopkeeper or a clerk, or some one from the town in a grey\n_kimono_, with a face pale yellow against the other\u2019s brown. We all sat\nbare-footed on the matting to keep it clean, with our _gheta_ in our\nhands, fanning ourselves with rice-paper fans decorated with storks\nflying across the moon, or sprays of plum-blossom or pine-trees, each\nman of us showing his well-turned leg and thigh, with all the muscles\nbrought into strong relief by the weight of the body on the toes. All\npolite, all amused, all conversational.\n\nAfter a great deal of snorting on the part of our very small steamer,\nwe casually left the wharf and shot into the lagoon. Matsu\u00e9, hidden by\nthe sunlight, disappeared; and even the wide sweep of waters wavered\nindistinct beneath the hard glitter of the morning light. It was not\nyet nine o\u2019clock, and already the distant blue shore was blurred\nwith the shimmering heat, and the near green one fitful with the\nscissor-grinding of the _semmi_. The heat was dropping down on the\nworld with the swiftness of a tropical night and the glitter of it hurt.\n\nAway over the surface of the waters a red-brown head floated, lazy,\nthe nimbus of straw hat against the light glowing yellow as a halo.\nSlowly, idly, the head moved over the water, suspended between blue and\nblue. Too hot to doubt or question or deny, I accepted the head and\nshut my eyes, only to find on opening them again two, three, a dozen\nheads strolling slowly over the lagoon.\n\n\u201cHonourably please to understand, dredging for mussels,\u201d said a voice\nat my elbow. And the passengers repeated the information in a sort of\nGreek chorus with many bows.\n\nMatsu\u00e9\u2019s only representative of the vast world of the _Ijin San_\nis one missionary; but these peasants, with the refinement of true\nbreeding, accepted our outlandish dress and faces, our boots on their\nmatting too, without a stare of curiosity, although when our attention\nwas apparently absorbed elsewhere, the whiteness of our skins, the\naristocratic bridge of our noses (it is only the _noblesse_ in Japan,\nand not all of them, who possess an aquiline nose), were commented on\nwith interest and admiration.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe near green shore ran in and out, and in and out, wooded thick with\nthe slim green fingers of the bamboo, until it opened into a tiny green\nbay, with a thin bamboo landing-stage running out into the silent\nwater. Here we stopped with such an amount of \u201cay-aying\u201d on the part\nof the captain--a short man in a grey _kimono_, who sat in a hole in\nthe deck the other side of the funnel reading Chinese poetry--and the\ncrew, a tall youth in \u201cforeign\u201d trousers, who greased wheels, that we\nmight have been an Atlantic liner approaching an unknown shore. There\nwere no passengers for the invisible village behind the landing-stage\nbut the captain, who climbed over the side of the boat up on to the\nlanding-stage, and disappeared.\n\nBy-and-by from out of the green there came a charming little figure in\na sea-blue _kimono_, lined with lacquer-red, followed by a maid bearing\nneatly matted parcels. The crew wiped its hands and moved forward,\nwhile the sea-blue _kimono_, kneeling on the landing-stage, handed down\nthe parcels on to the boat for safe carriage to Shobara. They seemed\nto require quantities of explanation those parcels, accompanied by\nirrepressible giggles, principal giggles on the part of the mistress,\nand secondary giggles on the part of the maid; while the crew listened,\nreplied, grew eloquent. It was one of the most effective flirtations\nI ever saw, but alas! conducted in that Izumo dialect so hard for the\nTokyo-taught foreigner to understand. And it went on like the hum of\nthe _semmi_, while the water, the world, and the boat drowsed in the\nheat.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSuddenly, from out of the nowhere, appeared our captain, who swung\nhimself down from the landing-stage on to the boat as imperturbably as\na stone Buddha. The sea-blue _kimono_, still on its knees at the edge\nof the water, swayed in one last enchanting giggle that showed all\nthe lacquer-red linings in a quiver of flame, while the supplementary\ngiggles of the stout little maid followed us regretfully out of the bay.\n\nWith more \u201cay-aying\u201d we shot back into the hard glitter of the lagoon.\nThe captain retired to his hole and his Chinese poetry, the crew had\ncompletely disappeared, but the big-headed boy, emerging from some\nunknown region behind the captain, carried out a _hibachi_ and a\nkettle. He set the kettle on the brass tripod over the _hibachi_ and\nblew up the charcoal fire with a large fan; and we all watched him\nwith interest as he made Japanese tea in a green china teapot, rather\nlarger than the kettle, with a black handle and with dividing lines of\nblack separating the green into leaf-like petals. At this we all sat\nup, thirstier with anticipation, and the little china bowls filled from\nthe green kettle-teapot vanished from the tray. Then the big-headed boy\nhanded round _manju_ cakes (like boiled chestnuts in a white coat of\nsweet rice-paste), and collected payment, one _sen_ (a farthing). We\nall promptly demanded more tea, and the little bowls were filled and\nrefilled until the green kettle-teapot ran dry; and we all subsided\nagain. Only the _tink, tink_, of the metal pipes, knocking out the\nglowing wad of tobacco on to the deck in order to light a fresh pipeful\nfrom the burning remains of the old one, broke the drowsy silence.\nThree little whiffs and the acorn bowl of a Japanese pipe is empty, so\nthe _tink, tink_, of the metal on the deck was rhythmic as the _vee-um_\nof the _semmi_. They were all smoking, men and women, and the scent of\nthe bright brown tobacco, fine-cut as hair, lay under the awning.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe near green shore ran in and out, and in and out, until all the wide\nsheet of glittering light, spread over the blue waters, lay behind\nus; in front a bright green bank of rushes hemmed in the light. The\nlagoon was ended, and still we went on, seemingly with the intention\nof stranding ourselves among the bulrushes. But the bulrushes stood\nback as we came on, and ranging themselves on either hand, left a water\npathway down which we went, until the bank of rushes following the\nlagoon lay far behind, and we found ourselves in a narrow river that\nseemed half natural stream and half artificial canal.\n\nOur unnautical captain, who, ever since we had entered the rushes,\nhad been intoning directions to the invisible crew as though he were\nreading poetry aloud, got up out of his hole. The _tink, tink_, of\nthe metal pipes on the wooden deck died gradually away as each smoker\nknocked out his last wad of tobacco and put away his pipe. Then with a\nsudden and terrific snort the absurd little steamer, an end in either\nbank, stood still. The big-headed boy, hanging over the side of the\nboat, kicked violently with his heels, while the unexpected apparition\nof the crew\u2019s head rose up at our feet. The head took a look round\nand sank again, and the engines rattled. Still with an end in either\nbank, and with the big-headed boy clasping the gunwale in his arms, we\nproceeded to turn slowly round, and then, assisted by several ropes and\nseveral haulers, to back majestically into the main street of Shobara.\n\nOur journey was ended. The big-headed boy, leaving the gunwale, rushed\nto reshoe the first-class passengers as they wriggled from the saloon\non to the roadway. The bullet-headed peasants and their little brown\nwives bowing low bows to each other, the captain and to the _Ijin\nSan_, took up their bundles and trudged off, while we, like a Royal\narrival, were received by the authorities of Shobara, in the person of\na fierce little policeman in a new white suit, and duly escorted the\nthree-and-a-half paces from the ship\u2019s side to the tea-house door in a\nprocession, the people lining up the way.\n\nAnd the last we saw of that absurd little steamer, as we turned into\nthe tea-house, was a glimpse of the crew looking down the funnel, while\nthe big-headed boy, standing amidships, handed out the cargo to its\nowners on either bank.\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n TO KIZUKI\n\n\nThe green earth lay burning in the sun, wrapt round and round with\nheat. Between the tall blue lines of hills it stretched, the flat green\nfloor of a deep blue cavern, whose roof-top was the sky. And through\nthe green the long white road ran out of sight. The only living thing\nthat moved was the running _kurumaya_, all else lay sleeping in the\nbright night-time of heat, a heavy drugged sleep that neither rested\nnor refreshed.\n\nInert the green earth stretched between the blue hills, weighed down\nwith heat; a palpable heat through which we moved as a fish moves\nthrough water; a visible heat which was lying there heavy on the land,\nfloating round the blue hills, quivering against the white sky, humming\nin the still air, rolling in great drops down the bronzed back of the\n_kurumaya_, drowsing me to sleep as with the soft waving of a heated\nfan, a heavy, encompassing heat that stunned.\n\nAnd always the white road ran on through the green earth, and the long,\nstraight lines of hills on either side shut off the sky.\n\nBetween the fields of rice, here and there among the green, a\nbrown-thatched house like an open shed rose up, its roof supported on\nthe square pillars of the four corner posts, its walls rolled out of\nsight. And on the matted floor the women and children lay sleeping,\ntheir necks supported on a narrow stool; the men stretched on their\nbacks, or lying prone, their heads between their arms.\n\nNot a living thing in house or field, in land or road, was moving save\nthe running _kurumaya_. Heat had slain the world and life itself was\nsenseless.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOn either side the straight blue hills stretched out of sight, the\ngreen earth lay like a narrow passage-way between; and on and on we\nran, until the green floor contracted, and the white road became a\nbroad still street, where brown houses shut out the hills.\n\nA rapid spurt through the empty village, for a _kurumaya_ never stops\nexcept at the top of his speed, and we arrive at the tea-house. Dazed,\nweary, and stiff with two hours of continuous running, we struggle from\nunder the shawls and wraps that keep out the sun, and sink on to the\nmatting; while the crowd which has grown no man knoweth how, from out\nof an empty village, stands silently, staring. With equal suddenness\na small policeman starts up in front. He inquires our names, ages,\nresidence and destination; orders back the crowd with one wave of his\narm, commands that we be taken into an inner apartment, remote from\npublic gaze; and, in short, declares we may repose on him.\n\nWe are taken into an inner apartment, a room that is almost cool, while\nthe crowd drifts patiently round the house trying to look in. One\nlittle wide-eyed _n\u0113san_ brings us tea, and then house and world sink\nback into slumber again.\n\nThe _n\u0113san_, reluctant, but at last dismissed, lies down on the\nmatting, beyond the courtyard, and falls asleep. Her neck rests on a\nnarrow wooden pillow that has the curves of a _tor\u012b_; she lies like a\nlong-stalked flower on the ground, rigid, quite graceful. Every fold of\nher _kimono_, every twist of her hair, is in place. She is fast asleep,\nunconscious, perfectly tidy, with a neatness that has passed into its\nessence, grace, and is natural as the feathers to a bird.\n\nWe cannot sleep, the mere transition from the greater heat outside\nto the cooler heat of this open matted space makes us wakeful. It is\ncooler here actually, in degree, and imaginatively, from the green\npalms of the baby garden. The garden of a doll\u2019s house, which any\nmoderate-sized bath-towel would have roofed, yet with a forest of dwarf\npalm-trees in one corner, a winding pool in another, the cool grey\noutlines of a stone lantern to hold the eyes, and a sense of still\ngreenness, of limpid freshness, which not rivers of water or forests of\ngiant trees could more distinctly convey. To look at that garden was to\ntake a mental bath and drown out the sense of heat. But the heat itself\nremained, intense and stagnant, a heavy presence in the house that\npermeated all things.\n\nOut in the courtyard one shaft of burning light shone down, turning the\ncotton towel on its bamboo line to a white-hot banner, the polished\npassage to a molten pool, while the water in the big stone font was\nwarm as condensed steam. Like the flaming sword of the Archangel\nMichael, the shaft of burning light cut the passage-way in two, and the\nsharp white-heat of it seemed to cut. It was absolutely still, only the\nheat moved awake in a house and a world asleep.\n\n * * * * *\n\nVery slowly the little _n\u0113san_ sat up; some one had called her. A\nmoment, and she was on her feet, neat as a growing flower.\n\n\u201cThe _kurumaya_ awaits,\u201d she said, kneeling on the matting, \u201cwhen it\nhonourably pleases the august ones to come.\u201d\n\nThen she touched her forehead to the floor and waited for what it\nhonourably pleased the august ones to do.\n\nThey came, down the polished passage, under the flaming sword of\nlight, out into the open space before the tea-house, where the little\npoliceman waited to command them to be packed into their _kuruma_, to\ndeliver stringent orders for their safe conduct to the _kurumaya_, to\nauthoritatively bid them the politest of _sayonara_.\n\nThe crowd had disappeared, harangued out of existence; the village\nstreet was empty as a desert, the houses dead; and then the steep line\nof blue hills grew up on either side, shutting in the sky, and the long\nwhite road stretched away through the green earth.\n\nPalpable, visible, the heat lay over the land, quivering against the\nwhite sky, floating round the blue hills, humming in the still air,\ndrowsing me into a somnambulant life that was neither sleep nor waking.\n\nBetween the green earth and the white sky the telegraph wires cut a\nbronze line against the quivering blue; and the rows of little birds,\nall sitting with their tails to the road, hung drowsily there, rows on\nrows of them. And still the long white road ran on and on.\n\nBeneath the short thick hair of the _kurumaya_ the heat gathered in\nwet patches on the white scalp, rolled in big drops over the black\nhead, trickled down the bronze neck, and was wiped off with one rapid\nmovement of the blue cotton towel, as the running _kurumaya_ sped\nswiftly on; gathered again, rolled again, trickled again, was wiped\ndry again; gathered, rolled, trickled, until the automatic movements,\nrepeated and repeated, grew part of Time itself. They were Time.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThen I awoke. It was as if some one had slid a thin lining of fresh\nair along the tops of the blue hills, beneath the burning sky. A thin,\nthin sheet of fresh air, but the green earth gave a great sigh, the\n_kurumaya_ a little shake, and I awoke.\n\nThe peasants in their brown thatched houses, open as a shed, were\nstirring, the naked red figures in their white cloths were moving down\nthe road.\n\nIn the fields the long bamboo poles that shot up out of the green earth\nlike masts were dipping up and down, drawing water for the thirsty rice.\n\nThe little birds on the telegraph wires were chirping sleepily, flying\noff in twos and threes, and settling down again, audibly fussing over\nthe laziness of their friends and relations.\n\nThe bright night-time of heat was over and gone.\n\nI sat up in my _kuruma_ and looked. We were running through green\nrice-fields, under a blue sky. And it was a hot summer\u2019s afternoon.\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n IZUMO\u2019S GREAT TEMPLE\n\n\n\u201cSo they made fast the temple pillars on the nethermost rock-bottom,\nand they made high the cross-beams to the plain of high heaven;\u201d and\nthe god Onamuji, the \u201cMaster of the Great Land,\u201d King of Izumo, in\naccordance with his compact with high heaven, entered into that temple\nand dwelt there.\n\nSo the province of Izumo and the kingdom of Western Japan passed under\nthe rule of the great Sun-Goddess whose descendants endure to this day.\nBut the Master of the Great Land, the god Onamuji, is worshipped from\nend to end of the Emperor\u2019s dominions, and his temple and his priests\nare sacred as the mirror of the Sun-Goddess in their eyes.\n\nAll through the year, the pilgrims in thousands journey into Izumo to\nremote Kizuki, whose name to their ears is still resonant with the\nbeating (_tsuku_) of the pestles (_ki_) which made the foundations of\nthat first great temple firm and everlasting, while in the month of\nOctober the immortal gods themselves, from every shrine throughout\nthe land, come to visit Onamuji, and that desolate month known in\nJapan as _kami-na-zuki_ (month without gods) is called in Izumo alone\n_kami-ari-zuki_ (the month with gods).\n\nAt the foot of the everlasting hills the temple stands, and the far-off\nripple of the Western Sea, half a memory, half a dream, wanders through\nits sunlit courts, a sound to listening ears.\n\nThe long dark avenue of twisted trees, so old that many are almost\nlimbless, the three giant _tor\u012b_, hewn in solid granite, lie behind\nus; we have reached the white sunlight of the outer temple space, and\nthe scattered buildings of the shrine are in front. Our landlord, in\nhis Sunday-best _kimono_ of silver-grey, leads the way. He has walked,\nsince we left the inn, exactly three paces behind us, while three paces\nbehind him came our _kurumaya_. In Kizuki it has not been considered\nconsonant with our dignity to allow us to move anywhere without them.\n\nOur landlord, with the profoundest bow, moves on in front. He has a\nletter to deliver on our behalf, so that when we reach the long, low\nbuilding at the end of the first enclosure, an authoritative young\npriest in long white robes is there to greet us. He wears a wonderful\nhead-dress of black lacquer, the model of a meat-cover, tied on under\nthe chin, with two red cords in the manner of a doll\u2019s bonnet; but his\nchin is human, not inflexible, so I watch to see the meat-cover tumble.\nIt never does, not even when with a low bow he invites us up the steep\npolished steps into the room above. We take off our shoes and climb.\n\nThe room is long and low, with a \u201cforeign\u201d table covered with a green\nbaize cloth. There are bright blue velvet chairs, an inkstand, pens;\njust a second-hand committee-room greatly the worse for wear, which\nimpresses our landlord, so that his strangled h\u2019s of admiration sound\nlike paroxysms of coughing. We sit on the velvet chairs and wait. Our\nlandlord, the letter and the priest have disappeared into an inner\napartment. And the sound of much discussion comes to our ears. \u201cHow\nfar are we to be allowed to go?\u201d And then the terms \u201clearned _Ijin\nSan_,\u201d and \u201caugust sage\u201d reach us. At last they are all agreed. The\n\u201clearned _Ijin San_,\u201d the \u201chonourable teacher,\u201d the \u201caugust sage\u201d shall\nbe permitted to enter the very Holy of Holies; but the \u201chonourable\ninterior,\u201d being a woman, must not cross the sacred threshold. Then\nthere is a long pause before the authoritative young priest comes out\nand explains the position to us. We bow the profoundest thanks and\nfollow him down the steps, and the reason for the pause is evident. He\nhas changed his clothes, and is now in the fullest and most resplendent\nof sacerdotal robes.\n\n * * * * *\n\nUnder the shadow of the gate of the _ita-gaki_, the second enclosing\nfence, stands the High Priest himself, whose fathers for two thousand\nyears have led the temple rites. He is the eighty-second descendant of\nthe mythic Susa-no-wo, and is still termed by many _Iki-gami_, which is\nthe \u201cLiving God.\u201d An old, old man, whose face is almost white, a mystic\nsacred face, quiet as the eternal smile of the Eternal Buddha. He wears\na lacquered head-dress, the most imposing of meat-covers, and his robes\nare of white and purple adorned with gold.\n\nWe pass within the _ita-gaki_, and the landlord, the _kurumaya_, the\ncrowd of other worshippers are left behind. Before us rises the low\nfence of the \u201cjewelled hedge,\u201d which encloses the sacred shrine itself.\nAgain before the gateway there is a pause. The minor priests, even\nour authoritative young friend, do not enter here. It is explained to\nus that the \u201chonourable interior\u201d must not pass within the temple.\nShe is a woman, but it is permitted to her, as the wife of the most\n\u201chonourable one,\u201d to look into the shrine from a room above the\ngateway. The High Priest removes his sandals, we our shoes, and over\nthe rounded, water-washed, grey pebbles, hot as burning plough-shares,\nwe enter the holy court.\n\nA long, low wooden building is the temple, prim\u00e6val in its form, the\nbroad ends of its roof-tree sticking up like pointed anchors through\nthe roof. Six feet around it on every side the pebbles stop, and the\nspace is filled with the whitest, smoothest sand. All those who go up\nto the god leave the mark of their feet behind.\n\nWithin the temple there is nothing; bare space, dim, obscure; but the\nHigh Priest, reverently kneeling on the matting, creates the god. And\ninto that narrow empty space the shadow of the Eternal Presence comes.\n\nSlowly the splash of the breaking waves drifts into the stillness,\nfaint as the whisper of God in the heart of man, a still, small voice.\nOver the temple there is peace, the peace of two thousand years,\nunbroken, sacred. And the dreamy ripple grows a sound in the silence.\nFaint, faint, faint, is it the song of the limitless sea, the voice of\nthe peace and the stillness, or a broken murmur of the beyond that the\nlistening pilgrim hears? Half a memory, half a dream, it dies at the\ngate of the shrine, where the stir of the world grows loud; yet the\nsoul has heard, has believed.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOut in the sunlit court beyond the \u201cjewelled hedge\u201d the little group of\npriests still wait. And as we come slowly over the hot round stones,\nour shoes once more upon our feet, they greet us with an added respect.\nEven the \u201chonourable interior,\u201d whose sacredness is but indirect,\ntransmitted through a space of court and two open _sh\u014dji_, has become a\npersonage.\n\nThe old, old priest, with the face of a Chinese sage, goes on in front.\nWe cross the second court obliquely over the stone-grey pebbles, each\nrounded with the rubbing of running water, and enter another building,\nthe treasure-house of the temple. Here in a shaded upper chamber, where\nthe white sunlight filters through the yellow matting, a long low shelf\nruns round, and on it lie the temple\u2019s treasures--relics of dead heroes\nand of living legend. One by one the High Priest points them out, and\nin the thin frail voice of age tells their story: A _biwa_, a sword,\nsome pieces of tattered brocade, the old, old relics of Old Japan.\nThe tales are long, as the old man tells them with the slow-moving\nutterance of one who has had eighty years in which to speak. But there\nis a personal vibration in his voice that brings back the long two\nthousand years of service that he and his have given to the temple,\nrecalls the eighty-two High Priests, his fathers, who join the living\nman before us to the god Susa-no-wo, from whom the Great Master,\nOnamuji himself, descended.\n\nAll this time, the authoritative young priest has been respectfully\nbut quite obviously waiting to show us something. At last he draws\nus across the room to where a life-sized plaster statue stands, the\nSun-Goddess herself in the flowing robes of Old Japan, a figure full of\nmajesty and power, with round her neck a string of those prehistoric\njewels of which the _Kojiki_ is full, comma-shaped polished jewels\nof jade and crystal, threaded on a scarlet string. And in the loose\nsleeves of the plaster figure and about the folds at the neck are\ntouches of brightest red. A modern plaster statue of a figure old to\nunbelief.\n\nAnd the young man tells the story. He is so eager, so proud to relate\nwhat has indeed become the great central fact of the story, that who or\nwhat the statue is, or how or why it came there we never hear; but--it\nhad gained a prize at the Chicago Exhibition!\n\nAnd all the rest of the clergy intone a little chorus of triumph and\ndelight. Even the High Priest himself seems pleased, and a faint smile\npasses over his face as he bids us examine the ticket.\n\nIt is quite true. From the out-stretched wrist of the Sun-Goddess\nhangs a much-worn ticket, stating in printed Roman capitals that \u201cThis\nExhibit has won a Prize at the World\u2019s Fair of Chicago.\u201d And the figure\nstands there, in the long low treasure-house of Izumo\u2019s Great Temple,\nwhile the white sunlight, filtering through the yellow matting, falls\non the white-robed priests who serve a temple worshipped through two\nthousand years, falls on the old High Priest with the mystic sacred\nface, whose fathers stretch back into the mists of Time, and falling,\ntrembles on the faded ticket on the arm of the Sun-Goddess:\n\n\n WORLD\u2019S FAIR, CHICAGO.\n\n This is to certify----\n\n\u201cIf the august sage will honourably please to descend.\u201d\n\nAnd we descended.\n\nIn the hot still court the High Priest takes his leave, with long\npolite phrases of strictest ceremony. The authoritative young priest\nwho escorts us back through the _ita-gaki_ into the outer court is\nequally ceremonious, and our polite Japanese is heavily taxed to keep\nup with him. At the outer court he bids us _sayonara_, and our landlord\nand our _kurumaya_, who have been respectfully waiting, form into\nprocession again. We have become great personages in their eyes, very\ngreat personages indeed; and the pilgrims, kneeling before the shrine\nin the outer court, look at us with reverence. We have entered the Holy\nof Holies, we have visited the god Onamuji in his shrine.\n\nIt is with the lowest of bows that our landlord leads us out of the\nside of the temple court, westward, to where the tall dark trees of\nthe mountain have grown down into the plain. Here, set in the silence\nof the cryptomerias at the foot of the everlasting hills, is the home\nof the High Priest. So still, so ordered, so spotless, the house and\ngarden lie like a snowdrop in a forest. And the sound of the sea drifts\nin as we stand.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThen for the last time we cross the courtyard where the pilgrims are\npraying in the sunshine, and the temple dancing girls, dim figures\nin the distance, glide round and round in the long slow circles of\nthe sacred _kagura_. Court and temple are burning in the sunlight.\nBeyond the \u201chedge\u201d and the \u201cjewelled hedge\u201d the great beam-ends of the\nroof-tree rise out through the temple\u2019s thatch. Within the shrine hangs\nthe mirror of the great Sun-Goddess. For the heart of man, says the\nShint\u014d faith, is good and pure. And even as this mirror, when undimmed,\nreflects the sun, so in the tranquil soul God\u2019s self is imaged.\n\nOver temple and courtyard there is peace; the peace of long centuries\ndead; the peace of enduring belief. Down from the mists of the past\nthe teaching comes: \u201cKnow thyself; in the stillness of peace, know but\nthyself, and thou shalt see God.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n IV\n\n KIZUKI\u2019S BAY\n\n\nThe Sea of Japan, as it wandered down the western coast, took a sudden\nand unexpected bite out of the land of Izumo; and that bite is the bay\nof Kizuki. It is the tiniest of bays, with but half a mile of sandy\nshore between the two steep lines of hills that run straight out to\nsea: green hills that stretch so far, the green has time to grow a\nmisty blue before they curve toward the water in a deep blurred line.\nLandwards a length of sandy dune shuts out the village street; and the\nlittle bay, set between the hills, and cut off from the sea, lies like\nan ebbing lake.\n\nOn the sandy shore it is still and cool; and from the dozens of\nJapanese families comes only the high pitched laughter of the playing\nchildren. Kizuki is the Margate of the West, and the pilgrims who\njourney to its shrine stay to breathe its sea air, and combine a\nreligious pilgrimage with a summer holiday in a manner so usual in\nJapan.\n\nThe big hotel under the great north wall of green, with its ground\nfloor, and, wonder of wonders, two, yes--two storeys, is full. So full\nthat the landlord was forced to tuck away his distinguished guests in a\nback room of the old inn up the village street. The square two-storied\nhouse, with all its _sh\u014dji_ pushed back and the contents and occupants\nof every room exposed to public view, looks for all the world like a\nbig doll\u2019s house with the door gone. And its inhabitants eat, drink,\nplay, laugh, sing with the natural unconcern which we could only reach\nsecure behind brick walls, curtained windows, and venetian blinds. The\nunconcern is so simple, so unaffected, that the Yokohama foreigner,\nfeeling dimly that his own behaviour could never be so natural under\nsuch conditions, suspects \u201cplay acting,\u201d and will sometimes speak of a\n\u201cnation of mountebanks\u201d with the scorn of a man among monkeys.\n\nThe hotel is built just where the blue beyond of the Western Sea,\nglowing between the headlands, draws eye and mind away, adding the\nunbroken curve of Infinity to the quiet lake\u2019s rounded life.\n\nThe sun has set; perhaps behind that great green wall he still drops\nswiftly to the horizon, but in Kizuki there is twilight, a luminous\ngrey twilight that has no shadows, which, spreading, blots all colour\nfrom the world. Between wall and wall of hill the sky stretches clear\nand green. The bay is flooded with a golden light. And there, a black\nline from gold to green, its base in the yellow water, its crest on the\nsunset sky, stands Kizuki\u2019s second wonder, the third beauty of Izumo--a\ntall pointed rock. For the Japanese, who seek much more for line than\ncolour in their beauty, glory in its curves; and the little bay of\nKizuki owes its visitors not to the purity of its air, its fishing,\nboating, bathing, or casino, but to the beauty of its solitary rock and\nthe nearness of its sacred temple.\n\nFrom shore to sky the luminous grey twilight climbs. The flood of\ngolden light is dead. The great green walls that make the bay are dark.\nOnly in the sky the faintest stain of colour lingers; and there the\nrock\u2019s lone crest blots a black line upon the dying green.\n\nMy _kurumaya_, in his long parson\u2019s coat and waistcoat, blanched the\npurest white, asks if I have ever seen a bay more beautiful. And all\nthe dozens of Japanese families stand looking out to sea, for the cult\nof the stone is in their hearts.\n\nSlowly the luminous twilight draws the world in Chinese ink. It climbs\nthe sky, and the colour dies; only the sombre lines of rock are left.\n\nThe little bay is grown a mystic _kakemono_.\n\n\n\n\n V\n\n IN MATSU\u00c9\n\n\nWe had journeyed in trains and in steamers, in big boats and in little\nboats, in _kuruma_ and _sampan_, and had reached the Land of the\nGods--and the inn at Matsu\u00e9.\n\nNot the least of our difficulties had been to find that inn, for our\nlandlord at Kyoto, on hearing we were bound for Matsu\u00e9, had offered to\nmake all arrangements for us through a \u201cfriend in the Prefecture.\u201d And\nthe arrangements had been made, but when we asked for explanations, the\naddress of the friend or the name of our inn, he only smiled, a polite\nunexplanatory smile, spread out his hands with ceremony, and bowed. All\nwas \u201c_yorosh\u012b_.\u201d\n\nWith this much information we had started, with this much and no more\nwe had arrived. The baby steamer ran alongside the wharf at Matsu\u00e9, her\nfirst-class passengers wriggled out of her cabin, her deck passengers\ncrawled from under the awning; and we sat still, our luggage piled\naround us, wondering if, like the Peri at the Gates of Paradise, the\nLand of the Gods would admit us or not.\n\nJust then, when the pause had become really embarrassing, a\nwhite-uniformed policeman boarded the steamer; with much ceremony he\nannounced--under the circumstances he could hardly have inquired--that\nwe were the _Ijin San_ from Kyoto. We assented, and he promptly led\nus outside, where a tall, loose-jointed Japanese, with a Red Indian\nface hatcheted out of iron wood and wearing \u201cforeign\u201d clothes, stood\nwaiting. The white-uniformed policeman politely performed the ceremony\nof introduction, and stood aside. This was the friend from the\nPrefecture; and once we had thoroughly and properly and ceremoniously\nreplied to this fact, which took time, our friend from the Prefecture,\nwho had the smile and the teeth, and the difficulty in concealing\nthem, of the famous Mr. Carker (only he was amiable), introduced our\nlandlord, a little, bright, black squirrel of a man grasping an immense\numbrella. More ceremony of course, while the crowd gathered round and\nthe policeman patrolled the group. We were personages. One gesture\nfrom the amiable Carker of Matsu\u00e9 Prefecture and five _kurumaya_ burst\nthrough the crowd, while twice as many assistants rushed off to bring\nout our luggage under the eagle eye of the policeman; and with his\npersonal assurances as to our safety and comfort in Matsu\u00e9, we and our\nluggage were packed into three _kuruma_, the amiable Carker and the\nblack squirrel of a landlord climbed into two more, and the procession\nstarted. The policeman saluted; the crowd, at the most respectful\ndistance, silently stared; Matsu\u00e9 received her visitors as the most\ndistinguished of strangers.\n\nThe _kurumaya_, uplifted with pride, tore along at the top of their\nspeed in the exact centre of the road, and the traffic scattered before\nus. We did not run, we flew, over the stone bridge built just where the\ncanal ends and the lagoon begins, up the long, long street parallel\nto the lagoon, then a dive to the left over a canal bridge, a dash\nthrough a green turning, another dive, another bridge over another\ncanal, and with the most imposing clatter we tore into a gravel court\nin front of the inn, and pulled up short in the recess of the entrance.\nIn an instant the _sh\u014dji_ slipped aside and three women in dark blue\n_kimono_ were bowing, knees and forehead, on the polished wood. We had\nreached the inn at Matsu\u00e9.\n\nThe three figures got up, as we left our shoes on the long thick block\nof rough-hewn granite which forms the front door-step between the\ngravel and the house, and led us in a long procession to an open matted\nspace in the garden. This was our room. It had but half a wall, where\nthe _tokonoma_ stood; the other half was open _sh\u014dji_, leading to the\nhouse, and two square pillars at the corners supported the roof. Here\nwe all subsided upon the kneeling-cushions in the strictest order of\nprecedence, based on nearness to the _tokonoma_. Our black squirrel\nof a landlord and the amiable Carker of the Prefecture, who had also\narrived, sat on their heels with great ceremony, though the \u201cforeign\u201d\nclothes of our friend from the Prefecture got sadly in his way, and\nthen the interchange of polite phrases began. It was exhaustive, for\nthey were, oh! so ceremonious, and although two little girls with\ngoggle eyes fanned us vigorously, and the blue waters of the lagoon\nfilled what should have been wall in front of us, we grew hotter and\nhotter.\n\nThen the plain daughter of our comely landlady brought in an immense\nwhite meat-dish of railway-buffet thickness, and set it down with\nconscious pride before her mother. It contained piles of chipped ice,\nwhich the comely landlady shovelled into miniature tumblers, the size\nof dolls\u2019 tooth-glasses, with an imposing iron ladle. She sifted over\nit white sugar from a pie-dish, and the plain daughter presented it to\nthe company. The drink of the Gods themselves was never more divine!\nThough like Sam Weller\u2019s orthography, which \u201cvaried according to the\ntaste and fancy of the speller,\u201d you can eat this drink or you can\ndrink it. Either way is inelegant, but both are delicious.\n\nIt was only by relays of this amphibious refreshment, which went on\nas long as there was anything besides a large pool of water in the\nmeat-dish, that the polite phrases flowed, on our part at least. At\nlast etiquette, even Japanese etiquette, was satisfied, and our amiable\nfriend from the Prefecture bowed himself away.\n\nThe plain daughter removed the meat-dish, not resisting to tell us it\nwas \u201cforeign\u201d as she did so, and retired. And we lay out to cool upon\nthe matting.\n\nThe lagoon, the garden and a green courtyard filled the three sides of\nthe room where walls might have been. Even the _sh\u014dji_ here had been\nremoved, for there were no houses visible; a high green hedge of thick\nbamboo bounded court and garden, beyond were the pale blue hills.\n\nIt was not a room, it was a nest, we lived as freely in the open air\nas the birds or the flowers; a brown roof hung like a sheltering leaf\nabove our heads, a cool clean matting covered the ground beneath our\nfeet, but the rustle of leaves and of rice-fields, the restless hum of\ninsect life, the rippling rhythm of the wide lagoon, the whole stir of\na growing world was ours. We did not peep at it through a window, we\nlay in it, we _were_ it; and it rippled and hummed and grew part of us,\nfor Pan is not dead, in the Land of the Gods he is living still.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThen the comely landlady called us to our bath; \u201cthe honourable hot\nwater was ready,\u201d and the plain daughter assisted us out of our clothes\ninto our _kimono_ with an attention which, to our sophisticated code,\nwas embarrassing, and led us down a passage whose wooden wall opened\ninto the bathroom. Here our landlady received us. She was just sliding\ndown the wooden plank, which shut off the pipe filled with glowing\ncharcoal from the rest of the bath-tub, and looking up she said the\nbath was \u201c_yorosh\u012b_.\u201d\n\nThe water was positively bubbling, at that delicious temperature of 110\ndegrees which the Japanese love; but we were not yet used to literal\nboiling, so we demanded cold water. And the two little girls with\ngoggle eyes ran away to fetch it in high wooden pails with stiff wooden\nhandles. They ran out by the wooden _sh\u014dji_ on the opposite side, which\nopened straight on to the gravel courtyard of the entrance, and their\ndark-blue _kimono_ were tucked up into their _obi_, showing the bright\nred _kimono_ underneath. And they were laughing.\n\nWhen we demanded still more cold water they laughed again. The _Ijin\nSan_ had strange ideas of baths evidently. At last, in deference to\ntheir feelings, we desisted. The water was no longer bubbling, so we\npronounced it \u201c_yorosh\u012b_,\u201d and they all retired.\n\nThe bathroom had a grey stone floor and walls of wooden _sh\u014dji_; at one\nend stood the high barrel-bath, and wooden buckets, pails and dippers\nlay all around. A three-foot-high platform ran all down one side and\nadjoined the passage-way by which we had entered; from it one stepped\ninto the bath, on it one washed and dried oneself. A bath in Japan,\nwhich is used by all the family or hotel in succession, is not intended\nfor washing--that is done outside. The two _sh\u014dji_ walls, just sliding\npanels of wood, opened, one on to the passage-way, the other into the\nfront court, and had no fastenings. The Japanese have attained to that\nsense of modesty which we still feel immodest. They say to bathe is\nnecessary; you cannot take a bath with your clothes on; a necessary\naction is never immodest, neither has it any prurient attractions for\nhealthy minds. But a Japanese cannot see the low-necked dresses of\nwestern women or the pictures of Modern France without a blush. To him\na bathing woman is neither modest nor immodest, but simply indifferent;\nwhile exposure, merely to attract, is indecency itself. Obscenity\nexists in grosser minds as in every country in the world; but the\npeople of Japan have a moral simplicity of thought and action that is\nat one with the conclusions of abstract ethical philosophy.\n\nLike lobsters going to be cooked, we bathed, and got out swiftly but\nnot silently. A yard of cotton towel, where a bank of purple iris grew\nout of a pale blue stream, was all the towel we had. It would have\nadequately dried our finger-nails, but the design was comforting if\nthe towel was not. At last, in grey cr\u00eape _kimono_ and straw sandals,\nclothes as naturally a growth of the climate and the country as its\ntrees or people, we went back to our wall-less room and sat in peace.\n\nThe heat of the day was passing, and the colours of the sky and trees\ndeepened before they died. For light in this land of sunshine can\nhide as well as darkness; it covers the land as a pall, all white and\nglittering, which blinds as surely as the night. But in that half-hour\nwhich comes before the swift descending twilight of the East, all the\ncolours deepen and intensify; they take a strange opaque lustre which\nmakes the thinnest leaf look solid. Mere colour seems thick, almost as\nthough distinct from what it colours and the colours deepen, deepen,\ntill, emerging from a glittering pall of white, they sink beneath the\ngrey-black pall of night. It is the intensest hour of all the day. The\nworld is not working as at the dawn, nor sleeping as in the heat, but\nstrong with the beating pulse of Life that fills even the stillness.\n\nSo we sat and watched the deepening glowing earth glow and deepen, and\nheard the throb of life grow ever louder, till from the streets came up\nthe sound of children\u2019s laughter, and from the town the stir of men.\n\nRich in richest colours lay the world, with greens and blues of\npolished jewellery. And then the hurrying twilight settled like the\nswooping pinions of a bird. The colours lost themselves in grey, the\nforms they coloured in a broad, still sweep of darkness. On the white\nbridge, set between canal and lake, the lanterns were already glowing,\nand the indistinct brown lines of roof melted from the light into the\ndarkness.\n\nFor a little while the curved earth-bridge of our miniature garden,\nthe pebbled pathway that in a fragment of a circle led across the\nwinding pond, traced a clear black line against the open sky. Then the\nchildren\u2019s laughter in the street grew silent, the stir of men and\nwomen stilled.\n\nSlowly, among their shadows, the houses each hung out a light and\ndisappeared. The purple darkness grew with each moment deeper and more\nblack.\n\nThen in a flash the shadows and the lights themselves went out, for our\ninn had lit her lamps.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThen they brought us dinner on black lacquered trays: pink soup and\nmany kinds of fish, and rice with pickled cucumbers, white and brown\nand purple. And we did eat. And all the time our landlady and her plain\ndaughter, kneeling on the matting, filled up our rice-bowls from the\nwooden rice-box, or our tea-bowls from the china teapot, and the bronze\nkettle which filled that teapot itself needed filling many times, for\nwe were thirsty. And the landlady and her daughter sat placidly on\ntheir heels, watching our many social crimes, for there is an etiquette\nof chopsticks, as strict or stricter than ours of knives and forks, and\nin equivalent terms we probably were eating with our knives, putting\nour dirty spoons upon the tablecloth and exhibiting the general manners\nof the stable.\n\nAs a sign that you have finished in Japan you eat your last bowl of\nrice flavoured with a bowlful of tea. Hardly had we reached this stage\nwhen the bright black squirrel of a landlord arrived to announce a\nvisitor, and \u201cMight he come in?\u201d\n\nConsiderably surprised we said \u201cYes,\u201d and who should enter but our\namiable Japanese Carker, this time in his own clothes. From an\ninsignificant and somewhat common individual he had, by the mere\nchange from a misfitting yellow suit into a grey silk _kimono_ with\nstriped silk _hakama_, changed from an underbred clerk into a courtly\ngentlemen. His manners, always the same, were now at ease with himself,\nand no longer incongruous or even somewhat ridiculous, they became the\nperfection of grace and breeding. It is a change that one may often see\nin Japan.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAgain we all sat on our heels on the kneeling-cushions in the strictest\norder of precedence, and exchanged the politest phrases of ceremony\nin the courtliest of Japanese. We heard all about the great Temple of\nKizuki, the pride of Izumo, and we told of our journeys in the Far\nEast, to Korea and Siberia; and the landlord\u2019s son, who had come in\nbehind the visitor, \u201chalf expected he might go there some day with the\narmy,\u201d a wish which may well since have been fulfilled.\n\nIn true Japanese fashion our guest had brought us presents, photographs\nof Matsu\u00e9 and of Izumo\u2019s Great temple. We could only present him\nin exchange with our cards, a map of the world with the British\npossessions marked very red, and an old copy of a railway novel. The\ngifts pleased him, and the whole family examined the map with great\ninterest. They wanted to hear all about England, and the fact that\ncows and sheep (which they have never seen) walked over our fields,\nand that it was sometimes light at nine in the evening struck on their\nimagination. They asked many questions about the sheep, and \u201cwhat the\nlight looked like?\u201d which was difficult of explanation.\n\nIn spite of more amphibious drinks from the white meat-dish, which\nseemed served here (probably as a concession to our foreign tastes)\ninstead of the inevitable tea to visitors, the struggle after faultless\n_politesse_, the intricacies of a ceremonious Japanese made us grow all\nlimp with heat again. And when we had bowed our last bow, uttered our\nlast \u201c_Mata o-me ni kakarimash\u014d_\u201d (\u201cAnother time may my eyes honourably\nbehold you\u201d), we were reduced to a really pitiable state of exhaustion.\nOur comely landlady, who had a large brain and a seeing eye, did not\nwait to question. She cleared the room, sent the two giggling girls\nwith the goggle eyes to hang the green mosquito net, like an imposing\nmartial tent, from the four corners of the room, while the plain\ndaughter brought _futon_ like thin eiderdown quilts to sleep upon,\nundressed us carefully and retired, bidding us \u201chonourably resting\ndeign\u201d as she did so.\n\nAs the lamp went out the ample folds of the square tent stood out like\na royal pavilion. We crept beneath and lay down upon the matted sheets\nwhich covered the _futon_. In deference to our foreign bones we had\nseveral _futon_ underneath us, and one rolled up beneath our heads; but\nfor all that the hardness of the matted floor, stuffed though it was,\nrose up and hit us before the night was out.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe slept beneath our transparent tent, in our wall-less room, as the\nflowers sleep, part of the living night. All the little sounds of leaf\nand lake stirred round us undisturbed; the rice-ears rustled in the\nsilent night; the great trees stretched their branches as they slept.\nDreaming, the waters of the salt lagoon moved towards the sea, and all\nthe wealth of insect life, turning in its sleep, called faintly. The\nstill small voice of the sky whispered softly in the breezes, and the\ngreat green Earth reached up to listen through her dreams. Bound in the\nchains of man, it is at night-time that she stirs so restless, when\nall the humming, conscious life is laid to sleep, when men and insects\nslumber. Then the green Earth wakes; but she has endured so long that\neven in her waking she is half asleep. Bound down with streets and\nhouses, she never wakes at all. And so all night we listened to the\nvoices of the world. At the dawning, when all Nature stands hushed\nbefore the coming of the sun, we slept. But the dawning in this\nsouthern land is short and swift. With no clouds to dim his strength,\nthe sun soon sat flaming on his wide blue throne; and all the insects\nof the tropics, warmed into life, rose up to buzz and hum. And we awoke.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIn the Land of the Gods there are no clocks, and although one in the\nmain street of Matsu\u00e9 proclaimed its \u201cforeign\u201d time, the inhabitants\nbeneath go their own way, and the baby steamers arrive and depart in\nopen disregard of the hours upon the dial. So some time between the\ndawning and the noon we woke. The house was getting up. All the little\nsounds of rising men and women, of a day\u2019s beginning, were about us, so\nwe got up too. Crawling from under our vast green tent, we went down\nthe polished passage-way to the inner courtyard, where in a cool green\ncloister all the rooms of the inn looked out. A long stone font filled\nwith water, a hanging wooden dipper, a row of shallow brass pans on\na wooden shelf stood waiting. Here the whole inn washes. With water\nfrom the font, cool and fresh from its night\u2019s sleep in the grey stone\nbasin, you fill the bamboo dipper and pour out into the shallow pans;\nand then, standing in the passage-way, with all the rooms around you,\nyou wash. And unless a _n\u0113san_, attracted by the whiteness of your\nskin, should stop a moment to look and wonder, no one is interested.\nThe usual lengths of cotton towelling hung beside the dipper, like\nbanners on their poles; and a crevice of sunshine piercing into the\ngreen courtyard quivered on the round brass pans.\n\nTent and _futon_ had vanished when we returned, and the two little\ngoggle-eyed girls, still with their blue _kimono_ tucked up to show the\nred ones underneath, were sweeping the matting with bamboo brooms. We\ndressed in corners unattended, and sat down to wait.\n\nFrom the sounds of passing feet, and the directing words of our comely\nlandlady, it seemed that great things were preparing for us--quite\nwhat remained a mystery. At last the plain daughter, bubbling with the\npleasure of our surprise, came to call us.\n\n\u201cAs for the morning meal,\u201d she said, \u201call is prepared,\u201d and even the\nceremony of her bows suffered from her eagerness.\n\nWe went through the half-wall of _sh\u014dji_ panels, across a room, into\nanother, where the family, all assembled, almost (had it not been\nentirely un-Japanese) clapped its hands in pride.\n\nThere on the matting, and each leg protected by a supporting slab of\nwood, stood a foreign table; four foreign chairs, their legs too nailed\ninto long slats of wood, stood round. Across a corner of the table lay\na thin strip of cotton cloth, and on this, in all the majesty of its\nsolid ugliness, reposed the white meat-dish of our god-like drink. This\nmorning it was full of something smoking, dimly resembling Irish stew.\n\nThe comely landlady beamed as we approached.\n\n\u201cSea-food forthcomes,\u201d she said proudly.\n\nAnd to our \u201cforeign\u201d breakfast we sat slowly down. How bad it was! But\nthe family, even to the old, old grandmother, were so delighted, so\nproud of their unexpected triumph, that we ate that abominable stew\ntill not a fragment of its tough meat or a spoonful of its gluey gravy\nremained.\n\nMany times since have I wondered how that Napoleonic landlady organised\nthe feast? How did she get the meat? Who cooked it? and where did they\nlearn? Did she invent the recipe out of her own head? Perhaps she\nraided the garrison? She was capable of it. There was bread too. Matsu\u00e9\nwas quite in the front of the fashion; not like poor Kizuki, which was\nsadly out of date; they hadn\u2019t even _b\u012bru_ (beer) there.\n\nAll this she told us as she helped us, always with the iron ladle,\nto that terrific stew. With the foreign food too, we had \u201cforeign\u201d\nchina, horrible railway-restaurant plates and cups, clumsy and thick,\nsprawled all over with a large design in bilious blue; knives and forks\nthat never matched, and, of course, the inevitable cruet. This hideous\narticle is always the first vestige of \u201cforeign\u201d fashion in a Japanese\nhotel, where it accompanies every meal. Once it may have been of German\nsilver; it is all drab now. Long centuries of use have left it bent and\ndinted. Its bottles leak, their stoppers never fit, and whatever they\nonce held, all now drip oil and taste soy. We thought of our dainty\nlacquered trays, our delicate white china with drawings in faint blue,\nthe refinement and the art of that meal, and we sighed. The fish they\ncould not spoil, and their tea is always good, so we breakfasted. And\nthe plain daughter, whose ambitions (or her mother\u2019s) soared to Tokyo\nheights of fashion, asked if everything was really \u201c_yorosh\u012b_\u201d upon the\ntable, and, if not, \u201cwould we show her how?\u201d The knives and forks had\npuzzled her woefully; how ought they to be laid? So we laid the table,\nand we set the forks, and we placed the bread, and we handed plates and\nglasses, and the ancient grandmother shook with astonishment. Was ever\nlike seen under the sun? And even the capable landlady exclaimed. So\nthe conscientious plain daughter worked through her knives and forks,\nher bread on this side and her glasses on that, with the zeal of an\nearnest student; and afterwards we caught her displaying her great\naccomplishment to a circle of admiring friends.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWe were to see the sights of Matsu\u00e9. Our friend from the Prefecture and\nthe black squirrel of a landlord had talked it over exhaustively the\nnight before. We were catered for like Royal visitors. We did not need\nto plan, or ask, or seek. \u201cHonourably trouble not. It happens.\u201d And it\ndid.\n\nThat morning the landlord, in a long polite speech, made us over to\nhis son, a quiet clever lad who might have been the twin of his plain\nsister; and we set off. We wished to stop for many things, temples and\ntoy shops, the peeps of life on street and wharf, but our guide, though\nnever contradicting, was so preoccupied, so intent on something that we\ngave in and meekly followed down the long streets over the many canals,\nwhose bridges showed an arch like the young crescent of the moon, along\nthe hot white road, until we reached an ugly wooden building in the\nstyle called \u201cforeign,\u201d all decorated with flags and policemen. Here we\nentered. The policemen drew up in line as we passed, and the scurrying\nfeet of a dozen officials all clothed in long frock-coats came down the\nvestibule.\n\nIt was an Exhibition of the Arts, Industries, and Manufactures of the\nProvince of Izumo, and quite inadvertently we had arrived to open the\nproceedings. The distinguished strangers from England, received by\nthe phalanx of frock-coats, were conducted majestically through the\nwhole building. We were not allowed to miss a single room. If, after\npeeping into one, and finding it contained nothing but sacks of rice,\nor samples of raw silk, we retreated, instantly a frock-coat or a\npoliceman appeared to lead us round. We did not miss the least little\nexhibit of the least little room. We saw them all: bags of rice,\ncocoons of silk, hollow candles with growing designs in faint pale\ncolours, Izumo crystals famed throughout Japan, lengths of piece-silk,\ntwists of sewing-silk, embroideries, china, the famous yellow china\nof Matsu\u00e9, all the roots and grains and wood of the province, fishing\nnets and field tools, and a whole large section of the beautiful Izumo\nmatting. In our admiration we wished to buy, and instantly all the\nfrock-coats ran after one another, each official going to consult his\nchief. They arrived in groups and talked; they went away and came back\nagain. We had unknowingly placed the whole officialdom of Matsu\u00e9 on the\nhorns of a dilemma. We were the distinguished visitors from England;\nwe wished to buy Matsu\u00e9\u2019s most especial production; the honour was\ngreat--but the regulations said no exhibit might be taken away before\nthe close of the exhibition; and the Japanese respect the law as they\nrespect the Emperor. So we waited. At last a most wonderful frock-coat\nappeared resplendent with decorations; solemnly he made a speech\nexplaining the difficulty, excusing the delay, expressing great honour\nat our request, and at a sign his attendant handed over the matting to\nour attendant, and with many bows we parted.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThat afternoon, as we lay upon our matting in our wall-less room,\nfanned by the plain daughter, our landlady brought in the local\nnewspaper, and sitting down on her heels she read to us a long account\nof the arrival in Matsu\u00e9 of the \u201cdistinguished strangers from England,\u201d\nand a kind of \u201cStop Press telegram\u201d announcing their gracious purchase\nof matting at the exhibition that morning, besides an editorial\nadvertisement of a description of their visit to the exhibition for\nthe next issue. Our rooms at the inn were described at length, our\nappearance \u201cwith faces white as milk\u201d--the foreign simile showing great\nlearning on the part of the reporter--our ages politely overstated, for\nthe young here, women as well as men, desire to be old so that to be\nthought older than one\u2019s age is the greatest of compliments; the paper\ntherefore called us most politely \u201cupwards of forty,\u201d causing our dear\nlandlady to beam with delight, and the plain daughter to utter a long\nseries of those curious strangled \u201ch\u2019s\u201d by which the Japanese express\nintense admiration, as she fanned us more vigorously. Then, _\u00e0 propos_\nof our \u201cmilk-white faces,\u201d the landlady, with much hesitation, asked\na favour \u201cso great that to speak unable am.\u201d Might she have our soap?\nJapanese soap they had, but somehow, possibly, that \u201cforeign\u201d soap of\nours might account for some of our strange whiteness. So she and the\nplain daughter retired with the soap; and for the rest of the afternoon\nthey scrubbed diligently in the bathroom.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd we sat quiet upon our matting in the heat, while the green hills\nand the rice-fields, the pebbled pathway of our garden bridge, and all\nthe wide still spaces of the lake hung as frescoes round our room. The\nhot blue sky burned fiercely, the blue of a heated brick-kiln, and our\nliving frescoes hung motionless as the work of man. There was neither\nchange nor shadow. Hills and lake and rice-fields lay still against the\nsky--flat as it were upon a flattened background, and in that light\nwhich did not shine but suffused itself through all things, there were\nno shadows, a deepened blueness here and there, but neither shadow nor\nperspective. The sense of distance, as the sense of shade, was quite\nannihilated. Those old Japanese artists saw truly, despite our western\ndictums, light does not lie here as we see it, still less as it lies\nin the actual tropics; it has effects of light and distance which are\nall its own, and the Japanese, seeing them, reproduced them, not\nbecause there are no others, but because these are so truly Japanese.\nAnd we, knowing neither the country nor the climate, but strong in our\narrogance of \u201claws,\u201d called it \u201cfalse, a childlike art ignorant of\nscience.\u201d\n\nIn the Land of the Gods we sat and learnt wisdom, and Japan and its\npeople, its life and its pictures took a new meaning in our eyes, and\nthe false became true.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen our landlady and her daughter came back from the bathroom they\nbrought a small thin oblong of soap, and their hands were all wrinkled\nwith washing.\n\n\u201c_Mada kur\u014d gozaimas kara omachi nassatta h\u014d ga y\u014d gozaimas_,\u201d they\nsaid in a melancholy, half-laughing voice. \u201cStill brown because,\nleaving off had best be done,\u201d and they held out their four hands for\ninspection.\n\nThe _Ijin San\u2019s_ whiteness was not in the soap. But when we went\nwe left as a present a whole new cake of \u201cforeign\u201d soap; and their\nsupplementary scrubbings must have been many.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThat evening we were entertained by a small boy with the snubbiest of\nnoses, who peeped slyly at us from out of the darkness of the garden.\nWhen he was induced to come in he brought all his lesson books, which\nhe turned over for our amusement, and between each page he chuckled,\nbut he never told us why. Whether it was the recollections of his lost\nlessons or a subtle sense of absurdity that we could not read the\nChinese hieroglyphics of his primers we never knew, but his chuckles\nwere deep with joy. Then in the pauses he would count solemnly up to\nten, all the English he knew, and chuckle again.\n\nTwo wide-eyed little maidens were brought in next morning to see the\n_Ijin San_. In a very awestruck whisper they inquired \u201cif we were real.\u201d\n\nThese little babies were very solemn and very good, but not one scrap\nshy or frightened. In all their little lives they had never met a\ngrown-up being who was harsh to them. Though obedience is the first\nrequisite of Japanese children young or old, they give it as the plants\ntheir flowers, not from a sense of hard-learned duty, but as a natural\nproduct of an eternal law.\n\nThe babies made the funniest little bows as they touched their little\nforeheads to the ground. And then they sat and looked at us with wide,\nwide-opened eyes. To them we belonged to the world of the mythical\n_Kirin_, and the terrible _Kitsun\u00e9_ who takes bad babies away and feeds\nthem on frogs and snails; we belonged to the realm of the sea-goddess\nwho married Urashima, to the land of the fairies. So they asked if we\nwere real.\n\nThey could not be induced to talk to us, though they were wonderfully\npolite, and quite knocked their little foreheads on the floor when\nthey said \u201cGood-bye.\u201d Did we figure as goblins or as fairies in their\ndreams, I wonder?\n\n * * * * *\n\nThat afternoon a stall-owner from the exhibition came to show us Izumo\ncrystals.\n\nFor two hours he knelt upon the matting opening the beautifully made\nboxes of white unpainted wood. And we looked at large divining-crystals\nwithout fleck or flaw, at the pale clouded crystals shading from\nmist-white to palest crimson, at the agates and amethysts; and all the\ntime our comely landlady and her plain daughter sat on their heels and\nadmired with taste and great discrimination.\n\nThere was not in all this shopful of precious stones anything to wear.\nA few crystal hairpins, a few \u201cforeign\u201d studs, but no jewellery as we\nunderstand it. The Japanese never wear jewellery; neither rings, nor\nbracelets, nor chains, nor pins, nor brooches, nor tiaras--nothing.\nOne wonders how much crime and heart-burning has the nation missed.\nPrecious stones they have, but they buy and keep them for their shape\nor for their colour, as a picture or a bronze, not to adorn themselves.\nAll the rest of the world, in all times, barbarous and civilised, have\nfought and stolen, slain and ruined themselves just to heap upon their\nfingers or their heads strings of gleaming stones. In this island-empire\nalone men and women have looked at precious stones, have handled and\nadmired, but never worn them. One wonders was it purely the artistic\ninstinct of the race which kept them from it, or the stern morality of\nthe _samurai_, preaching denial and self-control.\n\nAnd again one wonders if too much jewellery be barbaric, where in the\nscale of civilisation does a nation come that wears none at all? Surely\nart can produce worthier things than jewellery, and are not morals\nbetter without it?\n\n * * * * *\n\nOur inn was full of guests, quite full, and all the rooms have paper\npanels. There are no keys, no locks, no bolts, the whole inn, were it\nso minded, could go in and out of every room; and yet we all sleep in\npeace and quite secure. It is true that an innkeeper here must bear an\nunblemished character or his house is shut, and that the guests often\ncome with a letter from their last innkeeper, but not always, and yet\nwe all sleep with half an inch of rice-paper between us, and walls of\nsliding panels. Could a hotelful of civilised Europeans be so trusted?\nIf not to steal, then not to pry as well? But here nobody looks.\nAlthough we have become great personages indeed, nobody looks. And\nin the big towns as in the country villages, in railway hotels as in\nthis remote corner of the Land of the Gods, we have slept in absolute\nsecurity in rooms that are always open. Only once in all our wanderings\ndid someone push the _sh\u014dji_. It was an _Ijin San_ who thought it was\n\u201ca lark.\u201d\n\n * * * * *\n\nAnd so we lived in the Land of the Gods and learnt wisdom, wisdom from\nthe lake, and the hills, and the rice-fields, from the night and the\ndaylight, and the inner beauty of the land lay before our eyes, still\ndim, for western eyes are blind to eastern meaning through want of\npower to focus, but in part we saw, and the joy of that seeing has\nnever passed away. The town, the inn, the comely landlady, and the wee,\nwide-eyed children all taught us wisdom and the meaning and the beauty\nof the land. Slowly we saw, dimly too, for western eyes are very blind\nto eastern meaning, and race, religion, training and the whole up-make\nof our ideas and beliefs stand so often in the way. Still in part we\nsaw, and the lessons of that seeing have never passed away. We had come\nin all humility, so the Gods were kind. They opened our eyes that we\nmight see.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen we announced that we were going the household was upset. And\non the last morning of our stay they all, landlord, landlady, plain\ndaughter, goggle-eyed waiting-girls, came in a procession bearing\ngifts. We had fans to keep us cool upon the journey, white towels with\npictures of the inn in blue, and above all, gifts of the beautiful\nMatsu\u00e9 china which we had so much admired. Everything was tied up in\nthe neatest parcels wrapped in pieces of brocade, and presented on\nlacquered trays. On the top of the Matsu\u00e9 china lay a tiny white paper\ncone lined with red in which was stuck a splinter of bamboo cane, the\nmodern symbol of the old-time fish which was always presented with each\ngift. And the meaning of the whole is peace, plenty, and prosperity. We\nhad nothing so beautiful to give in exchange, only a cake of foreign\nsoap and a visiting-card. The cake of soap was considered by the rest\nof the household, including the old grandmother, who had come in, as a\npalpable hit, and the visiting-cards were much prized.\n\nThen with every one carrying our luggage we were escorted to the gravel\nrecess of the entrance, where our _kurumaya_ stood waiting, and all the\nhousehold went down on its knees on the polished wooden platform and\nsaid sweet _sayonara_.\n\nAnd there in the walled-in recess with the wooden _gheta_ lying on the\nbig grey block of stone the kneeling figures stayed. Clad in their dark\nblue _kimono_ with the bright-coloured _obi_ at the waist, they knelt\non the polished wood, their heads on their hands, their hands on the\nfloor; and as they knelt the rolls and whorls of their coiffures seemed\nto grow like flowers from bending stalks of blue.\n\n\u201c_Sayonara_,\u201d they said, and all the blue stalks swayed.\n\n\u201c_Sayonara_,\u201d we called back. \u201cFarewell.\u201d Oh, dear Land of the Gods\nthat has taught us wisdom, not you, but we have need to fare well.\n\n\n\n\n VI\n\n THE TWO SPIRITS\n\n\nOut of the town and above it, the _daimy\u014d_ of Matsu\u00e9 once built him a\ncastle, and he filled it with the stern warriors whose soul was their\nsword. _Daimy\u014d_ after _daimy\u014d_ lived and died, and still a _daimy\u014d_\nruled over Izumo; and warrior after warrior fought and was slain, and\nstill the _samurai_ learned the laws of the _bushi_, the way of the\nwarrior, and the strong fortress of Matsu\u00e9, with its moat and its\nwalls, was guarded and kept by men whose lives were one long servitude\nto honour and duty. The grim ideals of a code which feared no death and\nno torture, which exacted the sternest courage and self-control, were\ntaught and practised in the castle of Matsu\u00e9, until the Son of Heaven\nruled in Tokyo and _daimy\u014d_ and _samurai_ were feudal lord and loyal\nvassal no longer.\n\nThe grim walls are standing now, the castle with its moat still rises\nabove Matsu\u00e9 to possess it, but the spirit of its fierce dominance is\ngone; instead, that twin-soul of the Japanese race has entered into the\nstronghold, the Love of Beauty has cast out the Love of Battle, the\nsword is changed to flowers, for in the moat of the castle the lotus is\nblooming.\n\nStern and very strong the grey walls rise high into the air, they have\nnot lost their grimness though their feet are bathed in flowers. It is\ntrue the gateway is broken, and where the drawbridge once fell there is\nnow a broad path of stamped earth, but the long lines of solid wall are\nfirm still and uninjured. They still rise frowning from out the deep\nwaters of the moat; but to-day the moat itself has disappeared, in its\nplace the broad thick leaves of the lotus stretch like a silvery green\nriver around the walls. So broad, so strong, so helpless, the great\nleaves hang like unsteady giants on their stalks, and the pin-points of\nwater gather and gather on the hairy surface, till the leaf curls to a\ncup and a big waterdrop, molten as quicksilver, runs gleaming over the\ngreen.\n\nThe lotus leaves lie all lazy at angles of rest, but the flowers seem\nto rise on their stalks as birds taking wing. All pure white or palest\npink, each single flower is a giant\u2019s handful of blossom, and yet the\npetals are delicate, almost transparent; thin, too, in their texture,\nbut of a satiny softness, they curl with the grace of a rose above the\npure gold of their hearts.\n\nThe lotus leaves dream inert, each on its stalk hangs drooping,\noften awry: they encircle the walls like a green river of water that\nstagnantly sleeps; but the flowers are awake and they rise from their\nleaves as the Spirit of Beauty once rose from the waters. All pure\nwhite on this side of the gateway, all pale pink on that, the great\ncups of blossom stand stately. Very fragile in their texture, and yet\nso ample in their form the lotus flower seems the meeting-point of\nluxuriance and grace; the point where more of either were really less\nof both.\n\nWith its roots deep down in the mud, with its leaves often frankly\nridiculous in the large uncouthness of their attitudes, with its beauty\nin no way ethereal, the lotus is yet the symbol of Death, not of\nNirvana, but of Death, of the completing of one brief period in this\nlong cycle which we call Life. So in Matsu\u00e9 they planted the moat of\nthe castle with the flower of the lotus for the life of Old Japan, of\ncastle and _daimy\u014d_ and _samurai_, is ended. It is Death but a new\nBeginning.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBeyond the gateway, a grass-grown flight of granite steps leads to the\ncastle, and we climb.\n\nAll the castles in all Japan are the same, bigger or smaller, with\ndetails of decoration or style that differentiate them, they are yet in\nthe broad outlines of their architecture one and the same. A Japanese\nhouse is Japanese, but the castle comes from China, at least originally,\nand its pagoda character is very evident. The castle at Matsu\u00e9 had its\nground floor of stone, rough-hewn blocks of granite which fitted closely\nto each other without mortar. The stone storey, as all the succeeding\nones of wood above it, tapered gradually inwards so that the topmost\nwooden storey would have fitted into the one below it, and that into the\nnext, and all into the square stone box of the ground floor, as neatly\nas the nest of baskets sold in the streets of the town below.\n\nInside, the rough-hewn stone walls were left as bare as the outside,\nand a long steep ladder of a staircase, which began abruptly in the\nmiddle of one floor to end with equal abruptness in the middle of the\nfloor above, led from storey to storey. The stone storey was divided\ninto two, the rest were of wood, and all now were absolutely bare and\nunadorned; the mere outer shell of a building which had once lived\nand sheltered lives. Only in the top floor, where on all four sides\nsliding panels of glass had replaced the rice-paper _sh\u014dji_, was there\nany sign of life. This room had been turned into a sort of Military\nMuseum with relics of the China war, swords and guns, and a whole long\nseries of wonderful coloured prints, with the Chinese always fleeing,\ntheir long, long pigtails floating in the breeze, the Japanese always\npursuing with impossible profiles and highly polished boots; and\ngravely studying the pictures was a group of schoolboys. Their comments\nwere mostly bloodthirsty; the best way of sticking the pink Chinaman\non the left, or of beheading the yellow one on the right; but they did\nnot seem moved with any animosity or any sense of triumph, they merely\ndiscussed the sword-cuts scientifically, seriously, as though it were a\ngrave business of life and they wished to arrive at a right conclusion.\n\n * * * * *\n\nMatsu\u00e9\u2019s castle is beyond and above the town, and the _daimy\u014d_ who\nbuilt it and the warriors who guarded it looked down on this side over\nthe grey roofs of the houses to the wide blue waters of the still\nlagoon, on that side over the grey roofs of the houses and the sweep\nof the quiet rice-fields where the river, like a broad path of steel\nwanders through the bright green fields; and further round they looked\nto where the tall trees climb the steep hillsides, and further still\nto the great blue lines of the hills themselves shutting in the sky.\nAnd the old warriors in their watch-tower looked out over this wide\nfair world which lay so still around them. They guarded the castle and\nthey kept it, and the light that was set in that tower was the light\nof courage and of duty. Over the world beneath their feet it shone out\nclear and bright, but the world was wider than their horizon. After\nmany years they learned that lesson, and then they came down from\ntheir watch-tower, and the light which once burned there in the castle\nis gone to-day through all the land.\n\nThen the Spirit of Beauty, the soul of that world which lay so still\nbeneath the tower, went up to the castle, where with courage and duty\nthe love of battle and of death had ruled so long, to possess it. And\nin the waters of the moat the lotus is blooming.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWith its roots in the mud, say the Japanese Buddhists, the lotus flower\nis an emblem of man, of a good man in this wicked world. From among the\nsins and the passions of life Buddha himself rose perfect, pure as the\nlotus, and perfect. So for a sign and a comfort to all men, Lord Buddha\nhimself sits throned on the lotus, showing how Goodness Eternal came,\nnot from good, but from the midst of things evil.\n\nIn the moat of the castle the people of Matsu\u00e9 have planted whole\nfields of the lotus, that the flower which is perfect might grow from\nthe sins of the past, grow with each cycle of Life ever more perfect.\n\n\n\n\n THE HEART OF THE PEOPLE\n\n \u201cShakspeare would have us know that there is no devotion to\n truth, to justice, to charity, more intense and real than that\n of the man who is faithful to them out of the sheer spirit of\n loyalty, unstimulated and unsupported by any faith which can be\n called theological.\u201d\n DOWDEN, \u201cShakspeare, his Mind and Art.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n I\n\n TOKYO\n\n\nTokyo is a city of one million five hundred thousand souls, and in its\nheart of hearts stands the Palace of the Son of Heaven.\n\nThe city through its girdle of brown streets works hard, its wharfs\nand factories, its shops and warehouses are dense with human life\nand resonant with human labour. The low brown streets so thick with\nflimsy paper houses stretch for ten miles along the plain. In them the\nchildren play, the _kuruma_ pass quickly, the heavy laden hand-carts of\nthe coolies push and jostle, but the heart of this great capital lies\nstill.\n\nFrom circumference to centre as you come, through street on street\nof houses, wharves and shops, the magic of the city grows. First the\nstreets space out and out, then the houses dwindle as the trees and\ngardens grow, greener, wilder, stiller, till the heart of Tokyo\u2019s city\nis a moated park of peace.\n\nUp nine steep hills the city spreads, and sea and river, and the wide\ngreen rice-fields lap it round, while far away across the land, above\nthe level blue of sky great Fuji rises peerless in the midmost heaven.\n\nEngirdled by the thronged and busy streets the nine tall hills peaceful\nwith well-kept houses and secluded gardens, make a crescent round the\nmoated park. For in this strange city whose centre is a palace and a\npeaceful walled-in pleasaunce the \u201csuburbs\u201d lie within and not without\nthe town.\n\nAnd through the town and over street and roadway, in the gardens and\nthe courtyards the gaunt beaked crows flap coal-black wings as they\nsail past, and their cynical \u201cHaw, haw\u201d is sarcastic with an utter\ndisbelief. With stately swoop, black wings outspread, they drift past\nthe ear of the newcomer confident with a three weeks\u2019 visit that he\nunderstands the East, and in the midst of his cocksureness they drop\ntheir cold, sarcastic \u201cHaw.\u201d\n\nBrown and so crowded are the streets, bewildering with their jostle of\nblue-clad men and women, their open stalls, their unmade roads of earth\nstretching flat between the houses on each side, where man-drawn carts,\nand _kuruma_, passengers, and children get in each other\u2019s way. The\nwhite uniformed policeman, sword on thigh, stands, a bronze statue, at\neach busy corner, and to him even the criminal is polite. And down the\nstreets and through and through the town, cut straight or winding, the\nbrown canals, valleys of black mud, or slow streams of dark water, run\nto the river and the sea. And thousands upon thousands, too, seem the\nbridges, some flat and narrow as gangways, most arched in a crescent\ncurve, and the brown canals run from the sea and from the river far\nwithin the town.\n\nOn one of them, at high tide, a steamer like the ark of Noah plies. It\nseems to go indifferently stern or bow foremost, and is no larger than\na big-sized rowing boat. The one landing-stage to which I traced it\nwas like a pasteboard on two rolling-pins, and stood as the threshold\nto the back door of a house. A European picture hung above the\nentrance, bright with greens and blues and reds and yellows, where this\nresplendent steamer floating amid green waves, showed at alternate\nwindows a head, male, Japanese, dressed \u201cforeign\u201d; a head, female,\nJapanese, dressed Japanese. A policeman and a soldier both in uniform\nbalanced on the deck at either end. The ark\u2019s ports of call, as its\nstarting-place and destination, remained a mystery. At low tide the\ncanal was an inch of water between two banks of mud, and only at high\ntide could this toy ark float at all.\n\n * * * * *\n\nOne long, straight street, broken into sections at the bridges, and\nthen reset at different angles, runs from end to end of Tokyo, runs\nfrom Shimbashi to Ueno, from the \u201cMercantile Marine Store,\u201d which\nsells dried fishes, to the Parcels Office of that delicious \u201cInternal\nRailway,\u201d otherwise unknown to fame. This is the main street of the\ntown, here is the Ginza, with its red brick sidewalks, its shop-boys\nwho speak English, even its plate glass windows. Here, too, is the\ngoldsmith who advertises:\n\n \u201cRINGS, BRONCHITIS, AND OTHER JEWELRY.\n BEST KINDS ONLY KEPT IN STOCK\u201d;\n\nAnd the residence of that mysterious baker who keeps:\n\n \u201cBEARDS, VINE CAKES AND SLOR FOR SALE.\u201d\n\nAnd down it from end to end runs Tokyo\u2019s main tramway. With the river\non the east, the moated park upon the west, north and south the broad\nstreet runs, and the park of Shiba lies at one end and the park of\nUeno at the other. Shiba, where the tombstones of the dead _sh\u014dgun_\nlie in their sumptuous lacquered temples; Ueno, where the lacquered\ntemples stand bullet-pierced, for the soldiers of the _sh\u014dgun_ and\nthe soldiers of the emperor fought their last fight here before the\ngreat _Tenshisama_ came back to his own again. Once the closed gardens\nof Buddhistic monasteries, both parks now are open to the town,\nbicycles ride through them, nursemaids, their babies on their backs,\nloiter in them, little girls play classic games of bones, boys catch\ngrasshoppers, while beneath the trees the low red blanketed tables of\nthe _chaya_ offer \u00bc_d._ teas.\n\nThe Park of Shiba is green and quiet, smaller than Ueno, for its\ntemples hold so large a space. It is a forest growing in the heart of a\ntown. Ueno is lighter, brighter, fuller of flowers and festivals, with\nlong avenues of cherry-trees, and a lake where the lotus flowers grow\nthickly.\n\nAnd over the lake and the temples, over the cherry-trees and the\ntea-stalls, over the city below and the playing children within, the\nbig bronze bell of Ueno sends forth its great booming note--that note\nwhich is outside our music, deeper, more liquid, which comes with its\nlow, booming sway, just when daylight turns to darkness. Cast of bronze\nand silver, rung by a wooden beam that strikes a boss outside, the\nnote of the great bell comes swaying as though the air were water. And\nslowly over the city the bell booms, trembling, and he who hears it\nsits still and thinks; sits lost and dreams of the song of the seven\nspheres.\n\n * * * * *\n\nWhen Ueno\u2019s avenues of cherry-trees are pink with flowers, when the\nstalls beneath the trees are full of flower hairpins, then Tokyo\nthrough its gardens and its roadways blushes too, for the whole\ncity is planted thick with cherry-trees. Not only on the river bank,\nwhere the long two-mile avenue of Mukojima is a perpetual _f\u00eate_, but\neverywhere, in private gardens and in public streets, the delicate,\npale pink blossoms on their brown leafless branches catch the sunshine\nand the showers, and fall as little rosy clouds from heaven on to the\nground beneath. For Tokyo is a city holding the country in its lap. Not\nan artificial bedded-out country, stiff as a Versailles park, but the\nreal wayward country, though tended with a loving, understanding care.\n\nAnd Tokyo is a city brimful of flowers. Between the cherry-trees of\nApril and the chrysanthemums of November most of the flowers can be\nseen within the city in temple courts or nursery gardens or public\nparks. The lake of the lotus at Ueno is famous through Japan, and in\nthe temple of Kameido grow the age-old wistarias.\n\nTrained on horizontal trellis work, their long pale tassels hang down\ntowards the water, stirring with each breeze. The trailing clusters\nof the flowers grow four feet long sometimes, and droop towards the\nsurface of the lake in thick swaying pendants of pure colour. Behind\nthese living curtains, in a twilight of pale mauve or soft white light,\non the edge of the pond whose shape spells \u201cheart,\u201d sometimes afloat on\nthe pond itself, the tables of the _chaya_ stand, and those who make\nholiday because the flowers are blooming, all Tokyo, sit and look,\ndrinking wee bowls of pale green tea, or writing poems to the flowers.\n\nOn the waters of this lake of the letter \u201cheart\u201d float the pale mauve\npetals and the petals of pure white, which fall and drift and sink,\nand fall and drift and sink, until the waters are hidden with flower\nflakes and the wistaria is over and gone.\n\nKameido lies on the far bank of the Sumidagawa, in a network of poor\nstreets, for the left bank of the river, like the big island at its\nmouth, is denser with yards and factories than is the right. The\nstreets are narrower, fuller of children and the noise of hammers and\nof wheels. Yet in this poor wage-working quarter the festivals of the\nplum-blossoms, the wistaria, and the peony are held.\n\nIn all Japan there is no other flower _f\u00eate_ which in the least\nresembles a horticultural show except that of _Botan_, the tree-peony.\nFor when the peony blooms, the little trees, large as dwarf\nrose-bushes, are placed on tiers inside a matted tent. There the\nresemblance ends. These plants are set each in a framework of space,\nand the colours are grouped and blended with the thought and the\ninstinct of an artist.\n\nThe flowers of the peony are as large as the largest chrysanthemum,\nlarger than ours, but their petals are rich, made of satin where ours\nare of cotton, delicate, fragile, and sheeny. The colouring is soft and\nsubdued, and the faint sweet scent which comes from them is like the\ndream of a rose. The colours are simple, white warming to cream, paling\nto snow, and all the tints of pale reds, deep reds, and crimsons.\n\nThe matting which covers them is of pale yellow, but somehow the\nlight, as it comes through it, touched perhaps by the flowers, is the\nlight of a dream--as sunlight without heat, as moonlight warmed and\nliving, a light that shimmers, holding colour fast within, yet fast\nasleep. To-day the light in that peony tent at Kameido remains to me\nas definite as the flowers, as distinct as the scent, as real and, in\ntruth, more beautiful. It was as though one saw the radiance of an\nunknown, unmade jewel, light but not yet substance.\n\n * * * * *\n\nAll this left bank of the river from Fukagawa to Eko-in is full of\nworkmen and workshops, of small trades and smaller traders, and here\nin the month of May in the grounds of the temple raised to the memory\nof the hundred thousand citizens killed in the great fire of 1657, the\nyearly wrestling contests are held. The _Sm\u014d_, tall, broad, powerful\nmen, many six feet high or more, who dress in large checked _kimono_\nand wear their hair in the old-fashioned top-knot, are adored by the\npopulace who come in thousands to see them.\n\nThe little round platform of stamped earth sprinkled with sand, set in\nthe midst of a huge amphitheatre of faces, shows small as a raft on the\nsea, and slight despite its purple trapping. The crowd, a Tokyo crowd\nin _kimono_ and foreign head-gear, cap, bowler, and felt hat, sit from\nmorning until night, day in day out, for the three long weeks of the\nwrestling matches.\n\nThe wrestlers stand, knees bent, body horizontal, their out stretched\nhands almost touching the ground, and grip. And the bout is long\nbecause the grip must be accepted by both of them, and because between\neach false grip the two retire slowly to their respective sides and\nwash out their mouths with tea. This may be repeated a dozen, twenty\ntimes, but when the real grip comes, then the action can be swift as\nlightning; the opponent forced beyond the straw rope which lies upon\nthe sanded earth of the ring, before one realises that the wrestle has\nbegun, or pushed down over it with the slow resistless force of flowing\nwater, or the two may sway about interminably before one is beaten.\n\nBulk is not the one ideal of the wrestler, the young and strong rely on\ntheir activity; it is only when a man is getting older that he weights\nhimself with fat, that his bulk and heaviness may prove too great for\nhis opponent easily to push over. The wrestlers all wear waistbands and\nstiff fringes of blue silk, and the rippling of the muscles beneath\ntheir golden brown skin is such a joy as the Greek nation knew at the\ntime of the Olympiads.\n\nA man with a fan, an average-sized Japanese who hardly comes above\nthe elbows of some of the wrestlers acts as starter, as umpire, and\nas referee, and the sharp s-s-sh of his shutting fan can be heard\ndistinctly in the silence of the amphitheatre. The judges, four old\ntried wrestlers, sit under purple hangings and decide disputed points,\nwhile half the front tier is reserved for the _Sm\u014d_ themselves.\n\nBut to the non-Japanese it is not the wrestlers but the spectators\nwho are the centre of interest. Here gathered together within the\namphitheatre, concentrated on one thought, absorbed, therefore natural,\nsit samples of all Tokyo. For the _Sm\u014d_, like our prize fight of last\ncentury, is beloved by the populace and patronised by the aristocracy.\nEvery one takes some sort of interest in it, and results are as widely\nknown as the Derby or a test match. The crowd, a crowd of men and\nboys,--for the fathers bring their little sons with them,--knows, as\nwell as the umpire himself, the forty-eight falls, the twelve lifts,\nthe twelve throws, the twelve twists, the twelve throws over the\nback, alone allowed the Japanese wrestler. The excitement at disputed\npoints is intense, the whole amphitheatre arguing with its neighbour.\nThe enthusiasm at a brilliant, a quick, or a well-contested throw\nis intoxicating. Spectators will rise in their seats and throw down\npresents, tobacco-pouches, purses, hats, or other property, which the\nowner redeems next morning in money.\n\nThe _Sm\u014d_ are the idols of the street boys, and tall, huge,\nunintelligent, in gaudy _kimono_ and well-oiled top-knots, they stride\nthrough the Tokyo streets haughty, and sometimes overbearing.\n\nWe think of the Japanese as unalterably small, yet here is a class,\nbone of their bone, flesh of their flesh, who are huge, strong,\nlarge-framed men, taller than the tall races of the north. They are\nanother and a living contradiction of the imaginary minisculism of\nthe nation. If the Japanese desire to produce big things, in war, in\nstatues, or in men, they take thought, they take care; much thought,\ninfinite care, and somehow it is done.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSo Tokyo wrestles, works and plays, and this left bank of the river\ntoils and lives hard. Across the water Tsukiji, secluded in its\n\u201cforeign\u201d residences, dwells genteel, and gossips. The Ginza shops. The\nsuburbs far within the circle of the streets grow hedged-in gardens and\nlong avenues of trees, where the houses lie unseen. The schools, the\ntraining colleges, and the university, a cityful of students study, and\nboys in cotton _hakama_ and dark-peaked soldiers\u2019 caps walk through the\nstreets--boys who are passing from the indulged childhood of Japan to\nthe iron self-control of manhood.\n\nThere is apparent in their ways and manners a touch of self-assertiveness,\na touch of almost self-conceit, which at no other time in their own\nlives, and at no time at all in any other member of the community, will\never be observable. It is but a touch, and would pass unseen in any other\nland, in any other setting; here it stands out palpable. A little hard\nthese boys look and very earnest. They will strike work if they think a\nteacher is not competent to teach, so bent are they on learning. They\nseem to have accepted school as the modern training of the _samurai_,\nand to study in that spirit.\n\nThe scholarship boys at Government Colleges work harder still and on\nthe narrowest of means. They can afford so little for their board that\none whole college gave up playing base-ball in its recreation hour\nbecause \u201cit made them too hungry.\u201d\n\nAnd at the University, where the students matriculate at twenty and\nstay till twenty-four and five, for beside their own learning, beside\nthe ten thousand Chinese symbols and all the philosophy of the East,\nthey must to-day add the learning of the West, the languages of Europe,\nthe laws, the sciences, and the arts of another civilisation and of\nan alien race, at the University the students live lives of hardest\nbrainwork and rigidest economy. Many spend their evenings in earning\nthe money that buys their day. Some deliver newspapers and sleep in\nthe porches of \u201cforeign\u201d houses. Many die of consumption, brought on\nby over-work and under-feeding. Across the river the hammers ring,\nthe wheels whir round, the hum of a people\u2019s toil sounds in all ears.\nHere within the girdle of the streets, between the factories and the\npalace is a work doing, silent, less perceptible but harder, higher and\nundertaken for that end.\n\n * * * * *\n\nBetween the hard work of hand and brain Ginza and Nihon-bashi shop,\nand at night the wire-drawn twang of the _samisen_ comes from the\nlighted restaurants. Restaurants where each diner or each party\noccupies a separate room, and _geisha_ girls are sent for to\nentertain the guests, with puns and games, with polite conversations\nand endless repartee. They sit on the kneeling cushions throughout\nthe meal pouring _sak\u00e9_--and amuse. Then they dance. Posturing and\nswaying to an accompaniment of _samisen_ and song they glide over\nthe matting always graceful, always reserved. The quality of their\ndancing rings passionless, dainty, graceful, not cold but controlled.\nAn air of serenity surrounds them. They are not trained to the duties\nof womanhood, but to its heaviest burden--pleasing. The licensed\nplaythings of the nation, toys to amuse, they reach up to their\nlimited, low-scaled destiny, through the perpetual sacrifice of self;\nand the national self-control encases them, so much their very own that\nfew perceive it. With very different fates and from very different\nmotives there is about them, as they dance, something of the charm and\nof the aloofness of Andersen\u2019s mermaiden; and if their steps too are as\nsteps upon a sword, they, too, will smile untroubled.\n\n * * * * *\n\nSo the city strives and pleasures, so the city learns and toils. Full\nand full of life the streets, quiet and very still the heart. The nine\ntall hills from Shiba to Ueno make a crescent round the moat, the brown\nstreets lie without, the Mikado dwells within. Born as a camp Yedo made\nits ruler\u2019s seat its centre, its nobles\u2019 _yashiki_ an enclosing wall;\nand then beyond, out of sight and sound, the necessary, unimportant\ncommonfolk had leave to work and sell. Tokyo to-day is still as Yedo\nwas. _Yashiki_ are pulled down, their ground is sold, but parliaments\nand embassies, nobles\u2019 houses and their gardens, still make a circle\nround the palace, a space of suburb and of peace between the city and\nits centre.\n\nOver the streets and the roadways, through parks and gardens, the\nblack-winged crows sail past cynical, unbelieving. The web of brown\ncanals beneath their high-arched bridges, the broad uncertain river\nsometimes slowly, sometimes fiercely, all flow towards the sea. The\nland-locked ocean, and the pale green rice-fields ripple round the\nstreets. From sixty miles across the plain great Fuji looks towards the\ncapital.\n\nAnd here in Tokyo\u2019s heart, in _Dai Nippon\u2019s_ heart of hearts, not the\nusurping _sh\u014dgun_ or general in his camp, but _Tenshisama_, Son of\nHeaven, bestower of a western constitution, augustly dwells.\n\n\n\n\n II\n\n EAST AND WEST\n\n\n EAST\n\nThe large red building covered all over with Chinese characters--a\nwhite sign on each cardboard square of red--overlooks the canal. It\nseems too gaudy and unsubstantial a building for sober work, and yet\nall day long multitudes of dark-blue coolies, like Florentine noblemen\nrun to seed, go in and out. Fantastic key patterns in white are traced\nupon the skirts of their blue tunics, while on each back is a large red\ncircle covered with the hieroglyph of the building. They may earn some\n6_d._ a day for twelve long working hours.\n\nFrom among the pale straw-coloured bales emerge two workmen. There are\npatches in their dark-blue hose, and the brown toes stick out through\nthe blue of their divided socks. Even the blue designs on the white\ntowels around their heads have faded away with much washing.\n\nCatching sight of one another they bow low. A step nearer, and the\njaunty ends of white towel tied in a knot on the forehead of one man,\ntouch his knee.\n\nThe other, whose towel is tied like a night-cap round his head and\nunder his chin, bends lower still.\n\nAnother step, and the indrawn whistles of politeness grow loud and\nshrill.\n\nAnother, and the white towels disappear entirely between the blue legs.\n\nThen the night-capped one straightens himself and speaks:\n\n\u201c_Shitsurei de gozaimas ga, chotto hi o kashte kudasai_\u201d (\u201cAlthough\nthis is great rudeness on my part,\u201d he says, \u201cwould you condescend to\nlend me a match.\u201d)\n\n\n WEST\n\nBetween two rows of slovenly houses a long grey street stretches away,\nwet and grimy. There is just one break in the grey monotony where the\ngin palace stands in all its gilt and plate-glass splendour.\n\nComing up the street are two workmen. The billycock hats on their heads\nhave lost their brim, and show more dirty stain than original black. As\nthey catch sight of one another across the street they pause.\n\nSuddenly one removes the clay pipe from his lips and spits profusely.\nThe other eyes him, his hands in his pockets; then he too takes the\nshort pipe from between his lips, and jerking his head in the direction\nof the public house, slowly puts out his tongue.\n\nThe first billycock replaces his pipe with care, crosses the road, and\nwith a sanguinary word they both disappear within the doors of the gin\npalace.\n\n\n\n\n III\n\n YON\u00c9\u2019S BABY\n\n\nIt lay on the matted floor, a little brown thing that cried, and Yon\u00e9\nsat on her heels and looked at it.\n\nHuddled over the brazier in the corner, her skinny hands stretched\nout to clutch the warmth from the sticks of glowing charcoal, the old\ngrandmother dozed and grumbled.\n\nAnd Yon\u00e9 did not move. The _Ijin San_ for whom she worked had told\nher she ought to take care of her dead daughter\u2019s child and bring it\nup; but Yon\u00e9\u2019s conscience, the conscience of her race, the inherited\nupbringing of her dead fathers, made her instinctively turn towards the\n_O B\u0101 San_ in the corner. She could not feed two mouths. Life was hard\nfor Yon\u00e9; and the _O B\u0101 San_ had a good appetite though she was so old.\n\nSo Yon\u00e9 sat on her heels and sullenly listened to the quavering wail\nwithout moving.\n\n\u201cIf the gods wanted the child to live, why had they let its mother die?\nWhy had its father divorced the little wife \u2018for temper\u2019 before the\nbaby was born? It was Fate. And after all the baby was very small and\nugly, a little, cross sickly thing that cried. No, it had much better\ndie, much better.\u201d\n\nAnd Yon\u00e9 got up, and went to get ready the evening rice for the _O B\u0101\nSan_. As she did so the shadow of the _Ijin San_ herself fell across\nthe floor, and her voice, in very English Japanese, asked after the\nbaby. Yon\u00e9 was down on her knees in a moment, drawing in her breath\nthrough her teeth in long whistles of politeness.\n\n\u201cThe baby was not well, as the _Ijin San_ could see. It did nothing but\ncry; and after all what was the use? It had much better die.\u201d\n\nThe _Ijin San_ sat down on the little platform, the _sh\u014dji_ pushed back\nbetween her and the room, in consternation. After all she had said the\nday before, all she had urged, Yon\u00e9 still clung to that awful idea. The\n_Ijin San_ had a shrewd suspicion that the old lady in the corner had\nsomething to do with Yon\u00e9\u2019s idea \u201cit was better baby die.\u201d It would\nbe quite easy for \u201cbaby to die\u201d too, and that without much active\ndoing on Yon\u00e9\u2019s part. So she sat there perplexed, the baby cuddled up\nin her arms. Moral persuasions she had tried, and appeals to Yon\u00e9\u2019s\nconscience, her love for her dead daughter, her duty--all in vain. And\nshe looked down at the queer little atom in its bright red _kimono_,\nwith the wide flapping sleeves, wondering whether it would look quite\nso odd dressed like other babies, her own for instance, and she smiled.\nIt was a last chance any way.\n\n\u201cYon\u00e9,\u201d she said, holding up the baby. \u201cHow would you like to see him\ndressed like the _Bot\u2019chan_.\u201d\n\n\u201cH\u0113,\u201d cried Yon\u00e9, turning round, her vanity awake in a moment.\n\n\u201cWell, if you\u2019ll take care of him, I\u2019ll dress him in foreign clothes,\nand he\u2019ll look just like the _Bot\u2019chan_.\u201d\n\nYon\u00e9\u2019s strangled \u201ch\u2019s\u201d of admiration grew deeper and deeper. Her\nadmiration for the _Ijin San\u2019s Bot\u2019chan_ knew no bounds; and then\nthe pride of having a foreign-dressed baby of her own! Why, not one\nof her acquaintances, not even the rich _sak\u00e9_ merchant at the corner,\ndressed their children \u201cforeign fashion.\u201d It was a height beyond their\nambition, a dizzy pinnacle only reached by the _samurai_ and the Court!\nAnd Yon\u00e9\u2019s strangled \u201ch\u2019s\u201d of admiration and her indrawn whistles of\npoliteness knew no bounds. Even the _O B\u0101 San_ in the corner turned her\nhead round and showed some signs of interest. And the baby stopped its\nfeeble cry and lay back on the _Ijin San\u2019s_ lap--and smiled.\n\nWith a sudden swoop Yon\u00e9 caught it up. \u201cI take care, I take care,\u201d she\nsaid, \u201clet the _Ijin San_ bring the clothes.\u201d\n\nAnd from that day she went about her work with the quaintest little\nbrown morsel in a foreign pelisse and a white bonnet nodding over her\nshoulder. And neither the _O B\u0101 San_ nor the baby ever went hungry\nwhatever Yon\u00e9 might do.\n\n\n\n\n IV\n\n THE GRAVES OF THE R\u014cNIN\n\n\nThe white wing of a blossoming plum-tree casts a pale shadow across the\npebbled steps of the causeway, and the spring sunshine is warm. Behind,\nunder the great gate of the temple, is a stall with souvenir tea-bowls\nof the _Forty-Seven R\u014dnin_ and the red blankets of a tiny _chaya_. In\nfront, at the end of the causeway, stands a Japanese father with his\nlittle son, buying bundles of incense sticks from the Buddhist sexton.\nComing up the path are two peasants with bare, brown legs, one wearing\nthe old-fashioned gunhammer top-knot. And the plum-tree, its scent warm\nand fragrant, lies a white wing above the path.\n\nThe Japanese father, _samurai_ from his face, and modern by his\nclothes, and his son have passed into the graveyard before us. But we\nall stand together in the little square garden on the side of the hill,\nwith its thickly clustered tombstones, shaped like Moses\u2019 Tables of the\nLaw in the Child\u2019s Bible, set in the flat brown earth.\n\nBelow, a sharply falling line of dark green shrubs; above, the\noverhanging trees of the hillside; and the garden is quiet and still,\nwith a little chill of damp and death that sobers and subdues.\n\nBefore each stone tablet on the earthen path are bamboo vases filled\nwith freshly cut branches of evergreens, and the burning incense sticks\ntrail a thin scarf of smoke along the ground.\n\nThe two old peasants are busy sticking their thin, brown incense tapers\ninto the little heaps of grey ash--to become grey ashes in their turn.\nThe little son has already lit his before the tomb of Oishi Kuranosuk\u00e9;\nand the father, gravely feeling in the pocket of his \u201cforeign\u201d coat,\ntakes out a visiting-card, and lays it reverently among the pile of\nothers on the grave.\n\nThen they go away slowly. And I catch the names of Asano Takumi no Kami\nand Kira K\u014dtsuk\u00e9 no Suk\u00e9, and I know that the little son is listening\nto the story of the _Forty-Seven R\u014dnin_.\n\nFor two hundred years now they have come up the pebbled pathway into\nthe graveyard, country peasant and Tokyo gentlemen coming with incense\nsticks and flowering branches, to keep green the memory of the loyal\nretainers who died to revenge their lord: coming in _kimono_ and\ntop-knot: still coming in foreign clothes and _shappo_, for the old\nspirit lives though the outer form is changing. The fierce unswerving\nloyalty, the utter self-sacrifice, the tenacity and strength of the\n_Forty-Seven R\u014dnin_ still stir the soul of the modern Japanese under\ntheir foreign envelope as it stirred the heart of those fierce old\n_samurai_, with their hands ever on the hilt of their long two-handed\nswords.\n\n\u201cThou shalt not live under the same heaven nor tread the same earth as\nthe enemy of thy father or thy master,\u201d says the Scripture. And the\nForty-Seven died, and more than died, to fulfil the commandment.\n\nIn the temple below their wooden effigies stand to this day. Among them\nare old men and young boys--one with the grey locks of seventy-seven,\none with the boyish cheeks of seventeen--but neither the old man nor\nthe young boy faltered, through all the long months of waiting, in the\ndangerous moment of the struggle or after. They plotted and endured;\nthey fought and slew; they brought the bloody head of Kira K\u014dtsuk\u00e9 no\nSuk\u00e9, washed in the well beyond the plum-tree, here to the grave of\ntheir dead lord; they gave themselves up to Justice; they carried out\nthe sentence of death on their own bodies with their own hands--all\nwith the same quiet self-control which only the sense of a supreme,\nabsorbing duty can produce.\n\nAnd the Forty-Seven were buried here, in the quiet cold graveyard,\nbeside the body of their lord. And when they had been laid to rest\nthere came a fierce two-sworded _samurai_ to the little garden, and,\nkneeling down in front of the tomb of Oishi Kuranosuk\u00e9, he took his\ndirk from his belt and stabbed himself above the grave. For he had\ninsulted Oishi Kuranosuk\u00e9, in the long months of the waiting, thinking\nhe had forgotten his lord.\n\nSo they buried him among the Forty-Seven, and before his tomb are\nflowering branches and burning incense tapers.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe two old peasants are gone, but the sound of coming steps is on the\npebbled pathway.\n\nIt is the feet of the nation. They come to keep their age long watch\nabove the graves of the Loyal _R\u014dnin_.\n\n\n\n\n V\n\n THE DOLLS\u2019 FESTIVAL\n\n\nEnshrined in their white wooden boxes the dolls look down; and the\ngently drifting crowd stare their fill.\n\nIt is the eve of the Dolls\u2019 Festival, and for a hundred yards along the\nwide _Od\u014dri_, the street is wreathed across and across with swaying\nlines of paper lanterns.\n\nOn each matted floor, raised knee-high from the ground, a shopman sits\non his heels, his hands eternally stretched out over the charcoal fire\nof the _hibachi_.\n\nThe background of dolls on three sides of him seem as interested in\ntheir sale as he. The crowd drifts, talks, points, looks, but he sits\nstill, absorbed in his occupation. Occasionally he will turn a languid\nhead over one shoulder in the direction of an inquiring voice, and\ntranquilly name a price four times bigger than he expects to get;\nbut unless the customer pursues the bargain with vigour he does not\nstir. Even then, all the talking is done without moving more than a\nhead. And when the culminating point arrives at which the would-be\nbuyer shakes the dust off his feet and makes vigorously for the next\nshop, he murmurs an impassive \u201c_Yorosh\u012b_\u201d (\u201cAll right\u201d), and warms\nanother finger, while a boy in the background, who for ever dusts the\nstock-in-trade, does up the parcel and takes the money.\n\nI wonder--would anything stir this _blas\u00e9_ image of indifference?\n\nPerhaps if a fool or a foreigner, interchangeable terms in the East,\npaid the price he asked he might----. No, \u201c_Yorosh\u012b, yorosh\u012b_,\u201d\nhe murmurs, and does not interrupt the warming of his hands by a\nfinger\u2019s-breadth.\n\nFor ten long days now the dolls, all in the quaint robes of old,\nhave looked down on the gently drifting crowd, emperor and empress,\nlords and ladies, and court musicians. The red silk trousers and\nthe flowing hair, the cut-glass chandelier-like head-dress and the\nwide, wide sleeved _kimono_; the court lady leading her lap-dog; the\nmusicians with their instruments; and along the lower shelves, the long\nprocession of lacquered bowls, and tables and furniture, the old, old\nshapes of Old Japan, the realities buried for ever in museums, and only\nthese, their midget substitutes, enjoying a brief life once a year.\n\nThey are so neat and pretty, of such exquisite workmanship and finish,\nthat I stay to look and look. Behind me the crowd closes in thicker\nand thicker, looking too--but at me; so thickly that they obstruct the\nrails of Tokyo\u2019s main tramway, and cause it much embarrassment.\n\nTo-morrow is the Dolls\u2019 Festival, and all the world is buying; I, too,\nwould like to buy. So I sit still on the edge of the matted floor\nand watch. I shall learn what I ought to give and how to conduct the\nintricate matter of a purchase. But though they were here before me,\nand though they stay long after me, and though I wait with what I\nconsider quite Oriental patience, they do not buy, not one of them,\nthey only talk. So I am compelled to conduct my own purchase without\nthe aid of native example, and to the certain advantage of the\nimpassive shopman.\n\nDoes any one ever buy anything in Tokyo?\n\nIn all my many wanderings I have never seen them, patiently as I have\nstalked them. They are always just going--just going--just going----\n\nPerhaps that is why the impassive shopmen are so impassive.\n\n\n\n\n VI\n\n WITH DEATH BESIDE HER\n\n\n\u201c_Go-han wa skoshi mo arimasen_\u201d (\u201cNot another grain of rice, not a\ngrain\u201d). And O Matsu sat back on her heels, the lid of the wooden rice\nsaucepan clutched in her hand.\n\n\u201c_Skoshi mo arimasen._\u201d And the grey head, with its cropped hair\ngathered into a slide behind, bent despairingly over the saucepan.\n\nThe _O hachi_ was quite empty, O Matsu had eaten the last grain\nyesterday; she knew that quite well, but the trembling old fingers went\non feeling round and round the bare sides of the saucepan, for she was\nvery hungry. All through the long months of the rice famine O Matsu had\nmanaged somehow. To-day the empty _O hachi_ lay on the ground while O\nMatsu sat staring slowly into it. Then Death stared back at her, and\nshe knew it.\n\nWith a trembling little movement she got on to her feet and moved\nacross the matted floor into the _zashki_. The sun was shining on the\nrice-paper panes of the _sh\u014dji_, and she pushed them back and stood out\non the little platform of polished wood, trying to warm herself; but\nthe piercing winter wind made her blackened teeth chatter, and she came\nin again. In the _hibachi_ the grey ashes were dead and cold, the last\nstick of charcoal had boiled the water for her tea last night. There\nwas neither fire nor food. O Matsu stood still watching, while Death\nand his Shadow grew, as a ghost in the twilight.\n\nSlowly the familiar walls, the matted floor, the half-opened _sh\u014dji_\ninsisted that the house was yet unswept, the first duty of a housewife\nstill undone; and with a painful effort O Matsu went and fetched the\nbamboo broom that swept the matting, and the damp cloth to polish the\nplatform. The broom felt heavy to the weak old hands, and the task of\npolishing the platform almost beyond her strength; so she worked on\nslowly, stopping often, for hunger made her faint, but always going on\nagain. At last, _zashki_ and platform finished, she crept back into the\nkitchen, longing to rest. The empty _O hachi_ lay on the floor. She\nmade a great effort, and, picking it up, carried it outside to scrub,\nfor cleanliness is a supreme duty in Japan.\n\nWhen she came back she put the freshly scrubbed _O hachi_ in its place.\nThen she sat down. There was nothing more to do. The house was as clean\nas a house could be. O Matsu was inexpressibly weary, and the desire\nfor food was almost beyond control. Instinctively she wandered back to\nthe empty _O hachi_ and took off the lid. The copper bands, dim and\nsplashed with the washing, caught her eye. It seemed to her the hardest\nthing of all her life to go and fetch her little cloth and sit down to\npolish them, but she did it. And Death and his Shadow sat down at her\nside.\n\nSomehow as she rubbed, two tears gathered in the dim old eyes, and\nrolled down the withered cheeks. O Matsu dropped the cloth, and holding\nthe long sleeve of her _kimono_ before her face, sat still and wept.\n\nThere is nothing in all the world so lonely as a Japanese woman without\nhusband or children. She has no claim on her own family, and little on\nher husband\u2019s; and in a land where the children, once grown up, provide\nfor their parents, what can a childless widowed old woman do?\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe sun moved round the house, and O Matsu still sat in her kitchen\nrubbing softly at the copper bands of the saucepan. And death, in\ninfinite pity, laid his hand upon her head, and his Shadow vanished.\n\n\u201c_O meshi wa skoshi mo arimasen_,\u201d she said. And the shaven old\neyebrows puckered themselves together. \u201c_Skoshi mo arimasen._\u201d And the\nbent little figure went on rubbing.\n\nWhen the policeman came in the grey dawn of the morning, surprised that\nthe _amado_ were not drawn, he found O Matsu, the polished copper bands\nof the _O hachi_ glittering in her lap--quite dead.\n\n\n\n\n VII\n\n KYOTO\u2019S SOIR\u00c9E\n\n\nMidnight and yet as hot as mid-day. Over our heads the velvet darkness\nlay as a visible lid above the streets, warm and still. Not a breath of\nair was stirring from one end of Kyoto to the other; the city seemed a\nvast dark house with all its windows shut. Only the rapid running of the\n_kurumaya_ produced the slightest breeze, and that was but the fanning\nof a heated ballroom; and when it stopped the hot still air settled down\nhotter, stiller, than before.\n\nWe had reached the bank of the river, the bridge and Theatre Street lay\nbeyond; and, as suddenly as one opens a door in a dark passage, we were\nthere, inside, in the press and the noise, the lights and the crowd of\nKyoto\u2019s nightly _soir\u00e9e_.\n\nRestaurants and hairpin stalls, _geisha_ booths and theatres, the\ninteresting show of the two-headed fish, or the tragic story of\nthe _Forty-seven R\u014dnin_, embroideries, and _b\u012bru_, jugglers and\nphonographs, cheap stalls for the sale of shaved ice and sugar syrup,\nelegant restaurants with fish dinners; dancing-booths at two _sen_ a\nhead, where white-painted _geisha_ girls continually sang four notes\nand assumed four postures, and sang the same four notes and repeated\nthe same four postures to a tightly packed audience sitting on its\nheels, silent but appreciative; and all, restaurants, booths, theatres,\nstalls, blazed with lights and posters, deafened with the banging of\nbig drums and the invitations of the proprietors, reeked with the smell\nof burning tallow, the fragrance of boiling tea, the scent of crushed\ngeranium, the odour of an eastern summer\u2019s night and of the press of\nclean-washed, hot humanity.\n\nAlong the street, inside the stalls and out, the crowd was dense,\ncheerful, polite and contented. There was no pushing, no ill-humour,\nno fights, no drunkenness, nor one policeman. The people of Kyoto were\nenjoying themselves like well-bred guests in a ballroom, with the\ncourtesy of self-control, and the self-abandoned pleasure of a child.\nThe road with its shifting crowd, and the two long lines of brightly\nlighted buildings, covered with paper lanterns and cotton banners on\nbamboo poles, looked more like a \u201cset\u201d in a theatre than real houses\nin an out-of-doors street. Not a candle-flame quivered, not a banner\nstirred, and the long perspective of the arched bridge was still as a\npainted background.\n\nDown in the river, in the actual bed of the stream, were more lights,\nwhole crowded restaurants afloat. Sitting on the tops of tables,\nwhose four legs driven down into the sand brought them within six\ninches of the water, supper parties innumerable ate and talked;\nwhile the children, slipping off their _gheta_, paddled their feet\nin the stream. Even the little waitresses, as they ran from customer\nto customer, would leave the long polished gangways that led from\ntea-house to table, and take the shorter way through the water. Every\none was eating, and every one was happy--shaved ice with sugar syrup,\nat two _sen_ a glass, or dishes of brown eels and rice at two _yen_,\ngratuitous tea or _b\u012bru_ in thirty-_sen_ bottles. And with the summer\nnight above, the water all around, the hundreds and hundreds of little\ntables floated on the water bright with _kimono_ and lanterns. The\nbroad shallow backwater either side the bridge was full of them, and\nthe gentle rushing of the actual river beyond the circle of bright\nlight lent a sense of freshness to the shadows that they did not in\nthemselves possess.\n\nUp on the bridge the crowd grew thicker, Theatre Street more full; the\nhairpin stalls were surrounded with women and little girls, buying\nlong hairpins carved at the end, or ornamented with silk lanterns or\nflowers, or ingenious designs of tortoises made of shells, with legs\nthat quivered realistically. And the velvet blackness lying above the\nstreets and beyond the river was warm to feel.\n\nSuddenly, as when one throws a stone into the water, the crowd surged\nforwards, then rippled slowly back; half a dozen white-uniformed\npolicemen, with the distinctive, distinguished face of the _samurai_,\nwere coming over the bridge, driving the people before them, back\nand back. The confused noise of indistinct shouting filled the air.\nSuddenly on to the bridge came running in a sort of jog-trot a crowd of\nbareheaded men, their short white tunics hardly reaching to the thigh\nand their brown legs naked beneath, all tugging and straining at a huge\nunwieldy car, which moved in jerks on its wheels of solid wood. On\neach side ran bands of men brandishing flaming torches in their hands,\nwhile priests in gorgeous apparel came behind. And priests and people,\ntorch-bearers and car-pullers, were chanting as they ran, a fierce, wild\ncry, which went on and on. The car-pullers swayed from side to side,\ntossing their hands above their heads, the torch-bearers rocked, sending\ngreat flaming fragments among the crowd, and we all stood pressed\ntogether, shrinking back from the burning torches, and the feet of the\ncar-pullers, singed here, trampled there, in one sweating mass of hot\nhumanity.\n\nIn the middle of the bridge the car stood still. The men in white\ntunics moved restlessly on their feet, straining at the cords; the\ntorch-bearers chanted louder, tossing their torches in the air; the\npriests hurried to the front, and stood gesticulating while the wild,\nmonotonous cry, gathering fierceness and frenzy from its very monotony,\nthundered and roared. Then with a sudden swirl the car turned round,\nand torch-bearers, car-pullers and priests were rushing back again to\nthe same fierce wild cry, the same frenzied swaying of the bodies, and\nthe same mad tossing of the arms. The sacred procession had come, was\ngone.\n\nSlowly the crowd rippled back, on over the bridge, back down the\nstreet, the policemen disappeared, the drums of the _geisha_ booths and\nthe invitations of the stall-owners rang out again. Down on the surface\nof the river the floating tables grew fuller and fuller.\n\nKyoto\u2019s nightly _soir\u00e9e_ was at its height.\n\n\n\n\n VIII\n\n N\u014c\n\n\nA room whose sloping floor is cut into chess-board squares; each square\nflat and matted, so that the back is twelve inches high and level\nwith the front of the square above; a bare still wooden room long and\ncrowded. Each matted square thick with kneeling men and women, the\nlong-headed aquiline faces of the nobles and the _samurai_. At the\nend a platform with an opening vaguely leading from it. No scenery,\nno footlights, no curtain. It is the theatre for the performance of\nthe _N\u014d_. Those sacred old world plays written many hundred years\nago, acted by _samurai_ for _samurai_, the religious mysteries and\nmoralities of Japan.\n\nIn the West the theatre long ago shook off, escaped, forgot the Church.\nHere the elder child, the mother rather, still lives by the side of\nher offspring, and lives unchanged. The _N\u014d_ to-day is as the _N\u014d_ of\nfive hundred years ago, the _N\u014d_ which grew out of the sacred dances\nof an immemorable antiquity. Like the drama of the Greeks it has its\nchoruses, its chants, its unities, its one or two actors masked,\nrichly dressed, impressive, who move with a religious solemnity, and\nspeak as voices, not as men. Its plays, too, are drawn from sacred\nlegend, from the mythology of Shint\u014d deities, from the mysteries of\nthe Buddhist faith, and from the fairy tales of the race. Over it all\nthere is a glamour as of a stolen glimpse into the buried past. To-day\nits language is archaic, but preserved by constant repetition, handed\ndown from father to son in the families of nobles who, since _N\u014d_ first\nbegan, have played in _N\u014d_, it remains the language and the speech of\nthose dead Japanese, who towards the fourteenth century organised the\n_N\u014d_.\n\nThe chant is strange and piercing, its very notes and phrases are\noutside of all that we consider music, as unfamiliar as the speech of\ninsects, or the song of the remotest fathers of mankind. It echoes like\na voice from out the long dead worlds, piercing yet remote, and the\n_tink_ of pipes dies out. There falls a stillness in the room.\n\nIt is the afternoon of the last day of the Iidamachi _N\u014d_. As in\nthe theatres of Greece the plays, each of which lasts about two\nhours, are given one after another throughout the whole day, while\nbetween them comes the _Kiogen_ (mad words), or _folies dramatiques_,\nfarce-like, Greek-like comedies, shorter even than the _N\u014d_. Many of\nthe spectators have been here since the morning, and on the matting of\nthe shallow square boxes are lacquered trays of food, on all teapots\nand tobacco-stands; others come to see a special play or so and go away\nagain; but to one and all it is not an amusement, it is a study, a\nhomage paid to the past, a rite.\n\nAs the first notes of the strange piercing chant wail down the room,\nthe pipes and cigarettes go out, the tiny tea-bowls are set down, and a\nsilence falls.\n\nThe actors, in their rich brocaded robes of a make and texture of\na long dead past, come slowly through the passage-way on to the\nplatform. Their masks are made of lacquer, and they speak in a slow\nnasal deep voice that seems to come from the very back of their\nthroats. They speak with every muscle strained and taut. It sounds\nalmost as outside of speech as the chant is outside of music, and\nthey move in strange long strides. Such movements are not merely for\nartistic effect, nor to mark agitation, or to reproduce nature; they\nare often used to mark the passing of a period of time.\n\nFor all its stiffness and its rigour, its archaic make-believes, its\nunnatural realities, there is an intensity and a thrill in it as of a\nliving thing that matters. The strange music of the tambourine-like\ninstruments, the thin wailing of the bamboo flute, the beating of\nthe one small drum, shaped like an hour-glass with three supporting\npillars, breaks in again and again upon the intoned speech of the\nactors with its repeated irregular cadences in notes outside of speech.\nAnd the long-robed figures, masked and rigid, stalk slowly across\nthe stage; and the chant of the chorus, as in the plays of Greece,\nexplains, comments, describes the action.\n\nIt is the story of the fisherman who found an angel\u2019s robe of feathers\non a tree, and would not give it back though the angel begged and\nbegged. Without it she cannot reach her home in the blue of the heavens\nabove, and for a heavenly spirit to stay for long on earth means death.\nAlready the chorus is chanting her dirge when the fisherman, seeing her\nbeauty fading and her life ebbing fast, relents. He will give back the\nrobe if she will dance for him. She promises, but implores first her\nrobe that the dance may be more perfect. The fisherman fears she will\ndeceive him and fly back to heaven at once. But the spirit turns upon\nhim.\n\n\u201cFie on thee, fisherman,\u201d she cries, \u201cdeception was born of man; the\nhigh heavens know not of it.\u201d\n\nAnd, touched, he gives back the robe. She dances, while the chorus\nsings the beauties of the landscape, of Japan. How\n\n \u201cHeaven has its joys, but there is beauty here,\n\nHere\n\n Where the moon in bright unclouded glory\n Shines on Kigomi\u2019s lea.\n And where on Fujiyama\u2019s summit hoary\n The snows look on the sea.\u201d\n\nEven the angel would stay awhile in a land so beautiful.\n\n \u201cBlow, blow ye winds that the white cloud-belt driven\n Around my path may bar my homeward way,\n Not yet would I return to Heaven.\u201d\n\nAnd still the angel dances, and the vision of Heaven descends upon\nearth. She sings,\n\n \u201cAnd from the cloudy spheres,\n Chiming in unison the angels\u2019 lutes,\n Tabrets and cymbals, and sweet silv\u2019ry flutes\n Ring through the heav\u2019n that glows with purple hues.\u201d\n\nThen the voices fall away. And to the strange, tuneless music, whose\nnotes are not our notes, the spirit dances on, round and round in\ngliding circles, with the slow, smooth movements of the sacred _Kagura_.\n\n \u201cFragrant and fair--too fair for mortal eyes.\u201d\n\nThe chorus sings again. And gliding round and round in circles ever\nsmoother, ever slower, the spirit passes from the platform and up the\nvague passage-way that leads to the green-room beyond.\n\nThe fisherman starts. The play is ended. In long, stiff strides, so\nslow, so slow, that an appreciable space of time seems set around the\nmovement of each muscle, the actor goes across the stage, up the vague\npassage-way, into the room beyond.\n\nIt is five minutes before the last slow solemn stride takes him beyond\nour sight. Then hour-glass drum, the flute, the two tambourine-like\ninstruments that wail, shake out their last weird tuneless tune. The\nchant of the chorus ends on a note that to us is a middle--and stops.\n\nMy ears still wait the end of the phrase when the hush of intense\nsilence dissolves. There is a rustle in each square shallow box, a\nlighting of tiny bronze pipes and cigarettes, a filling of tea-cups, a\ntapping of chopsticks.\n\nThe _N\u014d_ is over.\n\n NOTE.--In quoting from this _N\u014d_, \u201cThe Robe of Feathers,\u201d I have\n followed Mr. B. H. Chamberlain\u2019s translation in \u201cThe Classical Poetry\n of the Japanese.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n IX\n\n A JAPANESE BANK-HOLIDAY\n\n\nThe bulletins grew longer, and all the world waited and watched.\n\nThe Japanese papers were full of minute descriptions and hopeful\nprognostications. The cherry-trees were doing well; they were expected\nto bloom next week.\n\nThen came a cold wind and rain; \u201cfor flowers,\u201d as the proverb says,\n\u201cbring showers.\u201d And the bulletins became paragraphs.\n\nBut the sky grew blue again, and even the foreign papers broke through\ntheir Western disdain, and announced that \u201cMarquis It\u014d had gone to\nKyoto to see the cherry-trees.\u201d Imagine the _Times_ gravely recording\namongst its official intelligence that \u201cMr. Balfour had gone to\nDevonshire (not a third of the journey) to see the apple-blossoms\u201d! But\nthe Japanese are, of course, uncivilised!\n\nOn Easter Monday the trees were out, and all the world with them.\nThe two long miles of river-bank at Mukojima were crowded. The river\nitself was thick with _sampan_. And still all Tokyo pours itself out\nover the bridges, across the canals, out under the long double line of\ncherry-trees.\n\nThe chrysanthemum may well be the Imperial crest; the cherry-tree is\nthe national emblem, and its flowering a national _f\u00eate_--a Japanese\nBank Holiday, with Mukojima for its Hampstead Heath.\n\nThe two long miles of raised bank is a sea of heads, a second black\nriver set between pale pink banks; and it washes slowly, undisturbedly\nonwards. Nobody pushes, nobody shouts, nobody calls rude remarks. And\nthe blue-tuniced coolies, like Florentine noblemen out at elbows, with\nthe work-a-day blue towel round their heads replaced by a pink one, the\nvery shade of the cherry-blossoms above, say polite \u201c_Go men nasai_\u201d\n(\u201cI beg your honourable pardon\u201d) if in looking upwards they stumble\nagainst each other.\n\nThe _kurumaya_ has drawn his wife and children to Mukojima, and they\nwander slowly under the trees, the little ones in their gay-coloured\n_kimono_, covered with the largest of large flowers. Even the little\ntonsured babies blink up at the pink wonder overhead from the warm\npouch on their mother\u2019s backs. And the old grandmothers, with their\ncropped grey heads and shaven eyebrows, tell how the cherry-trees were\nmuch finer when they were young. The little girls, with their hair\noiled into lengths of black ribbons and tied in loops on the top of\ntheir heads; the young wife, with the wonderful whorls of the married\nwoman\u2019s coiffure; the bare-legged, blue-knickerbockered _\u2019ricksha_ man;\nthe schoolboys, with their striped cotton _hakama_; the fathers, in\ntheir grey _kimono_--all the working world, all the people are here.\n\nBelow the level of the bank, raised high here, for the Sumidagawa,\nlike all the rivers of Japan, is fierce in its floods, and set thick\ntogether, are the _chaya_. These range from the humblest little roofed\nshed, with its broad, low tables, like a series of large trays on dwarf\nlegs, covered with coarse red blankets, to the superb tea-houses with\ntheir snow-white matted rooms, their painted _sh\u014dji_. And they are all\nfull. The _kurumaya_ drinks his bowl of pale green tea, sitting on his\nheels on the red blanket. The little wife tries the immensely popular\ndrink of _ramun\u00e9_ (lemonade) out of a doll\u2019s tumbler. The coolie, with\nhis festive pink towel, pours warm _sak\u00e9_ from slim china vases into\ntiny china bowls, and the smile on his broad, bullet-headed face grows\nbroader. For the _sak\u00e9_ drinker, unlike Western drunkards, only becomes\npoliter and politer, until the Japanese smile of courtesy broadens\ninto a large, fixed, unending, amiable grin, and the _sak\u00e9_ drunkard\ngoes politely, though stumblingly, home to sleep. But of even _sak\u00e9_\ndrunkenness there is little, for the most part _o cha_ (honourable\ntea) and _o kashi_ (honourable cakes) content these uncivilised Bank\nHoliday-makers, who have come out to see--just the pink cherry-blossoms\nagainst the blue sky. And will go home again--content.\n\nOn the river the red towels are perhaps more numerous, for all the\nfishermen, all the dock labourers, the whole riverside population of\nTokyo have come in their _sampan_ to Mukojima. And they float past now,\nlittle and big, crowded with blue tunics or grey _kimono_. Some with\nan awning of paper lanterns, and all gay with flags and banners. And\nfull as the river is with boats, and jammed together as they are under\nthe bank, nobody shouts, nobody quarrels, nobody swears. A garden party\nat Windsor Castle might be better dressed, it could hardly be better\nbehaved. Nor in the whole length of those two miles of crowded bank,\nwith the line of _sampan_ on one side and the line of public-houses on\nthe other--_sampan_, avenue, inns, all full to overflowing--are there\nthree policemen. More, the trees, with their exquisite cloud of pink\nflowers, are within easy reach of a man\u2019s arm, and nobody breaks them.\nThe municipality of Tokyo has not even considered it necessary to affix\na notice regarding the penalty for damaging trees. I should doubt if it\nhad even thought to invent one.\n\nAnd yet the blossoms are beautiful enough to make a man\u2019s heart long to\npossess them.\n\n\u201cA little pink cloud of the sunset has caught in the bare branches of\nthe cherry-tree.\u201d And not all Western imagery can surpass the simile,\nfor the pink is the pink of a cloud at sunset, and soft as the softest\nmist. When the wind stirs the trees, the blue sky seems scattering pink\nsnowflakes to the ground.\n\n\u201cWhat is the soul of Japan?\u201d asked the poet. \u201cIt is the mountain\ncherry-tree in the morning sun.\u201d\n\nBut a soul so simple, the civilised nations, of course, disdain!\n\n\n\n\n X\n\n THE PALACE OF THE SON OF HEAVEN\n\n\nKyoto is a city of immense distances where the brown earth streets, set\nin between their rows of low brown houses, run on interminably. Even\nunder the weltering summer sky the streets are full; for Kyoto, the\nonce-time capital, is still the second city of the Empire, and the art\ncentre of Japan. My _kurumaya_ scatters men and children as he runs;\nand the sounds of busy bargaining, the inevitable _takai_ (too much),\nfollowing the _ikura des ka_ (how much?) pursue me as I ride.\n\nAt each corner two more streets stretch out, as straight as\ninterminable, as full of life. And still my _kurumaya_ runs.\n\nI am going to see the Emperor\u2019s Palace. Through many hundred years,\nthrough most that is history in Japan, the Son of Heaven dwelt in the\nheart of this city, and these long interminable streets so full of life\nstretched all around him. The _Tenshisama_ lived in the midst of his\npeople, and neither saw nor heard.\n\nWe have left the streets at last; on either hand stand railed-in\nsquares of growing trees; the road is wide and smooth, the busy\nthousands in the streets drop out of sight and sound. My _kurumaya_\nruns more swiftly.\n\nHere is neither shop nor house, nor passer-by, the restless hum of\nlife itself has ceased. It is quieter than a forest, for in these\nartificial squares of railed-in trees nothing stirs. Men\u2019s gardens are\nalways three parts dead.\n\nThe broad road widens still; white as fuller\u2019s earth and hard, it\nstretches like an avenue between high walls of smooth white brick, laid\nflat and thin as Roman tiles, on thick layers of pale white mortar. Two\ncarefully paved-in streams of fresh grey water run between wall and\nroad. And streams and road and walls go on and on. It is the Palace of\nthe Heir Apparent.\n\nThe walls are twelve feet high, the stream is three feet wide; and\nstill my _kurumaya_ runs. The pale white walls stretch down the road\nlike parallels in Euclid. It is the Palace of the Princes of the Blood.\n\nAnd still he runs. The pale white walls, thin tiles set in their thick\nlayers of mortar, run as he runs.\n\nI have lost sense of the city now, lost memory of the gardens, lost\nbelief in life itself. The world is a dead white road between white\nwalls. This is the Palace of the Son of Heaven, one speck of brown\nbreaks the interminable line of white, the carved gateway whence the\ngreat _Tenshisama_ issued once a year to visit the temple. One other\nspeck, the gate by which he returned. And then the pale white walls,\nthin tiles set in thick layers of mortar, stretch out of sight.\n\nInside these miles of walls, in his artificial solitude, year in, year\nout, the Son of Heaven dwelt. The life of the city, surging through its\nstreets, surged up in vain; he could not see it, hear it, nor conceive\nit. Lord of a world he did not know, the Son of Heaven lived, while\nall around the sons of earth fought and toiled, were born and died,\nand not a murmur of their being passed his Palace walls. Shut up in\nhis rose-garden world, fictitious, quite unreal, the Son of Heaven\naugustly ruled. And while the thousands in the city and the millions\nin the land held him divine, so that whoso looked upon his face did\nsurely die, the men who looked usurped his power, crowned or deposed\nhim; ruled in his name, but reigned supreme, and fought to reign. The\nhistory of Japan lies there. War and worship, divine unquestioned right\nand civil strife, never rebellion, each army fighting in the name of\nthe ever-sacred Son of Heaven, to use victory for its own ends.\n\nAnd the living son of these dead Emperors, brought up as they, Son of\nHeaven still, though without the walls, a modern monarch holding levees\nand cabinet councils, does that fictitious rose-garden world lie about\nhim yet shutting out the real?\n\n * * * * *\n\n\u201cAnd always in Japan,\u201d says my _kurumaya_, \u201cthe Son of Heaven augustly\nrules.\u201d\n\nAnd he sings:\n\n \u201cKimi ga yo wa\n Chiyo ni yachiyo ni\n Sazar\u00e9 ishi no\n Iwaho to narit\u00e9\n Kok\u00e9 no musu mad\u00e9.\u201d\n\n \u201cThe descendants of the Emperor shall live for a thousand times ten\n thousand years, until the little stones are grown great rocks, until\n the great rocks are all green with moss.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n XI\n\n AND SHE WAS A WIDOW\n\n\n_O Mm\u00e9 San_ looked into her son\u2019s eyes and saw that they were sad.\n\nIt was in the month of the plum-blossom, when throughout the length\nand breadth of Japan the soldiers of the Empire were daily leaving for\nthe front; for the war with Russia had been declared, and the rich\nwere giving of their wealth, the poor of their poverty, and every one\nof his sons. In Tokyo the rival newspapers had agreed to bury their\npolitical differences until the war was over. An Osaka merchant had\noffered his priceless art treasures for sale. On the western coast the\npoor fishermen, forbidden to fish in the sea of Japan because of the\ndanger, sent a petition to the Government asking to be allowed to go\nout \u201cas scouts.\u201d Noble students on the far-off banks of the Sungari\nwere risking an ignominious death as they crouched beneath dark bridges\nwith dynamite in their hands. Everywhere, every one was giving, giving,\ngiving. Even in this remote country town each day mothers saw their\nsons march away, and bid them a last \u201c_Sayonara_.\u201d\n\nO Mm\u00e9 San had been waiting many days, expecting, hoping, dreading, and\nto-night in the sad eyes of her son she read the long delayed summons.\n\u201cHe has heard at last,\u201d she thought. And for one moment her heart grew\nvery tender over this, her fatherless son, her only boy.\n\nThen she put away her weakness, for she was the wife and the daughter\nof _samurai_, and she knew that it was the proudest privilege of a\nwarrior to fight for his lord, that it was the most sacred duty of her\nrace to give her life and her son\u2019s life to the Emperor. So, looking\ntowards the curved swords of the family, which lay on the _tokonoma_,\nshe began to talk of her husband, of the grim old _samurai_ his\nfathers, and to tell old tales of battle and of death that made her\nboy\u2019s eyes glisten, and then look sadder than before. But he said\nnothing, and O Mm\u00e9 San wondered. She knew that he had been down to the\nPrefecture that morning. O Kiku San\u2019s two sons had left last week, O\nHana\u2019s eldest was going to-morrow. Surely her boy must know when he was\nleaving, or why did his eyes look so sad?\n\nThen she began to tell him of all the plans she had thought of for\nmanaging without him, for they were poor. And at last her son looked\nup, and said, very gently as he took her hand:\n\n\u201cHonourably trouble not; as for leaving, it is not for me.\u201d\n\nAnd this time it was O Mm\u00e9 San\u2019s turn to be silent.\n\nWhen dinner was over her son went out to his work, and O Mm\u00e9 San\nwondered and wondered. The wife and daughter of a _samurai_ she was\neager to give, give even her only son for _Dai Nippon_, and the Son of\nHeaven. And yet her boy was not going, what could it mean?\n\nIt was O Hana San who brought the answer. O Hana came in, very proud\nand pleased to tell all the last news about her eldest and his regiment.\n\n\u201cThey say these Russians are seven feet high,\u201d she said, as they sat\nopposite one another on the kneeling cushions sipping tea, \u201cand that\nthey never wash. And, just think, over there in _Ch\u014d-sen_ (Korea)\neverything is still frozen.\u201d\n\nO Mm\u00e9 San listened. \u201cA warrior is always warm enough when he fights,\u201d\nshe said, looking at the long curved swords which lay on the _tokonoma_.\n\nO Hana San followed her glance. There were no swords at home on her\n_tokonoma_.\n\n\u201cOh! fighting\u2019s very different nowadays,\u201d she said. \u201cMy boy hasn\u2019t got\na sword at all. They only carry guns now.\u201d\n\nFor O Hana was not above a certain feeling of pleasure at getting even\nwith a _samurai_.\n\nO Mm\u00e9 San bowed, and gently offered more tea.\n\n\u201cThat is the Emperor\u2019s will,\u201d she said, in her soft, low voice. \u201cMy son\nwill also carry a gun.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut your son isn\u2019t going,\u201d cried O Hana San. \u201cDidn\u2019t you know?\nThe Prefect said yesterday something about the law of the Emperor\nforbidding it. I forget why.\u201d And she gave a little giggle of pride at\nthe idea of her son going to the war when the son of a _samurai_ must\nstay at home.\n\nO Mm\u00e9 San\u2019s hands trembled as she poured more tea into the tiny bowls,\nbut her voice was as low and as gentle as ever, and she did not abate\none bow or one word of politeness; but how glad she was when O Hana\nwas gone! She sat back on her heels after her last bow, her face\nflushed with anger. The Emperor would not take her son! O Hana must be\nmistaken. It could not be true. But \u201cthe Prefect said.\u201d Then she would\ngo and ask the Prefect. And O Mm\u00e9 San got up resolute.\n\nThe Prefect was very busy, and refused at first to see her, but, with\nthe softest and gentlest politeness, O Mm\u00e9 San still persisted, and at\nlast she was admitted into the ugly \u201cforeign\u201d room where the Prefect,\nin a frock-coat and tweed trousers, sat on a \u201cforeign\u201d chair. O Mm\u00e9 San\nsat on the edge of hers and held her _kimono_ tightly with both hands.\nShe was not used to chairs.\n\n\u201cYou wish to know when Suzuki Tetsutar\u014d leaves for the front.\nHonourably please to wait a moment.\u201d\n\nO Mm\u00e9 San waited. The Prefect, deep in his work, almost forgot her.\nSomething in the tremulous way in which she had spoken made him think\nshe was afraid for her boy; and he was a stern man, with the sternest\nideas of duty to the Emperor. So when the answer came back to him, he\nturned to her somewhat coldly.\n\n\u201cSuzuki Tetsutar\u014d is exempt from service. It is the will of the Emperor\nthat the only son of a widow shall stay and take care of his mother.\u201d\n\nA great light sprang into O Mm\u00e9 San\u2019s eyes. \u201cHonourably please to say\nis that the reason?\u201d she asked, bowing low.\n\nThe Prefect looked at her, at the strange light shining in her eyes;\nand in his heart he regretted the old stern times when _samurai_\nmothers sent out their sons to fight to victory or to death.\n\n\u201cThat is the reason,\u201d he said, and he bowed her out.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThat night O Mm\u00e9 San did not sleep. She sat up looking at the curved\nswords of her fathers and thinking.\n\nShe knew now why her son\u2019s eyes were sad. The Son of Heaven, in his\ngraciousness, had wished to spare the widow\u2019s son, but--but a subject\u2019s\nduty was to give, give all, give himself, give everything that was most\nprecious to him; above all, a _samurai_ boy must not stay at home when\npeasants\u2019 sons went out to fight. And in the quiet night, with the\nblossoming plum-tree stretching like a white wing above the house, Mm\u00e9\nthought.\n\nThis gentle, soft-voiced woman, tender as the white blossoms overhead\nfrom which she took her name, was delicate as they; but in her soul\nthere dwelt that subtle, untouched fragrance, the sense, of sacrifice\nand duty, which, like the scent of the blossoming plum-tree, penetrated\nall things. Brought up on the \u201cgreater\u201d and \u201cthe lesser learning,\u201d in\nthe strict rule of the three obediences--to father, husband, son--O Mm\u00e9\nSan had lived her simple life, a loving, tender woman, exquisite in\ngrace and courtesy; but in her heart there burned that ecstatic faith\nand fealty which we have never truly known, but call by the cold name\nof loyalty. So she sat there and thought in the still, dark night,\nand all the thoughts and feelings of the dead, all their resolutions\nand impulses, stirred back to life in her all the long line of her\n_samurai_ fathers, who had fought and died, the yet longer line of\npatient mothers, who had endured and given their sons, husbands,\nfathers, called to her. They were not dead nor sleeping. They were\nalive in her. She sat and listened as their lives thrilled through her\nin the silence, and their voices spoke aloud within her soul. It seemed\na simple thing to sacrifice herself. She had no fear of death, rather\na great desire. No haunting fear of Purgatory or Hell beset her. Even\nthe all-loving Buddha was forgotten; she trusted to the older gods\nto-night--Amaterasu, the great Sun-Goddess, from whom the Son of Heaven\nhimself descended. Beyond the shadow of this life the great gods lived,\nand all the long line of her fathers stood waiting to welcome her.\nWhen she slipped into that light her son\u2019s father himself would stoop\nto take her hand, content that she had proved herself worthy to be a\nwarrior\u2019s wife.\n\nThe snow-white _mm\u00e9_, the blossoming plum-tree, stirred in the cold\nnight wind. \u201cChastity, purity and strength, womanly strength,\u201d it\nwhispered, and its pale soft blossoms sighed. The fragrance of them\nfloated by in the chill spring air; floated wide from end to end of\nGreat Japan.\n\n\u201cStrength, womanly strength,\u201d it said, and O Mm\u00e9 San looked up and\nsmiled, a little sad, sweet smile. For the strength of a woman lies in\nthe sacrifice of herself. And getting up she went to look at her boy\ntossing in his sleep.\n\nThen she too slept, for she knew what she had to do; and Shinigawa, the\nLord of Death-Desire, drew near and touched her as she slept.\n\n * * * * *\n\nIt was nearly dusk the next evening before everything was prepared. All\nher son\u2019s clothes mended and ready, the house put straight, the letter\nwritten, telling her boy quite simply that, having learned the reason\nwhy the Emperor in his graciousness would not take him for his soldier,\nshe had taken her own life that he might be free to fight. On her knees\nshe thanked the gracious _Tenshisama_, but her son and her son\u2019s life\nwere his not hers.\n\nThen she sharpened her dagger, and when O Mm\u00e9 San felt its edge was\nkeen enough, she knelt down on the matting, took off her long silken\nunder-girdle, and tied it carefully around her knees, for a _samurai_\nwoman must lie modestly even in death. Then she felt in her throat for\nthe artery, and with one quick thrust drove the dagger home.\n\n * * * * *\n\nThe Prefect was sitting with his family that evening when Suzuki\nTetsutar\u014d came to the house. He carried a paper in his hand, and he was\ntrembling.\n\n\u201cHonourably please to take notice,\u201d he said, \u201cthat I am qualified to\nserve, for my mother is dead.\u201d And he handed the Prefect the paper.\n\nWhen he had read it the stern official turned to the lad.\n\n\u201cThe detachment has not yet left for headquarters,\u201d he said, writing\nrapidly as he spoke. \u201cGo straight to the station. Give this card to the\nofficer in charge. I will bury your mother and perform the rites.\u201d\n\nThen he laid his hand on the boy\u2019s shoulder. \u201cSuzuki Tetsutar\u014d,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cyour mother was worthy of her race. Go, that her spirit may have\npeace.\u201d\n\nSo Suzuki Tetsutar\u014d went straight to the front.\n\n\n\n\n GLOSSARY\n\n\n =Aino.= The aboriginal inhabitants of Japan, only found now in the\n North Island. A remarkably hairy, remarkably dirty race, with the\n flattened shin-bone only occurring in skeletons of the cave-men. They\n are great hunters and fishers.\n\n =Amado.= Sliding wooden walls which are drawn all round a Japanese\n house at night, completely enclosing it.\n\n =Amaterasu=, _lit._ \u201cHeaven-Shiner.\u201d The Sun-Goddess, born from the\n right eye of the Creator Izanagi.\n\n =Amida Butsu.= Buddha as Amida. Originally Amida was an abstraction,\n the ideal of boundless light.\n\n =Benten.= One of the seven Deities of Luck, frequently represented\n riding on a serpent. Her shrines are mostly on islands, and from her\n connection with the sea she has certain points of resemblance with\n Venus. Benten always has a white face.\n\n =Biwa.= A musical instrument with four strings, something like a lute.\n\n =Boy.= Term universal among foreigners in the Far East for a male\n servant, of whatever age.\n\n =Bot\u2019chan.= A little boy; baby; Japanese baby language. Derived from\n _b\u014dsan_, a Buddhist priest (bonze). Japanese babies, like Buddhist\n priests, having completely shaven heads.\n\n =Bushi.= Warrior.\n\n =Bushid\u014d.= Way of the warrior.\n\n =Cha-no-yu.= Tea ceremony, from _cha_, tea. The people of Tokyo and\n the initiated call it _chanoy\u012b_. This ceremony, religious in its\n inception, has in the course of the 600 or 700 years of its existence\n passed through a medico-religious, a luxurious, and an \u00e6sthetic\n stage. A little of the religious element still clings to it, tea\n enthusiasts usually joining the Zen sect of Buddhism, while diplomas\n of proficiency are obtained from the abbot of Daitokuji at Kyoto.\n\n =Cha-ya.= Tea-house.\n\n =Cloisonn\u00e9.= A species of mosaic, its characteristic feature being\n a network of copper, brass, or silver wire soldered on to a solid\n foundation of the same metal. The _cloisons_, or spaces between the\n network, are then filled in with enamel paste.\n\n =Daimy\u014d=, _lit._ Great name; a feudal lord. Before the Restoration of\n 1868 Japan was divided into provinces, each ruled by a _daimy\u014d_. Every\n _daimy\u014d_ was the head of a clan of armed retainers, the _samurai_,\n and all _samurai_ had to belong to some _daimy\u014d_. Shortly after the\n Restoration the _daimy\u014d_ voluntarily gave up their lands, powers, and\n possessions to the Emperor.\n\n =Fuji.= Usually translated as \u201cThe Peerless Mountain,\u201d from the two\n Chinese characters with which, in poetry, it is usually written,\n meaning \u201cnot two,\u201d \u201cunrivalled.\u201d In prose it is generally written with\n Chinese characters meaning \u201crich _samurai_.\u201d It can also be written\n with ideographs meaning \u201cnot dying\u201d and so \u201cdeathless.\u201d Most probably\n Fuji is derived from the Aino word _push_, to burst forth.\n\n =Futon.= A sort of eiderdown quilt made of silk wadding. The Japanese\n spread one of these on the matting at night to sleep on, using a\n second as a covering. The native pillow is a shaped and padded piece\n of wood or lacquer which supports the neck.\n\n =Geisha.= Girls trained to the profession of dancing, singing,\n playing, and socially entertaining. They are the usual accompaniment\n to a Japanese dinner.\n\n =Gheta.= A sort of wooden clogs kept on by straps passing between\n the big and second toes. _Gheta_ are only worn in the street, and\n are left outside houses, temples, or other buildings. It would be as\n disrespectful to enter a house or a temple with your _gheta_ on as for\n a man to walk into a church, or a drawing-room, in his hat.\n\n =Godown.= A fire-proof building for storing valuables. Derived from\n Malay word _g\u0101dong_, a warehouse.\n\n =Hakama.= A divided skirt of either cotton or silk, pleated into a\n broad stiff band in big pleats. Worn by the _samurai_ on official or\n ceremonial occasions. Always worn by both teacher and pupil in the\n classrooms. Also worn nowadays by the girl students.\n\n =Hibachi.= A brazier in the shape of a lidless box of wood or bronze\n containing charcoal, the warming apparatus of Japanese houses.\n\n =Holland.= Considered as a tributary kingdom of Japan during the\n Tokugawa sh\u014dgunate, because the Dutch shut up in the island of\n Deshima, near Nagasaki, sent yearly presents to the _sh\u014dgun_.\n\n =Ijin San.= Barbarian; foreigner; or perhaps simply \u201cstrange man,\u201d and\n so foreigner.\n\n =Iyeyasu.= _B._ 1542, _d._ 1616. The founder of the Tokugawa\n sh\u014dgunate, which lasted from 1603 to 1868. Iyeyasu was one of the\n greatest generals and perhaps the very greatest ruler, Japan has ever\n produced. He went to school in the Temple of Rinzaki (p. 17), and the\n room where he learnt to write, his ink-slab and other belongings,\n are still preserved. Iyeyasu founded Yedo, now Tokyo, making it\n his capital. He died at Shizuoka, and was first buried at Kun\u014d-san\n (Between Earth and Heaven, p. 36), and afterwards at Nikk\u014d.\n\n =Izanagi= and =Izanami=. The Creator and the Creatress of Japan. It\n was during the purification of Izanagi after his descent into Hades in\n search of Izanami, a legend which has many points of resemblance with\n that of Orpheus, that Amaterasu, the Sun-Goddess, was born.\n\n =Jinricksha= or =Jinriksha=. From the Chinese, _lit._\n man-power-vehicle; shortened by Europeans into _\u2019ricksha_, by the\n Japanese to _jinriki_, but usually called in Japan by the native word\n _kuruma_. A small two-wheeled carriage like a miniature hansom or an\n old-fashioned perambulator, drawn by a man.\n\n =Kagura.= Sacred _shint\u014d_ dance, whose origin is supposed to be traced\n back to the time when Amaterasu, angry at the insult offered her by\n her brother Susa-no-wo, retired to a cavern, thus plunging the world\n into darkness. She was at last induced to look out by the sound of\n music and dancing, and finally enticed right out by the sight of her\n own face in a mirror. The dance performed in front of her cavern is\n supposed to be the _Kagura_. (Note the \u201cg\u201d here, as all medial \u201cg\u2019s\u201d\n in Japanese have the sound of \u201cng\u201d as in English \u201csing.\u201d So Nang-o-ya,\n _not_ Na-go-ya. Some dialects, as that of _Satsuma_, say a hard \u201cg.\u201d)\n\n =Kakemono=, _lit._ the hanging-up-thing. A picture painted on either\n silk or paper, in either monochrome or colour. It is mounted on\n brocade, and has a roller each end. Roughly and quite untechnically,\n _kakemono_ can be divided into two classes: those which seek to give\n only an impression, and those which are a kind of miniature painting.\n\n =Kana.= _Katakana_ and _Hirakana_, popularly supposed to have been\n invented, the first 772 A.D., the second 835 A.D. In reality they\n were not inventions, but simplifications of certain common Chinese\n ideographs. The _kana_ represent sounds, as does our alphabet,\n but they stand for syllables, not letters. They both consist of\n forty-seven sounds, which by the addition of dots and other symbols\n can be considerably increased.\n\n =Kannon=, written K(w)annon, Sanskrit Avalokites-vara, the Goddess of\n Mercy, who contemplates the world and listens to the prayers of the\n unhappy. In the opinion of a small minority Kannon belongs to the male\n sex.\n\n =Kimono.= The long-sleeved robe of Japan, which has no fastening. It\n is merely folded across on the right-hand side (only grave-clothes\n are crossed to the left) and kept in place by the folds of the _obi_.\n Practically the same shaped kimono is worn by men and women, the\n difference consisting principally in pattern and colour. The number of\n _kimono_ worn depends entirely on the temperature.\n\n =Kirin.= A fabulous monster answering to our griffin. He degenerates\n sometimes into a sort of three-cornered dog, and is said not to\n trample on live insects nor to eat live grass.\n\n =Kitsune.= Fox. It is the fox and the badger in Japan who are credited\n with supernatural powers. Foxes are able to change themselves into\n beautiful young women to the undoing of confiding man. The powers of\n the badger may be comic.\n\n =Kojiki=, or \u201cRecord of Ancient Matters.\u201d The oldest literary work\n of Japan, dating from the year 712 A.D. It is a chronicle partly\n mythological, partly historical, of the doings of gods, emperors and\n men.\n\n =Kuruma.= _See_ =Jinricksha=. The Japanese term for _jinricksha_.\n\n =Kurumaya.= The man who draws the _kuruma_.\n\n =Manj\u016b.= A flat round cake of rice paste filled with a brown bean-jam.\n\n =Meiji.= Age of Enlightenment or Progress. The name of the years from\n 1868 onwards. The privilege of appointing year-names is regarded in\n the Far East as one of the rights of independent sovereignty, much as\n coining money with us. In Japan the length of the year-name period has\n been up to now purely arbitrary, not coinciding with the reign of an\n emperor as in China.\n\n =Miyajima.= One of the _San-kei_ or \u201cThree Chief Sights\u201d of Japan.\n An exceedingly beautiful island in the Inland Sea. It contains a\n temple built on piles, which at high tide seems to float on the water.\n According to tradition, the first temple was erected about 600 A.D.\n\n =Mma.= The actual pronunciation in the Tokyo district of the word\n usually Romanised as _Uma_, horse.\n\n =Mm\u00e9.= The actual pronunciation in the Tokyo district of the word\n usually Romanised as _Um\u00e9_.\n\n =Musm\u00e9= or =Musum\u00e9=. Daughter; girl; and so, waiting-girl.\n\n =Namu-my\u014dho-rengeky\u014d.= Sanskrit, _lit._ \u201cO! the Scripture of the Lotus\n of the Wonderful Law.\u201d\n\n =N\u0113san=. _lit._ elder sister miss. Used as a half-polite,\n half-familiar address to girls; and so, waiting-girl.\n\n =Nichiren.= _B._ 1222, _d._ 1282, at Ikk\u00e9gami, where some of his\n bones remain as relics. He entered the priesthood at the early age of\n twelve, when he adopted the name of Nichiren, or \u201cLotus of the Sun.\u201d\n He miraculously learned the whole of the 100 volumes of the Buddhist\n canon in one night. He fiercely attacked all the already existing\n Buddhist sects, a thing unheard of in Japanese ecclesiastical history;\n was twice banished, and once condemned to death, on which occasion\n the executioner\u2019s sword refused to perform its function. His crest is\n the orange blossom.\n\n =O= and =Go=. Polite prefixes usually translated as \u201chonourable\u201d or\n \u201caugust.\u201d\n\n =O B\u0101 San=, _lit._ honourable grandmother Mrs.\n\n =Obi.= A long sash usually of wadded brocade, which is folded several\n times round the waist and tied behind. The _obi_ is the most expensive\n part of a woman\u2019s dress, and exceptional ones of richest brocade\n stiffened with gold thread can cost as much as \u00a350 or more; such _obi_\n are handed down in families as heirlooms.\n\n =O hachi=, _lit._ honourable pot. Tub in which cooked rice is kept.\n\n =Persimmon.= A fruit the size of an apple which can be round and\n reddish, or orange and pear-shaped. Called in Japanese _kaki_.\n\n =Ricksha.= _See_ =Jinricksha=.\n\n =Rin.= 10 _rin_ make 1 _sen_, or one farthing.\n\n =Ronin=, _lit._ wave-man. _Samurai_ without a feudal lord. He might\n be described as a _samurai_ out of work either through fault or\n misfortune.\n\n =Sak\u00e9.= An intoxicating drink obtained from fermented rice, containing\n 11 to 14 per cent. of alcohol. It is generally drunk warm and tastes\n something like sherry.\n\n =Samisen.= A square three-stringed lute with a long handle, played\n with a plectrum; the commonest and most popular of the musical\n instruments of Japan. Its notes are very tinny. In Tokyo usually\n called _shamisen_.\n\n =Sampan.= A small flat-bottomed boat, rowed by a man standing in the\n stern.\n\n =Samurai.= Derived from the verb _samurau_, to be on guard. A term\n used in the early Middle Ages of the soldiers of the Mikado\u2019s palace,\n then applied to the entire warrior class. The _samurai_ were \u201cthe\n gentry\u201d of Japan, the _daimy\u014d_ corresponding to the peers. In Old\n Japan all gentlemen were soldiers and all soldiers gentlemen. Since\n the Restoration, when their incomes were commuted for a lump sum, the\n _samurai_ have had to earn their own livelihood. They are now the\n officers, professors, schoolmasters, policemen, officials, practically\n the whole governing class of Japan.\n\n =San.= Contraction of _sama_. A title such as our Mr., but used for\n both sexes and all ages.\n\n =Semmi.= Cicada. Japan grows innumerable _semmi_ of many kinds. A\n favourite amusement of boys is to catch them and keep them in small\n cages of green net.\n\n =Sen.= \u00bc_d._ 100 _sen_ make 1 _yen_.\n\n =Shappo.= From the French _chapeau_. The modern name for the modern\n \u201cforeign\u201d hat. Old Japan knew no hats.\n\n =Shint\u014d=, _lit._ the way of the gods. This, the native religion of\n Japan, is a combination of ancestor-and nature-worship. Its priesthood\n is not a caste, nor even a separate profession. Up to the time of the\n revival of Shint\u014dism, due to the Restoration of power to the Mikado,\n everybody was born with _Shint\u014d_ and buried with Buddhist rites. The\n whole Japanese nation is supposed to be descended from the lesser\n _Shint\u014d_ deities, while the Emperor is the direct descendant of\n Amaterasu.\n\n =Sh\u014dgun=, _lit._ generalissimo. A title first used in 813 A.D., and\n continued down to 1868. In the twelfth century the _sh\u014dgun_ Yoritomo\n first contrived to become the effective ruler of the land; thus\n originating the dual control of Japan, the temporal power belonging\n to the _sh\u014dgun_, the spiritual to the Emperor. Yoritomo was succeeded\n by various dynasties of _sh\u014dgun_ until Iyeyasu founded the Tokugawa\n sh\u014dgunate in 1600.\n\n =Shoji.= The sliding wall of a house, like an immense lattice window\n whose leadings are wood and whose panes are rice-paper, _Sh\u014dji_ are\n semi-transparent, and divide the room from the outer world. The walls\n which divide one room from another are called _karakami_ or _fusumi_,\n and are of opaque paper. They slide in grooves and can be entirely\n removed when required.\n\n =Susa-no-wo=, _lit._ the Impetuous Male Deity, was born from the nose\n of the creator Izanagi. It was owing to the insult which he offered\n his sister Amaterasu by breaking a hole in the roof of the hall of\n heaven where she sat weaving with her celestial maidens, and dropping\n down into it \u201ca heavenly piebald horse flayed with a backward flaying\u201d\n that the Sun-Goddess retired to the cavern and left the world in\n darkness. Susa-no-wo was the ancestor of the rulers of Izumo, who\n finally gave up their throne to the descendants of the Sun-Goddess,\n accepting a spiritual for an earthly homage. Susa-no-wo is sometimes\n considered as the God of the Moon, sometimes as the God of the Sea.\n\n =Suzuki Tetsutar\u014d.= The family name in Japan always comes first, the\n \u201cChristian\u201d name after, as Smith John. Suzuki is one of the commonest\n of Japanese surnames of _samurai_ rank, Hayashi running it very\n close. Tetsutar\u014d, _lit._ own eldest son.\n\n =Tabi.= Half-boots fastening up on the inner, not the outer, side, as\n with us. They are made of cotton, and the sole is a soft sock. There\n is a separate compartment for the big toe. _Tabi_ are of either dark\n blue or white cotton; white is for house and street wear; dark blue\n for hard work or walking, and mostly worn by the lower classes.\n\n =Tenshisama.= Chinese term meaning Son of Heaven, from _ten_, heaven.\n _Sama_ is the longer and more courteous form of _san_. The Emperor is\n also called _Tenn\u014d_, Heavenly Emperor, or _Shuj\u014d_, the Supreme Master;\n all Chinese terms. The word Mikado is very rarely used by the Japanese\n except in poetry or on great occasions.\n\n =T\u014dfu.= A white bean-curd, looking like cream cheese. A favourite food\n of the coolie.\n\n =Tokonoma.= A raised alcove. Probably it was originally that part of a\n room raised above the level of the earth floor, on which people slept.\n\n =Tokugawa.= The family name of Iyeyasu and so of the sh\u014dgunate founded\n by him. The last _sh\u014dgun_, who abdicated in 1868, is still living.\n\n =Tokyo.= The modern name for Yedo, meaning the Eastern Capital.\n\n =Tor\u012b.= A gateway without a gate formed of two perpendicular and two\n horizontal beams, which at first stood in front of every _shint\u014d_\n temple. When the Buddhists adopted it they turned up the ends in a\n glorious curve, and used it for affixing tablets. Popular etymology\n derives it from _tori_, fowl, and _i_ (_iru_), dwelling, regarding\n it as a perch for the sacred birds. It probably came from Northern\n India, where similar gateways called _turan_ are found outside\n burial-grounds. _Cf._ Luchuan _turi_.\n\n =Uchi=, _lit._ inside; and so, house.\n\n =Uguisu.= A small brown bird, the _cettria cantans_, with a simple but\n exquisite song.\n\n =Urashima.= The Rip Van Winkle of Japanese folk-lore. He married the\n Sea King\u2019s daughter. After a short honeymoon he came back to visit his\n parents. But the oldest inhabitant of the village could only dimly\n remember the family tombstones in the graveyard. Thinking he was the\n victim of an illusion, Urashima rashly opened a box the Sea Princess\n had given him. Instantly a grey smoke went up to heaven, and Urashima\n changed from a stalwart youth to an old man, sank down on the seashore\n and died. He was a thousand years old.\n\n =Yedo.= The original name of Tokyo, given it by its founder Iyeyasu.\n\n =Yashiki.= The house or enclosure of a noble or honourable person.\n\n =Yen.= The Japanese money unit, worth 2_s._ \u00bd_d._\n\n =Waraji.= A straw sandal fastening securely with strings of straw. The\n straw turns up slightly round the back of the heel. _Waraji_ are for\n travelling.\n\n =Zashki.= The room; parlour; the sitting-room of a house.\n\nFor much of the information contained in these notes I am indebted to\nthe works of Prof. B. H. Chamberlain.\n\n\n Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED\n Tavistock Street, London\n\n\n\n\n Books on Japanese Subjects\n\n=A Handbook of Modern Japan.= By Ernest W. Clement. With two maps and\nover sixty illustrations from photographs. _Fourth Edition._ Cloth,\n12mo, $1.40 net.\n\n=Japan As It Was and Is.= A Handbook of Old Japan. By Richard Hildreth.\nEdited by Ernest W. Clement, with an Introduction by William Elliot\nGriffis. With maps and numerous rare illustrations. In two vols.,\ncloth, 12mo, $3.00 net.\n\n=Arts and Crafts of Old Japan.= By Stewart Dick. With thirty\nillustrations. Gray boards, 8vo, $1.20 net.\n\n=Far Eastern Impressions.= Japan, Corea, and China. By Ernest F. G.\nHatch, M. P. With three maps and eighty-eight illustrations from\nphotographs. Cloth, 12mo, $1.40 net.\n\n=Kakemono.= Japanese sketches. By A. Herbage Edwards. With\nfrontispiece. Cloth, 8vo, $1.75 net.\n\n=The Makers of Japan.= By J. Morris. With twenty-four illustrations.\nLarge 8vo, $3.00 net.\n\n=McDonald of Oregon.= A Tale of Two Shores. The chronicle of the\nearliest Japanese refugees to land in America, and of the first\nAmericans who visited Japan, later to act as interpreters to Perry. By\nEva Emery Dye. Illustrated by W. J. Enright. 8vo, $1.50\n\n A. C. McCLURG & CO.\n CHICAGO\n\n\n\n\n TRANSCRIBERS\u2019 NOTES\n\nThe Publisher\u2019s Advertisement Page has been moved from the front to the\nend of the text.\n\nDifferent spellings of the same word have been standardized.\n\nIn this text version, the following marking were used to indicate the\noriginal text styles: _italic_ and =bold=.\n\nText originally printed in small caps has been converted to uppercase\nletters.\n\nThe following typos and omissions have been changed in the text:\n\nPage 39: missing \u201cb\u201d added to: _blue hose, with brown weather-beaten\nfaces_\n\nPage 63: missing period added to: _and there was nothing else._\n\nPage 115: \u201cproscribed\u201d changed to \u201cprescribed\u201d: _already bent to the\nprescribed curves for me_\n\nPage 122: \u201cackowledged\u201d changed to \u201cacknowledged\u201d: _dramatic instinct\nis acknowledged to be far below_\n\nPage 125: \u201cpossibilites\u201d changed to \u201cpossibilities\u201d: _more\npossibilities than a rice-field_\n\nPage 140: duplicate \u201cin\u201d removed from: _are washed in the softest of\nbark brown_\n\nPage 151: \u201cth\u201d changed to \u201cthe\u201d: _the position of the person serving_\n\nPage 167: comma changed to period: _as the boys, lantern in hand,\nplunged downward._\n\nPage 209: \u201ccapitials\u201d changed to \u201ccapitals\u201d: _stating in printed Roman\ncapitals that_\n\nPage 230: \u201cust\u201d changed to \u201cus\u201d: _but he never told us why._\n\nPage 230: \u201cnor\u201d changed to \u201cnot\u201d: _that we could not read the Chinese_\n\nPage 266: missing period added to: _Skoshi mo arimasen._\n\nPage 295: missing period added to: _1542, d. 1616. The founder of the\nTokugawa_\n\nPage 300: missing period added to: _meaning the Eastern Capital._","title":"Kakemono : $b Japanese sketches","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":76928}