But the view—the view for a hundred leagues,—and the light of the far faint dreamy world,—and the fairy vapors of morning,—and the marvellous wreathings of cloud: all this, and only this, consoles me for the labor and the pain.... Other pilgrims, earlier climbers,—poised upon the highest crag, with faces turned to the tremendous East,—are clapping their hands in Shintō prayer, saluting the mighty Day.... The immense poetry of the moment enters into me with a thrill. I know that the colossal vision before me has already become a memory ineffaceable,—a memory of which no luminous detail can fade till the hour when thought itself must fade, and the dust of these eyes be mingled with the dust of the myriad million eyes that also have looked, in ages forgotten before my birth, from the summit supreme of Fuji to the Rising of the Sun.
Insect-Musicians
Mushi yo mushi,
Naïté ingwa ga
Tsukuru nara?
“O insect, insect!—think you that Karma can be exhausted by song?”—Japanese poem.
I
If you ever visit Japan, be sure to go to at least one temple-festival,—en-nichi. The festival ought to be seen at night, when everything shows to the best advantage in the glow of countless lamps and lanterns. Until you have had this experience, you cannot know what Japan is,—you cannot imagine the real charm of queerness and prettiness, the wonderful blending of grotesquery and beauty, to be found in the life of the common people.