PORTRAIT OF A PRIEST.
Above the peak the great mass of fog spread to the farthest mountains, letting their highest tops shine through with a pale-blue faintness like that of sky. But the great back of the long slope was distinct, and of a vivid green against the background of violet mountains. So solid and close-packed it looked under the high light that one might forget that this green was not of turf, firm under foot, but was a trackless waste of tall grasses high as a man's head. Farther on against the northern sky the eastern slope was golden and sharp. In the highest sky of fiery blue large cumulus clouds shone above and through the fog, whose ragged edge blew like a great flag toward the south. The little temple blazed in vermilion, one side all lighted up, its black-tiled roof hot in the sun. In the shadow of its porch the columns and entablature were white and pale gold and green.
My attempt to render the light and heat lasted for two or three hours: my damp umbrella seemed penetrated by the light, my skin was scorched and blistered, and a faint dizziness kept warning me to get back to a larger shade. When I yielded, I was only just able to reach my welcome mats, saved from something worse by my very scorching. Since yesterday I have been ill; not sleeping, but dreaming uncomfortably; and visited and comforted, however, by our fair hostess and the Doctor.
Murmurs of Buddhistic conversation remain in my mind: vague stories of life in Southern monasteries, of refined ascetic life, of sublimated delicate food, of gentle miraculous powers, known to the favored few that behold them at times; of ascensions and disappearances like those of the pilgrim saint of whom I was telling you yesterday—all of which talk mingles with the vague intent of my painting. For I had proposed to make my studies serve for the picture of the "Ascension"; to use the clouds and the wilderness for my background; and to be, at least for moments, in some relation to what I have to represent; that is to say, in an atmosphere not inimical, as ours is, to what we call the miraculous. Here, at least, I am not forced to consider external nature as separate and opposed, and I can fall into moods of thought,—or, if you prefer, of feeling,—in which the edges of all things blend, and man and the outside world pass into each other.
OLD PAGODA NEAR THE PRIESTS' HOUSES.
August 17.
And so, often, I like to think of these trees and rocks and streams, as if from them might be evolved some spiritual essence. Has not Çakyamuni said that all (living) beings possess the nature of Buddha, that is to say, the absolute nature. The sun, the moon, the earth, and the innumerable stars contain within themselves the absolute nature. So for the little flowers, the grass, the clouds that rise from the waters, the very drop of water itself; for they are begotten of nature absolute, and all form a part of it, however great, however small. Absolute nature is the essence of all things, and is the same as all things. This absolute nature will be as are the waters of the sea, if we picture it, and its modes will be as the waves, inseparable from the waters. Thus the absolute and all things will be identical, inseparable views of the same existence. This nature will be both essence and force, and appearance and manner. And so my friends here, of the sect which holds the temple, might teach me that the little plants, the great mountains, and the rushing waters can become Buddhas.