as with an indigestion of information. I could hardly tell you anything
in a reasonable sequence, for in and out of what I go to see runs a
perpetual warp of looking at curios, of which occupation I feel every
day disgusted and ashamed, and to which I return again as a gambler
might, with the hope of making it all right with my conscience by some
run of luck. This began on our very first day, when at our first visit
to an excellent merchant, for whom we had letters, we spent the hours
after dinner looking at the bric-à-brac brought together for our
purchase or amusement. We had had the presentation and disappearance of
the ladies of the house after their customary genuflections; and a
European dinner, waited upon, in part, by lesser clients of our
entertainer. Meanwhile his one little girl sat beside him, half behind
him, and occasionally betrayed her secret love for him by gently
pressing his leg with the sole of her little stockinged foot. Japanese
children are one of the charms of Japan, and this one is a type of their
stillness; her sweet, patient face watching the talk of the elders, no
change in her eyes revealing anything, but the whole person taking
everything in--the little delicate person, which disappeared in a dress
and sash not unlike her elders', except for color. Then there was a
visit to another merchant, in the oldest house of the city, built low,
so that none might perchance look down upon the sovereign lord's
procession. Display of family relics--marriage gifts and complete
_trousseaux_ of the past; marriage dresses of the same time, symbolical
in color,--white, red, and finally black. We are told to notice that the
gold and silver fittings of precious lacquers are wanting, because many
years ago some sumptuary edict of the Tokugawa government suddenly
forbade the display or use of the precious metals in excess--a gradation
to be determined by inspecting officials--for persons who, like
merchants, should not pretend to pass a certain line.
Then, owing to other letters, we have paid our devoirs to the governor,
and called, and subsequently received the polite attentions of his
intelligent secretary. Under his guidance we visit the School of Art and
see boys sketching, and enter rooms of drawing devoted respectively to
the schools of the North and the South.
And we visit the school for girls, where the cooking-class is one bloom
of peach-like complexions, like a great fruit-basket; where the ladylike
teacher of gymnastics and child etiquette wears divided skirts; where
the rooms for the study of Chinese classics and history contain a
smaller number of fair students, looking more reasonable and much paler;
and where, on admiring in the empty painting-class a charming sketch of
Kioto wharves, like the work of some lesser Rico, I am told that the
fair artist has disappeared--married, just as if it had happened with us
at home. But with a difference worth weighing gravely, for our guide and
teacher informs me that the aim of this education is not to make girls
independent, but rather to make more intelligent and useful daughters,
sisters, or wives. And in this old-fashioned view I come to recognize
the edges of a great truth.
Then temples, for Kioto is a city of temples; and every day some hours
of hot morning have been given to visits, all of which make a great blur
in my mind. The general memory is impressive and grand; the details run
one into the other.
Thus we are paying dear for sightseeing, but it is impossible to set
aside the vague curiosity which hates to leave another chance unturned.
And when again shall I return, and see all these again? Now, however,
all is associated with heat and glare, and with the monotony of
innumerable repeated impressions, differing only in scale. Still,
probably, when I shall have left I shall recall more clearly and
separately the great solemn masses of unpainted wood, for which early
forests have been spoiled; the great size of their timbers, the
continuous felicity of their many roofings, the dreary or delicate
solemnity of their dark interiors, the interminable recurrence of
paintings by artists of the same schools; the dry and arid court-yards,
looked at, in this heat of weather, from the golden shadows, where are
hidden sometimes lovely old statues, sometimes stupid repetitions;
images of the whole race of earlier shoguns; the harsh features of the
great Taiko Sama, the sleek and subtle face of the great Iyéyasŭ, or the
form of K'wan-on, carved by early art, leaning her cheek on long
fingers; or noble, tapestried figures, rich in color and intensity of
spotting, painted by the Buddhist Cho-Den-Su....
I should like to describe the temple ceilings, in which are set the
lacquered coffers of the war junk of Taiko, or of the state carriage of
his wife....
I have sketched in his reception hall, peopled to-day only by specters
of the past--with gilt and painted panels on which may have looked the
great Iyéyasŭ, who was to succeed him, and the blessed Xavier, and the
early Jesuits, and the chivalric Christian lords who were to die on
great battlefields. And close to a great room, where many monks bent
over peaceful books, the little closet, with dainty shelves, in which
Taiko looked at the heads of his dead enemies, brought there for
inspection.
And we have gone up into the plain little pavilion, sacred to the
ceremonies of tea-drinking, where the rough and shrewd adventurer
offered to grim, ambitious warriors, as honorific guerdon for hard
service, the simple little cups of glazed clay that collectors prize
to-day.
I run over these associated details, because certainly the question of
the great buildings is too weighty for my present mood. But the greater
part of the romance of Japan is called up at every moment by what we see
just now.
At Uji, among the tea gardens, we stopped on our way to Nara, the older
capital, to see the temple of Bio-do-in and its "Phœnix hall," built
in wood, that is now over eight hundred years old; its statues; its
half-defaced paintings of the "Paradise in the West"; its high, dusty
ceiling, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; and its sweet-toned bell.
And we saw the legendary bow of Yorimasa, which you will recall with me
whenever you see a picture of the bow of the moon, across which flies
the Japanese cuckoo. It was here that he defended Uji bridge, with a
forlorn hope, against the army of the Taira, that his prince might have
time to escape; and here, at Bio-do-in, while his last followers kept
off the rush of the enemy, Yorimasa ran himself through with his sword,
as a final duty paid to the honor of Japan.
On this side of the bridge, as I walked up other temple steps, hedged in
by trees, with our friend Oye-San, the violet butterflies and blue
dragon-flies crossed our path in every bar of sunshine.
At the monastery of Kurodani, on the edge of the mountain near us, are
shown the graves of Nawozane and of the young Atsumori, whom he killed
in battle. We are shown the portrait of the victim, painted in sorrow by
the victor, and the pine-tree still stands upon which the warrior hung
his armor when, tormented by remorse, he carried out his vow of never
more bearing arms, and sought this place to enter religion and pray for
the soul of the youth he had unwillingly slain. Strange flower of human
pity, blooming out of the blood of civil wars like some story of Italy
in the coeval day of St. Francis.
At that time the great war of the Genji and the Heike was devastating
Japan, and in 1184, in a great battle by the sea, Yoshitsune, the hero
of romance of Japan, serving his brother Yoritomo, whose story I told
you at Nikko, defeated the Heike, and the "death of Atsumori" took
place. This delicate boy, a prince of the Heike, scarcely sixteen years
old, met in the battle the veteran Nawozane. Atsumori had fought bravely
on the shore, having at first fled, and then returned, forcing his horse
through the water. The greater strength of the older man prevailed, and
the child fell under the blows of the powerful man-at-arms. When
Nawozane disengaged his enemy's helmet, intending to take off the usual
trophy of a head, the sight of the youthful face recalled his own son
slain in battle, and he hesitated in inflicting on other parents a
suffering like his own. But if he did not kill him others would, and his
reputation would be endangered. He killed him, Atsumori bravely meeting
death, and bore off the terrible trophy. Then, in the revulsion of
remorse, he vowed himself to a religious life; he restored to Atsumori's
father the son's fair head and his armor, and, going to Kioto, became a
disciple in religion of the holy Hónen Shónin, the founder of Kurodani;
and there, near its lovely garden, are the tombs of the man and of the
boy.
Or, while we are thinking of heads cut off, I pass again and again a
lofty monument, under great trees, on a wide avenue beautifully
macadamized, and kept in the trim of our Central Park, along which ride
officers in Western uniform, or pass the police, in a dress whose type
is borrowed from at least three European states. Under this tomb are
buried the ears and noses of the Koreans slain in the wars that
Hideyoshi waged at the end of the sixteenth century. They were carried
here as more convenient than the heads, the usual evidence of work well
done, brought by the warriors to their commander. The memory of what the
great pile means serves to confuse still more my admiration of the
ultra-modern success of the wide carriage drive on which it stands.
OSAKA, September 18.
We have come to Osaka to spend an entire day in bric-à-brac: to arrive
early at the big shop; to have tea offered us in the little back room of
the merchant, which looks out and steps out upon his garden of a few
trees and little pebbly walks and some stone lanterns--a garden that is
for us, which his own may or may not be. Then cigars, and pieces of
porcelain brought from the storehouses; then more tea, and an inspection
of the many rooms full of odds and ends. Then more tea, and more pieces
slowly and reluctantly drawn from the storehouse, as if we could not be
so unreasonable; then lunch and tea, always in the house; then
adjournment to the upper rooms, when the hundreds of kakemonos are
unrolled, one after the other, to a crescendo of exasperation. Then
rediscussion of matters below-stairs and visits to other rooms full of
wares not spoken of before; then more tea, and the last pieces
grudgingly produced from the same occult storehouses; purchases amid
final bewilderment; tea again, and departure.
We had come to Osaka on our way back from Nara, and we again return to
Kioto, which we left three days ago. The trip to Nara was fatiguing and
delightful, and I should like to recall it for you, but I have no time
and have made no notes; and, besides, my memories are again beginning to
merge one into another, and they themselves to blend with what I see in
Kioto. But certainly something floats over, which a few lines can give.
We were out in our _kurumas_ early in the morning, each with three
runners. We found Oye-San waiting for us patiently, outside at Inari,
where he had expected us from the earliest morning. It is from him that
I get the little clay fox, given me for good luck, in a partnership with
the one he retained. I need not speak of the heat. The roads were dusty
and dry where they were not muddy and wet, in the country paths we took.
We passed the edge of the city, which ends suddenly in rice fields,
occupying what were once streets and houses. For Kioto is only a part of
what it has been; and even when it was larger, not so many years back,
it must still have been only the remainder of a greater past.
As we get into what is really the country, passing from broad road to
narrow tracks, our runners sometimes lifted us over soft, wet places, or
bumped us over narrow ditches, or guided us, at full tilt, on the edges
of the stones that are bridges. Sometimes more patiently we halted to
allow the files of black bulls to meander past us, dragging loads on
wheels or carrying bales.
[Illustration: PEASANT WOMAN--THRESHER.]
Rarely we met peasants, and then usually women, sometimes with horses
of a larger breed than that we saw last month in the east. Once, among
rice fields in the basin of a circle of low hills, I saw the grove which
covers the tomb of some divine emperor of early times. As we circled
around the slope, far away from this solitary oasis of trees, we could
see the grove on every side, finished and complete and rounded by time,
as if sculptured in nature from some of those sketches that Japanese
artists make for carving when they give all four sides, and the bottom,
and the top, on a single page. Nothing else, but perhaps some
uninscribed stone, marks the tomb of emperors, dotted about the plains
of this oldest province of Japan. Strange enough, even in this strange
country, is this evidence of the extreme of simplicity in death, as in
life, of the oldest line of Oriental despots, absolute lords and
masters, ever-present patterns of the deity, who make this one solitary
exception of simplicity in history. It is as if Japan itself was their
tomb, as if they passed back into the nature of which their divine
ancestors were gods--the gods of the sun and of the earth.
Blue hills and pagodas, and temples in the distance, and we came into
Nara, which is but a breath, a ruin, a remnant of what it was. I had
been told so often of the place, as a ruin among rice fields, that I was
unprepared for the beautiful lay-out of what remains--for the
well-planned roads and avenues, such as may well have belonged to some
great capital, such as would have been heard of by travelers who,
returning in days of Charlemagne from other Eastern cities to Byzantium,
might have talked of Zipango.
Nothing remains but a few buildings, belonging to temples, but their
approaches are splendid, even though there be often nothing more than
the general grading and disposition. I should have written to you from
our inn, where I looked, in the evening and morning, toward the slopes
of distant hills, and heard, out of the darkness, the sound of the great
bell which rang first some eleven centuries ago, and the singing of the
frogs in the fields which were once a city. It is now too late to begin
to describe anything of what I saw; anything of temple buildings, from
one of which to another we wandered, or of the old statues and relics,
or of the religious dances of young girls which we looked at, standing
or sitting near the balustrade of the dancing-shed, while inside, in the
greater shade, they moved to the music and hymns of the priests--red and
white figures, with long tresses of black hair and chaplets of flowers;
with faces all painted white, and brilliant, indifferent eyes that saw
me sketching clearly, however, and hands that waved, in a cadence of
routine, fans and bunches of little bells with long streamers of violet,
blue, green, red, and white. Or of the great park-like avenue, that made
me think of England, through which still wander tame deer, as did those
that, long ago, served as models for Okio the painter. I fear that what
I have seen will remain only as an embroidery upon the stuff that my
memory tries to unroll.
It was late on a sweltering afternoon when we managed to leave Nara, and
we reached Horiuji for too short a visit; for we were due in Osaka the
next day. We wandered in the late afternoon and evening through its
courts, kindly received by the priests, for whom we had the
recommendation of a friendly name.
At least I had time to see the Golden Hall, one of the earliest
buildings, now more than twelve centuries and a half old, and the noble
paintings on its walls attributed to some famous sculptor of that day.
Their placid elegance, the refinement of their lines, their breath of
religious peace, explained those claims to a solemn and glorious past
for Japan, which look like a conventional exaggeration in a to-day that
is delicate and small and dry.
The recall of Greek perfection was not forced, and while still vaguely
unwilling to confuse one excellence by referring to another, I could not
help again thinking of the Greek and of Tanagra images, when I saw, by
the light of the torches, in the great pagoda, as old as the great hall,
groups modeled in clay by the same old sculptor, whose name is given to
the paintings--Amida, and Kuwan-on, and Monju, and the scenes of the
death of Buddha. An admirable antiquity was to be the continuous
impression of the evening, carried out into our last looks at the
Treasure House. Its very air of an old New England barn or crib raised
upon posts, its rough red painting, the high wooden steps of entrance,
the gigantic wooden latch-key with which the guardian priest fumbled at
its door, gave the note of extreme early simplicity--the feeling of a
persisting indifference to the adornments and changes of centuries of
fashions.
It has been useless all along to detail anything, but the impressions of
the last things seen remain with me as types of all. For there hung on
the old walls of the Treasure House a framed banner, once carried in
ancient battles, its brocaded pattern exactly like that which we know in
Babylonian art: the circles with the lilies between, and in each circle
the Assyrian monarch struggling with lions--imitation or original of
coeval Sassanian Persia, I suppose, but housed here all these thousand
years, and in its persistence of pattern connecting with that heavy and
oppressive antiquity of Nineveh which knows nothing older than itself
for our story, except oldest Egypt.
* * * * *
But I was yet to find something old that would be directly meant for
me,--a painting by the legendary painter of Japan, the Cimabue of a
thousand years ago, inheritor or student of still older Chinese
art--Kose-no-Kanaoka.
The painting is still in fair condition, though injuries of time reveal,
as usual, the methods used by the painter. And it was a delight in me,
in this mood of veneration for past greatness, to recognize in the
veilings and sequences of this painting of the lotus methods I had used
myself, working at such distance of time and place, when I had tried to
render the tones and the transparency of our fairy water-lily; and I
know you will forgive the superstitious sense of approval of my
re-inventions from this indefinite past of art.
We wandered among the buildings until night had set in; we signed on the
register of visitors, and contributed a small sum to the repairs of
these decaying relics of the greatness of Japan; we received some little
gifts of impressions and prints in acknowledgment, and then rested in
the neighboring inn, waited upon by fat, good-natured tea-girls, most
certainly belonging to to-day.
We had now to take a long night ride, and at length we rushed out into
the moonlight, our fourteen runners appearing and disappearing as we
came in and out of the shadows in the long procession of our train.
We whirled past the houses of the small town, indiscreetly close to the
paper screens, lighted from within, against which were profiled the
shadows of faces, sometimes with pipes or cups lifted to their lips or
the outlines of coiffures piled up on the head--all pictures more
Japanese than their very originals; then between rounded hills on which
stood masses of maple-trees; then near to empty spaces of water; then
sank into dark hollows, at the bottom of which rivers ran as fast the
other way.
I watched and looked as long as fatigue allowed, but fell asleep in the
uncomfortable kuruma, waked every now and then by some sudden jolt to my
extended arm and head.
Occasionally I had dreamy glances at what I remember as a vast plain,
with lofty, colorless mountains at one side, and perhaps I saw glimpses
of the sea. The night air was cool in the hollows after the sweltering
day, and I found my arm and face damp with the dew. A Japanese poet
would have said that it was but the spray from off the oars of some
heavenly boat which sailed that night across the starry stream of the
Milky Way.
In the dawn we saw the white walls of the castle of the city of Osaka,
and ran across its many bridges, all silent in the morning.
September 19.
We spent the late afternoon and early evening in the state apartments of
the temple of the Green Lotus, where we looked at strange dances and
listened to curious music.
All was sacred and mystic, according to traditions transmitted orally
from early ages, and all the more liable to disappear as the heredity
of occupation which has been the mark of Japan is more and more
endangered by modern views and modern "openings."
When we had wandered through those shady apartments in the long, low
buildings of the temple gardens, and had seen the paintings of their
screen walls, and the carvings of their transoms, we sat down in one of
the largest rooms, the wall screen was removed which divided us from
another, and we had then a ready-made stage before us. Light came in
from the open veranda, now stripped of all screens, against whose
platform many unbidden, unofficial guests, acquaintances of
acquaintances, and people about the temple, leaned in a mass of heads
and arms and busts. Outside the light was filtered green and orange
through the trees, and caught the edges of all forms in the shade
within. The orchestra of flutes and drums occupied a little recess, from
behind which the dancers appeared in turn. Behind the musicians, a great
violet curtain, with three temple crests in white, made a twilight
background for their white and blue dresses, gilded by the lights in the
tall candlesticks on the floors before them. With the sound of the
instruments two boys came around the corner of the screen, and,
saluting, stepped off in short, zigzag movements, evidently learned by
rote, and which had a certain strange elegance. They were performing the
butterfly dance, and made out very distinctly the crisscross flight of
the insects. When they lighted or poised before lighting their feet
struck the ground and they swayed without stepping away. They wore
butterfly wings, and wide sleeves melting into them, and their silver
diadems, filled up with twigs of flowering plants, made out a faint
fringe of antennæ. They wore the ugly ancient trousers of yellow silk,
and long trains of embroidered green satin trailed on the mats behind
them. Broad bands of blue and white across the chest, and a white belt,
recalled the insect original, and blue and white wings drooped over
their wide green satin garments. Each carried a flowering branch in his
hand. It was all more strange than beautiful, with a mysterious
impression of remote antiquity, as if invented for some prehistoric
Polynesian worship. In some of the next dances, whose names I do not
remember, and which were carried out by men, the flat mask, with a wide
triangle for eyes and another for the mouth, made out just this
similitude. In another dance two men glided about the room, listening
and finding their way; then warriors in antique Chinese costume, with
great helmets and halberds, and coats of mail, and long trains, appeared
singly and by twos, and marched and counter-marched; and finally,
standing by their lances, laid at their feet, drew and held up their
swords, while each other peaceful hand was extended in the gesture that
we know as the pontifical blessing; and this ended the dance of "Great
Peace," probably some relic of early triumphant Chinese dynasties.
It was now evening: the blue light of the open veranda made large square
openings in the golden room. Outside, against the balustrade, pressed
dark forms, with faces reddened by the light inside--the outside
lookers-on. Inside, the gold walls and the gilded ceiling, the great
gold temple drum, the yellow mats, and the white dresses of the
musicians, made a soft bloom like the hollow of a lotus, when the last
performer, in rose-red and crimson, glided into the room, swinging from
side to side, and brandishing a gilded scepter. Uncouth gestures and
enormous strides, with no meaning that I could make out, a frightful
mask that hung far away from the face, with loose jaw and projecting
mane and a long red, pointed hood, made an impression as barbarous, as
meaningless, as splendid, and as annoying as what we might feel before
the painted and gilded idol of some little known and cruel creed. This
was the dance of "_Ra_ Dragon King," and closed the entertainment.
We exchanged some words with the late performers in their insignificant
everyday clothes, and rode home in the twilight through the little
roads, where Kioto gentlemen were rushing their horses up and down,
wrapped in wide riding trousers, which fluttered along the horses'
flanks....
* * * * *