The four Corners in Japan

by Amy Ella Blanchard

"Shall we go inside?" asked Mr. Montell who had been busy with his camera and who now came up. "You know there is a small opening in the side of the big lotus-blossom on which Buddha is sitting. There is a shrine to Kwannon inside and if you care to climb up a ladder you can go as far as the shoulders and have a peep at the grounds."

Nan shook her head. "No, let those who are not impressed as I am descend to such things; I don't want to remember that I climbed to his shoulders; I only want to remember his kind smile and his half-shut eyes. It is the most wonderful thing I have seen in Japan except Fujiyama."

"Harding ought to be here," laughed Mr. Montell. "He feels just as you do about the Dai Butsu."

Allowing the others to penetrate to the interior of the statue, Nan seated herself at some distance and gave herself up to a contemplation of Buddha. She was rather glad to be alone for she was an impressionable young person and a dreamer of dreams. For some time she sat lost in her thoughts, and carried back, back how many centuries. All sorts of strange fancies possessed her, and at last she could scarce have told where she was.

Presently some one descending from a jinrikisha caught sight of her sitting there, chin in hand, her eyes fixed on the statue. He made his way rapidly to her side, stood for a moment watching the rapt expression of her face, then very softly he spoke, "Miss Nan."

She looked up with a start. "Why, Mr. Harding," she said, "I thought you couldn't come."

"I found that I could get off after all," he replied coming over and seating himself by her side. "Where are the others and what are you doing here all alone?"

"The others are feeling and touching and prying, as if it were not enough to look and become absorbed into the soul of Buddha."

"Oh, you have the fever," cried her companion. "I knew you would get it and that is why I so wanted to be here to-day. I knew how impressed you would be with the wonder of it. Doesn't it express all the peace and the calm you ever dreamed of as existing in Nirvana? Shall you ever forget it?"

"Never, never. I cannot tell you what heights I have climbed while I have been sitting here, nor what dreams I have dreamed, nor where my soul has wandered."