I
PRELIMINARY
SURVEY
THE GENERAL NATURE
OF JAPANESE PRINTS
GROWTH OF INTEREST
IN THEM
THE TECHNIQUE OF
THEIR PRODUCTION
THEIR ÆSTHETIC
CHARACTERISTICS
Bring forth, my friend, these faded sheets
Whose charm our laboured utterance flies.
Perhaps our later search repeats
The groping of those scholars' eyes
Who, ere the dawned Renaissant day,
With duskèd sight and doubtful hand,
Bent o'er the pages of some grey
Greek text they could not understand;
Drawn by the sense that there concealed
Lay key to spacious realms unknown;
Held by the need that be revealed
Forgotten worlds to light their own.