THE BOOK OF TEA 
 
 BY OKAKURA KAKUZO 
 

 University of California • Berkeley 
 
 . The Joseph M. Brans ten 
 Coffee and Tea Collection 
 
THE BOOK OF TEA 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/bookofteajapanesOOokakrich 
 
COLOURED STONES 
 
 by KoRiN 
 
 l he studied simplicity of this little picture, both in choice 
 
 of subject and arrancement, marks it as specially designed 
 
 for the tea ceremony. 
 
THE BOOK OF TEA 
 
 A JAPANESE HARMONY OF ART 
 CULTURE & THE SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 BY OKAKURA-KAKUZO 
 
 T. N. FOULIS 
 EDINBURGH & LONDON 
 
Published in November 
 
 Nineteen hundred and 
 
 nineteen 
 
 Printed in Scotland by 
 The Edinburgh Press 
 
to 
 JOHN LAFARGE 
 
 Sensei 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 Tea ennobled into Teaism, a religion of sestheticism, the 
 adoration of the beautiful among everyday facts — Teaism 
 developed among both nobles and peasants — The mutual 
 misunderstanding of the New World and the Old — The 
 Worship of Tea in the West — Early records of Tea in 
 European writing — The Taoists' version of the combat 
 between Spirit and Matter — The modern struggle for 
 wealth and power page 17 
 
 II THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 The three stages of the evolution of Tea— The Boiled Tea, 
 the Whipped Tea, and the Steeped Tea, representative of 
 the Tang, the Sung, and the Ming dynasties of China — 
 Luwuh, the first apostle of Tea — The Tea-ideals of the 
 three dynasties — To the latter-day Chinese Tea is a deli- 
 cious beverage, but not an ideal — In Japan Tea is a religion 
 of the art of life page 33 
 
 III TAOISM AND ZENNISM 
 
 The connection of Zennism with Tea — Taoism, and its 
 successor Zennism, represent the individualistic trend of 
 the Southern Chinese mind — Taoism accepts the mundane 
 and tries to find beauty in our world of woe and worry — 
 Zennism emphasises the teachings of Taoism — Through 
 consecrated meditation may be attained supreme self- 
 realisation— Zennism, like Taoism, is the worship of 
 Relativity — Ideal of Teaism a result of the Zen concep- 
 tion of greatness in the smallest incidents of life— Taoism 
 furnished the basis for aesthetic ideals, Zennism made them 
 practical page 49 
 
 IV THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 The tea-room does not pretend to be other than a mere 
 cottage — The simplicity and purism of the tea-room — 
 Symbolism in the construction of the tea-room— The system 
 of its decoration — A sanctuary from the vexations of the 
 outer world . page 67 
 
 xi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 V ART APPRECIATION 
 
 Sympathetic communion of minds necessary for art appre- 
 ciation — The secret understanding between the master and 
 ourselves — The value of suggestion — Art is of value only 
 to the extent that it speaks to us — No real feeling in much 
 of the apparent enthusiasm to-day — Confusion of art with 
 archaeology — We are destroying art in destroying the 
 beautiful in life ...... page 87 
 
 VI FLOWERS 
 
 Flowers our constant friends — The Master of Flowers — 
 The waste of Flowers among Western communities — The 
 art of floriculture in the East — The Tea- Masters and the 
 Cult of Flowers — The Art of Flower Arrangement — The 
 adoration of the Flower for its own sake — The Flower- 
 Masters — Two main branches of the schools of Flower 
 Arrangement, the Formalistic and the Naturalesque 
 
 pagi 10 1 
 
 VII TEA-MASTERS 
 
 Real appreciation of art only possible to those who make 
 of it a living influence — Contributions of the Tea-Masters 
 to art — Their influence on the conduct of life — The Last 
 TeaofRikiu page 121 
 
 Appendix pagt 129 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Frontispiece — *' Coloured stones " by Korin 
 
 Dharuma by Soami page ^i 
 
 The three tasters — Morikuni .... page 57 
 
 Landscape — Sansetsu page 74 
 
 Bamboos in the wind page 88 
 
 Lotus and white heron ..... page 108 
 
 Water-jar — Kettle page 128 
 
 Plan of tea-room ..... . page ly) 
 
 Tea-jars and tea-bowls page i"^^ 
 
 Tea-bowls and flower vase .... page 138 
 Tailpieces — Flower studies 
 
I. THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
THE BOOK OF TEA 
 
 I. THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 TEA began as a medicine and grew 
 into a beverage. In China, in the 
 eighth century, it entered the realm of 
 poetry as one of the polite amusements. 
 The fifteenth century saw Japan en- 
 noble it into a religion of aestheticism — 
 Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on 
 the adoration of the beautiful among 
 the sordid facts of everyday existence. 
 It inculcates purity and harmony, the 
 mystery of mutual charity, the romanti- 
 cism of the social order. It is essentially 
 a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a 
 tender attempt to accomplish some- 
 thing possible in this impossible thing 
 we know as life. 
 
 The Philosophy of Tea is not mere 
 aestheticism in the ordinary acceptance 
 of the term, for it expresses conjointly 
 with ethics and religion ourwhole point 
 of view about man and nature. It is 
 hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness ; it is 
 economics, for it shows comfort in sim- 
 plicity rather than in the complex and 
 costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch 
 as it defines our sense of proportion to 
 the universe. It represents the true 
 B 17 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 spirit of Eastern democracy by making 
 all its votaries aristocrats in taste. 
 
 The long isolation of Japan from the 
 rest of the world, so conducive to intro- 
 spection, has been highly favourable to 
 the development of Teaism. Our home 
 and habits, costume and cuisine, porce- 
 lain, lacquer, painting — our very liter- 
 ature — all have been subject to its in- 
 fluence. No student of Japanese cul- 
 ture could ever ignore its presence. It 
 has permeated the elegance of noble 
 boudoirs, and entered the abode of the 
 humble. Our peasants have learned to 
 arrange flowers, our meanest labourer 
 to offer his salutation to the rocks and 
 waters. In our common parlance we 
 speak of the man ''with no tea" in him, 
 when he is insusceptible to the serio- 
 comic interests of the personal drama. 
 Again we stigmatise the untamed aes- 
 thete who, regardless of the mundane 
 tragedy, runs riot in the springtide of 
 emancipated emotions, as one "with too 
 much tea" in him. 
 
 The outsider may indeed wonder at 
 this seeming much ado about nothing. 
 Whatatempestin a tea-cup! he will say. 
 But when we consider how small after 
 all the cup of human enjoyment is, how 
 i8 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 soon overflowed with tears, how easily 
 drained to the dregs in our quenchless 
 thirst for infinity, we shall not blame 
 ourselves for making so much of the 
 tea-cup. Mankind has done worse. In 
 the worship of Bacchus, we have sacri- 
 ficed too freely; and we have even trans- 
 figured the gory image of Mars. Why 
 not consecrate ourselves to the queen 
 of the Camelias, and revel in the warm 
 stream of sympathy that flows from her 
 altar? In the liquid amber within the 
 ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch 
 the sweet reticence of Confucius, the 
 piquancy of Laotse, and the ethereal 
 aroma of Sakyamuni himself. 
 
 Those who cannot feel the littleness 
 of great things in themselves are apt to 
 overlook the greatness of little things 
 in others. The average Westerner, in 
 his sleek complacency, will see in the 
 tea ceremony but another instance of 
 the thousand and one oddities which 
 constitute the quaintness and childish- 
 ness of the East to him. He was wont 
 to regard Japan as barbarous while she 
 indulged in the gentle arts of peace : 
 he calls her civilised since she began to 
 commit wholesale slaughter on Man- 
 churian battlefields. Much comment 
 
 19 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 has been given lately to the Code of 
 the Samurai, — the Art of Death which 
 makes our soldiers exult in self-sacri- 
 fice; but scarcely any attention has been 
 drawn to Teaism, which represents so 
 much of our Art of Life. Fain would 
 we remain barbarians, if our claim to 
 civilisation were to be based on the 
 gruesome glory of war. Fain would we 
 await the time when due respect shall 
 be paid to our art and ideals. 
 
 When will the West understand,or try 
 to understand, the East? We Asiatics 
 are often appalled by the curious web of 
 facts and fancies which has been woven 
 concerning us. We are pictured as liv- 
 ing on the perfume of the lotus, if not on 
 mice and cockroaches. It is either im- 
 potent fanaticism or else abject volupt- 
 uousness. Indian spirituality has been 
 derided as ignorance, Chinese sobriety 
 as stupidity, Japanese patriotism as the 
 result of fatalism. It has been said that 
 we are less sensible to pain and wounds 
 on account of the callousness of our ner- 
 vous organisation! 
 
 Why not amuse yourselves at our 
 expense? Asia returns the compliment. 
 There would be further food for mer- 
 riment if you were to know all that we 
 
 20 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 have imagined and written about you. 
 All the glamour of the perspective is 
 there, all the unconscious homage of 
 wonder, all the silent resentment of the 
 new andundefined. Youhavebeenload- 
 ed with virtues too refined to be envied, 
 and accusedof crimes toopicturesqueto 
 be condemned. Our writers in the past 
 — the wise men who knew — informed us 
 that you had bushy tails some where hid- 
 deninyourgarments,andoften dined off 
 a fricassee of new-born babes! Nay, we 
 had something worse against you : we 
 used to think you the most impracticable 
 people on the earth, for you were said to 
 preach what you never practised. 
 
 Such misconceptions are fast vanish- 
 ing amongst us. Commerce has forced 
 the European tongues on many an East- 
 ern port. Asiatic youths are flocking to 
 Western colleges for the equipment of 
 modern education. Our insight does 
 not penetrate your culture deeply, but 
 at least we are willing to learn. Some of 
 my compatriots have adopted too much 
 of your customs and too much of your 
 etiquette,inthedelusionthat theacquis- 
 ition of stiff collars and tall silkhatscom- 
 prised the attainment of your civilis- 
 ation. Pathetic and deplorable as such 
 
 21 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 affectations are, they evinceourwilling- 
 nessto approach the West onour knees. 
 Unfortunately the Western attitude is 
 unfavourable to theunderstandingofthe 
 East. The Christian missionary goes to 
 impart, but not to receive. Your infor- 
 mation is based on the meagre trans- 
 lations of our immense literature, if not 
 on the unreliable anecdotes of passing 
 travellers. It is rarely that the chival- 
 rous pen of a Lafcadio Hearn or that of 
 the author of "The Web of Indian Life" 
 enlivens the Oriental darkness with the 
 torch of our own sentiments. 
 
 Perhaps I betray my own ignorance of 
 the Tea Cult by being so outspoken. Its 
 very spirit of politeness exacts that you 
 say whatyou areexpectedto say,andno 
 more. But lamnot to bea polite Teaist. 
 So much harmhas beendonealready by 
 themutualmisunderstandingoftheNew 
 World and the Old, that one need not 
 apologise forcontributinghis tithe to the 
 furtherance of a better understanding. 
 The beginning of thetwentieth century 
 would havebeen spared thespectacle of 
 sanguinary warfareif Russiahadconde- 
 scendedtoknowjapan better. Whatdire 
 consequencestohumanitylie inthe con- 
 temptuous ignoring of Eastern prob- 
 
 22 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 lems! Europeanimperialism, which does 
 not disdain to raise the absurd cry of 
 theYellow Peril, fails to realise that Asia 
 may also awaken to the cruel sense of 
 the White Disaster. You may laugh at 
 us for having **too much tea," but may 
 we not suspect that you of the West 
 have '*no tea" in your constitution? 
 
 Let us stop the continents from hurl- 
 ing epigrams at each other, and be sad- 
 derif not wiser by themutual gainof half 
 ahemisphere.Wehave developed along 
 differentlines, butthereis noreason why 
 one should not supplement the other. 
 Youhavegainedexpansionatthecostof 
 restlessness; wehavecreatedaharmony 
 which is weak against aggression. Will 
 you believe it? — the East is better off in 
 some respects than the West! 
 
 Strangely enough humanity has so far 
 met in the tea-cup. It istheonly Asiatic 
 ceremonial which commands universal 
 esteem. The white manhasscoffedat our 
 religion andour morals, but hasaccepted 
 the brown beverage without hesitation. 
 The afternoon tea is now an important 
 function inWestern society. In thedeli- 
 cate clatter of trays and saucers, in the 
 soft rustle of feminine hospitality, in 
 the common catechismabout cream and 
 
 23 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 sugar, we know that theWorship of Tea is 
 established beyond question. Thephilo- 
 sophic resignation of the guest to the 
 fate awaiting him in the dubious decoc- 
 tionproclaimsthatinthissingleinstance 
 the Oriental spirit reigns supreme. 
 
 Theearliestrecordofteain European 
 writing is said to be found in the state- 
 ment of an Arabian traveller, that after 
 the year 879 the main sources of revenue 
 in Canton were the duties on saltand tea. 
 Marco Polo records the deposition of a 
 Chinese ministerof finance in 1285 for 
 his arbitrary augmentation of the tea- 
 taxes. It was at the period of the great 
 discoveries that the European people 
 began to know more about the extreme 
 Orient. At the endof the sixteenth cen- 
 tury the Hollanders brought the news 
 that a pleasant drink was made in the 
 East from theleavesofabush. Thetrav- 
 ellers Giovanni Batista Ramusio (1559), 
 L.Almeida(i576),Maffeno{i588),Ta- 
 reira(i6io),alsomentionedtea.* In the 
 last-namedyear shipsof the Dutch East 
 India Company broughtthe first teainto 
 Europe. ItwasknowninFrancein 1636, 
 and reached Russia in 1638.! England 
 
 *Paul Kransel, Dissertations, Berlin, 1902. 
 fMercurius Politicus, 1656. 
 24 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 welcomed it in 1650 and spoke of it as 
 "That excellent and by all physicians 
 approved China drink, called by the 
 Chineans Tcha, and by other nations 
 Tay, alias Tee." 
 
 Like all the good things of the world, 
 the propaganda of Tea met with oppos- 
 ition.Hereticslike Henry Saville(i678) 
 denounced drinkingitasafilthy custom. 
 JonasHanway (EssayonTea, 1 756)said 
 that men seemed to lose their stature 
 and comeliness, women their beauty 
 through the use of tea. Its cost at the 
 start (about fifteen or sixteen shillings 
 a pound) forbade popular consumption, 
 and made it "regalia for high treatments 
 and entertainments, presents being 
 made thereof to princes and grandees." 
 Yet in spite of such drawbacks tea-drink- 
 ing spread with marvellous rapidity. 
 Thecoffee-housesofLondonintheearly 
 half of the eighteenth century became, 
 in fact, tea-houses, the resort of wits like 
 Addisonand Steele, whobeguiled them- 
 selves over their * 'dish of tea. " The bev- 
 erage soon became a necessary of life — 
 a taxable matter. We are reminded in 
 this connection what an important part 
 it plays in modern history. Colonial 
 America resigned herself to oppression 
 
 25 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 untilhumanendurance gave way before 
 the heavy duties laid on Tea. American 
 independence dates from the throwing 
 of tea-chests into Boston harbour. 
 
 There is a subtle charm in thetasteof 
 tea which makes it irresistible and cap- 
 able of idealisation. Westernhumorists 
 were not slow to mingle the fragrance 
 of their thought with its aroma. It has 
 not the arrogance of wine, the self-con- 
 sciousness of coffee, nor the simpering 
 innocence of cocoa. Already in 171 1, 
 says the Spectator: '* I would therefore 
 in aparticular manner recommend these 
 my speculations to all well-regulated fa- 
 milies thatset apartanhourevery morn- 
 ing for tea, bread and butter; and would 
 earnestly advise them for their good to 
 order this paper to bepunctuallyserved 
 up and to be looked uponas apartof the 
 tea-equipage." Samuel Johnson draws 
 his own portrait as *'a hardened and 
 shameless tea-drinker, who for twenty 
 years diluted his meals with only the in- 
 fusion of the fascinatingplant ; who with 
 tea amused the evening, with tea solaced 
 the midnight, and with tea welcomed 
 the morning." 
 
 Charles Lamb, a professed devotee, 
 sounded the truenote of Teaismwhenhe 
 26 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 wrotethat thegreatestpleasurehe knew 
 was to do a good action by stealth, and to 
 have found it out by accident. For Tea- 
 ism is the art of concealing beauty that 
 you may discover it, of suggesting what 
 you dare not reveal. 1 1 is the noble se- 
 cret of laughing at yourself, calmly yet 
 thoroughly, and is thus humour itself, 
 — the smile of philosophy. All genuine 
 humorists may in this sense be called 
 tea- philosophers, — Thackeray, for in- 
 stance, and, of course, Shakespeare. The 
 poets of the Decadence (when was not 
 the world in decadence?), in their pro- 
 tests against materialism, have, to a 
 certain extent, also opened the way to 
 Teaism. Perhaps nowadays it is in our 
 demure contemplation of the Imperfect 
 that the West and the East can meet in 
 mutual consolation. 
 
 TheTaoists relate that atthegreat be- 
 ginningoftheNo-Beginning, Spirit and 
 Mattermetinmortal combat. At last the 
 Yellow Emperor, the Sun of Heaven, 
 triumphedoverShuhyung,thedemonof 
 darkness and earth. The Titan, in his 
 death agony, struckhis head against the 
 solar vault andshivered thebluedomeof 
 jade into fragments. The stars lost their 
 nests, the moon wandered aimlessly 
 
 27 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 among the wild chasms of the night. In 
 despair the Yellow Emperor sought far 
 and wide for the repairer of the Heavens. 
 He had not to search in vain. Out of the 
 Eastern sea rose a queen, the divine 
 Niuka,horn-crownedand dragon-tailed, 
 resplendent in her armour of fire. She 
 welded the five-coloured rainbow in her 
 magic cauldron and rebuilt the Chinese 
 sky. But it is also told that N iuka forgot 
 to fill two tiny crevices in the blue firma- 
 ment. Thus began the dualism of love 
 — two souls rolling through space and 
 never at rest until they join together to 
 complete the universe. Everyone has to 
 build anew his sky of hope and peace. 
 
 Theheavenof modern humanity isin- 
 deedshatteredintheCyclopeanstruggle 
 for wealth andpower. The world isgrop- 
 ingin the shadow of egotism and vulgar- 
 ity. Knowledgeis bought throughabad 
 conscience, benevolence practised for 
 the sake of utility. The East and West, 
 like two dragons tossed in a sea of fer- 
 ment, in vain strive to regain the jewel of 
 life. WeneedaNiukaagaintorepairthe 
 grand devastation ; we await the great 
 Avatar. Meanwhile, let us have a sip of 
 tea. The afternoon glow is brightening 
 the bamboos, the fountains are bubbling 
 28 
 
THE CUP OF HUMANITY 
 
 with delight, the soughing of the pines 
 is heard in our kettle. Let us dream of 
 evanescence, and lingerin the beautiful 
 foolishness of things. 
 
II. THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
II. THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 TEA is a work of art and needs a 
 master handtobringoutits noblest 
 qualities. We have good and bad tea, as 
 we have good and bad paintings — gen- 
 erally thelatter. Thereisnosingle recipe 
 formakingtheperfecttea,asthereareno 
 rules for producing aTitian or a Sesson. 
 Each preparation of theleaveshasits in- 
 dividuality, its special affinity with water 
 and heatjits hereditary memories to re- 
 call, its own method of telling a story. 
 The truly beautiful must be always in it. 
 Howmuch do we not suffer through the 
 constant failure of society to recognise 
 this simple and fundamental law of art 
 and life ; Lichihlai, a Sungpoet, has sadly 
 remarked that there were three most de- 
 plorable things in the world: the spoil- 
 ing of fine youths through false educa- 
 tion, the degradation of fine paintings 
 through vulgaradmiration, and theutter 
 waste of fine tea through incompetent 
 pianipulation. 
 
 Like Art, Tea has its periods and its 
 schools. I tsevolution may beroughly di- 
 vided into three mainstages: the Boiled 
 Tea, the Whipped Tea, andthe Steeped 
 Tea. We moderns belong to the last 
 school. These several methods of ap- 
 preciating the beverage are indicative 
 C 33 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 ofthe spiritof the age inwhich theypre- 
 vailed. Forlife is an expression, our un- 
 conscious actions the constant betrayal 
 of our innermost thought. Confucius 
 said that ''man hideth not." Perhaps 
 we reveal ourselves too much in small 
 things because we have so little ofthe 
 great to conceal. The tiny incidents of 
 daily routine are as much a commen- 
 tary of racial ideals as the highest flight 
 of philosophy or poetry. Even as the 
 difference in favourite vintage marks 
 the separate idiosyncrasies of different 
 periods and nationalities of Europe, so 
 the Tea-ideals characterise the various 
 moods of Oriental culture. The Cake- 
 tea which was boiled, the Powdered-tea 
 which was whipped, the Leaf-tea which 
 was steeped, mark thedistinct emotional 
 impulses of theTang, the Sung,and the 
 Ming dynasties of China. If we were 
 inclined to borrow the much -abused 
 terminology of art classification, we 
 might designate them respectively, the 
 Classic, the Romantic, and the Natural- 
 istic schools of Tea. 
 
 The tea-plant, a native of southern 
 China, was known from very early times 
 to Chinese botany and medicine. It is 
 alluded to in the classics under the vari- 
 34 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 ous names of Tou, Tseh, Chung, Kha, 
 and Ming, and was highly prized for pos- 
 sessing the virtues of relieving fatigue, 
 delighting the soul, strengthening the 
 will, and repairing the eyesight. It was 
 notonlyadministeredasan internal dose, 
 but often applied externally in form of 
 paste to alleviate rheumatic pains. The 
 Taoists claimed it as an important in- 
 gredient of the elixir of immortality. 
 The Buddhists used it extensively to 
 prevent drowsiness during their long 
 hours of meditation. 
 
 By the fourth and fifth centuries Tea 
 became a favourite beverageamong the 
 inhabitantsof the Yangtse-Kiang valley. 
 It was about this time that the modern 
 ideograph Cha was coined, evidently 
 a corruption of the classic Tou. The 
 poetsof thesouthern dynastieshave left 
 some fragments of their fervent adora- 
 tionofthe'*frothoftheliquidjade."Then 
 emperors used to bestowsome rare pre- 
 paration of theleaves on their high min- 
 isters as a reward for eminent services. 
 Yet the method of drinking tea at this 
 stage was primitive intheextreme. The 
 leaves were steamed, crushed in a mor- 
 tar, madeintoacake, and boiled together 
 withrice,ginger,salt,orange peel, spices, 
 
 35 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 milk, and sometimes with onions ! The 
 custom obtains at the present day 
 among theThibetans and various Mon- 
 golian tribes, who make a curious syrup 
 of these ingredients. The use of lemon 
 slices by the Russians, who learned to 
 take tea from the Chinese caravansar- 
 ies, points to the survival of the ancient 
 method. 
 
 It needed the genius of the Tang dy- 
 nasty to emancipate Tea from its crude 
 state and lead to its final idealisation. 
 With Luwuhinthe middle of theeighth 
 century we have our first apostle of tea. 
 He was born inan age when Buddhism, 
 Taoism, and Confucianism were seek- 
 ing mutual synthesis. The pantheistic 
 symbolismofthetimewas urging one to 
 mirror the Universal in the Particular. 
 Luwuh, a poet, saw in the Tea-service 
 the same harmony and order which 
 reigned through all things. In his cele- 
 brated work, the "Chaking" (The 
 Holy Scripture of Tea) he formulated 
 the Code of Tea. He has since been 
 worshipped as the tutelary god of the 
 Chinese tea merchants. 
 
 The ''Chaking'consists of three vol- 
 umes and ten chapters. I n the first chap- 
 ter Luwuh treats of the nature of thetea- 
 36 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 plant, in thesecondof the implements for 
 gathering the leaves, in the third of the 
 selection of the leaves. Accordingtohim 
 the best quality of the leaves must have 
 ''creaseslike the leathern boot of Tartar 
 horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a 
 mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising 
 out of aravine.gleamlikea lake touched 
 by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like fine 
 earth newly swept by rain." 
 
 The fourth chapter is devoted to the 
 enumeration and description of the 
 twenty-four members of the tea-equip- 
 age, beginning with the tripod brazier 
 and ending with the bamboo cabinet for 
 containing all these utensils. Here we 
 notice Luwuh's predilection for Taoist 
 symbolism. Also it is interesting to ob- 
 serve in this connection the influence of 
 tea on Chinese ceramics. The Celestial 
 porcelain,asiswell known, had itsorigin 
 in an attempt to reproduce the exquisite 
 shade of jade,resulting,in theTangdyn- 
 asty, in the blue glaze of the south, and 
 thewhiteglaze of thenorth. Luwuhcon- 
 sidered the blue as the ideal colour for 
 the tea-cup, as it lent additional green- 
 ness to the beverage, whereas the white 
 made it look pinkish and distasteful. It 
 was because he used cake- tea. Later on, 
 
 37 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 when the tea-masters of Sung took to 
 the powdered tea, they preferred heavy 
 bowls of blue-black and dark brown. 
 The Mings, with their steeped tea, re- 
 joiced in light ware of white porcelain. 
 
 In the fifth chapter Luwuh describes 
 themethodof making tea. He eliminates 
 all ingredients except salt. He dwells 
 also on the much-discussed question of 
 thechoice of water and the degree of boil- 
 ing it. According to him, the mountain 
 springis the best, the river water and the 
 spring water come next in the order of 
 excellence. There are three stages of 
 boiling: the first boil is when the little 
 bubbles like the eye of fishes swim on 
 the surface; the second boil is when the 
 bubbles are like crystal beads rolling in 
 a fountain; the third boil is when the 
 billows surge wildly in the kettle. The 
 Cake-tea is roasted before the fire until 
 it becomes soft like a baby's arm and is 
 shredded into powder between pieces of 
 finepaper. Salt isput in the first boil, the 
 tea in the second. At the third boil, a 
 dipperful of cold water is poured into the 
 kettle to settle the tea and revive the 
 "youth of the water." Then the bever- 
 age was poured into cups and drunk. O 
 nectar! The filmy leaflet hung like scaly 
 38 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 clouds in a serene sky or floated like 
 water-lilies on emerald streams. It was 
 of such a beverage that Lotung, a Tang 
 poet, wrote: "The first cup moistens my 
 lips and throat, the second cup breaks 
 my loneliness, the third cup searches my 
 barren entrail but to find therein some 
 five thousand volumesof odd ideographs. 
 The fourth cup raises a slight perspira- 
 tion, — all the wrong of life passes away 
 through my pores. At the fifth cup I am 
 purified; the sixth cup calls me to the 
 realms of immortals. The seventh cup 
 — ah, but I could take no more! I only feel 
 the breath of cool wind that rises in my 
 sleeves. Where is Horaisan?* Let me 
 ride on this sweet breeze and waft away 
 thither." 
 
 The remaining chapters of the **Cha- 
 king" treat of the vulgarityof the ordin- 
 ary methods of tea-drinking, a historical 
 summary of illustrious tea-drinkers, the 
 famous teaplantationsofChina, the pos- 
 sible variations of the tea-service and 
 illustrations of the tea-utensils. Thelast 
 is unfortunately lost. 
 
 The appearance of the "Chaking" 
 must have created considerable sensa- 
 tion at the time. Luwuh was befriended 
 
 *The Chinese Elysium. 
 
 39 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 bythe Emperor Taisung (763-779), and 
 hisfame attracted many followers. Some 
 exquisites were saidtohavebeen able to 
 detect the tea made by Luwuh from that 
 of his disciples. One mandarin has his 
 name immortalised by his failure to 
 appreciate the tea of this great master. 
 
 In the Sung dynasty the whipped tea 
 cameintofashionandcreatedthesecond 
 school of Tea. The leaves were ground 
 to fine powder in a small stone mill, and 
 thepreparation was whipped in hot water 
 byadelicatewhiskmadeofsplitbamboo. 
 The new process led to some change in 
 the tea-equipage of Luwuh, as wellas the 
 choice of leaves. Salt was discarded for 
 ever. TheenthusiasmoftheSungpeople 
 for tea knew no bounds. Epicures vied 
 with each other in discovering new 
 varieties, and regular tournaments were 
 held to decide their superiority. The 
 Emperor Kiasung( i loi- 1 1 24), whowas 
 too great an artist to be a well-behaved 
 monarch, lavished his treasures on the 
 attainment of rare species. He himself 
 wrote a dissertation on the twenty kinds 
 of tea, among which he prizes the ''white 
 tea"as of the rarest and finest quality. 
 
 The tea -ideal of the Sungs differed 
 from theTangs even as their notion of 
 40 
 
DHARUMA by Soami 
 
 The legend states" that the sage during one of his prolonged periods 
 of meditation found to his annoyance that he was becoming drowsy. 
 Seizing his offending eyelids he cut them off and cast them away. 
 They took root where they fell and a plant grew (the tea plant) from 
 the leaves of which can be prepared a drink which drives away sleep. 
 
 British Museum 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 life differed. They sought to actualise 
 what theirpredecessorstriedto symbol- 
 ise. Tothe Neo-Confucian mind the cos- 
 mic law was not reflected in thephenom- 
 enal world, but the phenomenal world 
 was the cosmic law itself. JEons were 
 but moments — Nirvana always within 
 grasp. The Taoist conception that 
 immortality lay in the eternal change 
 permeated all their modes of thought. 
 It was the process, not the deed, which 
 was interesting. It was the completing, 
 not the completion, which was really 
 vital. Man came thus at once face to 
 face with nature. A new meaning grew 
 into the art of life. The tea began to be 
 not a poetical pastime, but one of the 
 methods of self-realisation. Wangyu- 
 cheng eulogised tea as ''flooding his 
 soul like a direct appeal, that its deli- 
 cate bitterness reminded him of the 
 after-taste of a good counsel. " Sotumpa 
 wrote of the strength of the immacu- 
 late purity in tea which defied corrup- 
 tion as a truly virtuous man. Among 
 the Buddhists, the southern Zen sect, 
 which incorporated so much of Taoist 
 doctrineSjformulatedan elaborate ritual 
 of tea. The monks gathered before the 
 image of Bodhi Dharma and drank tea 
 
 41 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 out of a single bowl with the profound 
 formality ofaholy sacrament. It was this 
 Zen ritual which finally developed into 
 the Tea- ceremony of Japan in the fif- 
 teenth century. 
 
 Unfortunatelythe sudden outburst of 
 the Mongoltribes in the thirteenth cen- 
 tury which resulted in the devastation 
 and conquest ofChina under the barbaric 
 rule of the Yuen Emperors, destroyed 
 all thefruitsof Sungculture. The native 
 dynasty of the Mings which attempted 
 re-nationalisation in the middleof the fif- 
 teenth century was harassed by internal 
 troubles, and China again fell under the 
 alien rule of the Manchus in the seven- 
 teenth century. Manners and customs 
 changed toleave no vestigeoftheformer 
 times. The powderedtea is entirelyfor- 
 gotten. We find a Ming commentator 
 at losstorecalltheshapeof the tea whisk 
 mentioned in one of the Sung classics. 
 Teais now taken by steeping the leaves 
 in hotwaterinabowl orcup. Thereason 
 why the Western world is innocentof the 
 older methodofdrinkingteaisexplained 
 by the fact that Europe knew it only at 
 the close of the Ming dynasty. 
 
 To the latter-day Chinese tea is a 
 deliciousbeverage,but notanideal. The 
 42 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 long woes of his country have robbed 
 himofthezestforthemeaningofhfe. He 
 has become modern , that is to say, old and 
 disenchanted. He has lost that sublime 
 faith_.in illusions^which constitutes the 
 eternal y^uth and vigourofthepoetsand 
 ancients. He is an eclectic and politely 
 accepts the traditions of the universe. 
 He toys with Nature, but does not 
 condescend to conquer or worship her. 
 His Leaf- tea is often wonderful with its 
 flower-like aroma, but the romance of 
 the Tang and Sung ceremonials are 
 not to be found in his cup. 
 
 Japan, which followed closely on the 
 footsteps of Chinese civilisation, has 
 known the tea inall its three stages. As 
 earlyas the year 729 we read of the Em- 
 peror Shomu giving tea to one hundred 
 monks at hispalacein Nara. The leaves 
 were probably imported by our ambass- 
 adors to the Tang Court and prepared 
 in the way then in fashion. In 801 the 
 monk Saicho brought back some seeds 
 and planted them in Yeisan. Many tea- 
 gardens are heard of in the succeeding 
 centuries, aswellasthedelightofthearis- 
 tocracy and priesthood in the beverage. 
 The Sung tea reached us in 1 191 with 
 the returnofYeisaizenji, who went there 
 
 43 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 to Study the southern Zen school. The 
 new seeds which he carried home were 
 successfully planted in three places, one 
 of which, the Uji district near Kioto, 
 bears still the name of producing the 
 best tea in the world. The southern 
 Zen spread with marvellous rapidity, 
 and with it the tea -ritual and the tea- 
 ideal of the Sung. By the fifteenth cen- 
 tury,under the patronageof the Shogun, 
 Ashikaga-Yoshimasa,thetea-ceremony 
 is fully constituted and made into an 
 independent and secular performance. 
 Since then Teaism is fully established in 
 Japan. The use of the steeped tea of 
 the later China is comparatively recent 
 among us, being only known since 
 the middle of the seventeenth century. 
 It has replaced the powdered tea in 
 ordinaryconsumption,though the latter 
 still continues to hold its place as the 
 tea of teas. 
 
 1 1 is in the J apanese tea-ceremony that 
 weseetheculmination of tea-ideals. Our 
 successful resistance of the Mongol 
 invasion in 1 28 1 had enabled us to carry 
 on the Sung movement so disastrously 
 cut off in China itself through the no- 
 madic inroad. Tea with us became more 
 than anidealisationof theform of drink- 
 
THE SCHOOLS OF TEA 
 
 ing; it is a religion of the art of life. The 
 beverage grew to be an excuse for the 
 worship of purity and refinement, a 
 sacred function at which the host and 
 guest joined to produce for that occa- 
 sion the utmost beatitude of the mun- 
 dane. The tea-room was an oasis in the 
 dreary waste of existence where weary 
 travellers could meet to drink from 
 the common spring of art-appreciation. 
 The ceremony was animprovised drama 
 whose plot was woven about the tea, 
 the flowers, and the paintings. Not a 
 colour to disturb the tone of the room, 
 not a soundto mar the rhythm of things, 
 not a gesturetoobtrudeontheharmony, 
 not a word to break the unity of the 
 surroundings, all movements to be per- 
 formed simply and naturally — such 
 were the aimsof the tea-ceremony. And 
 strangely enough it was often success- 
 ful. A subtle philosophy lay behind it 
 all. Teaism was Taoism in disguise. 
 
III. TAOISM &• ZENNISM 
 
III. TAOISM & ZENNISM 
 
 THE connection of Zennism with 
 tea is proverbial. We have already 
 remarked that the tea-ceremony was a 
 developmentoftheZenritual.Thename 
 of Laotse, the founder of Taoism, is also 
 intimatelyassociatedwith the historyof 
 tea. It is written in the Chinese school 
 manual concerning the origin of habits 
 and customs that the ceremony of offer- 
 ing tea to a guest began with Kwanyin, 
 a well-known disciple of Laotse, who 
 first at the gate of the Han Pass pre- 
 sented to the ''Old Philosopher" a cup 
 of the golden elixir. We shall not stop 
 to discuss the authenticity of such tales, 
 which are valuable, however, as confirm- 
 ing the early use of the beverage by the 
 Taoists. Our interest in Taoism and 
 Zennism here lies mainly in those ideas 
 regarding life and art which are so 
 embodied in what we call Teaism. 
 
 It is to be regretted that as yet there 
 appears to be no adequate presentation 
 of the Taoist and Zen doctrines in any 
 foreign language, though we have had 
 several laudable attempts. 
 
 Translation is always a treason, and 
 as a Ming author observes, can at its 
 best be only the reverse side of a bro- 
 cade, — all the threads are there, but not 
 D 49 
 
TAOISM £«? ZENNISM 
 
 the subtlety of colour or design. But, 
 after all, what great doctrine is there 
 which is easy to expound? The ancient 
 sages never put their teachings in sys- 
 tematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, 
 for they were afraid of uttering half- 
 truths. They began by talking like fools 
 and ended by making their hearers wise. 
 Laotse himself, with his quaint humour, 
 says, **If people of inferior intelligence 
 hear of the Tao, they laugh immensely. 
 It would not be the Tao unless they 
 laughed at it." 
 
 The Tao literally means a Path. It 
 has been severally translated as the 
 Way, the Absolute, the Law, Nature, 
 Supreme Reason, the Mode. Theseren- 
 derings are not incorrect, for the use of 
 the term by the Taoists differs according 
 to thesubject-matteroftheinquiry. Lao- 
 tse himself spoke of it thus: ''There is a 
 thing which is all-containing, which was 
 born before the existence of Heaven 
 and Earth. How silent! How solitary! 
 It stands alone and changes not. It re- 
 volves without danger to itself and is the 
 mother of the universe. I do not know 
 its nameandsocallit the Path. With re- 
 luctance I call it the Infinite. Infinity is 
 the Fleeting, the Fleeting is the Van- 
 50 
 
TAOISM &' ZENNISM 
 
 ishing, the Vanishing is the Reverting." 
 The Tao is in the Passage rather than 
 the Path. It is the spirit of Cosmic 
 Change, — the eternal growth which re- 
 turns upon itself to produce new forms. 
 It recoilsupon itself like the dragon, the 
 beloved symbol of the Taoists. 1 1 folds 
 and unfolds as do the clouds. The Tao 
 might be spoken of as the Great Transi- 
 tion. Subjectively it is the Mood of the 
 Universe. Its Absolute is the Relative. 
 It should be remembered in the first 
 place that Taoism, like its legitimate 
 successor Zennism, represents the in- 
 dividualistic trend of the Southern 
 Chinesemindin contradistinction to the 
 communism of Northern China which 
 expressed itself in Confucianism. The 
 Middle Kingdom is as vast as Europe 
 and has a differentiation of idiosyncra- 
 sies marked by the two great river 
 systems which traverse it. The Yangtse- 
 Kiang and Hoang-Ho are respectively 
 the Mediterranean and the Baltic. Even 
 to-day, in spite of centuries of unifica- 
 tion, the Southern Celestial differs in his 
 thoughts and beliefs from his Northern 
 brother as a member of the Latin race 
 differs from the Teuton. Inancient days, 
 when communication was even more 
 
 51 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 difficult than at present, and especially 
 during the feudal period, this difference 
 in thought was most pronounced. The 
 art and poetry of the one breathes an 
 atmosphere entirely distinct from that 
 oftheother. In Laotse and his followers 
 and in Kutsugen, the forerunner of the 
 Yangtse-Kiang nature-poets, we find 
 an idealism quite inconsistent with the 
 prosaic ethical notions of their contem- 
 porary northern writers. Laotse lived 
 five centuries before the Christian Era. 
 The germ of Taoist speculation may 
 be found long before the advent of 
 Laotse, surnamed the Long- Eared. The 
 archaic records of China, especially 
 the Book of Changes, foreshadow his 
 thought. But the great respect paid 
 to the laws and customs of that classic 
 period of Chinese civilisation which 
 culminated with theestablishmentof the 
 Chow dynasty in the sixteenth century 
 B.C., kept the development of individ- 
 ualism in check for a long while, so that 
 it was not until after the disintegration 
 of the Chow dynasty and the establish- 
 ment of innumerable independent king- 
 doms that it was able to blossom forth 
 in the luxuriance of free-thought. Lao- 
 tse and Soshi (Chuangtse) were both 
 52 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 Southernersand thegreatest exponents 
 of the New School. On the other hand 
 Confucius with his numerous disciples 
 aimed at retaining ancestral conven- 
 tions. Taoism cannot be understood 
 without some knowledge of Confucian- 
 ism and vice versa. 
 
 We have said that theTaoist Absolute 
 was the Relative. In ethics the Taoist 
 railed at the laws and the moral codes 
 of society, for to them right and wrong 
 were but relative terms. Definition is 
 alwayslimitation — the * * fixed " and * *un- 
 changeless " are but terms expressive of 
 a stoppage of growth. Said Kuzugen, 
 ' 'The Sages move the world. "Our stand- 
 ards of morality are begotten of the past 
 needs of society, but is society to re- 
 main always the same? The observance 
 of communal traditions involves a con- 
 stant sacrifice of the individual to the 
 state. Education, in order to keep up the 
 mighty delusion, encourages a species 
 of ignorance. People are not taught to 
 be really virtuous, but to behave pro- 
 perly. We are wicked because we are 
 frightfully self-conscious. We never for- 
 give others because we know that we 
 ourselves are in the wrong. We nurse a 
 conscience because we are afraid to tell 
 
 53 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 the truth to others ; we take refuge in 
 pride because we are afraid to tell the 
 truth to ourselves. Ho wean one be seri- 
 ous with the world when the world itself 
 is so ridiculous! The spirit of barter is 
 everywhere. Honour and Chastity! Be- 
 hold the complacent salesman retailing 
 the Good and True. One can even buy 
 a so-called Religion, which is really but 
 commonmorality sanctified with flowers 
 and music. Rob theChurchof heracces- 
 soriesand whatremains behind.^ Yet the 
 trusts thrive marvellously, for the prices 
 are absurdly cheap, — a prayer for a 
 ticket to heaven, a diploma for an hon- 
 ourablecitizenship. Hideyourself under 
 a bushel quickly, for if your real useful- 
 ness were known to the world you would 
 soon be knocked down to the highest 
 bidder by thepublic auctioneer. Why do 
 men and women like to advertise them- 
 selves so much ? Is it not but an instinct 
 derived from the days of slavery ? 
 
 The virility of the idea lies not less 
 in its power of breaking through con- 
 temporary thought than in its capacity 
 for dominatingsubsequent movements. 
 Taoism was an active power during the 
 Shin dynasty, that epoch of Chinese 
 unification from which we derive the 
 54 
 
TAOISM & ZENNISM 
 
 name China. Itwouldbeinterestinghad 
 we time to note its influence on contem- 
 porary thinkers, the mathematicians, 
 writers on law and war, the mystics and 
 alchemists and the later nature-poets 
 of the Yangtse-Kiang. We should not 
 even ignore those speculators on Reality 
 who doubted whether a white horse was 
 real because he was white, or because 
 he was solid, nor the Conversationalists 
 of the Six dynasties who, like the Zen 
 philosophers, revelled in discussions 
 concerning the Pure and the Abstract. 
 Above all we should pay homage to Tao- 
 ism for what it has done toward the for- 
 mation of the Celestial character, giving 
 to it a certain capacity for reserve and 
 refinement as ''warm as jade." Chinese 
 history is full of instances in which the 
 votaries of Taoism, princes and hermits 
 alike, followed with varied and interest- 
 ing results the teachings of their creed. 
 The tale will not be without its quota of 
 instruction and amusement. It will be 
 rich in anecdotes, allegories, and aphor- 
 isms. We would fain be on speaking 
 terms with the delightful emperor who 
 never died because he never lived. We 
 may ride the wind with Liehtse and find 
 it absolutely quiet because we ourselves 
 
 55 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 are the wind, or dwell in mid-air with the 
 Aged One of the Hoang-Ho, who lived 
 betwixt Heaven and Earth because he 
 was subject to neither the one nor the 
 other. Even in that grotesque apology 
 for Taoism which we find in China at the 
 present day, we can revel in a wealth of 
 imagery impossible to find in any other 
 cult. 
 
 But the chief contribution of Taoism 
 to Asiatic life has been in the realm of 
 aesthetics. Chinese historians have 
 always spoken of Taoism as the "art of 
 being in the world," for it deals with the 
 present — ourselves. It is in usthatGod 
 meets with Nature, and yesterday parts 
 from to-morrow. ThePresent is the mov- 
 ing Infinity, the legitimate sphere of the 
 Relative. Relativity seeks Adjustment; 
 Adjustment is Art. The art of life lies 
 in a constant readjustment to our sur- 
 roundings. Taoism accepts the mun- 
 dane as it is and, unlike the Confucians 
 andtheBuddhists,triestofind beauty in 
 our world of woe and worry. The Sung 
 allegory of the Three Vinegar Tasters 
 explainsadmirablythetrendofthethree 
 doctrines. Sakyamuni, Confucius, and 
 Laotse once stood beforeajarofvinegar 
 — the emblem of life — and each dipped 
 56 
 
THE THREE TASTERS 
 by MoRUKiM 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 in his finger to taste the brew. The 
 matter-of-fact Confucius found it sour, 
 the Buddha called it bitter, and Laotse 
 pronounced it sweet. 
 
 TheTaoists claimed thatthecomedy 
 of life could be made more interesting 
 if everyone would preserve the unities. 
 To keep the proportion of things and 
 giveplace to others without losing one's 
 own position was the secret of success in 
 themundanedrama. Wemust knowthe 
 whole play in order to properly act our 
 parts; the conception of totality must 
 never be lost in that of the individual. 
 This Laotse illustrates by his favourite 
 metaphor of the Vacuum. Reclaimed 
 that onlyin vacuum lay the truly essen- 
 tial. The reality of a room, for instance, 
 was to be found in the vacant space en- 
 closed by the roof and walls, not in the 
 roof and walls themselves. The useful- 
 nessofawaterpitcherdweltintheempti- 
 ness where water might be put, not in 
 the form of the pitcher or the material 
 of which it was made. Vacuum is all 
 potent becauseall containing. In vacuum 
 alonemotion becomes possible. Onewho 
 could make of himself a vacuum into 
 which others might freely enter would 
 become master of all situations. The 
 whole can always dominate the part. 
 
 57 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 These Taoists' ideas have greatly in- 
 fluenced all our theories of action, even 
 to those of fencing and wrestling. Jiu- 
 jitsu, the Japanese art of self-defence, 
 owes its name to a passage in the Tao- 
 teiking. In jiu-jitsu one seeks to draw 
 out and exhaust the enemy's strength 
 by non-resistance, vacuum, while con- 
 serving one's own strength for victory 
 in the final struggle. In art the import- 
 ance of the same principle is illustrated 
 by the value of suggestion. In leaving 
 something unsaid the beholder is given 
 a chance to complete the idea and thus 
 a great masterpiece irresistibly rivets 
 your attention until you seemtobecome 
 actually a part of it. A vacuum is there 
 for you to enter and fill up to the full 
 measure of your aesthetic emotion. 
 
 He who had made himself master of 
 the art of living was the Real Man of 
 theTaoist. At birth he enters the realm 
 of dreams only to awaken to reality 
 at death. He tempers his own bright- 
 ness in order to merge himself into the 
 obscurity of others. He is '' reluctant, 
 as one who crosses a stream in winter; 
 hesitating, as one who fears the neigh- 
 bourhood; respectful, like a guest; trem- 
 bling, like ice that is about to melt; un- 
 58 
 
TAOISM £s? ZENNISM 
 
 assuming, like a piece of wood not yet 
 carved; vacant, like a valley; formless, 
 like troubled waters." To him the three 
 jewels of life were Pity, Economy, and 
 Modesty. 
 
 If now we turn our attention to Zen- 
 nismwe shall findthat it emphasises the 
 teachings of Taoism. Zen is a name 
 derived from the Sanscrit word Dhyana, 
 which signifies meditation. It claims 
 that through consecrated meditation 
 may be attained supreme self-realisa- 
 tion. Meditation is one of the six ways 
 through which Buddhahood may be 
 reached, and the Zen sectarians affirm 
 that Sakyamuni laid special stress on 
 this methodin his laterteachings, hand- 
 ing down the rules to his chief disciple 
 Kashiapa. According to their tradition 
 Kashiapa, the first Zen patriarch, im- 
 parted the secret to Ananda, who in turn 
 passed it on to successive patriarchs 
 until it reached Bodhi-Dharma, the 
 twenty-eighth. Bodhi-Dharmacameto 
 Northern China in the early half of the 
 sixth centuryandwas the first patriarch 
 of Chinese Zen. There is much uncer- 
 tainty about the history of these patri- 
 archs and their doctrines. In its philo- 
 sophical aspect early Zennism seems to 
 
 59 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 have affinity on one hand to the Indian 
 Negativism of Nagarjuna and on the 
 othertotheGnan philosophy formulated 
 by Sancharacharya. The first teaching 
 of Zen as we know it at the present day 
 must be attributed to the sixth Chinese 
 patriarch Yeno (637-713), founder of 
 Southern Zen, so-called from the fact 
 of its predominance in Southern China. 
 He is closely followed by the great 
 Baso(died 788), who made of Zen a liv- 
 ing influence in Celestial life. Hiakujo 
 (71 9-8 14), the pupil of Baso, first instit- 
 uted the Zen monastery and establish- 
 ed a ritual and regulations for its gov- 
 ernment. In the discussions of the Zen 
 school after the time of Baso wefind the 
 play of the Yangtse-Kiang mind caus- 
 ing an accession of native modes of 
 thought in contrast to the former Indian 
 idealism. Whatever sectarian pride may 
 assert to the contrary one cannot help 
 being impressed by the similarity of 
 Southern Zen to the teachings of Laotse 
 and the Taoist Conversationalists. In 
 theTao-teikingwealreadyfindallusions 
 to the importance of self-concentration 
 and the need of properly regulating the 
 breath — essential points in the practice 
 of Zen meditation. Some of the best 
 60 
 
TAOISM £5? ZENNISM 
 
 commentaries on the Book of Laotse 
 have been written by Zen scholars. 
 
 Zennism,like Taoism, is the worship 
 of Relativity. One master defines Zen 
 as the art of feeling the polar star in 
 the southern sky. Truth can be reached 
 only through the comprehension of 
 opposites. Again, Zennism,likeTaoism, 
 is a strong advocate of individualism. 
 Nothing is real except that which con- 
 cerns the working of our own minds. 
 Yeno, thesixth patriarch, once saw two 
 monks watching the flag of a pagoda 
 fluttering in the wind. One said '' It is 
 the wind that moves,"theothersaid ''It 
 is the flag that moves " ; but Yeno ex- 
 plained to them that the real movement 
 was neither of the wind nor the flag, but 
 of something within their own minds. 
 Hiakujo was walking in the forest with 
 a disciple when a hare scurried off at 
 their approach. "Why does the hare fly 
 from you ? " asked Hiakujo. " Because 
 he is afraid of me," was the answer. 
 "No, "said the master, " it is because you 
 have a murderous instinct." This dia- 
 logue recalls that of Soshi (Chauntse), 
 the Taoist. One day Soshi was walking 
 on the bank of a river with a friend. 
 " How delightfully the fishes are enjoy- 
 
 61 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 ingthemselves inthewater!" exclaimed 
 Soshi. His friend spake to him thus : 
 '• You are not a fish ; how do you know 
 that the fishes are enj oy ing themselves ?" 
 ** You are not myself," returned Soshi ; 
 '* how do you know that I do not know 
 thatthefishesareenjoyingthemselves?" 
 Zenwasoften opposed to the precepts 
 of orthodox Buddhism even as Taoism 
 was opposed to Confucianism. To the 
 transcendental insight of the Zen, words 
 were but an encumbrance to thought; 
 the whole sway of Buddhist scriptures 
 only commentaries on personal specul- 
 ation. The followers of Zen aimed at 
 direct communion with the inner nature 
 of things, regarding their outward acces- 
 sories only as impediments to a clear 
 perception of Truth. It was this love of 
 the Abstract that led the Zen to prefer 
 black and white sketches to the elabor- 
 ately coloured paintings of the classic 
 Buddhist School. Some of the Z^n even 
 became iconoclastic as a result of their 
 endeavour to recognise the Buddha in 
 themselves rather than through images 
 and symbolism. We find Tankawosho 
 breakingup a wooden statue of Buddha 
 on a wintry day to make a fire. ** What 
 sacrilege ! " said the horror-stricken 
 62 
 
TAOISM &' ZENNISM 
 
 bystander. "Iwish togettheShali*out 
 of the ashes," calmly rejoined the Zen. 
 *' But you certainly will not get Shali 
 from this image ! " was the angry retort, 
 to which Tanka replied, ** If I do not, 
 this is certainly not a Buddha and I 
 am committing no sacrilege." Then he 
 turned to warmhimselfover the kindling 
 fire. 
 
 Aspecialcontribution of Zen to East- 
 ern thought was its recognition of the 
 mundane as of equal importance with 
 the spiritual. It held that in the great 
 relation of things there was no distinc- 
 tion of smalland great, an atompossess- 
 ingequal possibilities with theuniverse. 
 The seeker forperfection mustdiscover 
 in his own life the reflection of the inner 
 light. The organisation of the Zen 
 monastery was very significant of this 
 point of view. To every member, except 
 the abbot, was assigned some special 
 work in the caretakingof the monastery, 
 and curiously enough, to the novices 
 werecommittedthe lighterduties, while 
 to the most respected and advanced 
 monks were given the more irksome and 
 menial tasks. Such services formed a 
 
 * The precious jewels formed in the bodies of 
 Buddhas after cremation. 
 
 63 
 
TAOISM ^ ZENNISM 
 
 partoftheZen disclplineandevery least 
 action must be done absolutely per- 
 fectly. Thusmany a weightydiscussion 
 ensued while weeding the garden, par- 
 ing a turnip, or serving tea. The whole 
 ideal of Teaism is a result of this Zen 
 conception of greatness in the smallest 
 incidents of life. Taoism furnished the 
 basis for aesthetic ideals, Zennismmade 
 them practical. 
 
IV. THE TEA-ROOM 
 
IV. THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 TO European architects brought up 
 on thetraditions of stone andbrick 
 construction, our Japanese method of 
 building with wood and bamboo seems 
 scarcely worthy to be ranked as archi- 
 tecture. It is but quite recently that a 
 competentstudentofWesternarchitec- 
 ture has recognised and paid tribute to 
 the remarkable perfection of our great 
 temples.* Such beingthecaseas regards 
 our classic architecture, we could hardly 
 expect the outsider to appreciate the 
 subtle beauty of the tea-room, its prin- 
 ciples of construction and decoration 
 being entirely different from those of 
 the West. 
 
 The tea-room (the Sukiya) does not 
 pretend to be other than a mere cottage 
 — a straw hut, as we call it. The orig- 
 inal ideographs for Sukiya mean the A- 
 bode of Fancy. Latterlythe varioustea- 
 masters substituted various Chinese 
 charactersaccordingtotheirconception 
 of the tea-room, and the term Sukiya 
 may signify the Abode of Vacancy or the 
 
 *We refer to Ralph N. Cram's Impressions of 
 Japanese Architecture and the Allied Arts. 
 
 67 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 Abode of the Unsymmetrical. It is an 
 Abode of Fancy inasmuch as it is an 
 ephemeral structure built to house a 
 poetic impulse. It is an Abode of Va- 
 cancy inasmuch as it is devoid of orna- 
 mentationexcept for what may beplaced 
 init to satisfy some aesthetic need of the 
 moment. It is an Abode of the Unsym- 
 metrical inasmuchas it isconsecratedto 
 the worship of the Imperfect, purposely 
 leaving some thing unfinished for the 
 playoftheimaginationtocomplete.The 
 idealsofTeaismhavesincethesixteenth 
 century influenced our architecture to 
 such degree that the ordinary Japanese 
 interior of the present day, on account 
 of theextreme simplicity andchasteness 
 of its scheme of decoration, appears to 
 foreigners almost barren. 
 
 The first independent tea-room was 
 the creation of Senno-Soyeki, com- 
 monly known by his later name of Rikiu, 
 the greatest of all tea-masters, who, in 
 thesixteenth century, under thepatron- 
 age of Taiko-Hideyoshi, instituted and 
 brought to a high state of perfection the 
 formalities of the Tea-ceremony. The 
 proportions of the tea-room had been 
 previously determined by Jowo — afam- 
 ous tea-master of the fifteenth century. 
 68 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 The early tea-room consisted merely of 
 a portion of the ordinary drawing-room 
 partitioned offby screens for the purpose 
 of the tea-gathering. The portion parti- 
 tioned off was called the Kakoi (enclos- 
 ure), a name still applied to those tea- 
 rooms which are built into a house and 
 are not independent constructions. The 
 Sukiya consists of the tea-room proper, 
 designed toaccommodate not morethan 
 fivepersons,anumber suggestive of the 
 saying ''more than the Graces and less 
 than the Muses," an ante-room (mid- 
 suya) where the tea utensils are washed 
 and arranged before being brought in, 
 a portico (machiai) in which the guests 
 wait until they receive the summons to 
 enter the tea-room, and a garden path 
 (the roji) which connects the machiai 
 with the tea-room. The tea-room is un- 
 impressive in appearance. It is smaller 
 than the smallest of Japanese houses, 
 while the materials used in its construc- 
 tion are intended to give the suggestion 
 of refined poverty. Yet wemust remem- 
 ber that all this is the result of profound 
 artistic forethought, and that the details 
 havebeenworked out with care perhaps 
 even greater than that expended on the 
 building of the richest palaces and tem- 
 
 69 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 pies. A good tea-room is more costly than 
 an ordinarymansion,for the selection of 
 its materials, as well as its workmanship, 
 requires immense care and precision. 
 Indeed, the carpenters employed by the 
 tea-masters form a distinct and highly 
 honoured class among artisans, their 
 work being no less delicate than that of 
 the makers of lacquer cabinets. 
 
 The tea-room is not only different 
 from any production of Western archi- 
 tecture, but also contrasts strongly with 
 the classical architecture of Japan itself. 
 Our ancient noble edifices, whether 
 secular or ecclesiastical, were not to be 
 despised even as regards theirmere size. 
 The few that have been spared in the 
 disastrous conflagrations of centuries 
 are still capable ofaweing us bythegran- 
 deur and richness of their decoration. 
 Huge pillars of wood from two to three 
 feet in diameter and from thirty to forty 
 feet high, supported, by a complicated 
 network of brackets, the enormous 
 beams which groaned under the weight 
 of the tile-covered slanting roofs. The 
 material and mode of construction, 
 though weak against fire, proved itself 
 strongagainstearthquakes, and was well 
 suited to the climatic conditions of the 
 70 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 country. In the Golden Hall of Horiuji 
 and the Pagoda of Yakushiji, we have 
 noteworthy examples of the durability 
 of our wooden architecture. Thesebuild- 
 ings have practically stood intact for 
 nearly twelve centuries. The interior 
 of the old temples and palaces was pro- 
 fusely decorated. In the Ho5do temple 
 at Uji, dating from the tenth century, we 
 can still see the elaborate canopy and 
 gilded baldachinos, many-coloured and 
 inlaid with mirrors and mother-of-pearl, 
 as well as remains of the paintings and 
 sculpture which formerly covered the 
 walls. Later, at Nikko and in the Nijo 
 castle in Kyoto, we see structural beauty 
 sacrificed to a wealth of ornamentation 
 which in colour and exquisite detail 
 equals the utmost gorgeousness of 
 Arabian or Moorish effort. 
 
 The simplicity and purism of the tea- 
 room resulted from emulation of the Zen 
 monastery. A Zen monastery differs 
 from those of other Buddhist sects inas- 
 much as it is meant only to be a dwell- 
 ingplace forthe monks. Its chapel is not 
 a place of worship or pilgrimage, but a 
 college room where the students con- 
 gregate for discussion and the practice 
 of meditation. The room is bare except 
 
 n 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 for a central alcove in which, behind the 
 altar, is a statue of Bodhi Dhama, the 
 founder of the sect, or of Sakyamuni 
 attended by Kaphiapa and Ananda, the 
 twoearliestZenpatriarchs. Onthealtar, 
 flowers and incense are offered up in 
 memory ofthegreat contributions which 
 these sages made to Zen. We have 
 already said that it was the ritual instit- 
 uted by the Zen monks of successively 
 drinking tea out of a bowl before the 
 image of Bodhi Dhama, which laid the 
 foundations of the tea-ceremony. We 
 might add here that the altar of the 
 Zen chapel was the prototype of the 
 Tokonoma, — the place of honour in a 
 Japanese room where paintings and 
 flowers are placed for the edification 
 of the guests. 
 
 All our great tea-masters were stud- 
 ents of Zen and attempted to introduce 
 the spirit of Zennism into the actualities 
 of life. Thus the room, like the other 
 equipments of the tea -ceremony, re- 
 flects many of the Zen doctrines. The 
 size of the orthodox tea-room, which is 
 four mats and a half, or ten feet square, 
 is determined by a passage in the Sutra 
 of Vikramadytia. In that interesting 
 work, Vikramadytia welcomes the Saint 
 72 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 Manjushiri and eighty -four thousand 
 disciplesof Buddhainaroomofthissize, 
 — ^an allegory based on the theory of the 
 non-existence of space to the truly 
 enlightened. Again the roji, the garden 
 path which leads from the machiaito the 
 tea-room, signifiedthefirst stage of med- 
 itation, — the passage into self-illumin- 
 ation. The roji was intended to break 
 connection with the outside world, and 
 to produce a fresh sensation conducive 
 to the full enjoyment of aestheticism in 
 the tea-room itself. One who has trod- 
 den this garden path cannot fail to re- 
 member how his spirit, as he walked in 
 the twilight of evergreens over the regu- 
 lar irregularities of the stepping stones, 
 beneathwhichlaydriedpineneedles,and 
 passed beside the moss-covered granite 
 lanterns, became uplifted above ordin- 
 ary thoughts. One may be in the midst 
 of a city, and yet feel as if he were in the 
 forest far away from the dust and din of 
 civilisation. Great was the ingenuity 
 displayed by the tea-masters in produc- 
 ing these effects of serenity and purity. 
 The nature of the sensations to be 
 aroused in passing through the roji dif- 
 fered with different tea-masters. Some, 
 like Rikiu, aimed at utter loneliness, and 
 
 73 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 claimed the secret of making a roji 
 as contained in the ancient ditty : "^ 
 
 " I look beyond ; 
 Flowers are not, 
 Nor tinted leaves. 
 On the sea beach 
 A solitary cottage stands 
 In the waning light 
 Ofan autumn eve." f 
 
 Others, like Kobori-Enshiu, sought 
 foradifferent effect. Enshiu said the idea 
 of the garden path was to be found in 
 the following verses : 
 
 "A cluster of summer trees, 
 A bit of the sea, 
 A pale evening moon." 
 
 It is not difficult to gather his meaning. 
 He wished to create the attitude of a 
 newly - awakened soul still lingering 
 amid shadowy dreams of the past, yet 
 bathing in the sweet unconsciousness 
 of a mellow spiritual light, and yearning 
 for the freedom that lay in the expanse 
 beyond. 
 
 * By Sada-ihe, died a.d. 1241. 
 
 It is interesting to compare Mr Binyon's transla- 
 tion, from " The Flight of the Dragon." 
 
 t Out across the wave 
 All is bare — 
 Not a scarlet leaf 
 Not a flower there I 
 Only over thatched huts falling brief 
 Twilight and the lonely autumn air ! 
 
 74 
 
A RAINY LANDSCAPE 
 
 by Sansetsu 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 Thus prepared the guest will silently 
 approach the sanctuary, and, if a 
 samurai, will leave his sword on the rack 
 beneath the eaves, the tea-room being 
 pre-eminently thehouseofpeace. Then 
 he will bend lowand creep into the room 
 through a small door not more than three 
 feet in height. This proceeding was 
 incumbent on all guests, — high and low 
 alike, — and was intended to inculcate 
 humility. The orderof precedence hav- 
 ing been mutually agreed upon while 
 resting inthemachiai, the guests one by 
 one will enter noiselessly and take their 
 seats, first making obeisance to the pic- 
 ture or flower arrangement on the tok- 
 onoma. Thehostwill notenterthe room 
 until all the guests have seated them- 
 selves and quiet reigns with nothing to 
 break the silence save the note of the 
 boiling water in the iron kettle. The 
 kettle sings well, for pieces of iron are 
 so arranged in the bottom as to produce 
 a peculiar melody in which one may 
 hear the echoes of a cataract muffled 
 by clouds, of a distant sea breaking 
 among the rocks, a rainstorm sweeping 
 throughabamboo forest, orofthesough- 
 ing of pines on some far away hill. 
 
 Even in the daytime the light in the 
 
 75 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 room is subdued, forthe loweaves ofthe 
 slanting roof admit but few ofthe sun's 
 rays. Everything is sober in tint from 
 the ceiling to thefloor; the guests them- 
 selves have carefully chosen garments 
 ofunobtrusive colours. Themellowness 
 of age is over all, everything suggestive 
 of recent acquirement being tabooed 
 save only the one note of contrast fur- 
 nished by the bamboo dipper and the 
 linen napkin, both immaculately white 
 and new. However faded the tea-room 
 and the tea-equipage may seem, every- 
 thing is absolutely clean. Not a particle 
 of dust will be found in the darkest 
 corner, for if any exists the host is not a 
 tea-master. One of the first requisites of 
 a tea-master is the knowledge of how to 
 sweep, clean, and wash, for there is an 
 art in cleaning and dusting. A piece of 
 antiquemetal-workmustnotbeattacked 
 with the unscrupulous zeal of the Dutch 
 housewife. Dripping waterfromaflower 
 vase need not be wiped away, for it may 
 be suggestive of dew and coolness. 
 
 In this connection there is a story of 
 Rikiu which well illustrates the ideas of 
 cleanliness entertained by the tea-mas- 
 ters. Rikiu was watching his son Shoan 
 ashesweptand watered thegardenpath. 
 1^ 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 ''Not clean enough," said Rikiu, when 
 Shoan had finished his task, and bade 
 him try again. After a weary hour the 
 son turned to Rikiu: ** Father, there is 
 nothing more to be done. Thestepshave 
 been washed forthe third time,thestone 
 lanterns and the trees are well sprinkled 
 with water, moss and lichensareshining 
 with a fresh verdure; not a twig, not a 
 leaf have I left on theground." ''Young 
 fool,"chided the tea-master, "that is not 
 the way a garden path should be swept." 
 Saying this, Rikiu stepped into the gar- 
 den, shook a tree and scattered over the 
 garden gold and crimson leaves, scraps 
 of the brocade of autumn! What Rikiu 
 demanded was notcleanlinessalone, but 
 the beautiful and the natural also. 
 
 The name. Abode of Fancy, implies a 
 structure created to meet some individ- 
 ual artistic requirement. The tea-room 
 is made for the tea-master, not the 
 tea-master for the tea-room. It is not 
 intended for posterity and is therefore 
 ephemeral. The idea that every one 
 should have a house of his own is based 
 on an ancient custom of the Japanese 
 race, Shinto superstition ordaining that 
 every dwelling should be evacuated on 
 the death of its chief occupant. Perhaps 
 
 77 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 there may have been some unrealised 
 sanitary reason for thispractice. Another 
 early custom was that a newly-built 
 houseshouldbeprovidedfor each couple 
 that married. It is on account of such 
 customs that we find the Imperial cap- 
 itals so frequently removed from one 
 site to another in ancient days. The 
 rebuilding, every twenty years, of Ise 
 Temple, the supreme shrine of the Sun- 
 Goddess, is an example of one of these 
 ancient rites which still obtain at the 
 present day. The observance of these 
 customs was only possible with some 
 such form of construction as that fur- 
 nished by our system of wooden archi- 
 tecture, easily pulled down, easily built 
 up. A more lasting style, employing 
 brick and stone, would have rendered 
 migrations impracticable,as indeed they 
 became when the more stable and mas- 
 sive wooden construction of China was 
 adopted by us after the Nara period. 
 
 With the predominance of Zen indi- 
 vidualism in the fifteenth century, how- 
 ever, the old idea became imbued with 
 a deeper significance as conceived in 
 connection with the tea-room. Zennism, 
 with the Buddhist theory of evanescence 
 and its demandsfor the mastery ofspirit 
 78 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 over matter, recognised the house only 
 as a temporary refuge for the body. 
 The body itself was but as a hut in the 
 wilderness, a flimsy shelter made by 
 tying together the grasses that grew 
 around, — when these ceased to be bound 
 together they again became resolved 
 into the original waste. I n the tea-room 
 fugiti veness is suggested in the thatched 
 roof, frailty in the slender pillars, light- 
 ness in the bamboo support, apparent 
 carelessness in the use of commonplace 
 materials.The eternal isto befoundonly 
 in the spirit which, embodied in these 
 simple surroundings, beautifies them 
 with the subtle light of its refinement. 
 
 That the tea-room should be built to 
 suit some individual taste is an enforce- 
 ment of the principle of vitality in art. 
 Art, to be fully appreciated, must be true 
 to contemporaneous life. It is not that 
 we shouldignore the claims of posterity, 
 but that we should seek to enjoy the pre- 
 sent more. 1 1 is not that we should disre- 
 gard thecreationsof thepastjbut that we 
 should try to assimilate them into our 
 consciousness. Slavish conformity to 
 traditions and formulas fetters the ex- 
 pression of individuality in architecture. 
 We can but weep over those senseless 
 
 79 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 imitations of European buildings which 
 one beholds in modern Japan. We mar- 
 vel why, among the most progressive 
 Western nations, architecture shouldbe 
 so devoid of originality, so replete with 
 repetitions of obsolete styles. Perhaps 
 wearenowpassingthrough an ageof de- 
 mocratisation in art, while awaiting the 
 rise of some princely master who shall 
 establish a new dynasty. Would that we 
 loved theancients moreandcopied them 
 less! It has been said that the Greeks 
 were great because they never drew 
 from the antique. 
 
 The term, Abode of Vacancy, besides 
 conveying the Taoist theory of the all- 
 containing, involves the conception of a 
 continued need of change in decorative 
 motives. The tea-room is absolutely 
 empty, except for what may be placed 
 there temporarily to satisfy some aes- 
 thetic mood. Some special art object is 
 brought in for the occasion, and every- 
 thing else is selected and arranged to en- 
 hance the beauty of theprincipal theme. 
 One cannot listen to different pieces of 
 music at the same time, a real compre- 
 hension of the beautiful being possible 
 only through concentration upon some 
 central motive. Thus it will be seen that 
 80 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 the system of decoration in our tea-rooms 
 is opposed to that which obtains in the 
 West, where the interior of a house is 
 often converted into a museum. To a 
 Japanese, accustomed to simpHcity of 
 ornamentation and frequent change of 
 decorative method, a Western interior 
 permanently filled with a vast array of 
 pictures, statuary, and bric-a-brac gives 
 the impression of mere vulgar display of 
 riches. 1 1 calls for a mighty wealth of ap- 
 preciation to enjoy the constant sight of 
 even a masterpiece, and limitless indeed 
 must be the capacity for artistic feeling 
 in those who can exist day after day in 
 the midst of such confusionof colourand 
 form as is to be often seen in the homes 
 of Europe and America. 
 
 The "Abode of the Unsymmetrical" 
 suggests another phase of our decora- 
 tive scheme. The absence of symmetry 
 in Japanese art objects has been often 
 commented on by Western critics. This, 
 also, is a result of a working out through 
 Zennism of Taoist ideals. Confucianism, 
 with its deep-seated idea of dualism, 
 and Northern Buddhism with its wor- 
 ship of a trinity, were in no way opposed 
 to the expression of symmetry. As a 
 matter of fact, if we study the ancient 
 F 8i 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 bronzes of China or the religious arts of 
 the Tang dynasty and the Nara period, 
 we shall recognise a constant striving 
 after symmetry. The decoration of our 
 classical interiors was decidedly regular 
 in its arrangement. The Taoist and Zen 
 conception of perfection, however, was 
 different. The dynamic nature of their 
 philosophy laid more stress upon the 
 process through which perfection was 
 sought than upon perfection itself. True 
 beauty could be discovered only by one 
 who mentally completed the incomplete. 
 The virility of life and art lay in its pos- 
 sibilities for growth. In the tea-room it 
 is left for each guest in imagination to 
 complete the total effect in relation to 
 himself. Since Zennism has become the 
 prevailing mode of thought, the art 
 of the extreme Orient has purposely 
 avoided the symmetrical as expressing 
 not only completion, but repetition. Uni- 
 formity of design was considered as fatal 
 to the freshness of imagination. Thus, 
 landscapes, birds, and flowers became 
 the favourite subjects for depiction 
 rather than the human figure, the latter 
 being present in the person of the be- 
 holder himself. We are often too much 
 in evidence as it is, and in spite of our 
 82 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 vanity even self-regard is apt to become 
 monotonous. 
 
 In the tea-room the fear of repetition 
 is a constant presence. The various ob- 
 jects for the decoration of a room should 
 be so selected that no colour or design 
 shall be repeated. If you have a living 
 flower, a painting of flowers is not allow- 
 able. I f you are using a round kettle, the 
 water pitcher should be angular. A cup 
 with a black glaze should not be asso- 
 ciated with a tea-caddy of black lacquer. 
 In placing a vase or an incense burner 
 on the tokonoma, care should be taken 
 not to put it in the exact centre, lest it 
 divide the space into equal halves. The 
 pillar of the tokonoma should be of a 
 different kind of wood from the other 
 pillars, in order to break any suggestion 
 of monotony in the room. 
 
 Here again the Japanese method of 
 interior decoration differs from that of 
 the Occident, where we see objects ar- 
 rayed symmetrically on mantelpieces 
 and elsewhere. In Western houses we 
 are often confronted with what appears 
 to us useless reiteration. We find it try- 
 ing to talk to a man while his full-length 
 portraitstaresatusfrombehindhisback. 
 We wonder which is real, he of the pic- 
 ture or he who talks, and feel a curious 
 
 83 
 
THE TEA-ROOM 
 
 conviction that one of them must be 
 fraud. Many a time have we sat at a 
 festive board contemplating, with a 
 secret shock to our digestion, the repre- 
 sentation of abundance on the dining- 
 room walls. Why these pictured victims 
 of chase and sport, the elaborate carv- 
 ings of fishes and fruit ? Why the dis- 
 play of family plates, reminding us of 
 those who have dined and are dead? 
 
 The simplicity of the tea-room and its 
 freedom from vulgarity make it truly 
 a sanctuary from the vexations of the 
 outer world. There and there alone can 
 one consecrate himself to undisturbed 
 adoration of the beautiful. In the six- 
 teenth century the tea-room afforded a 
 welcome respite from labour to thefierce 
 warriors and statesmen engaged in the 
 unificatioriand reconstruction of Japan. 
 In the seventeenth century, after the 
 strict formalism of the Tokugawa rule 
 had been developed, it offered the only 
 opportunity possible for the free com- 
 munion of artistic spirits. Beforeagreat 
 work of art there was no distinction be- 
 tween daimyo, samurai, and commoner. 
 Nowadays industrialism is making true 
 refinement more and more difficult all 
 the world over. Do we not need the tea- 
 room more than ever ? 
 84 
 
V. ART APPRECIATION 
 
V. ART APPRECIATION 
 
 HAVE you heard the Taoist tale of 
 the Taming of the Harp ? 
 
 Once in the hoaryages in the Ravine 
 of Lungmen * stood a Kiri tree, a ver- 
 itable king of the forest. It reared its 
 head to talk to the stars; its roots struck 
 deep into the earth, mingling their 
 bronzed coils with those of the silver 
 dragon that slept beneath. And it came 
 to pass thatamighty wizardmadeof this 
 tree a wondrous harp, whose stubborn 
 spirit should be tamed but by the great- 
 est of musicians. Forlongtheinstrument 
 was treasured by the Emperor of China, 
 but all in vain were the efforts of those 
 who in turn tried to draw melody from 
 its strings. In response to their utmost 
 strivings there came from the harp but 
 harsh notes of disdain, ill- according 
 with the songs they fain would sing. 
 The harp refused to recognise a master. 
 
 At last came Peiwoh, the prince of 
 harpists. With tender hand he caressed 
 the harp as one might seek to soothe an 
 unruly horse, and softly touched the 
 chords. He sang of nature and the sea- 
 sons, of high mountains and flowing 
 waters, and all the memories of the tree 
 awoke ! Once more the sweet breath of 
 
 * The Dragon Gorge of Honan. 
 
 87 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 Spring played amidst its branches. The 
 young cataracts, as they danced down 
 the ravine, laughed to the budding 
 flowers. Anon were heard the dreamy 
 voicesof summer withitsmyriadinsects, 
 the gentle pattering of rain, the wail of 
 the cuckoo. Hark! a tiger roars, — the 
 valley answers again. It is autumn ; in 
 the desert night, sharp like a sword 
 gleams the moon upon the frosted grass. 
 Now winter reigns, and through the 
 snow-filled air swirl flocks of swans and 
 rattling hailstonesbeat upontheboughs 
 with fierce delight. 
 
 Then Peiwoh changed the key and 
 sang of love. The forest swayed like an 
 ardent swain deep lost in thought. On 
 high, like a haughty maiden, swept a 
 cloud bright andfair;butpassing, trailed 
 long shadows on the ground, black like 
 despair. Again the mode was changed ; 
 Peiwohsangofwar,ofclashingsteeland 
 trampling steeds. And in the harp arose 
 the tempest of Lungmen, the dragon 
 rode the lightning, the thundering aval- 
 anche crashed through the hills. In ecs- 
 tasy the Celestial monarch asked Pei- 
 woh wherein lay the secret of his victory. 
 "Sire," he replied, ''others have failed 
 because they sang but of themselves. I 
 88 
 
BAMBOOS IN THE WIND 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 left the harp to choose its theme, and 
 knew not truly whether the harp had 
 been Peiwoh or Peiwoh were the harp." 
 
 Thisstory well illustratesthe mystery 
 of art appreciation. The masterpiece is 
 a symphony played upon our finest feel- 
 ings. True art is Peiwoh, and we theharp 
 ofLungmen. At the magic touch of the 
 beautiful the secret chords of our being 
 areawakened, we vibrate and thrill inre- 
 sponse to its call. Mind speaks to mind. 
 We listen to theunspoken,wegazeupon 
 the unseen. The master calls forth notes 
 we know not of. Memories long forgot- 
 ten all come back to us with a new sig- 
 nificance. Hopes stifled by fear, yearn- 
 ings that we dare not recognise, stand 
 forth in new glory. Our mind is the can- 
 vas on which the artists lay their colour ; 
 their pigments are our emotions ; their 
 chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow 
 of sadness. The masterpiece is of our- 
 selves, as we are of the masterpiece. 
 
 The sympathetic communion of 
 minds necessary for art appreciation 
 must be based on mutual concession. 
 The spectator must cultivate the proper 
 attitudefor receiving the message, asthe 
 artist must know how to impart it. The 
 tea-master, Kobori-Enshiu, himself a 
 
 89 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 daimyo, has left to us these memorable 
 words : " Approach a great painting as 
 thou wouldst approach a great prince." 
 In order to understand a masterpiece, 
 you must lay yourself low before it and 
 await with bated breath its least utter- 
 ance. AneminentSungcritic once made 
 a charming confession. Saidhe:'*Inmy 
 young days I praised the master whose 
 pictures I liked, but as my judgment 
 matured I praised myself for liking what 
 the masters had chosen to have me like. " 
 It is to be deplored that so few of us 
 really take pains to study the moods of 
 the masters. In our stubborn ignorance 
 we refuse to render them this simple 
 courtesy, and thus often miss the rich 
 repast of beauty spread before our very 
 eyes. A master has always something 
 to offer, while we go hungry solely be- 
 cause of our own lack of appreciation. 
 
 To thesympathetic amasterpiece be- 
 comes a living reality towards which we 
 feel drawn in bonds of comradeship. 
 The masters are immortal, for their loves 
 and fears live in us over and over again. 
 It is rather the soul than the hand, the 
 man than the technique, which appeals 
 to us, — the more human the call the 
 deeper is our response. It is because of 
 90 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 this secret understanding between the 
 master and ourselves that in poetry or 
 romance we suffer and rejoice with the 
 hero and heroine. Chikamatsu, our 
 Japanese Shakespeare, has laid down 
 as one of the first principles of dramatic 
 composition the importance of taking 
 the audience into the confidence of the 
 author. Several ofhis pupils submitted 
 plays for his approval, but only one of 
 thepieces appealed to him. Itwas a play 
 somewhat resembling the Comedy of 
 Errors, in which twin brethren suffer 
 through mistaken identity. "This, "said 
 Chikamatsu, ''has the proper spirit of 
 the drama, for it takes the audience into 
 consideration. The public is permitted 
 to know more than the actors. It knows 
 where, the mistake lies, and pities the 
 poor figures on the board who inno- 
 cently rush to their fate." 
 
 The great masters both of the East 
 and the West never forgot the value of 
 suggestion as a means for taking the 
 spectator into their confidence. Who 
 can contemplate a masterpiece without 
 being awed by the immense vista of 
 thought presented to ourconsideration? 
 How familiar and sympathetic are they 
 all; how cold in contrast the modern 
 
 91 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 commonplaces! In the former we feel 
 the warm outpouring of a man's heart ; 
 in the latter only a formal salute. En- 
 grossed in his technique, the modern 
 rarely rises above himself. Like the 
 musicians who vainly invoked the Lung- 
 men harp, he sings only of himself His 
 works may be nearer science, but are 
 further from humanity. We have an old 
 saying in Japan that a woman cannot 
 love a man who is truly vain, for there is 
 no crevice in his heart for love to enter 
 and fill up. In art vanity is equally fatal 
 to sympathetic feeling, whether on the 
 part of the artist or the public. 
 
 Nothing is more hallowing than the 
 union of kindred spirits in art. At the 
 moment of meeting, the art lover tran- 
 scends himself. At once he is and is not. 
 He catches a glimpse of Infinity, but 
 words cannot voice his delight, for the 
 eye has no tongue. Freed from the 
 fetters of matter, his spirit moves in 
 the rhythm of things. It is thus that art 
 becomes akin to religion and ennobles 
 mankind. It is this which makes a mas- 
 terpiece something sacred. In the old 
 days the veneration in which the Japan- 
 ese held the work of the great artist was 
 intense. The tea-masters guarded their 
 92 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 treasures with religious secrecy, and it 
 was often necessary to open a whole 
 series of boxes, one within another, 
 before reaching the shrine itself — 
 the silken wrapping within whose soft 
 folds lay the holy of holies. Rarely was 
 the object exposed to view, and then 
 only to the initiated. 
 
 At the time when Teaism was in the 
 ascendency the Taiko's generals would 
 be better satisfied with the present of a 
 rare work of art than a large grant of ter- 
 ritory as a reward of victory. Many of 
 our favourite dramas are based on the 
 loss and recovery of a noted master- 
 piece. For instance, in one play the 
 palace of Lord Hosokawa, in which 
 was preserved the celebrated paintingof 
 Dharuma by Sesson,suddenly takes fire 
 through the negligence of the samurai 
 in charge. Resolved at all hazards to 
 rescue the precious painting, he rushes 
 into the burning building and seizes the 
 kakemono, only to find all means of exit 
 cut off by the flames. Thinking only of 
 thepicture,heslashesopenhisbodywith 
 his sword, wraps his torn sleeve about 
 the Sesson and plunges it into the gap- 
 ing wound. The fire is at last extin- 
 guished. Among the smoking embers 
 
 93 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 is found a half-consumed corpse, within 
 which reposes the treasure uninjured 
 by the fire. Horrible as such tales are, 
 they illustrate the great value that we 
 set upon a masterpiece, as well as the 
 devotion of a trusted samurai. 
 
 Wemust remember however, that art 
 is of value only to the extent that it 
 speaks to us. It might be a universal 
 language if we ourselves were universal 
 in our sympathies. Our finite nature, the 
 power of tradition and conventionality, 
 as well as our hereditary instincts, re- 
 strict the scope of our capacity for artis- 
 tic enjoyment. Our very individuality 
 establishes inone sense a limit toourun- 
 derstanding; and our aesthetic person- 
 ality seeks its own affinities in the crea- 
 tions of the past. It is true that with 
 cultivation our sense of art appreciation 
 broadens, and we become able to enjoy 
 many hitherto unrecognised expres- 
 sions of beauty. But, after all, we see 
 only our own image in the universe, — 
 our particular idiosyncrasies dictate 
 the mode of our perceptions. The tea- 
 masters collected only objects which 
 fell strictly within the measure of their 
 individual appreciation. 
 
 One is reminded in this connection 
 94 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 of a Story concerning Kobori-Enshiu. 
 Enshiu was complimented by his dis- 
 ciples on the admirable taste he had 
 displayed in the choice of his collection. 
 Said they, ''Each piece is such that no 
 one could help admiring. 1 1 shows that 
 you had better taste than had Rikiu, for 
 his collection could only be appreciated 
 byonebeholder in a thousand. "Sorrow- 
 fully Enshiu replied: "This only proves 
 how commonplace I am. The great 
 Rikiu dared to love only those objects 
 which personally appealed to him, 
 whereas I unconsciously cater to the 
 taste of the majority. Verily, Rikiu was 
 one in a thousand among tea-masters." 
 It ismuch to be regretted that somuch 
 of the apparent enthusiasm for art at the 
 present day has no foundation in real 
 feeling. In this democratic age of ours 
 men clamour for what is popularly con- 
 sidered the best, regardlessof their feel- 
 ings. They want the costly, not the re- 
 fined; the fashionable, not the beautiful. 
 To the masses, contemplation of illus- 
 trated periodicals, the worthy product of 
 theirownindustrialism,wouldgivemore 
 digestible food for artistic enjoyment 
 than the early Italians or the Ashikaga 
 masters, whom they pretend to admire. 
 
 95 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 Thenameofthe artist is more important 
 to them than the quaHty of the work. 
 As a Chinese critic complained many 
 centuries ago, "People criticise a picture 
 by their ear." It is this lack of genuine 
 appreciation that is responsible for the 
 pseudo-classic horrors that to-day greet 
 us wherever we turn. 
 
 Another common mistake is that of 
 confusing art with archaeology. The 
 veneration born of antiquity is one of 
 the best traits in the human character, 
 and fain would we have it cultivated to 
 a greater extent. The old masters are 
 rightly to be honoured for opening the 
 path to future enlightenment. The mere 
 fact that they have passed unscathed 
 through centuries of criticism and come 
 down to us still covered with glory com- 
 mands our respect. But we should be 
 foolishindeed if we valued their achieve- 
 ment simply on the score of age. Yet we 
 allow our historical sympathy to over- 
 ride our aesthetic discrimination. We 
 offer flowers of approbation when the 
 artist is safely laid in his grave. The 
 nineteenth century, pregnant with the 
 theory of evolution, has moreover cre- 
 ated in us the habit of losing sight of the 
 individual in the species. A collector is 
 96 
 
ART APPRECIATION 
 
 anxious to acquire specimens to illus- 
 trate a period or a school, and forgets 
 that a single masterpiece can teach us 
 more than any number of the mediocre 
 products of a given period or school. 
 We classify toomuchandenjoy too little. 
 The sacrifice of the aesthetic to the so- 
 called scientific method of exhibition 
 has been the bane of many museums. 
 
 The claims of contemporary art can- 
 not beignored inany vital schemeof life. 
 The art of to-day is that which really 
 belongs to us: it is our own reflection. 
 In condemning it we but condemn our- 
 selves. We say that the present age pos- 
 sesses no art: who is responsible for 
 this? Itis indeed a shame thatdespite all 
 our rhapsodies about the ancients we 
 pay so little attention to our own poss- 
 ibilities. Struggling artists, weary souls 
 lingering in the shadow of cold disdain ! 
 In our self-centred century, what inspir- 
 ation do we offer them? The past may 
 well look with pity at the poverty of our 
 civilisation; the future will laugh at the 
 barrenness of our art. We are destroy- 
 ing art in destroying thebeautiful in life. 
 Would that some great wizard might 
 from the stem of society shape a mighty 
 harp whose strings would resound to the 
 touch of genius. 
 
 G 97 
 

 
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VI. FLOWERS 
 
VI. FLOWERS 
 
 IN the trembling grey of a spring 
 dawn, when the birds were whisper- 
 ing in mysterious cadence among the 
 trees, have you not felt that they were 
 talking to their matesabout the flowers? 
 Surely with mankind the appreciation 
 of flowers must have been coeval with 
 the poetryof love. Wherebetter than in 
 a flower, sweet in its unconsciousness, 
 fragrant because of its silence, can we 
 image the unfolding of a virgin soul ? 
 The primeval man in offering the first 
 garland to his maiden thereby trans- 
 cended the brute. He became human in 
 thusrisingabovethecrudenecessitiesof 
 nature. He enteredtherealmofartwhen 
 heperceivedthesubtleuseoftheuseless. 
 In joyorsadness, flowers are our con- 
 stant friends. We eat, drink, sing, dance, 
 andflirtwiththem. We wedandchristen 
 with flowers. We dare not die without 
 them. Wehave worshipped with thelily, 
 we have meditated with the lotus, we 
 have charged i n battle array with the rose 
 andthechrysanthemum. We have even 
 attempted to speak in the language of 
 flowers. How could we live without 
 them ? 1 1 frightens one to conceive of a 
 world bereft of their presence. What 
 
 lOI 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 solace do they not bring to the bedside 
 of the sick, what a light of bliss to the 
 darknessof weary spirits? Their serene 
 tenderness restores to us our waning 
 confidence in the universe even as the 
 intentgazeofabeautiful child recalls our 
 lost hopes. When we are laid low in the 
 dust it is they who linger in sorrow over 
 our graves. 
 
 Sad as it is, we cannot conceal the fact 
 that in spite of our companionship with 
 flowers we have not risen very far above 
 the brute. Scratch the sheepskinand the 
 wolf within us will soon show his teeth. 
 1 1 has been said that man at ten is an ani- 
 mal, at twenty alunatic, at thirty afailure, 
 at forty a fraud, and at fifty a criminal. 
 Perhaps he becomes a criminal because 
 he has never ceased to be an animal. 
 Nothingisrealtousbuthunger, nothing 
 sacred except our own desires. Shrine 
 after shrine has crumbled before our 
 eyes ; but one altarfor ever is preserved, 
 that whereon we burn incense to the 
 supreme idol, — ourselves. Our God is 
 great.andmoneyis his Prophet! We de- 
 vastate nature in ordertomakesacrifice 
 to him. We boast that we have con- 
 quered Matterandforgetthatitis Matter 
 that has enslaved us. What atrocities do 
 
 102 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 we not perpetrate in the name of culture 
 and refinement! 
 
 Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of 
 the stars, standing in the garden, nod- 
 ding your headsto the bees as they sing 
 of the dews and the sunbeams, are you 
 aware of the fearful doom that awaits 
 you? Dream on,swayandfrolic while you 
 may inthe gentlebreezes ofsummer.To- 
 morrowaruthlesshandwillclosearound 
 your throats. You will be wrenched, torn 
 asunder limb by limb, and borne away 
 from your quiethomes. The wretch, she 
 may be passing fair. She may say how 
 lovely you are while her fingers are still 
 moist with your blood. Tellme, will this 
 be kindness ? It may be your fate to be 
 imprisoned in the hair of one whom you 
 knowto be heartless or to be thrust into 
 the buttonholeof one who wouldnot dare 
 to look you in the face were you a man. 
 It may even be your lot to be confined in 
 some narrow vessel with only stagnant 
 water to quench the maddening thirst 
 that warns of ebbing life. 
 
 Flowers, if you were in the landofthe 
 Mikado, you might some time meet a 
 dread personage armed with scissors 
 and a tiny saw. He would call himself a 
 Master of Flowers. He wouldclaim the 
 
 103 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 rights of a doctor and you wouldinstinc- 
 tively hate him, for you know a doctor 
 always seeks to prolong the troubles of 
 his victims. He would cut, bend, and 
 twist you into thoseimpossiblepositions 
 which he thinks it proper thatyou should 
 assume. He would contortyour muscles 
 and dislocate yourlDones likeany osteo- 
 path. He would burn you with red-hot 
 coals to stop your bleeding, and thrust 
 wires intoyou to assistyour circulation. 
 He would diet you with salt, vinegar, 
 alum, and sometimes, vitriol. Boiling 
 water would bepouredonyourfeet when 
 you seemed ready to faint. It would be 
 his boast that he could keep life within 
 you for two or more weeks longer than 
 would have been possible without his 
 treatment. Would you not have pre- 
 ferred to have been killed at once when 
 youwere first captured? Whatwere the 
 crimesyou musthavecommitted during 
 your past incarnation to warrant such 
 punishment in this? 
 
 The wanton waste of flowers among 
 Western communities is even more ap- 
 palling than the way theyare treated by 
 Eastern Flower Masters. The number 
 of flowers cut daily to adorn the ball- 
 rooms and banquet-tables of Europe 
 104 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 and America, to be thrown away on the 
 morrow, must be something enormous ; 
 if strung together they might garland a 
 continent. Beside thisuttercarelessness 
 of life, the guilt of the Flower Master 
 becomes insignificant. He, at least, re- 
 spects the economy of nature, selects 
 his victims with careful foresight, and 
 afterdeathdoeshonourtotheirremains. 
 In the West the display of flowers seem 
 to be a part of the pageantry of wealth, 
 — the fancy of a moment. Whither do 
 they all go, these flowers, when the 
 revelry is over? Nothing is more pitiful 
 than to see a faded flowerremorselessly 
 flung upon a dung-heap. 
 
 Why were the flowers born so beauti- 
 ful and yet so hapless.-^ Insects can sting, 
 andeven themeekest of beastswill fight 
 when brought to bay. The birds whose 
 plumage is sought to deck some bonnet 
 can fly from its pursuer, the furred ani- 
 mal whose coat you covet for your own 
 may hide at your approach. Alas! The 
 only flower known to have wings is the 
 butterfly; all others stand helpless be- 
 fore the destroyer. If they shriek in 
 their death agony their cry never reach - 
 esourhardenedears. Weare ever brutal 
 to those who loveand serveus insilence, 
 
 105 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 but the time may come when, for our 
 cruelty, we shall be deserted by these 
 best friends of ours. Have you not 
 noticed that the wild flowers are becom- 
 ing scarcer every year? It may be that 
 their wise men have told them to depart 
 till man becomes more human. Perhaps 
 they have migrated to heaven. 
 
 Much may be said in favour of him 
 who cultivates plants. The man of the 
 pot is far more humane than he of the 
 scissors. We watch with delight hiscon- 
 cernaboutwaterand sunshine, his feuds 
 with parasites, his horror of frosts, his 
 anxiety when the buds come slowly, his 
 rapture when the leaves attain their 
 lustre. In the East the art of floriculture 
 is a very ancient one, and the loves of a 
 poet and his favourite plant have often 
 been recorded in story and song. With 
 the development of ceramics during the 
 Tang and Sung dynasties we hear of 
 wonderful receptacles made to hold 
 plants, not pots, but jewelled palaces. A 
 special attendant was detailed to wait 
 upon each flower and to wash its leaves 
 with soft brushes made of rabbit hair. It 
 has been written"^ that the peony should 
 be bathed by a handsome maiden in full 
 
 *" Pingtse," by Yuenchunlang. 
 io6 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 costume, that a winter-plum should be 
 watered by a pale, slender monk. In 
 Japan, one of the most popular of the 
 No-dances, the Hachinoki, composed 
 during the Ashikaga period, is based 
 upon the story of an impoverished 
 knight, who, on a freezing night, in lack 
 of fuel for a fire, cuts his cherishedplants 
 in order to entertain a wandering friar. 
 The friar is in reality no other than 
 Hojo-Tokiyori, the Haroun-al-Ras- 
 chid of our tales, and the sacrifice is not 
 without its reward. This opera never 
 fails to draw tears from a Tokio audience 
 even to-day. 
 
 Great precautions were taken for the 
 preservation of delicate blossoms. Em- 
 peror Huensung, of the Tang dynasty, 
 hung tiny golden bells on the branches 
 in his garden to keep off the birds. He 
 it was who went off in the springtime 
 with his court musicians to gladden the 
 flowers with soft music. Aquaint tablet, 
 which tradition ascribes to Yoshitsune, 
 the heroof our Arthurian legends, is still 
 extant in one of the Japanese monas- 
 teries.* It is a notice put up for the pro- 
 tection of acertainwonderfulplum-tree, 
 and appeals to us with the grim humour 
 
 *Sumadera, near Kobe. 
 
 107 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 of a warlike age. After referring to the 
 beauty of the blossoms, the inscription 
 says : *' Whoever cuts a single branch of 
 this tree shall forfeit a finger therefor," 
 Would that such laws could be enforced 
 nowadays against those who wantonly 
 destroy flowers and mutilate objects of 
 art! 
 
 Yet even in the case of pot flowers 
 we are inclined to suspect the selfish- 
 ness of man. Why take the plants from 
 their homes and ask them to bloom mid 
 strange surroundings.f* Is itnot like ask- 
 ing the birds to sing and mate cooped up 
 in cages.? Who knows but that the 
 orchids feel stifled by the artificial heat 
 in your conservatories and hopelessly 
 long for a glimpse of their own South- 
 ern skies? 
 
 The ideal lover of flowers is he who 
 visits them in their native haunts, like 
 Taoyuenming,"* who sat before abroken 
 bamboo fence in converse with the wild 
 chrysanthemum, or Linwosing, losing 
 himself amid mysterious fragrance as 
 he wandered in the twilight among the 
 plum -blossoms of the Western Lake. 
 'Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a 
 boat so that his dreams might mingle 
 
 *A11 celebrated Chinese poets and philosophers. 
 I08 
 
LOTUS AND WHITE HERON 
 
 The ideal lover of flowers is he who visits thet» in 
 their native haunts." 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 with those of the lotus. It was diis same 
 spirit whichmoved the Empress Komio, 
 one of our most renowned Nara sove- 
 reigns, as she sang: "If I pluck thee, my 
 hand will defile thee,0 Flower! Stand- 
 ing in the meadows as thou art, I offer 
 thee to the Buddhas of the past, of the 
 present, of the future." 
 
 However, let us not be too sentiment- 
 al. Let us be less luxurious but more 
 magnificent. Said Laotse: "Heavenand 
 earth are pitiless," Said Kobodaishi: 
 **Flow, flow, flow, flow, the current of 
 life is ever onward. Die, die, die, die, 
 death comes to all." Destruction hjtxs 
 us wherever we turn. Destruction below 
 and above, destruction behind and be- 
 fore. Change is the only Eternal, — lAy 
 not as welcome Death as Life,^ They are 
 but counterparts one of the other, — the 
 Night and Day of Brahma, Through the 
 disintegration of the old, re-creation 
 becomes possible. Weha\^ worshipped 
 Death, the relendess goddess of mercy, 
 under many different names. It was the 
 shadow of the All-devouring that the 
 Gheburs greeted in the fire. It is the icy 
 purism of the sword-soul before which 
 Shinto-Japan prostrates herself even 
 to-day. The mystic fire consumes our 
 
 109 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 weakness, the sacred sword cleaves the 
 bondage of desire. From our ashes 
 springsthephcenixof celestial hope, out 
 of the freedom comes ahigher realisation 
 of manhood. 
 
 Why not destroy flowers if thereby 
 we can evolve new forms ennobling the 
 world idea? We only ask them to join 
 inour sacrifice to the beautiful. Weshall 
 atone for the deed by consecrating our- 
 selves to Purity and Simplicity. Thus 
 reasoned the tea-masters when they 
 established the Cult of Flowers. 
 
 Anyone acquainted with the ways of 
 our tea- and flower-masters must have 
 noticed the religious veneration with 
 which they regard flowers. They do not 
 cull at random, but carefully select each 
 branch or spray with an eye to the artistic 
 composition they have in mind. They 
 would be ashamed should they chance 
 to cut more than were absolutely neces- 
 sary. It may be remarked in this con- 
 nection that they always associate the 
 leaves, if there be any, with the flower, 
 for their object is to present the whole 
 beauty of plant life. In this respect, as 
 in many others, their method differs 
 from that pursued in Western countries. 
 Here we are apt to see only the flower 
 no 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 Stems, heads, as it were, without body, 
 stuck promiscuously into a vase. 
 
 When a tea-master has arranged a 
 flower to his satisfaction he will place it 
 on the tokonoma, the place of honour 
 in a Japanese room. Nothing else will 
 be placed near it which might interfere 
 with its effect, not even a painting,unless 
 there be some special aesthetic reason 
 for the combination. It rests there like 
 an enthroned prince, and the guests or 
 discipleson enteringthe room will salute 
 it with a profound bow before making 
 their addresses to the host. Drawings 
 from masterpieces are made and pub- 
 lished for the edification of amateurs. 
 The amount of literature on the subject 
 is quite voluminous. When the flower 
 fades, the master tenderly consigns it to 
 the river or carefully buries it in the 
 ground. Monuments even are some- 
 times erected to their memory. 
 
 The birth of the Art of Flower Ar- 
 rangement seems to be simultaneous 
 with that of Teaism in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. Ourlegends ascribe the first flower 
 arrangement to those early Buddhist 
 saints who gathered the flowers strewn 
 by the storm and, in their infinite solici- 
 tude for all living things, placed them in 
 
 III 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 vessels of water. It is said that Soami, 
 the great painter and connoisseur of the 
 court of Ashikaga-Yoshimasa, was one 
 of the earHest adepts at it. J uko, the tea- 
 master, was one of his pupils, as was also 
 Senno,the founder of the house of Iken- 
 obo, a family as illustrious in the annals 
 of flowers as was that of the Kanos in 
 painting. With theperfectingof the tea- 
 ritual under Rikiu, in the latter part of 
 the sixteenth century, flower arrange- 
 ment also attains its full growth. Rikiu 
 and his successors, the celebrated 
 Otawuraka, Furuka-Oribe, Koyetsu, 
 Kobori-Enshiu,Katagiri-Sekishiu,vied 
 with each other in forming new combin- 
 ations. We must remember, however, 
 that the flower w^orship of the tea-mas- 
 ters formed only a part of their aesthetic 
 ritual, and was not a distinct religion by 
 itself. A flower arrangement, like the 
 other works of art in the tea-room, was 
 subordinated to the total scheme of 
 decoration. Thus Sekishiu ordained 
 that white plum blossoms should not be 
 made use of when snow lay in the gar- 
 den. *'Noisy" flowers were relentlessly 
 banished from the tea-room. A flower 
 arrangement by a tea-master loses its 
 significance if removed from the place 
 
 112 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 for which it was originally intended, for 
 its lines and proportions have been 
 specially worked out with a view to its 
 surroundings. 
 
 Theadorationof theflower foritsown 
 sake begins with the rise of ''Flower- 
 Masters," toward the middle of the 
 seventeenth century. It now becomes 
 independent of the tea-room andknows 
 no law save that that the vase imposes 
 on it. New conceptions and methods of 
 execution now become possible, and 
 many were the principles and schools 
 resulting therefrom. A writer in the 
 middle of the last century said he 
 could count over one hundred different 
 schools of flower arrangement. Broadly 
 speaking, these divide themselves into 
 two main branches, the Formalistic 
 and the Naturalesque. The Formalistic 
 schools, led by the Ikenobos, aimed at a 
 classic idealism corresponding to that 
 of the Kano-academicians. We possess 
 records of arrangements by the early 
 masters of this school which almost 
 reproduce the flower paintings of San- 
 setsu and Tsunenobu. The Natural- 
 esque school, on the other hand, as its 
 name implies, accepted nature as its 
 model, only imposing such modifica- 
 H 113 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 tions of form as conduced to the expres- 
 sion of artistic unity. Thus we recognise 
 in its works the same impulses which 
 formed the Ukiyoe and Shijo schools 
 of painting. 
 
 1 1 would be interesting, had we time, 
 to enter more fully than is now possible 
 into the laws of composition and detail 
 formulated by the various flower-mas- 
 ters of this period, showing, as they 
 would, the fundamental theories which 
 governed Tokugawa decoration. We 
 find them referring to the Leading Prin- 
 ciple (Heaven), the Subordinate Prin- 
 ciple (Earth), the Reconciling Principle 
 (Man), and any flower arrangement 
 which did not embody these principles 
 was considered barren and dead. They 
 also dwelt much on the importance of 
 treating a flower in its three different 
 aspects, the Formal, the Semi-Formal, 
 and the Informal. The first might be 
 said to represent flowers in the stately 
 costume of the ballroom, the second in 
 the easy elegance of afternoon dress, 
 the third in the charming deshabille of 
 the boudoir. 
 
 Ourpersonal sympathies are with the 
 flower arrangements of the tea-master 
 rather than with those of the flower- 
 114 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 master. The former is art in its proper 
 setting and appeals to us on account of 
 its true intimacy with life. We should 
 like to call this school the Natural in con- 
 tradistinction to the Naturalesque and 
 Formalistic schools. The tea-master 
 deems his duty ended with the selection 
 of the flowers, and leaves them to tell 
 their own story. Entering a tea-room in 
 late winter, you may see a slender spray 
 of wild cherries in combination with a 
 budding camellia; itis an echoof depart- 
 ing winter coupled with the prophecy of 
 spring. Again, if you go into a noon-tea 
 on some irritatingly hot summer day, 
 you may discover in the darkened cool- 
 ness of the tokonoma a single lily in a 
 hanging vase; dripping with dew, it 
 seems to smile at the foolishness of life. 
 A solo of flowers is interesting, but in 
 a concerto with painting and sculpture 
 the combination becomes entrancing. 
 Sekishiuonceplacedsome water-plants 
 in aflat receptacle to suggest the veget- 
 ation of lakes and marshes, and on the 
 wall above he hung a painting by Soami 
 of wild ducks flying in the air. Shoha, 
 another tea- master, combined a poem 
 on the Beauty of Solitude by the Sea 
 with a bronze incense burner in the form 
 
 115 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 of a fisherman's hut and some wild 
 flowers of the beach. One of the guests 
 has recorded that he felt in the whole 
 composition the breath of waning 
 autumn. 
 
 Flower stories are endless. We shall 
 recount but one more. In the sixteenth 
 century the morning-glory was as yet a 
 rare plant with us. Rikiu had an entire 
 garden planted with it, which he culti- 
 vated with assiduous care. The fame of 
 his convolvuli reached the ear of the 
 Taiko, and he expressed a desire to see 
 them, in consequence of which Rikiu in- 
 vited him to a morning tea at his house. 
 On the appointed day Taiko walked 
 through the garden, but nowhere could 
 he see any vestige of the convolvulus. 
 The ground had been levelled and 
 strewn with fine pebbles and sand. With 
 sullen anger the despot entered the tea- 
 room, but a sight waited him there 
 which completely restored his humour. 
 On the tokonoma, in a rare bronze 
 of Sung workmanship, lay a single 
 morning-glory — the queen of the whole 
 garden ! 
 
 In such instances we see the full 
 significance of the Flower Sacrifice. 
 Perhaps the flowers appreciate the full 
 ii6 
 
FLOWERS 
 
 significance of it. They are not cowards, 
 like men. Some flowers glory in death 
 — certainly the Japanese cherry blos- 
 soms do, as they freely surrender them- 
 selves to the winds. Anyone who has 
 stood before the fragrant avalanche at 
 Yoshino or Arashiyama must have rea- 
 lised this. For a moment theyhoverlike 
 bejewelled clouds and dance above the 
 crystal streams ; then, as they sail away 
 on the laughing waters, they seem to 
 say: "Farewell, O Spring! We are on 
 to Eternity." 
 
VII. TEA-MASTERS 
 
VII. TEA-MASTERS 
 
 IN religion the Future is behind us. 
 In art the Present is the eternal. The 
 tea-masters held that real appreciation 
 of art is only possible to those who make 
 of it a li vinginfluence. Thus they sought 
 to regulate their daily life by the high 
 standard of refinement which obtained 
 in the tea-room. In all circumstances 
 serenity of mind should be maintained, 
 and conversation should be so conduct- 
 ed as never to mar the harmony of the 
 surroundings. The cut and colourof the 
 dress, the poise of the body, and the 
 manner of walkingcould all bemade ex- 
 pressions of artistic personality. These 
 were matters not to be lightly ignored, 
 for until one has made himself beautiful 
 he has no right to approach beauty. 
 Thus the tea-master strove to be some- 
 thing more than the artist, — art itself. 
 It was the Zen of aestheticism. Perfec- 
 tion is everywhere if we only choose to 
 recognise it. Rikiu loved to quote an old 
 poem which says: **To those who long- 
 only for flowers, fain would I show the 
 full-blown spring which abides in the 
 toiling buds of snow-covered hills." 
 
 Manifold indeed have been the con- 
 tributions of the tea-masters to art. 
 They completely revolutionised the 
 
 121 
 
TEA-MASTERS 
 
 classical architecture and interior de- 
 corations, and established the new style 
 which we have described in the chapter 
 of the tea-room, a style to whose influ- 
 ence even the palaces and monasteries 
 built after thesixteenth century have all 
 been subject. The many-sided Kobori- 
 Enshiu has left notable examples of his 
 genius in the Imperial villa of Katsura, 
 the castles of Najoya and Nijo, and the 
 monastery of Kohoan. All the cele- 
 brated gardens of Japan were laid out 
 by the tea-masters. Our pottery would 
 probably never have attained its high 
 quality of excellence if the tea-masters 
 had not lent to it their inspiration, the 
 manufacture of the utensils used in the 
 tea-ceremony calling forth the utmost 
 expenditure of ingenuity on the part of 
 our ceramists. The Seven Kilns of En- 
 shiuare well known toallstudentsof Jap- 
 anese pottery. Many of our textile fab- 
 rics bear the names of tea-masters who 
 conceived theircolour or design. It isim- 
 possible, indeed, to find any department 
 of art in which the tea -masters have 
 not left marks of their genius. In paint- 
 ing and lacquer it seems almost super- 
 fluous to mention the immense service 
 they have rendered. One of the greatest 
 
 122 
 
TEA-MASTERS 
 
 schools of painting owes its origin to the 
 tea-master Honnami-Koyetsu, famed 
 also as a lacquer artist and potter. Be- 
 side his works, the splendid creation of 
 his grandson, Koho, and of his grand- 
 nephews, Korin and Kenzan, almost fall 
 into the shade. The whole Korin school, 
 as it is generally designated, is an ex- 
 pression of Teaism. In the broad lines 
 of this school weseem to find the vitality 
 of nature herself. 
 
 Great as has been the influence of the 
 tea-masters in the field of art, it is as 
 nothing compared to that which they 
 have exerted on theconduct of life. Not 
 only in the usages of polite society, 
 but also in the arrangement of all our 
 domestic details, do we feel the presence 
 of the tea-masters. Many of our delicate 
 dishes, as well as our way of serving 
 food, are their inventions. They have 
 taught us to dress only in garments of 
 sober colours. They have instructed us 
 in the proper spirit in which to approach 
 flowers. They have given emphasis to 
 ournatural loveof simplicity, andshown 
 us the beauty of humility. In fact, 
 through their teachings tea has entered 
 the life of the people. 
 
 Those of us who know not the secret 
 
 123 
 
TEA-MASTERS 
 
 of properly regulating our own exist- 
 ence on this tumultuous sea of foolish 
 troubles which we call life are constantly 
 in a state of misery while vainly trying 
 to appear happy and contented. We 
 stagger in the attempt to keepourmoral 
 equilibrium, and see forerunners of the 
 tempest in every cloud that floats on the 
 horizon. Yet there is joy and beauty in 
 the roll of the billows as they sweep out- 
 ward toward eternity. Why not enter 
 into their spirit, or, like Liehtse, ride 
 upon the hurricane itself? 
 
 He only who has lived with the 
 beautiful can die beautifully. The last 
 moments of the great tea-masters were 
 as full of exquisite refinement as had 
 been their lives. Seeking always to be 
 in harmony with the great rhythm of 
 the universe, they were ever prepared 
 to enter the unknown. The ''Last Tea 
 of Rikiu" will stand forth for ever as the 
 acme of tragic grandeur. 
 
 Long had been the friendship be- 
 tween Rikiu and the Taiko-Hideyoshi, 
 and high the estimation in which the 
 great warrior held the tea-master. But 
 the friendship of a despot is ever a 
 dangerous honour. It was an age rife 
 with treachery, and men trusted not even 
 124 
 
TEA-MASTERS 
 
 their nearest kin. Rikiu was no servile 
 courtier, and had often dared to differ in 
 argumentwith his fierce patron. Taking 
 advantage of the coldness which had for 
 some time existed between the Taiko 
 and Rikiu, the enemies of the latter 
 accused him of being implicated in a 
 conspiracy to poison the despot. 1 1 was 
 whispered to Hideyoshi that the fatal 
 potion was to be administered to him 
 with a cup of the green beverage pre- 
 pared by the tea-master. With Hide- 
 yoshi suspicion was sufficient ground 
 for instant execution, and there was no 
 appeal from the will of the angry ruler. 
 One privilege alone was granted to the 
 condemned — the honour of dying by 
 his own hand. 
 
 On the day destinedfor his self-immol- 
 ation, Rikiu invited his chief disciples 
 to a last tea-ceremony. Mournfully at 
 the appointed time the guests met at 
 the portico. As they look into the gar- 
 den path the trees seem to shudder, and 
 in the rustling of their leaves are heard 
 the whispers of homeless ghosts. Like 
 solemn sentinels before the gates of 
 Hades stand the grey stone lanterns. A 
 wave of rare incense is wafted from the 
 tea-room ; it is the summons which bids 
 
 125 
 
TEA-MASTERS 
 
 the guests to enter. One by one they ad- 
 vance and take their places. Inthetoko- 
 noma hangs a kakemono,-— a wonderful 
 writing by an ancient monk dealing with 
 the evanescence of all earthly things. 
 The singing kettle, as it boils over the 
 brazier, sounds like some cicada pouring 
 forth his woes to departing summer. 
 Soon the host enters the room. Each in 
 turn is served with tea, and each in turn 
 silently drains hiscup, the host lastof all. 
 According to established etiquette, the 
 chief guest now asks permission to 
 examine the tea-equipage. Rikiu places 
 the various articles before them with the 
 kakemono. After allhave expressed ad- 
 miration of their beauty, Rikiu presents 
 one of them to each of the assembled 
 company as a souvenir. The bowl alone 
 he keeps. ''Never again shall this cup, 
 polluted by the lips of misfortune, be 
 used by man." He speaks, and breaks 
 the vessel into fragments. 
 
 The ceremony is over; the guests with 
 difficulty restraining their tears, take 
 their last farewell and leave the room. 
 One only, the nearest and dearest, is re- 
 quested to remain and witness the end. 
 Rikiu then removes his tea-gown and 
 carefully folds it upon the mat, thereby 
 126 
 
TEA-MASTERS 
 
 disclosing the immaculate white death 
 robe which it had hitherto concealed. 
 Tenderly he gazes on the shining blade 
 of the fatal dagger, and in exquisite verse 
 thus addresses it : 
 
 "Welcome to thee, 
 O sword of eternity 1 
 Through Buddha 
 And through Dharuma alike 
 Thou hast cleft thy way." 
 
 With a smile upon his face Rikiu passed 
 forth into the unknown. 
 
Water-jak. Brown ware, ribbed, partly covered with yel- 
 low glaze, lacquered lid. " Takatori" ware, made at So- 
 bara-mura, in Province of Chikuzen. Date 1640. 7|x6^ins. 
 
 Cast IKON Kettle {Cha-gama). Date i8th century. 6ix 10 
 ins. (Showing detachable iron handles.) 
 
South Kensington Museum 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE TEA-HOUSE— THE GAR- 
 DEN— c5f THE CEREMONY 
 
 TH E following short account of the 
 ceremony is taken chiefly from an 
 interesting paper on the Cha-no-yu, read 
 before the Japan Society by Mr W. 
 Harding Smith. 
 
 The tea-room (Cha-shitsu) was built 
 in a little garden apart from the house. 
 Its size was \\ mats (about lo feet 
 square). 
 
 The garden, which was tastefully ar- 
 ranged with plants, shrubs, stone lan- 
 terns, etc., was entered by a little gate 
 close to which was a covered seat or 
 arbour {Machi-ai) where the guests sat 
 and whiledawaythetimeof waiting with 
 the Tabako-bon, or smoking apparatus, 
 provided. Meantime they selected one 
 of their number — the most expert Cha- 
 jin — to act as chief guest. 
 
 From the Machi-ai to the entrance 
 to the tea-room ran the Roji, or garden 
 path — a series of little stepping-stones. 
 Outside the entrance was \}i\^Chozu-ba- 
 cki, or washing-place, where the guests 
 washed their hands before entering — a 
 rough block of stone with a cavity hol- 
 lowedout andadipperforpouring water 
 I 129 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 over the hands. In winter a vessel of 
 warm water stood by It. 
 
 Before stepping inside the guestsleft 
 theirsandals {zori) outside, placingthem 
 on end against the front stone of the 
 threshold. Their swords were placed 
 onarackprovided for the purposeunder 
 the eaves of the tea-house. 
 
 O 
 
 /Ct^cAiTC 
 
 Hoitk l^oar 
 
 Host 
 
 o 
 
 Tokon-ontA. 
 
 Ko 
 
 ISt* trance 
 
 th?*l^^<S^ 
 
 <f Fccf 
 
 The entrance to the tea-room was 
 very small,asliding panel not more than 
 two feetsquare and aboutafootfromthe 
 ground. The plan shows the arrange- 
 ment of the interior. 
 
 When the guests were all assembled 
 theysignalled to the host by sounding a 
 gong, and were then conducted by him 
 130 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 to the entrance to the tea-room. Ar- 
 rived there he knelt and let them enter 
 beforehim, the chief guestenteringfirst. 
 Thehost now retired to his kitchen, and 
 the guests in turn knelt before the To- 
 ko7toma, and admired the work of art 
 displayed there — the kakemono and 
 flower arrangement, or sometimes the 
 latter alone. 
 
 The host then brought out of the kit- 
 chen a charcoal basket (Sumi-tori), a 
 feather duster {Mitsuba), iron rings for 
 lifting the kettle, or Kama, the Hibaski, 
 or fire-tongs, a vessel full of ashes and a 
 bamboo spatula. 
 
 The kettle was then set on a bamboo 
 mat while the fire was made up in the 
 sunk fireplace, or 7?^. (This was a work 
 of art, and is performed with great care 
 and minuteness.) Finally some incense 
 was sprinkled from the Kobako and the 
 kettle placed on the trivet. 
 
 This concluded the first part of the 
 ceremony, and the guests retired to the 
 garden, while the host swept out the 
 room and sometimes arranged a fresh 
 decoration in the Tokonoma, 
 
 When the water began to boil he 
 rang a bell or gong and they return. He 
 set food and sak^ before them and 
 
 131 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 finally sweetmeats. The fare was studi- 
 ously simple. 
 
 The host now brought in the utensils, 
 separately, and with great ceremony. 
 The tea-jar [Cha-ire), the water-vessel 
 {MisU'Saski), the tea-bowl {Cka-wan), 
 slop-bowl {Mizu - koboski), bamboo 
 whisk (Cha-sen), bamboo spoon {Cha- 
 shaku) and a silken cloth {Fukusa), 
 These were inspected and admired by 
 the company. 
 
 Taking the Cha-zre out of its little 
 silken bag, the host placed two and a 
 half spoonfuls of the powdered tea into 
 the tea-bowl. Hot water (not boiling) 
 was now poured on it with ladle, or if too 
 hot, not direct from the kettle but from 
 a jug or water-cooler ( Yu-zamaski). 
 
 The mixture was then frothed with 
 bamboo whisk and handed to the chief 
 guest, who drank ceremoniously with a 
 loud sucking noise, holding the bowl 
 in a particular way, and passed it on to 
 the next guest, who drank in his turn. 
 When empty, the bowl was passed 
 round for examination. 
 
 With this the ceremony closed, and 
 the guests took their leave. 
 
 The following are the Rules and Pre- 
 cepts of Rikiu, the great tea-master, as 
 132 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 translated from a tablet which used to 
 hangin a garden called '' Roji-shokado " 
 ("dewy ground under the firs"), belong- 
 ing to a tea-room called **Shu unan" 
 (''room of the clustering clouds "). 
 
 Rules and Precepts of Rikiu. 
 
 1. As soon as the guests are assembled 
 onthebench(^.fl;<;^z-^/),theyannounce 
 themselves by knocking on the Han 
 (a wooden gong). 
 
 2. It is important to have not only a 
 clean face and hands but chiefly a 
 clean heart. 
 
 3. The host must meet his guests and 
 conduct them in. If, on account of 
 the host's poverty, he cannot give 
 them the tea and necessaries for the 
 ceremony, orif the eatables be taste- 
 less, or even if the trees and rocks do 
 not please him, the guest can leave 
 at once. 
 
 4. As soon as the water makes a sound 
 like the wind in the fir-trees, and the 
 bell rings, the guests should return 
 (from the Machi-ai), for bad would it 
 be to forget the right moment for the 
 water and the fire. 
 
 5. It is forbidden, since long ago, to 
 speak in or out of the house of any- 
 
 133 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 thing worldly. The only thing is the 
 Tea and Tea Societies. 
 
 6. Noguest or host may in any true pure 
 meeting flatter by either word or 
 deed. 
 
 7* A meeting may not last longer than 
 two hours, (four hours, European 
 time). 
 
 N'otice. — Let the time pass by in talk- 
 ing about these Rules and Maxims. 
 The Tea Societies recognise no dif- 
 ference of social standing, but per- 
 mit free intercourse between high 
 and low. 
 
 Written in the twelfth year of Tensho 
 
 ( 1 584) and the ninth day of the ninth 
 
 month. 
 
 (Signed) NAMBO SOKEI, 
 
 Proprietor of the above house. 
 
 THE DECORATIONS OF THE 
 
 TOKO NOMA. 
 These consist, as described, of the Ka- 
 kemono, or hanging picture, mounted on 
 a rich brocade and rolled up like a map 
 when not in use, or the flower arrange- 
 ment, or a combination of both. 
 
 In both cases the ideal is one of ele- 
 gance and simplicity. Anythingloud or 
 violent in colour is avoided. 
 
 The forms of painting generally 
 134 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 deemed most suitable were the austere 
 monochrome landscapes of the Ashi- 
 koya masters and their followers, a fine 
 and typical example of which is shown 
 in the picture by Sansetsu here repro- 
 duced. In the other example by Korin, 
 specially painted as a tea picture, the 
 subject is studiously chosen from the 
 most unpretentious forms. 
 
 In the case of the flower decorations, 
 these form a special branch of the art of 
 flower arrangementsopopularin Japan. 
 
 Hereagain the ideal is simplicity and 
 austerity, the expression of the growth 
 of the plant being deemed of more im- 
 portance than the colour arrangement. 
 
 The vases in which the forms are 
 placed vary from elaborate vessels of 
 bronze to simple baskets and vessels 
 cut out from a single stem of bamboo. 
 
 To show how highly the Japanese 
 value these tea utensils, andhow entire- 
 ly they prize them for their art quality 
 alone, it may be mentioned that at a 
 recent sale in Japana simpleflower vase 
 cut froai a single stem of bamboo realis- 
 ed the extraordinary price of ;^86oo. 
 
 A number of typical flower arrange- 
 ments are reproduced as tailpieces 
 
 throughout the volume. 
 
 35 
 
Tea-jars {Cha-ire). 
 
 1. Tamba ware. Red ground with mottled glaze. Date 
 
 1670. 2^X2^- ins. 
 
 2. Zeze ware. Brown with mottled glaze. Double bulb 
 
 shape. Date 1700. 2|X2-| ins. 
 
 Tea-bowl {Cha-wan). "Raku " ware. Coarse brown glazed 
 stoneware, slightly lustred. Date 1820. 3^X4^ ins. 
 
 Tea-bowl (CAa-wa«)' Idzumo ware. Brown, partly covered 
 with a buff crackled glaze. Made by Gonibei at Matsuye, 
 in Province of Idzumo. Date 1660. 2|-X5f ins. 
 
^m 
 
 South Kensington Museum 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE POTTERY OF THE 
 CHA-NO-YU, 
 
 No appurtenances of the Tea-cere- 
 mony have had more anxious care lav- 
 ished upon them than the vessels of 
 pottery used therein. 
 
 Many famous tea-masters were pot- 
 ters and had kilns of their own-we read 
 of the ''seven kilns of Enshiu" — and a 
 special class of ware was produced speci- 
 ally for the purpose, coarse, rough in 
 finish, as a rule almost without decora- 
 tion, but full of all sorts of hidden excel- 
 lences and beauties. 
 
 Insignificant, rude, clumsily shaped 
 as these vessels appear to the eye of the 
 Philistine, to the Japanese connoisseur 
 they were almost priceless. Even to- 
 day the cult still continues. 
 
 In Tokyo, at recent sales, a little tea- 
 jar (Cha-ire), an inch or two high, real- 
 ised the sum of ^4430. A bowl decor- 
 ated by Ninsei the sum of £^2>^o ; a 
 plain black bowl,;^67oo, while afamous 
 example, called Yohen Temmoku Jo- 
 wan, with a lustrous black glaze out- 
 side, and for its only decoration a curi- 
 ous iridescent, bubble -like pattern on 
 
 137 
 
Tea-bowl {Cha-wan). Karatsu ware. Coarse red ware 
 partly covered with a mottled drab glaze. Made at Kar- 
 atsu, in Province of Hizen, and called ' 'Okugomi ," or "Old 
 Corean" ware. Date 1550. 3^X5^ ins. 
 
 Tea-bowl {Cha-wan). Hagi ware. Coarse red ware with 
 drab crackled glaze. " Ko-Hagi " ware, made at Hagi, in 
 Province of Nagato. Date 1660. 3^X5^ ins. 
 
 Hanglvg Flowek Vase (Boat Shape). Red ware partly 
 covered with brown mottled glaze. " Keto Karo" ware, 
 made by Hirasawa Kuro at Seto, in Province of Owari. 
 Date 1790. 5^X7^ ins. 
 
South Kensington Museum 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 the inside, realised the fabulous sum of 
 ^16,700. 
 
 The Cha-ire, most valued, are of the 
 old hard Seto ware, almost black in ap- 
 pearance, someofthemattributedtoTo- 
 shiro, who founded the industry in the 
 thirteenth century. They are treasured 
 with great care in little silken bags. 
 
 The tea-bowl, or Cha-wan,\s» made of 
 a coarse, porous clay, covered with a 
 soft, cream-like glaze. The material 
 acts as a non-conductor, preserving the 
 temperature of the tea without becom- 
 ing too hot for the hand, while the glaze 
 renders it pleasant to the lips — nay, 
 the Japanese expert maintains that it 
 affects the taste of the beverage. It is 
 not thrown on the wheel, but moulded 
 by hand, and so is irregular in shape. 
 In glazing, advantage is taken of these 
 irregularities to give an unstudied and 
 careless effect, patches of the porous 
 under coat often being allowed to re- 
 main unglazed. 
 
 In colour such bowls vary. A fav- 
 ourite style is of a soft salmon pink ; 
 another, highly valued, of a deep, rich 
 black, with wonderful colour and depth 
 in the treacle-like glaze. 
 
 A type much esteemed is known as 
 
 139 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 RakuyN'a,rQ. It was first made by a Kioto 
 potter, named Cho-jiro, after a design 
 by Rikiu, and sopleased the great Hide- 
 yoshi that he presented the potter with 
 a seal bearing the word Raku (" enjoy- 
 ment"), and authorised him to use it on 
 his work. 
 
 Though the most severe taste de- 
 mands that the Cha-wan should be un- 
 decorated except by its own glaze, very 
 beautiful examples were produced by 
 such masters of ceramics asKenzanand 
 Ninsei, combining the utmost simpli- 
 city with superb decoration. 
 
THE LOVE LETTERS 
 OF A CHINESE LADY 
 
 Translated by Elizabeth Cooper. Containing frontis- 
 piece in colour and many illustrations in black and white. 
 
 Decorative Cover. Crown 4to, 5s. net. 
 
 These letters, here translated so beautifully and 
 sympathetically , were written by Kwei-li, the wife of 
 a Chinese official, to her husband when he accompanied 
 his master, Prince Chung, on a trip round the world. 
 
 The writer stands at the parting of the ways between 
 the old civilisation of China and the modern era which 
 has now superseded it, and indirectly reveals much of 
 the beauty of the old patriarchal Chinese life, oj which 
 so little is known. As to the human story, so moving in 
 its pathos and simplicity, its theme is universal and 
 will find an echo in all hearts. " It is the written word 
 of Kwei-li, who sends with each stroke of her brush a 
 part of her heart." 
 
 THE BOOK OF TEA 
 
 A JAPANESE HARMONY OF ART, 
 CULTURE a^' THE SIMPLE LIFE 
 
 By Okakura Kakuzo. Containing many illustrations 
 in colour and in black and white. 
 
 Decorative Cover. F'cap 8vo, 138 pages, 5s. net. 
 
 This little book is illuminating in its revelation of the 
 old world of Japanese thought and culture, with its 
 reaction on Japanese daily life. It is not a translation, 
 but was written in English. 
 
 The author, the late Okakura Kakuzo, was one of the 
 leaders in the movement which a generation ago sei 
 itself to stem the western invasion, spreading like a 
 malaria over every field of intellectual activity and 
 threatening to submerge entirely the ancient beautiful 
 Japanese civilisation. 
 
 The illustrations are chosen from our own National 
 collections, and in the appendix will be found further 
 details as to the Tea Ceremony and its various acces- 
 sories. 
 
THE RUBAIYAT OF 
 OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 Containing sixteen large illustrations in colour and 
 decorations throughout by Frank Brangwyn, R.A. 
 
 Crown 4to, buckram, ids. 6d. net. 
 
 Also 250 copies printed on Hand-made Paper and 
 bound in Vellum, £2^ is. net. 
 
 The sumptuous virility of Mr Frank 
 Brangwyn' s work is specially suitable for the 
 purpose of sustaining and emphasising that 
 element of rich sensuousness which, in spite of 
 some critics, is surely the ground-note of the whole 
 impassioned song ; and the pagan beauty of the 
 sixteen coloured pictures into which Mr Brangwyn 
 has translated the royal imagery of the old Persian 
 dreamer is a complete justification of the choice. 
 By ignoring the modern tendency to see Omar as 
 a symbolist on the one hand, or a pessimist on the 
 other, Mr F. Brangwyn has been saved from the 
 danger of luring the reader's eye away from the 
 text into a second region of dispersing fancies. 
 His designs are as physical as the poet's Eastern 
 metaphors, and as heady with wine and sun. 
 Luscious yet subsidiary, they hang among the 
 intervals of the poem like tropical fruits on a great 
 tree. They may be detached and enjoyed singly, 
 but if left in their place, they serve only to bring out 
 the purpose of the poem itself and do nothing to 
 obscure its design. In addition to these sixteen 
 oil paintings, each page is richly bordered and the 
 paper used throughout is specially thick, a deckle- 
 edged paper, exquisitely silken to the touch. 
 
 COMPLETE LIST ON APPLICATION. 
 
 T. N. FOULIS, PUBLISHER 
 LONDON d^ EDINBURGH 
 
191?