Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/273



, describing his travels in Russia, declares that, whereas Moscow and St. Petersburg fell short of the romantic dream-pictures which he had conceived of them by reason of their fame, the reverse was the case with Nijni-Novgorod, of which the name alone allured his ear with chiming syllables. Having reached the town with no other premonitory bias than the spell exercised by its magical appellation, he was ravished by the picturesque admixture of races from every corner of the empire. This paradoxical conflict between history and geography makes many victims. I too had been haunted by the prestige of a great name in Japanese annals—the name of Ashikaga. As I studied period after period of the turbulent evolution from feudal rivalry to military usurpation, from military usurpation to constitutional monarchy, it seemed more and more evident that the Ashikaga Shōguns, during two-and-a-half centuries of power, had been greater friends of art and learning than any rulers before or since. At Kyōto I had seen the golden pavilion of Yoshemitsu (whom Professor Fenollosa compares with Cosmo de Medici) adorned