Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan Read Online Free

snowy
cone, so filmily exquisite, so spiritually white, that but for its
immemorially familiar outline, one would surely deem it a shape of
cloud. Invisible its base remains, being the same delicious tint as the
sky: only above the eternal snow-line its dreamy cone appears, seeming
to hang, the ghost of a peak, between the luminous land and the luminous
heaven—the sacred and matchless mountain, Fujiyama.
    And suddenly, a singular sensation comes upon me as I stand before this
weirdly sculptured portal—a sensation of dream and doubt. It seems to
me that the steps, and the dragon-swarming gate, and the blue sky
arching over the roofs of the town, and the ghostly beauty of Fuji, and
the shadow of myself there stretching upon the grey masonry, must all
vanish presently. Why such a feeling? Doubtless because the forms before
me—the curved roofs, the coiling dragons, the Chinese grotesqueries of
carving—do not really appear to me as things new, but as things
dreamed: the sight of them must have stirred to life forgotten memories
of picture-books. A moment, and the delusion vanishes; the romance of
reality returns, with freshened consciousness of all that which is truly
and deliciously new; the magical transparencies of distance, the
wondrous delicacy of the tones of the living picture, the enormous
height of the summer blue, and the white soft witchery of the Japanese
sun.
Sec. 7
    I pass on and climb more steps to a second gate with similar gargoyles
and swarming of dragons, and enter a court where graceful votive
lanterns of stone stand like monuments. On my right and left two great
grotesque stone lions are sitting—the lions of Buddha, male and
female. Beyond is a long low light building, with curved and gabled roof
of blue tiles, and three wooden steps before its entrance. Its sides are
simple wooden screens covered with thin white paper. This is the temple.
    On the steps I take off my shoes; a young man slides aside the screens
closing the entrance, and bows me a gracious welcome. And I go in,
feeling under my feet a softness of matting thick as bedding. An immense
square apartment is before me, full of an unfamiliar sweet smell—the
scent of Japanese incense; but after the full blaze of the sun, the
paper-filtered light here is dim as moonshine; for a minute or two I can
see nothing but gleams of gilding in a soft gloom. Then, my eyes
becoming accustomed to the obscurity, I perceive against the paper-paned
screens surrounding the sanctuary on three sides shapes of enormous
flowers cutting like silhouettes against the vague white light. I
approach and find them to be paper flowers—symbolic lotus-blossoms
beautifully coloured, with curling leaves gilded on the upper surface
and bright green beneath, At the dark end of the apartment, facing the
entrance, is the altar of Buddha, a rich and lofty altar, covered with
bronzes and gilded utensils clustered to right and left of a shrine like
a tiny gold temple. But I see no statue; only a mystery of unfamiliar
shapes of burnished metal, relieved against darkness, a darkness behind
the shrine and altar—whether recess or inner sanctuary I cannot
distinguish.
    The young attendant who ushered me into the temple now approaches, and,
to my great surprise, exclaims in excellent English, pointing to a
richly decorated gilded object between groups of candelabra on the
altar:
    'That is the shrine of Buddha.'
'And I would like to make an offering to Buddha,' I respond.
'It is not necessary,' he says, with a polite smile.
    But I insist; and he places the little offering for me upon the altar.
Then he invites me to his own room, in a wing of the building—a large
luminous room, without furniture, beautifully matted. And we sit down
upon the floor and chat. He tells me he is a student in the temple. He
learned English in Tokyo and speaks it with a curious accent, but with
fine choice of words. Finally he asks me:
    'Are you a Christian?'
And I answer truthfully:
'No.'
'Are you a