Japan

Kinjuro, the ancient gardener, whose head shines like an ivory ball, sat him down a moment on the edge of the ita-no-ma outside my study to smoke his pipe at the hibachi always left there for him. And as he smoked he found occasion to reprove the boy who assists him. What the boy had been doing I did not exactly know; but I heard Kinjuro bid him try to comport himself like a creature having more than one Soul. And because those words interested me I went out and sat down by Kinjuro.

1 As it has become, among a certain sect of Western Philistines and self-constituted art critics, the fashion to sneer at any writer who becomes enthusiastic about the truth to nature of Japanese art, I may cite here the words of England's most celebrated living naturalist on this very subject. Mr. Wallace's authority will scarcely, I presume, be questioned, even by the Philistines referred to:

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THERE was a Buddha, according to the Hokkekyo who 'even assumed the shape of a goblin to preach to such as were to be converted by a goblin.' And in the same Sutra may be found this promise of the Teacher: 'While he is dwelling lonely in the wilderness, I will send thither goblins in great number to keep him company.' The appalling character of this promise is indeed somewhat modified by the assurance that gods also are to be sent. But if ever I become a holy man, I shall take heed not to dwell in the wilderness, because I have seen Japanese goblins, and I do not like them.

1 It is related in the same book that Ananda having asked the Buddha how came Mokenren's mother to suffer in the Gakido, the Teacher replied that in a previous incarnation she had refused, through cupidity, to feed certain visiting priests.

2 A deity of good fortune

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IT is just past five o'clock in the afternoon. Through the open door of my little study the rising breeze of evening is beginning to disturb the papers on my desk, and the white fire of the Japanese sun is taking that pale amber tone which tells that the heat of the day is over. There is not a cloud in the blue - not even one of those beautiful white filamentary things, like ghosts of silken floss, which usually swim in this most ethereal of earthly skies even in the driest weather.

1 The period in which only deities existed.

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Over the mountains to Izumo, the land of the Kamiyo, [1] the land of the Ancient Gods. A journey of four days by kuruma, with strong runners, from the Pacific to the Sea of Japan; for we have taken the longest and least frequented route.

1 Thick solid sliding shutters of unpainted wood, which in Japanese houses serve both as shutters and doors.

2 Tanabiku.

3 Ama-terasu-oho-mi-Kami literally signifies 'the Heaven-Shining Great- August-Divinity.' (See Professor Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki.)

4 'The gods who do harm are to be appeased, so that they may not punish those who have offended them.' Such are the words of the great Shinto teacher, Hirata, as translated by Mr. Satow in his article, ~ The Revival of Pure .Shintau.

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1 The most ancient book extant in the archaic tongue of Japan. It is the most sacred scripture of Shinto. It has been admirably translated, with copious notes and commentaries, by Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, of Tokyo.

2 The genealogy of the family is published in a curious little book with which I was presented at Kitzuki. Senke Takanori is the eighty-first Pontiff Governor (formerly called Kokuzo) of Kitzuki. His lineage is traced back through sixty-five generations of Kokuzo and sixteen generations of earthly deities to Ama-terasu and her brother Susanoo-no- mikoto.