Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/160

148 his disciple. This Semi consented to, and gradually revealed to him all the innermost recesses of his art.—According to Mr. E. H. Parker, this story, like many another Japanese story, is but the echo of a far older Chinese tradition. But whether true or false, whether native or foreign, it is a favourite motive with Japanese painters.

Undoubtedly authentic, and very different in its tenor, is the tale of Katō Tamikichi, a manufacturer of porcelain at the beginning of the eighteenth century. His master, Tsugane Bunzaemon, who owned a kiln in the province of Owari, envied the skill of the Karatsu porcelain-makers in the use of blue and white, and was determined to penetrate their secret. Accordingly he succeeded in arranging a marriage between one of his pupils, Katō Tamikichi, and the daughter of the chief of the Karatsu people. Katō, thus taken into the family in so distant a province, was regarded as one of themselves and admitted into their fullest confidence. Things went on quietly for years, during which he became the father of several children. At last, one day, Katō expressed an earnest desire to revisit the scenes of his childhood and to enquire after his old master. Nothing doubting, the Karatsu people let him go. But when he reached Owari, he disclosed to his former master all that he had learnt at Karatsu, the consequence of which was that Owari porcelain was greatly improved, and obtained an immense sale in the neighbouring market of Ōsaka, the richest in the empire. When this came to the ears of the Karatsu people, they were so much enraged that they caused Kato's wife and children to be crucified. He himself died a raving lunatic.

Since the latter part of the Middle Ages, the general prevalence among the upper classes of luxury, idleness, and a superstitious veneration for the past, even in trivial matters, together with a love of mystery, produced the most puerile whims. For instance, a certain noble family at Kyōto kept to itself, with all the apparatus of esotericism, the interpretation of the names of three birds and of three trees mentioned in an ancient book of poetry called the Kokinshū. No sacrament could have been more jealously guarded