would not be quite out of keeping. The roofs are so massive that
they require all the strength of the heavy carved timbers below,
and, like all else, they gleam with gold, or that which simulates
it.

The shrines are the most wonderful work of their kind in Japan. In
their stately setting of cryptomeria, few of which are less than 20
feet in girth at 3 feet from the ground, they take one prisoner by
their beauty, in defiance of all rules of western art, and compel
one to acknowledge the beauty of forms and combinations of colour
hitherto unknown, and that lacquered wood is capable of lending
itself to the expression of a very high idea in art. Gold has been
used in profusion, and black, dull red, and white, with a breadth
and lavishness quite unique. The bronze fret-work alone is a
study, and the wood-carving needs weeks of earnest work for the
mastery of its ideas and details. One screen or railing only has
sixty panels, each 4 feet long, carved with marvellous boldness and
depth in open work, representing peacocks, pheasants, storks,
lotuses, peonies, bamboos, and foliage. The fidelity to form and
colour in the birds, and the reproduction of the glory of motion,
could not be excelled.

Yet the flowers please me even better. Truly the artist has
revelled in his work, and has carved and painted with joy. The
lotus leaf retains its dewy bloom, the peony its shades of creamy
white, the bamboo leaf still trembles on its graceful stem, in
contrast to the rigid needles of the pine, and countless corollas,
in all the perfect colouring of passionate life, unfold themselves
amidst the leafage of the gorgeous tracery. These carvings are
from 10 to 15 inches deep, and single feathers in the tails of the