Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/90

Rh absorbed in Nature, his thought and contemplation on her, did not give an opportunity for bodily illness to use its despotism. He gave me in truth even such an impression that he was glad to be ill so he could lay himself right before the thought of great Nature. Once in the spring of 1911 I called on him at the hospital, when he successfully underwent a surgeon's knife (he was suffering from typhlitia); although he was quite weak then, he was most ambitious and happy to talk on the beauty of Nature; and he said: "I almost wonder why I did not become ill and lay me down on this particular bed of this hospital before, and (pointing to the blue sky through the window with his pale-skinned slender hand that was unmistakably an artist's) see how the eastern sky changes from dusk to milky grey, again from that grey to rosy light. How often I wished you, particularly you, might be here with me all awakening in this room, perhaps at half-past three o'clock; that is the time exactly when the colours of the sky will begin to evolve. Thank God all the other people are sleeping then. At such a moment I feel as if all Nature belonged to me alone in the whole world, and I alone held her secrets and her beauty; I am thankful for my illness, as it has made me thus restful in mind and allowed me to carefully observe Nature, and build my many future plans. I can promise you that I will whistle my adieu to the commissioned work,