Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/226

192 silver-grey mirror, the shapes of phantom archipelagoes suspended in mid-air. To those who have seen it and are familiar with the fans, the netsukes, and the teacups, which reproduce favourite designs of pictorial art, only one adjective, vague yet precise, will occur: this pocket-Mediterranean is essentially Japanese. It is an ornamental piece of prettiness, designed by the Celestial Painter in one of his most Japanese moods, for in it you will find the cardinal characteristic of the national taste, its subordination of the sublime to the dainty, of big effect to graceful detail, its inevitable preference for miniature and vignette. One critic has said that such art "is small in great things, great in small things"; another, that the Japanese "admire scenes, but not scenery." Both these dicta could be applied to the Inland Sea, were it not that Europeans admire it more than the natives, but the charm which it exerts is undeniably akin to the spell of those workers in silk or clay or ivory who achieve a maximum of beauty in a minimum of space. The Norwegian fiords, the Italian lakes, the Ægean and Adriatic Seas, all present at some point or other some grandiose aspect, but the channels which lie between Shikoku, Kyūshu, and the Main Island never threaten or impose; they are simply a soft fluid setting for precious stones of varying size and colour.

Most famous of these insular jewels is Miyajima. As no boats were running thither from Kōbe, we travelled by the San-yo railway as far as Onomichi, skirting the coast so closely that we hardly once lost sight of the sea. Though sorely tempted to break the journey for the purpose of visiting the great feudal castles of Himeji and Okayama, we pressed on until