Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/92



it was Korin’s adventurous turn of artistic mind to strikingly introduce the morning-glory, the blushing flower lasses by the bamboo fences of the countryside almost too shy to call attention, into the six-folded screen of gold (what an aristocratic world) in pigments of red, white, purple and green; while, far from deeming Korn a true artist of flowers, I always agree with him in the point of his emphasising, let me say, the greatness of little things. “Through the virtue of such an Oriental attitude of philosophy which serves as moral geometry, defining our sense of proportion to the universe, we have made the morning-glory gain its floral distinction of to-day from the state of nameless weed of long ages ago which a certain Obaku temple priest of Uji brought from China. What a change in the public estimate!

I love the months of summer, because I can commune more intimately then with the nature from whose heart of imagination and peace, unlike that of spring too fanciful and defiant, again unlike that of autumn too philosophical Rh