Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/30



to pass by Zenyoji, a little Buddhist temple by the eastern side of Uyeno Hill (whose trees, almost a thousand years old, in the shape of a dragon, perhaps created by a Kano artist, have been ruined by the smoke that never departs from the railroad terminus), where I knew, from the calligraphic sign carved on a stone by the temple gate, that Kenzan Ogata, the famous artist on paper or porcelain, and younger brother of the great Korin, was buried in the graveyard within; but if I did not step in, as in fact I did not step in, although I passed by countless times, as I lived then in the neighbourhood of the temple in classical Negishi—classical in association with the nightingale and that wonderful pine-tree called Ogyo no Matsu (here also lived Hoitsu, the famous decadent of the early nineteenth century)—that was because I had little interest in any grave, even in Kenzan's. And the temple looked so dusty, smoky, and altogether dirty. How sorry I felt in thinking that Kenzan's artistic soul must be suffering from the Rh