F. Hadland Davis

“ But in Japan, where magnolia-trees bloom too, a hundred little poems would be threaded to the branches, and little cakes made in imitation of the petals. Perhaps, too, a branch of magnolia would be set in a vase, the object of silent admiration of the members of some tea ceremony. And afterwards the spray of blossom would be gently placed on a river or buried with joy and reverence for the beauty it had exhibited in its brief hour of life.
The love of flowers is only a small part of the Japanese love of Nature. ”

“ On the last day of the Festival of the Dead the sea is covered with countless shōryōbune (soul-ships) , for on that day, called Hotoke-umi, which means Buddha-Flood, or the Tide of the Returning Ghosts, the souls go back to their spirit world again. The sea shines with the light of the departed, and from over the waves comes the sound of ghosts whispering together. No human being would dream of putting out to sea amid such sacred company, for the sea that night belongs to the dead; it is their long pathway to the realm where Emma-Ō reigns supreme. ”

“ Suburbia often makes the excuse that their pocket-handkerchief of a garden is much too small to be made beautiful. Too small to be made beautiful? Why, the Japanese can make a wonderful little garden in a space no bigger than a soup-plate! Necessity is the mother of invention, and if we only loved Nature more we should soon find the means to make our smallest gardens attractive. The great Japanese designer of gardens, Kobori-Enshiu, said that an ideal garden should be like "the sweet solitude of a landscape clouded by moonlight, with a half-gloom between the trees." ”

“ When Matsue's parents died her loss only seemed to make her love Teoyo the more. The older they grew the more they loved each other. Every night, when the moon shone, they went hand in hand to the pine-tree, and with their little rakes they made a couch for the morrow.
One night the great silver face of the moon peered through the branches of the pine-tree and looked in vain for the old lovers sitting together on a couch of pine-needles. Their little rakes lay side by side, and still the moon waited for the slow and stumbling steps of the Pine-Tree Lovers. But that night they did not come. ”

“ To-day rice-fields and woods are to be seen in place of the glory of old. Storm and fire, however, have left untouched the temple of Hachiman (the God of War) and the bronze image of Buddha. At one time this gigantic figure reposed in a temple, but now it stands high above the trees, with an inscrutable smile upon its great face, with eyes full of a peace that cannot be shaken by the petty storms of the world.
Legend is nearly always elemental. Divinities, irrespective of their austerity, are brought down to a very human level. ”

“ The souls of Japanese children are often pictured as playing in a celestial garden with the same flowers and butterflies they used to play with while on earth. It is just this subtle element of the childlike disposition in Japanese people that has helped them to discover the secrets of flowers, and birds, and trees, has enabled them to catch their timorous, fleeting shadows, and to hold them, as if by magic, in a picture, on a vase, or in a delicate and wistful poem. ”

“ Then the outer door of the temple mysteriously opened, and a bamboo curtain was partially raised, revealing a handsome boy, who thus addressed the old man: "We have taken pity on a young man who desires a certain love-union, and have called you to inquire into the matter, and to see if you can bring the young people together."
The old man bowed, and then drew from his sleeve a cord which he wound round Baishū's body, igniting one end in a temple-lantern, and waving his hand the while, as if beckoning some spirit to appear out of the dark night. ”

“ He wrote in his charming Hō-jō-ki, the most tender and haunting autobiography in the Japanese language: "All the joy of my existence is concentrated around the pillow which giveth me nightly rest; all the hope of my days I find in the beauties of Nature that ever please my eyes." He loved Nature so well that he would fain have taken all the colour and perfume of her flowers through death into the life beyond. ”

“ The Japanese garden is essentially a landscape garden. The owner of a garden falls in love with a certain view. It haunts him, and awakens in him some primitive feelings of delight that cannot be analysed. He brings that view perpetually before him in his garden, in miniature, perhaps, but a miniature of wonderful exactness. His garden thus becomes a place of happy memory, and not a plot laid out with gaudy flowers and terraces that can have no meaning, no poetry to his mind. ”

“ No one has been able to solve conclusively the origin of the Torii, that wonderful gateway that leads nowhere. What a charming entrance or exit for a company of wandering souls! What a place for ghosts to play and dream awhile is a Japanese garden, with its lake and moon-shaped bridge, its stone lantern, its paths of silver sand! And what a street for ghosts to wander in is the Street Everlasting that is so near to the Street of Aged Men! ”

“ With that strong poetic feeling so characteristic of the Japanese, Eternity meant for Hokusai an infinite time in which to carry on his beloved work—to perfect, to make alive all the wonderful strokes of his brush. As in ancient Egypt, so in Old Japan, the future life could only mean real happiness with periodic visits to this world again, and there is a subtle and almost pathetic paradox in this conception, suggesting, as it were, the continual loading of Eternity with fresh earthly memories. ”

“ In studying Japanese legend one is particularly struck by its universality and also by its very sharp contrasts. Most nations have deified the sun and moon, the stars and mountains, and all the greatest works of Nature; but the Japanese have described the red blossoms of azaleas as the fires of the Gods, and the white snow of Fuji as the garments of Divine Beings. Their legend, on the one hand at any rate, is essentially poetical, and those who worshipped Mount Fuji also had ghostly tales to tell about the smallest insect. ”

“ All the artistry and poetry of snow vanish in her malignant presence, for she represents Death, with attributes not unlike that of a vampire. But Japan is full of sharp and surprising contrasts, and the delicate and beautiful jostle with the ugly and horrible. There is no promise of spring in the long white form of Yuki-Onna, for her mouth is the mouth of Death, and her ice-cold lips draw forth the life-blood of her unfortunate victims. ”

“ At night they creep over the sea from their Dry Bed of the River of Souls, and cover the sand in the cavern with their ghostly footsteps, building, ever building those prayers of stone, while Jizō smiles down upon their loving labour. They depart before the rising of the sun, for it is said that the dead fear to gaze upon the Sun Goddess, and most especially are these infants afraid of her bright gold eyes. ”

“ The Festival of the Dead could only have originated among a people to whom the beautiful is the mainstay and joy of life, for that festival is nothing less than a call to the departed dead to return to their old earthly haunts in the summer-time, to cross green hills dotted with pine-trees, to wander down winding ways, by lake and seashore, to linger in old, well-loved gardens, and to pass into homes where, without being seen, they see so much. ”

“ A moment ago I took the form of a horrible monster in the hope of finding a mortal who would not be afraid of me. You, my lord, showed no fear, and I rejoice exceedingly. A great centipede comes down from yonder mountain, enters my palace, and destroys my children and grandchildren. One by one they have become food for this dread creature, and I fear soon that unless something can be done to slay this centipede I myself shall become a victim. I have waited long for a brave mortal. All men who have hitherto seen me in my dragon-shape have run away. ”

“ Tōtarō at once fell in love with this maiden. He discovered that her name was Tamana, that she was unmarried, and would remain so unless a young man could present her with a betrothal gift of a casket containing no fewer than ten thousand jewels.
When Tōtarō learnt that this fair girl was only to be won by what seemed to him an impossible gift, he returned home with a heavy heart. The more he thought about the beautiful Tamana, the more he fell in love with her. But alas! no one less wealthy than a prince could make such a betrothal gift—ten thousand jewels! ”

“ Thus Lafcadio Hearn describes the lotus of Paradise: "They are gardening, these charming beings!—they are caressing the lotus buds, sprinkling their petals with something celestial, helping them to blossom. And what lotus-buds! with colours not of this world. Some have burst open; and in their luminous hearts, in a radiance like that of dawn, tiny naked infants are seated, each with a tiny halo. These are Souls, new Buddhas, hotoke born into bliss! Some are very, very small; others larger; all seem to be growing visibly, for their lovely nurses are feeding them with something ambrosial. ”

“ A very different experience to that of some of the Indian anchorites, who find in solitude a veritable thunder-cloud of temptation! But Chōmei was a happy soul, and we mention him here to show that the mainstay of his life were not the things of the world, but the workings of Nature on the hills and in the valleys, in the flowers and in the trees, in the running water and in the rising moon. To quote his own words: "You have fled from the world to live the life of a recluse amid the wild woods and hills, thus to bring peace to your soul and walk in the way of the Buddha." ”

“ In a certain Japanese village there grew a great willow-tree. For many generations the people loved it. In the summer it was a resting-place, a place where the villagers might meet after the work and heat of the day were over, and there talk till the moonlight streamed through the branches. In winter it was like a great half-opened umbrella covered with sparkling snow. ”

“ Every Japanese home on that day is provided with a quaint, minute meal in readiness for the great company of ghosts.
At sunset the streets are bright with the flames of torches, and the entrances of houses gay with brightly coloured lanterns. Those to whom this festival applies in a particular sense and not in a general one—that is to say, those who have recently lost some dear one—go out on this night to the cemeteries, and there pray, make offerings, burn incense, and pour out water. Lanterns are lit and bamboo vases filled with flowers. ”

“ There was a sense of harmony in the tea-room. The light was like the mellow light of evening, and the garments of the [Pg 296] company were as quiet and unobtrusive as the grey wings of a moth. In this peaceful apartment the guests drank their tea and meditated, and went forth into the world again better and stronger for having contemplated in silence the beautiful and the noble in religion, art, and nature. "Seeking always to be in harmony with the great rhythm of the universe, they were ever prepared to enter the unknown." ”

“ At one time certain dolls were actually said to become alive, to take to their small bodies a human soul, and the belief is merely an echo of the old idea that much love will quicken to life the image of a living thing. In Old Japan the doll was handed down from one generation to another, and sometimes remained in an excellent condition for over a hundred years. A hundred years spent in little children's arms, served with food, put to bed regularly every night, and the object of constant endearments, will no doubt work wonders in the poetic imagination of a happy and childlike people. ”

“ One of the greatest tributes Japan has paid to the cherry is as follows: "The cherry-trees in the far-away mountain villages should keep back their blooms until the flowers in the town have faded, for then the people will go out to see them too." A Japanese woman's beauty is frequently associated with the cherry-blossom, while her virtue is compared with the flower of the plum. ”

“ See a Japanese garden then, and you see the white seal of Nature's approval upon it all. The snow scene is perhaps Nature's supreme touch in Japan, after all; and it is a scene dear to the hearts of the Japanese. In midsummer a Japanese emperor once had the miniature mountains in his gardens covered with white silk to suggest snow, and, no doubt, to give an imaginary coolness to the scene. A slight acquaintance with Japanese art will reveal the fact that snow affords a favourite theme for the artist's brush. ”

“ But the maiden, smiling sweetly upon him, would not tell her name. Still smiling, she swung a branch of camellia in the air, so that it seemed that the fair blossom beckoned to some invisible spirit far away. In answer to the floral summons a cloud came down from Mount Fuji; it enveloped the lovely maiden, and carried her to the sacred mountain from which she had come. Yosoji knew now that his guide was none other than the Goddess of Fuji. ”

“ This abode of the souls of children is certainly not an ideal land. It is Jizō, and not his country, who has sprung from the hearts of Japanese women. The stern Buddhist teaching of cause and effect, of birth and re-birth, applies to even gentle infants. But if the great Wheel of Existence revolves with unerring force, and only fails to move when the desire for not-being is finally attained in Nirvana, Jizō lovingly stands at the foot of Destiny and makes easy the way where the feet of little children so softly patter. ”