Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan: first series |
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Adzukizawa Akira ancestor-worship ancient beautiful become believed Bimbogami blue Buddha Buddhist butsudan called character charm Chinese coiffure curious dance dead deities Dragon duty dwelling Emperor English European eyes face faith feeling feet foreign fusuma geisha ghosts girl Glimpses of Japan goblins gods Guji hair hakama hands head heart holy honour household shrine hundred ihai Izanami Izumo Japanese Jizō kaimyō kakemono Kami kamidana Kimi ga yo Kinjurō Kitzuki Kōbōdaishi Kojiki Kokuzō Kyōto Kyūshū lamp land living look Master Matsue miya moral never night Normal School Occidental ofuda once pass pray prayer pretty priest province robes roof sacred saké samurai seems seen shaped shimenawa Shinto smile Souls sound speak strange streets sword tablet teacher temple things thou thought tion Tōkyō torii uttered voice Western woman wonderful wooden words worship Yokogi young Yuki-Onna
Popular passages
Page 16 - ... runner, have an allurement of which I fancy that I could never weary. Elfish everything seems ; for everything as well as everybody is small, and queer, and mysterious : the little houses under their blue roofs, the little shop-fronts hung with blue, and the smiling little people in their blue costumes. The illusion is only broken by the occasional passing of a tall foreigner, and by divers shop-signs bearing announcements in absurd attempts in English.
Page 87 - Buddhism has a voluminous theology, a profound philosophy, a literature vast as the sea. Shinto has no philosophy, no code of ethics, no metaphysics; and yet, by its very immateriality, it can resist the invasion of Occidental religious thought as no other Orient faith can, Shinto extends a welcome to Western science, but remains the irresistible opponent of Western religion ; and the foreign zealots who would strive against it are astounded to find the power that foils their uttermost efforts indefinable...
Page 294 - ... the smile; and when the matter is very unpleasant to the person speaking of it, the smile often changes to a low, soft laugh. However bitterly the mother who has lost her first-born may have wept at the funeral, it is probable that, if in your service, she will tell of her bereavement with a smile: like the Preacher, she holds that there is a time to weep and a time to laugh. It was long before I myself could understand how it was possible for those whom I believed to have loved a person recently...
Page 16 - East so much read of, so long dreamed of, yet, as the eyes bear witness, heretofore all unknown. There is a romance even in the first full consciousness of this rather commonplace fact; but for me this consciousness is transfigured inexpressibly by the divine beauty of the day. There is some charm unutterable in the morning air, cool with the coolness of Japanese spring and...
Page 283 - Neither, at that time, could I ; but the meaning of much more mysterious smiles has since been revealed to me. A Japanese can smile in the teeth of death, and usually does. But he then smiles for the same reason that he smiles at other times. There is neither defiance nor hypocrisy in the smile ; nor is it to be confounded with that smile of sickly resignation which we are apt to associate with weakness of character. It is an elaborate and longcultivated etiquette. It is also a silent language. But...
Page 154 - As the hair of the Japanese woman is her richest ornament, it is of all her possessions that which she would most suffer to lose; and in other days the man too manly to kill an erring wife deemed it vengeance enough to turn her away with all her hair shorn off.
Page 292 - ... part of deportment. The most agreeable face is the smiling face; and to present always the most agreeable face possible to parents, relatives, teachers, friends, well-wishers, is a rule of life. And furthermore, it is a rule of life to turn constantly to the outer world a mien of happiness, to convey to others as far as possible a pleasant impression. Even though the heart is breaking, it is a social duty to smile bravely.
Page 23 - Pacific could not contain what you wish to purchase. For, although you may not, perhaps, confess the fact to yourself, what you really want to buy is not the contents of a shop; you want the shop and the shopkeeper, and streets of shops with their draperies and their habitants, the whole city and the bay and the mountains begirdling it, and Fujiyama's white witchery overhanging it in the speckless sky, all Japan, in very truth, with its magical trees and luminous atmosphere, with all its cities and...
Page 118 - Is not every action indeed the work of the Dead who dwell within us? Have not our impulses and tendencies, our capacities and weaknesses, our heroisms and timidities, been created by those vanished myriads from whom we received the all-mysterious bequest of Life? Do we still think of that infinitely complex Something which is each one of us, and which we call EGO, as "I
Page 225 - Now, they who know the soul of the sal of the Shogun. He had an income of five thousand koku of rice — a great income in those days. But he fell in love with an inmate of the Yoshiwara, named Ayaginu, and wished to marry her. When his master bade the vassal choose between his fortune and his passion, the lovers fled secretly to a farmer's house, and there committed suicide together. And the above song was made about them. It is still sung. 1 " Dear, shouldst thou die, grave shall hold thee never!...