Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/241

Rh features of the landscape artist’s work, and yet it was the outlook of a ‘factory’!

The proprietor, a dignified yet simple elderly man, greeted us with deep bows of welcome at the door on a pouring wet day, and thanked us for taking off our shoes before venturing on his spotless amber-coloured mats,—so many foreigners did not, he said, and the Japanese are too polite to insist upon a courtesy that with themselves goes without saying. He led us through many rooms, and along covered passage-ways, all of which looked upon the cool waters of the court, until we came to the workrooms. We saw the cloisonné, from its designing in Chinese ink on rice paper, to the final stone-polishing stage which may take a year to do, and everywhere was that tranquil spirit of the garden, no haste and no slackness, steady and ever moving. Happy in their daily toil, these artists create their beautiful works with love, and the result is something of deeper value and more permanence of beauty than a thousand machine-made things of the same sort could have. One man had a little vase with two Irises in it on the floor in front of him, and sometimes, as he fitted the tiny copper wires of the buckle he was making (some day to adorn the trim waist of a tourist, I suppose), he would lift his eyes to the flowers, or turn them for a moment to look at the cool moving waters outside.