Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/242



times he will lay aside his chisel for months if he finds that his heart is not in his work. When the inspiration arrives, however, he becomes so completely absorbed in his task that he cannot bear to lay it aside, day or night, until it is finished. There is vitality in the result: it is surpassingly good. But if the question of gain be considered, it is found that although the productions of the master fetch a high price, the profit to him is not as great as that accruing from inferior work quickly executed and cheaply sold. The poet Basho says, "Pity it is that the shira-uo (a tiny river-fish of silvery transparency and almost colourless) should have a price." A great artist is injured when the price of his work is discussed: it should be above price. Business men would do well to lay this precept to heart: "Only to accumulate gold and silver is to be their slave." The true aim should be to develop an extensive trade and to achieve a great career, just as the artist cherishes and strives for the reputation of his art rather than of himself.

The chefs-d'uvre of the thirteen Goto masters as well as those of other celebrities are, for the most part, treasured as precious heirlooms in the families that possess them. They seldom come into the hands of the dealer. On the rare occasions, however, when one of these gems does pass into a merchant's keeping, some one is always charmed by it, and has a great mind to buy it, but cannot readily persuade himself to pay the price, and so asks the dealer to let him keep it for a time, during which he privately consults the opinions of other dealers as to the proper figure. That man's chief aim is to come into cheap possession of a great work, and happily he is almost always disappointed. He does an injustice to the work. The nobility that gives greatness to an artist's efforts, the quality that brings genuine success to the trader, the appreciation that enables us to acquire fine objects of virtu,—these things are inaccessible unless the mind be set upon a high ideal. Sometimes valuable masterpieces are found among specimens supposed to be common, and a fortunate discovery is called "unearthing a treasure" (horidashi). The discoverer boasts of it, but if he had true elevation of mind and refinement of taste, he would be above such pettiness. It is the luck of the mere trader.