Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/289

REFINEMENTS AND PASTIMES his faithful disciple Sôkei. Of these, two are curiously trivial. They direct that when the guests have assembled in the waiting place, the signal for their entry to the tea pavilion shall be given by wooden clappers; and that the ablution bowl shall be kept filled with pure water. The other four precepts are very characteristic of the spirit of the cult. The first is that any guest who, having been invited to a tea réunion, experiences a feeling of dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of the furniture or the inelegance of the surroundings, should withdraw quietly as soon as possible, so as not to disturb the harmony of the party. The second is that all social tittle-tattle, whether of present or past times, is out of place in a tea pavilion, as it should be everywhere out of place for disciples of the cult. The third is that, however noble the host, words of flattery or deceit should be strictly interdicted; and the fourth, that a tea réunion ought never to last more than four hours unless some moral or chivalrous topic, demanding longer discussion, has been broached. These rules, taken in conjunction with the four cardinal qualities which each professor of the craft is bound to cultivate, indicate sufficiently clearly the nature of the Cha-no-yu philosophy.

But they do not give any clear indication as to the so-called mysteries of the cult; the thirteen methods that the novice had to study by way of preliminary; the five arts that were acquired by the craftsman; the "three degrees of the broad 259