Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/256

234 enough it still is. And that its discontinuities of direction can all be fashioned out of one continuous sheet remains one of those hopeless mysteries of construction kin to the introduction of the apple into the dumpling, till one has actually seen the sheet cut and folded into shape before his eyes.

Specimens enough, however, he is sure to see, first without and then within the temple building. As it drapes the entrance, so it hangs in holy frieze around the holiest rooms, appearing at every possible opportunity, till, finally, at the very heart of the shrine, it stands upright upon a wand, the central object of regard upon the altar.

But it is by no means confined to the temples, the miya and the jinja, plentifully as these are dotted over the land. Almost every house has its kami-dana or Shintō-god's shelf, a tiny household shrine, the glorification of some cupboard or recess. And there in the half-light stands the gohei again, there in the heart of each Japanese home.

It is no more confined to an indoor life than man himself. You shall meet it abroad all over the land, in the most unexpected nooks and corners. The paths that lead so