Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/23

18 of light from every side; I thanked the bad weather to-day which, I am sure, I should have cursed some other day. The Doctor's house had an almost winter-sad aspect with the shoji, even the rain-doors all shut, the soft darkness assembling at the very place it should, where the saints or goddesses revealed themselves; hanging after hanging was unrolled and rolled before me in quick succession. "Doctor, tell me quick whose writing is that?" I loudly shouted when I came to one little bit of Japanese writing. "That is Koyetsu's," he replied. "Why, isit? It seems it is worth more than all the others put together; Doctor, I will not ask you for any more hangings to-day," I said. And a moment later, I looked at him and exclaimed in my determined voice:

"What will you say if I take it away and keep it indefinitely?"

"I say nothing at all, but am pleased to see how you will enjoy it," the Doctor replied.

The evening had already passed when I returned home with that hanging of Koyetsu's chirography under my arm. "Put all the gaslights out! Do you hear me? All the gaslights out! And light all the candles you have!" I cried. The little hanging was properly hanged at the "tokonoma" when the candles were lighted, whose world-old soft flame (wasn't it singing the old song of world-wearied heart?)