LETTER VII



A Japanese Idyll--Musical Stillness -My Rooms--Floral Decorations-
-Kanaya and his Household--Table Equipments.

KANAYA'S, NIKKO, June 15.

I don't know what to write about my house. It is a Japanese idyll;
there is nothing within or without which does not please the eye,
and, after the din of yadoyas, its silence, musical with the dash
of waters and the twitter of birds, is truly refreshing. It is a
simple but irregular two-storied pavilion, standing on a stone-
faced terrace approached by a flight of stone steps. The garden is
well laid out, and, as peonies, irises, and azaleas are now in
blossom, it is very bright. The mountain, with its lower part
covered with red azaleas, rises just behind, and a stream which
tumbles down it supplies the house with water, both cold and pure,
and another, after forming a miniature cascade, passes under the
house and through a fish-pond with rocky islets into the river
below. The grey village of Irimichi lies on the other side of the
road, shut in with the rushing Daiya, and beyond it are high,
broken hills, richly wooded, and slashed with ravines and
waterfalls.

Kanaya's sister, a very sweet, refined-looking woman, met me at the