Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/56

Rh we can trace back to Yeiki Hashimoto, who lived some time in the Meiwa (1764), and from whom the family line has continued unbroken down to the present. Yeiki was originally a native of Kyoto; and there he happened to be known to Suwonokami Matsudaira, the Shogun's minister, who took him into his service; and on the lordship's return to Yedo Mr. Hashimoto accompanied his master. And he happened to settle at Kobikicho, where the Kano family lived, and soon gained Kano's friendship. Since that time the family line was continued by Ikyo, Itei, and Yoho. Gaho was Yoho's son. The year after he became a student of the Kano school he lost his father and also his mother. It is said to be extraordinary that he was called upon to act, after only four years of pupilage, as an assistant to his master-Shosen in painting personal figures on the cedar door of the Shogun palace. At twenty years of age he was made head pupil. When he married he was twenty-six years old, and he began to lead his independent life, which turned tragic immediately. While the problem of getting his subsistence was not easy, his wife, whom he married with hope, became insane.

Mrs. Hashimoto was obliged to withdraw to the Higuchi village in Saitama prefecture, where was an estate of her husband's master, to avoid danger in the city; but she grew worse, and ran