built to house a poetic impulse. It is an Abode of Vacancy
inasmuch as it is devoid of ornamentation except for what may
be placed in it to satisfy some aesthetic need of the moment.
It is an Abode of the Unsymmetrical inasmuch as it is consecrated
to the worship of the Imperfect, purposely leaving some thing
unfinished for the play of the imagination to complete. The
ideals of Teaism have since the sixteenth century influenced our
architecture to such degree that the ordinary Japanese interior of
the present day, on account of the extreme simplicity and
chasteness of its scheme of decoration, appears to foreigners
almost barren.

The first independent tea-room was the creation of Senno-Soyeki,
commonly known by his later name of Rikiu, the greatest of all
tea-masters, who, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage
of Taiko-Hideyoshi, instituted and brought to a high state of
perfection the formalities of the Tea-ceremony. The proportions
of the tea-room had been previously determined by Jowo--a
famous tea-master of the fifteenth century. The early tea-room
consisted merely of a portion of the ordinary drawing-room
partitioned off by screens for the purpose of the tea-gathering.
The portion partitioned off was called the Kakoi (enclosure), a
name still applied to those tea-rooms which are built into a house
and are not independent constructions. The Sukiya consists of the
tea-room proper, designed to accommodate not more than five
persons, a number suggestive of the saying "more than the Graces
and less than the Muses," an anteroom (midsuya) where the tea
utensils are washed and arranged before being brought in, a
portico (machiai) in which the guests wait until they receive the
summons to enter the tea-room, and a garden path (the roji) which