Page:The Spirit of Japanese Art, by Yone Noguchi; 1915.djvu/96

Rh day at the moment when he thought that the actor was prolonging his acting at a certain place to make him easy to sketch; in fact, Danjuro made his acting in some parts stand still for fifteen minutes. Strangely enough, the other actors who were playing with him did not know that, while Hara rightly read the actor's intention and thought. Danjuro said afterwards that Mr. Hara understood him through the power of his being a great artist. Did he draw the picture and finish it? That is the next question. He did not, as was often the case with Hara; he wrote the actor bluntly he was sorry that this spirit was gone, making it impossible to advance. The one who told the story exclaimed: "I never saw an artist like Hara so slow to paint, or who found it so difficult to paint."

Among us there was a well-known frame manufacturer, Yataya by name, who, it is said, was Hara's very first friend in Tokyo, where he came thirty years before from his native Okayama; he spoke next on his dear friend: "He made his call on me at my store in Ginza almost every night; he never came up into the room, but sat always at the shop front. And there he gazed most thoughtfully on the passing crowd of the street with his fixed eyes; he made himself quite an unattractive figure especially for the shop front. 'Who is that sinister-looking fellow?' I was often asked. I am sure that he must have been