of Mii-dera, near Kyoto, will sympathize with this re-
mark. It was evidently, then as now, a point of religion
to set the shrines where the pilgrim’s legs should take
fullest part in his devotions.

She writes, as a’ Japanese lady should, of the loveliness
of blossoming trees and flowers. Speaking of the Paul-
ownia she says: “Broad and thick are its leaves. It
should not be lightly talked of. It is not as other trees.
People hold it a thing apart. And the reason is this,
that in the boughs dwells that bird which in the Foreign
Court (China) is held in awe. Also this tree is the
parent of harps and therefore of all beautiful melody.
Thus common words should not be used for it, as for a
tree that is commonly lovely, for this is a tree
of great preciousness.”

There is a mystic touch in this passage which
is not usual in the bright ripple of the Lady Sei’s
thoughts. But the Paulownia is still an honored
tree in Japan. It is one of the crests of the Im-
perial Household, for one thing. I have bought
it in a most beautiful piece of ancient gold lac-
quer, with the bold leaves and berries rendered
in powdery gold on a deep red background.

I wish there were space to retell the story of a
delightful picnic in one of the imperial carriages
when some of the maids of honor went with Sei
Shonagon to hear the nightingales sing and to
compose careful impromptus on the occasion.
One suspects that many of the impromptus had
cost some hard thinking. But this was a charm-
ing picnic, though in its excitements the verses
were forgotten. The story has the same air of
delightful unreality as the rustic proceedings of
Marie Antoinette at the Trianon; for to the
ladies of France, also, etiquette was the real life
and all else, pretense. But the thing is as pretty
as a Chinese screen where they fleet the hours
in an Arcadia of unheard-of blossoms, amid a
perspective that suggests some paradise of the
fourth dimension.

They come back in their carriage with long
branches of the blossoming Deutzia stuck all over
it, so that it was a perfect bouquet of flowers, the
reason for the decoration being, “We must make
people talk about us somehow!” And in that
spirit they drive off to pay a visit to the Lord Chamber-
lain, who, caught unawares, sends a hurried message to
say that he is putting on his ceremonial trousers and will
be with them presently. Delighted at the chance, off
they drive in the utmost haste, and then is seen in the
City-Royal the unheard-of sight of the Lord Chamber-
lain, attended by his retinue, rushing down the street in
his ceremonial trousers, tying his girdle as he runs in pur-
suit of a carriage that waves and nods all over with white
and green leaves and flowers. He overtakes them at the
gates and, breathless, says: “Can the people be in their
right minds who drive in such a carriage? Get down and
let us see!”

But immediately all the ladies are the image of de-
corum. No, they must attend the Empress. She will be
expecting the poems, which have not yet been written.
I‘here is no time to spare for the Lord Chamberlain. He
may return and take off the sashinuki; he has lost his
chance!

And it is with deep regret that I omit the stately visit

A. C O U R.T L A.D Y O F O L.D J¢kI’AlN

paid by the Empress to the Daijin, and the happenings
that made her ladies so wroth with that great official.
They took an ample Vengeance and kept their own coun-
sel. And so it concludes:

“ ‘What can have put the Daijin out?’ the Empress
later said innocently. ‘I cannot tell, I am sure!’ said I
(one can see the demure expression); ‘I only told him of
our adventure at his gate.’ ”

Only! Poor man.

So life drifted on, as she herself says, like a boat under
sail, and doubtless the evening brought all home. It did
so, indeed; for in a few years the lovely Empress was dead,
and the Lady Sei, who had received high marks of court

DAIMYO STALKED ABOUT IN TRAILING TROUSERS AND STIFF-WINGED

SLEEVES. THEIR NOTICE WAS DISTINCTION
favor, abandoned them all, and sought peace in a Bud-
dhist convent. Did she find it? Did all that gayety and
grace still its pulse forever in the cl oister?

I have a little tea-set made for the common people in
City-Royal, but made by an artist whose family for seven-
teen generations has done this work, creating beauty for
those who loved it but could pay little for its possession.
The design is a fishing-boat drifting home along the
Yang-tze River in the dying evening light, and the Chi-
nese characters convey the underlying thought that so it is
with life alsoethat, whether in court or camp or cottage,
all drift home alike when the long shadows are falling.
Sappho said the same thing in an age yet more distant
than that of Sei Shonagon4“The evening brings all
home.” Where has the Lady Sei’s silken shallop found
its port? Was the life she knew anything more than an
exquisite convention; was it any other than a Vain effort
to catch the world in its “strong toil of grace” and hold
it there petrified, beautiful as a glittering enamel—the
world that will not be held, but swings forever down the

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