Page:The Awakening of Japan, by Okakura Kakuzō; 1905.djvu/64

 much time might be consumed in the composition of bad Chinese poems beneath the cherry-trees. He was often wealthy and always extravagant, for his contempt for gold was ingrained. He would squander a fortune for a rare Sung vase or a Masamune blade. The marvelous workmanship of the Gotos in metal, and of the Komas in gold lacquer was the result of his patronage. It is to the disappearance of the daimio and the samurai that Japan owes her sudden fall of standard in artistic taste.

Such samurai as had been thrown out of employment either through dismissal by their lord or the extinction of the daimiate under which they served, were called ronin (the unattached). Sometimes a second son, with literary talents or scholastic ambitions, became