Torii

“ What came next, somewhere about 1710, from the first artists of the Torii School,—their broadsides in black and one tint, or black and two or three tints, without shadows, without perspective, of women with faces that neither Japan nor any other land has ever seen in real life,—these accord with nature equally little. ”

“ Shaded avenues, broad staircases, and climbing slopes lead to the gate-ways of the two great sanctuaries—the mortuary temples and tombs of the Shogun Iyeyasu and his worthy grandson, the Shogun Iyemitsu. The hillside is shaded by magnificent old cryptomerias; and these sacred groves, with the soft cathedral light under the high canopy of leaves, are as wonderful as the sacred buildings. Each splendid gate-way, as well as the soaring pagoda, can be seen in fine perspective at the end of long avenues of trees, and bronze or stone torii form lofty portals to the holy places. ”

“ Stanislas found himself clinging to the bamboo rails of the verandah, watching with a strange fascination the branches of the sacred cedar waving violently backwards and forwards as if shaken by the force of a tempest, and the red torii beyond, trembling in its balance. The shock continued, each second increasing the violence thereof, till, with a deafening roar, like the roar of the ocean, with one stupendous and prolonged crash, the frail building, sliding from its slight foundations, collapsed like a house of cards! ”

“ Properly speaking, Buddhist worshippers should not clap their hands, but only rub them softly together. Shinto worshippers always clap their hands four times.
2 Various writers, following the opinion of the Japanologue Satow, have stated that the torii was originally a bird-perch for fowls offered up to the gods at Shinto shrines—'not as food, but to give warning of daybreak.' The etymology of the word is said to be 'bird-rest' by some authorities; but Aston, not less of an authority, derives it from words which would give simply the meaning of a gateway. See Chamberlain's Things Japanese, pp. ”

“ It is like the Japanese tea-master wrapped in cold silence, But the cherry-blossom is in temperament like love, generous enough like love to make a poet believe his work is good; but in truth he always fails, again as in love. ”

“ I say here at either the sacred house of the Sixth Prince or that of the Second Prince that one cannot help loving Death when he sees night before himself such an inspiring house of sleep of green, red, yellow, of the gold and lacquer, of the colours unmixed and simple, soaring out of this and that wealth of life, the colours that have reached the final essence, and power of Nature. ”

“ I love the months of summer, because I can commune more intimately then with the nature from whose heart of imagination and peace, unlike that of spring too fanciful and defiant, again unlike that of autumn too philosophical and real, I will build a little dream and slowly wear away my soul as if a cicada tired after a heartful song ”

“ I have heard many people could not understand why the plum-blossom must bloom at such an early season, when it even trembles on the naked branch, and why the maple leaves must turn red, like the showy kimono of a gay daughter in carnival, before they enter into wintry rest; but anybody's heart of hearts always awakens at once when he sees the cherry-blossom in bloom, indeed, the spring of his soul and the spring of the flower call to each other. ”

“ I always thought that green is a symbol of youth, and also of a maturing love. So this early Summer is more to my heart than Spring. It is with these summer days that the breeze can spread its musical wings freely. ”

“ The appreciation of greyness and silence is born from that reverence of Death; as you live with the dead souls in one house, Death ceases to be fearful and menacing, and becomes beautiful and suggestive like the whisper of a breeze or the stir of incense. Death is then more real than life, like that incense or breeze ”

“ Nutts. Poor fellow! There is rayther a few mice to catch for him, isn’t there?
Slowgoe. Well, Tory’s the cretur for my money. Really a beautiful animal, and a credit to any house.
Nutts. Why, she has been, to say the hard and serous truth, a very devil in her time. But she’s old, very old, and wheezy now. Teeth’s nearly gone, and claws worn to the stumps. Here, Tory, Tory! Look at her, poor old cretur! All she can do now is to purr; she hasn’t strength enough in her for a good squall of the good old times. Talking of the likeness of Whig and Lord John—do now just observe that Tory ”

“ Everywhere about him was the historic impact of the Torrs. Their ashes were here—their banners and shields and tilting-helmets, their symbolical quarterings of the best arms of the West, their own proudest device of all. Their white bull on the green ground was familiar in England long before the broom-corn of the Angevins had been thought of. The clerkly pun on Tor and Taurus was as like as not older than the English language itself. All this made something mightier, more imposing and enduring, than any edifice to be reared by man alone. ”

“ The honour of revivifying the art of engraving in France belongs to Tory alone, bestriding two centuries, the fifteenth and sixteenth; indeed, some of his productions are pure gothic. This I propose to demonstrate in the third part of my book, after I have, in the first part, narrated the general facts of our artist's life, in which we may observe also the development of a revolution in the matter of philology; for Tory was a devoted partisan of the classic tongues before he became one of the sturdiest champions of the French language. ”

“ Once master of the first rudiments of grammar, Tory perfected himself by following the curriculum of the university, where, as we learn from himself, he had for his teacher a Fleming named Guillaume de [2] Ricke, otherwise called 'le Riche' in French and 'Dives' in Latin; and for a fellow disciple under this Ghent-born master, a certain Herverus de Berna, from Saint-Amand, who afterward wrote a panegyric of the Comtes de Nevers. [11]
Tory then went, to finish his literary education, to Italy, whither he betook himself early in the sixteenth century. ”

“ Tory.—A robber, an outlaw, literally, one hunted—a name originally given to the outlawed Irish chiefs of Ulster, in the reign of James I., who after the seizure of their lands, had a price set upon their heads, and were hunted by the soldiery like wild beasts; hence the name of Tories, meaning the hunted people, for Toriacht in Irish signifies a pursuit or hunting, and Torihe, hunted. ”

“ Great is he, strong, vassalous and nimble;
Who bears his blow has no more time to dwell:
Says to him: "Sire, on you this cause depends;
Command therefore this noise be made an end.
See Tierri here, who hath his judgment dealt;
I cry him false, and will the cause contest."
His deer-hide glove in the King's hand he's left.
Says the Emperour: "Good pledges must I get."
Thirty kinsmen offer their loyal pledge.
"I'll do the same for you," the King has said;
Until the right be shewn, bids guard them well. ”

“ They would be a strangely assorted company, Tari's ghosts: men of all the races, scholars, soldiers, sportsmen, skippers of trading vessels, pearl divers of the atolls, nurses of the Red Cross, Englishwomen of his own station in life, dark-eyed daughters of the islands, with shining hair and the beauty of sleek, wild creatures—bewitching and soulless, half bold and half afraid. Whether for good or ill, wisely or unwisely, as the case might be, no man could say that Tari had not lived ”

“ Thus Tory, at his death, was able to flatter himself that he had contributed materially to the improvement of his mother tongue, which he loved so well. He died, as I have said, in 1533, and not in 1550, as is erroneously stated in a poetical epitaph composed nearly a century after our printer's death, by his compatriot, Nicolas Catherinot, at the request and from the notes of Jean Toubeau, himself a printer of Bourges, and a descendant of Tory, through his mother. ”

“ You have to abandon yourself to imagination only to create the absolute beauty and grandeur that make this our human world look so trifling, hardly worth troubling with; it is the magical house of Faith where the real echo of the oldest song still vibrates with the newest wonder, and even a simple little thought, once under the touch of imagination, grows more splendrous than art, more beautiful than life. ”

“ I thought it was Set, the slave boy; he is always getting into trouble.”
Tor pointed upward vaguely. “I called my Father who is in heaven,” he said. “I have not seen him, but he causes what one asks to be done; my Master said it.”
“Who said it?”
“My Master. His Name is Jesus. He is a King. He made me see. I was blind.”
“Thou wast blind?” cried the serving- [pg 108] maid, laughing incredulously. “Nay, but thine eyes are bright as stars.”
“They were not bright,” said Tor soberly. “They were smitten into darkness. The Roman did it with his chariot-whip. But the King, my Master, touched them. ”

“ In these last we see Toru no longer attempting vainly, though heroically, to compete with European literature on its own ground, but turning to the legends of her own race and country for inspiration. No modern Oriental has given us so strange an insight into the conscience of the Asiatic as is presented in the story of "Prehíad," or so quaint a piece of religious fancy as the ballad of "Jogadhya Uma." The poetess seems in these verses to be chanting to herself those songs of her mother's race to which she always turned with tears of pleasure. ”

“ LA MOUCHE DE LUCIAN, ET LA MANIERE DE PARLER ET SE TAIRE [de Volaterran] . [Pot Cassé, no. 6.] LA MOUSCHE EST TRANSLATEE DE GREC ET DE LATIN EN LANGAIGE FRANÇOIS. LA MANIERE DE PARLER ET SE TAIRE EST TRANSLATEE SEULLEMENT DE LATIN EN FRANÇOIS. Le tout par maistre Geofroy Tory de Bourges, imprimeur du Roy et libraire juré en l'université de Paris.—On les vend a Paris devant l'eglise de la Magdeleine, a l'enseigne du Pot Cassé.
[100]
Eight octavo leaves, without date of printing or license. This pamphlet was undoubtedly printed by Tory himself, subsequent to February 22, 1533 ”

“ The 'avis au lecteur,' also written by Tory, is signed, according to his custom, with the word CIVIS. In the following year, in collaboration with a compatriot and fellow pupil, Herverus de Berna, Tory published a short Latin poem on the Passion, written by his former teacher, Guillaume de Ricke. In this wise he acquitted his debt of gratitude. [22] Shortly after, Tory published for the Marnef brothers an edition of Berosus, who was then much in vogue, thanks to the fabrications of Annius of Viterbo. ”

“ THE man who contributed most largely to the threefold evolution I have described was Geofroy Tory, a man who is hardly known to-day, [3] despite all his talents, although he received in 1530, as reward of his labours, the title of king's printer, which François I had never before bestowed upon any one. I say that Tory is hardly known to-day; in truth, it is, in his case, equivalent to being unknown, to be known, as he is, only as a publisher. Some few scholars, to be sure, are aware that he was a printer ”

“ Rabelais has simply added to it some obscene reflections which did not enter our author's mind. Tory ends with a pathetic appeal to those who are interested in the mother tongue, whose excellence he is never tired of extolling. 'O ye devoted lovers of goodly letters!' he cries, 'God grant that some noble heart may give itself to the task of establishing and ordering our French tongue according to rule! By that means would many thousands of men set themselves to using often goodly words. ”

“ He loved the Tory people and used to plan many times to go back and visit them. Tory has a sort of fascination about it, it looks so remote and unreal, "like an opal jewel in a pale blue sea," he described it once in a letter. ”

“ Come,—thou must come!”
“Why should I come?” said Tor mournfully. “I am only a beggar—and blind.”
“But thou shalt have thine eyes again, lad,” cried Dan exultantly. “The King is even now laying his hands upon the [pg 49] blind, the lame, and palsied, and they see and leap and walk forthwith. I myself have looked upon it. I will fetch thee to him.”
“But the King would not touch me—a beggar, and unclean,” wailed Tor. “Look you, I am no better than Baladan, and the Jews hate and despise all dogs. He would spurn me—spit upon me. Nay, I will not go.” ”

“ I will simply call attention to the fact that Tory wrote shortly before Rabelais, who did not hesitate to borrow from him his criticism of the 'skimmers of Latin,' [59] who were then changing the French language on the pretext of perfecting it. The harangue of the Limousin orator, which is found in the sixth chapter of the second book of 'Pantagruel,' is copied verbatim from Tory's epistle to the reader. ”

“ And though both West the aristocrat and the Whig and Higgin the stern, unbending Tory were both sound judges, kind-hearted men and honest, upright, conscientious administrators of the law, yet it is easy to see that their usefulness was limited by their education and environment, and that it would be untruthful to deny that in all human beings—​in judges no less than in smaller men—​there is a class bias drawing their minds to certain conclusions and points of view. ”

“ But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of Rime.
That mellow sweetness was all that Toru lacked to perfect her as an English poet, and of no other Oriental who has ever lived can the same be said. When the history of the literature of our country comes to be written, there is sure to be a page in it dedicated to this fragile exotic blossom of song. ”