Part 9
It is the lack of aerial perspective—in other words, of atmosphere—which so fatally mars the very real beauty of Oriental art. In the paintings of the Chinese artists, and the extravagantly-admired coloured prints of the famous wood engravers of Japan, there is often a rare skill of colour and a firmness of hand worthy of Giotto, especially in the matchless drawing of flowing lines such as drapery. The birds and trees and grasses of the Kano school, the lovely outlines of the landscape painters, the monkeys and deer of Chōsen, are in many respects wonderful. But there is almost always something wanting. For want of aerial perspective the lines remain rigid; there is no soft atmospheric roundness, and on that account the pictures fail to satisfy. The result is like the fascinating work of very clever children.
Compare with the vaunted eighteenth-century art of Japan the contemporary work of the French painters, Watteau, Lancret, Fragonard, who, to my mind, have never been excelled in their rendering of the mystery of atmosphere. See how their woodland scenes melt into unfathomable distances like those of the great Dutchmen, such as Cuyp and others. There you have the poetry of nature and of gardens, and when you are laying out your domain and combining your succession of pictures and surprises, ask yourself this question: Would Watteau have found here anything worthy of his brush? To be sure you cannot have his pretty powdered dames, and his musical courtiers, with their viols and tabors and flutes. But they were mere accessories. That which so obviously gave him the greatest joy—that upon which he bestowed his supreme skill—was the scenery in which he placed them to give it life, even though that life should have something of a meretricious and theatrical character.
If it be true, according to Phillips, that softness and colour, hardness and form, go together, we can account for the prevalence of the garden of mere colour in the days when the lady of the house ruled the gardener. The garden of colour is feminine and emotional; the garden of form masculine and intellectual—it is the garden of the master.
And here we come to something akin to the Chinese doctrine of Yang and Yin, the male and female principles ruling creation. The garden of form belongs to Yang, the garden of colour to Yin. This is not intended in any way to undervalue the woman’s influence. It is only natural that a woman who is all softness and emotion should surround herself with effects which mirror her own sweet nature. The man, on the other hand, strong and hard, will be inclined to try and imitate the sterner pictures of creation. He will work in what Addison called the Pindaric style, “without affecting the nicer elegancies of Art.”
Take the books which have been written upon the subject; their name is legion. The women’s books, full of delicate charm, busy themselves for the most part with the marriage of colours, the blending of hues, the reconciliation of hostile shades. They are very clever, very ingenious, very attractive; but, setting on one side a few of the great lady writers, among whom Miss Willmott and Miss Jekyll are queens, they represent no more than the millinery of plants—the stockings to match the frock.
Set against these the rugged masculine vigour of a writer like William Robinson, the man to whom, above all others, is due the notable improvement which has grown in horticultural taste during the last forty years. From him you will learn much, for he knows much, and he can teach it. If you have his book, “The English Flower Garden,” you will need no other, for it will give you all the knowledge which you require. Among the women’s books, as I have said, there are, of course, delightful exceptions; but of the bulk of them the best that can be said is that they are gentle and morally innocuous. For all that is delicate and charming and alluring, joined to many of the highest and robust qualities which adorn mankind, I have been all my life a worshipper of the Yin principle; but when it comes to gardening and the writing of books on gardening, give me the Yang, give me William Robinson.
All men love trees, and it is small wonder that the sight of objects so beautiful should have led men to think of them with awe as under the special care, or even as the dwelling-places, of gods and goddesses; indeed, the connection of trees with religion is as old as the conception of the deity itself. North and south, east and west, we find the same idea.
In the Scandinavian Sagas the mystic Ash Ygdrasil is the tree of life, of time, and of space. Its branches spread over the whole world and its top reaches above the heavens. Its roots strike in three directions: the one down to Hvergelmer, the well of the dragon Nidhug; the second to the fountain of Mimer, the source of wisdom and wit, for a drink of which Odin pawned his eye with Mimer; the third is in Asgard, close to the fountain of Urd the Norn of the Past, where the gods, riding over the Bifrodh Bridge—the rainbow—assemble to sit in judgment. Here dwell the three Norns: Urd the Norn of the Past, Verdande the Norn of the Present, and Skuld the Norn of the Future; and here they weave the web of fate for you and me and all mankind.
It is strange how men have been fascinated by the rough and rugged Icelandic mythology born of ice and snow and rocks lashed by glacial winds; and nights that are light as day, days that are black as night; an existence which was one long fight against the elements, and struggle for life with bears and wolves. The Roman poets, on the other hand, born in the soft, voluptuous creed of the Greeks, a religion in which the gods and goddesses, much too human, were worshipped in temples built amid the enchanting fragrance of roseleaf islands, shuddered at the very idea of the North. For them there would have been nothing but terror in those strong Sagas, which in other countries gave birth to noble poetry and stately music.
As told by Ovid, the story of the punishment of Erisichthon, who mocked the gods and would not sacrifice at their altars, illustrates the worship of trees and also the dread of the inhospitable North, and yet a North that was no Arctic region; nothing, indeed, more terrible than the Caucasus.
In ancient Thessaly, in the midst of a wood sacred to Ceres, there stood an oak, a sturdy veteran, a grove in itself, covered with votive offerings, the tokens of the honour which was paid to it. Round it the Dryads, hand in hand, were wont to hold their choirs and dance in festive revelry. It was a holy tree, but in spite of all its sanctity, against it Erisichthon raised his sacrilegious axe and bade his men strike home, swearing, when they hesitated, that were the tree not merely dear to the goddess, but if it were the goddess herself, it should lie low and kiss the earth with its topmost boughs. Under the stroke of the axe the sacred tree groaned; its leaves and acorns, and even the branches turned pale. But when the impious hand inflicted the first cruel wound, blood flowed as from a bull at a sacrifice before the altars. Horrified, the men were stricken dumb, and one, bolder than the others, would fain have put a stop to the crime and stayed the falling axe.
“Be this the guerdon of thy piety?” cried the Thessalian, turning the weapon against the man; severed his head from his body, and repeated his attack upon the tree. From the heart of the oak there came a voice, saying, “Under this tree am I, a nymph beloved by Ceres, and my dying prophecy is that thy deeds shall be punished as the consolation for my death.” Nothing stops him from his crime; at last, under the many blows, and dragged by ropes, the tree collapses, and with its weight breaks down much of the grove.
The mourning Dryads, stricken by their loss, don black robes and pray to Ceres for the punishment of Erisichthon. The goddess nods assent; she shakes the fields heavy with crops, and contrives for him a punishment which would be pitiable had he not forfeited pity by his deeds, dooming him to be destroyed by pestilential hunger. But since this may not be attempted by the goddess herself, for the fates will not that Ceres and famine should co-exist, she charges one of the mountain nymphs to summon Famine from the cold and bleak shores of Scythia, that barren land where there is neither corn nor tree—the abode of dull frost, pallor, shivering and hunger. Thus does the goddess punish the impious sinner, and so she tortures him until he is driven to gnaw at his own limbs. (Ovid, Met. 740.) Ovid’s description of hunger as a distinct being called to wreak vengeance is as gruesome as anything that I know of in poetry.
The idea that trees are inhabited by supernatural beings, spirits or lesser gods, is common enough in the folk-lore of all countries, and that is what has given rise to the fables of trees which bleed and utter cries if they are cruelly treated. In Japan there are endless pretty and fanciful stories, in which the spirits of beautiful trees—often their matchless cherry trees—fall in love with and bewitch the sons or daughters of men. Nothing is prettier in that country, so rich in beauty, than the Shinto shrines nestling in choice spots among the forest-clad mountains. Around each temple are planted trees which are sacred to, and under the special protection of, the tutelary deity of the place. And in connection with them there is a custom called “Ushi no Toki Mairi” (“Going to worship at the hour of the ox”).[10] It is practised by jealous women who wish to be revenged on their faithless lovers or husbands, and reminds us of those waxen dolls with which the witches and adepts in black magic of the Middle Ages, and in ancient Greece, according to Theocritus, were wont to pretend that they could rid their patron of their enemies.
When the world is at rest, at two in the morning, the hour of which the ox is the symbol, the woman rises; she dons a white robe and high sandals or clogs; her coif is a metal tripod in which are thrust three lighted candles; round her neck she hangs a mirror, which falls upon her bosom; in her left hand she carries a small straw figure, the effigy of the lover who has deserted her, and in her right she grasps a hammer and nails, with which she fastens the figure to one of the sacred trees which surround the shrine. There she prays for the death of the traitor, vowing that if her petition be heard she will herself pull out the nails which now offend the god by wounding the mystic tree. Night after night she comes to the shrine, and each night she drives in two or more nails, believing that every nail will shorten her lover’s life, for the god, to save his beloved tree, will surely strike him dead.[11]
Whether this custom still prevails, I know not. Fifty years ago I was assured that it was “very much alive.” Habits have undergone a mighty change since then, but superstition dies hard, and there are many out-of-the-way places even in Japan into which the newness of things has hardly penetrated. It must have been a ghostly sight to meet a maiden thus harnessed in the grove of the god on a dark night.
Lafcadio Hearn, that wayward child of the muses, a prose poet if ever there was such an one, who, after wandering for many years through untold misery and suffering, at last found rest and his soul in Japan, has left to us as precious legacies many a rare conceit which would fit in well here. It would have been strange if he, a mystic himself, had not been willingly haunted by the folk-lore of the country which he loved, a country “fabulosa et externis miraculis adsimilata.” Sometimes, indeed, he was more Catholic than the Pope, living in a Japan that was almost a dreamland of his own wild fancy. And yet he was a creature of curious contradictions, for he seems to be half in earnest, half mocking, when he holds us spellbound with weird tales of goblin trees, luring men to love or to death; of a camellia tree which listens to the prayers of lovers; of other camellias which, like spectres, walk about at night, the terror of mankind. “There was one in the garden of a Matsné Samurai which did this so much that it had to be cut down. Then it writhed its arms and groaned, and blood spurted at every stroke of the axe.”
Like every other writer, native and foreign, Lafcadio Hearn is entranced by the loveliness of the cherry blossom, the emblem of all that is bodily delicate and spiritually beautiful. He quotes an old stanza, which says: “If one should ask you concerning the heart of a true Samurai, point to the mountain cherry flower gleaming in the morning sun.” Again: “As the cherry flower is first among flowers, so should the warrior be first among men.” By this nature-loving people, the highest form of female beauty and excellence is symbolized by the willow for grace, the cherry flower for youthful charm, the plum blossom for virtue and sweetness. I should add that the oval outline of the melon seed represents in the shape of the face the type of high breeding and aristocratic distinction. The poets are never weary of drawing upon the cherry flower for their metaphors. A Japanese gentleman, looking out upon a snow-storm, will say: “See how the petals of the cherries are drifting before the wind.”
The Yanagi—the weeping willow—is a much haunted tree. Here is a story told by Lafcadio Hearn which is worth quoting:
“There is a rather pretty legend—recalling the old Greek dream of Dryads—about a willow tree which grew in the garden of a Samurai of Kyōto. Owing to its weird reputation, the tenant of the homestead desired to cut it down; but another Samurai dissuaded him, saying: ‘Rather sell it to me, that I may plant it in my garden. That tree has a soul; it were cruel to destroy its life.’ Thus purchased and transplanted, the Yanagi flourished well in its new home, and its spirit, out of gratitude, took the form of a beautiful woman, and became the wife of the Samurai who had befriended it. A charming boy was the result of this union. A few years later the Daimio to whom the ground belonged gave orders that the tree should be cut down. Then the wife wept bitterly, and for the first time revealed to her husband the whole story. ‘And now,’ she added, ‘I know that I must die, but our child will live and you will always love him. This thought is my only solace.’ Vainly the astonished husband sought to retain her. Bidding him farewell for ever, she vanished into the tree. Needless to say, that the Samurai did everything in his power to persuade the Daimio to forgo his purpose. The prince wanted the tree for the reparation of a great Buddhist temple, the Sanjiusangendo.” (The Temple of the 33,333 images of Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy.) “The tree was felled, but, having fallen, it suddenly became so heavy that three hundred men could not move it. Then the child, taking a branch in his little hand, said ‘Come,’ and the tree followed him, gliding along the ground to the court of the temple.”
You may bless the Yanagi for offering you a sure cure for the toothache. Haunted it is bound to be, and if you suffer, drive nails into it until the spirit of the tree, to save its home, relieves you of the pain. Are you a dreamer of dreams? Then if your climate be mild, without fail, see that you are not without a Nanten among your shrubs. Hide it away in some sheltered spot, both for its own sake and for yours, and let it be your trusted confidant. If the gods should send you evil and racking dreams, rise early and whisper the terror to your Nanten, and it shall come to naught. Science has corrupted the Japanese name Nanten into _Nandina_, and, for some reason best known to themselves, botanists have added the altogether ridiculous and senseless suffix _domestica_. Perhaps such an outrage may have robbed the plant of its virtues; we can but try it.
To go back to our cherries. In the grounds of an old Scottish castle, rich in ghostly stories and blood-curdling legends, there stands an old gean tree (wild cherry). It is the belief of the countryside that this old tree is haunted by the spirit of a former mistress of the castle, a lady who, as tradition has it, suffered much in her life-time and cannot rest in death. One day, some forty years ago, I started off from a neighbouring place to pay a visit at the castle with “Hang-theology” Rogers, the famous rector of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate, than whom no brighter companion ever cheered a long, cold drive in a rather rickety dog-cart. We arrived just as the large party in the house were gathering together in the drawing-room after luncheon. We were met by long and rather pale faces. Obviously something had happened—nobody seemed at ease. At last an old lady, who was among the guests, took me on one side and told me what all this meant.
That morning, a visitor who was driving up to the house, when he came to the gean tree, saw the figure of a woman come out of it, glide for some distance beside him, and then vanish. Many of the people in the castle, who happened to be looking out of the drawing-room window at the time, saw the wonder, and the old lady added that she herself, having gone up to her bedroom to put on her bonnet, distinctly saw the apparition from her window, which was immediately over the drawing-room. All these people were absolutely convinced that, like the visitor in his dog-cart, they had seen the ghost which haunted the gean tree. I have told the story without addition or ornament, exactly as I heard it an hour or two after its occurrence and while the witnesses were still under the spell. It could not fail to remind me of the tales of Bakémono-zakura, the haunted cherry trees of Japanese legend, and it seemed worthy to be set down beside them.
The ancient Egyptians, though they worshipped onions and garlic, for which they were handsomely ridiculed by Juvenal, seem to have paid little respect to trees, probably because, besides the palm, so few were known to them. There is, however, according to that wonderful book, Sir James Fraser’s “Golden Bough,” some evidence to show that they believed that spirits haunted trees; at any rate, the tamarisk was sacred to Osiris—the god and ruler who represented the principle of good, as his brother Typho did that of evil. The story of the death of Osiris is curious as a contradiction of the idea of immortality with which deity is usually endowed. The god, having become King of Egypt, devoted himself to the civilization of his people, and to further that end, set out to travel over the world, leaving his wife Isis to reign in his place. When he came back, Typho, with other conspirators, among whom was an Ethiopian queen, named Aso, plotted to kill his brother. So, having procured the exact measurement of Osiris, he caused a box to be made to fit him, and having invited Osiris to a feast, he caused the box, which was of rare workmanship, to be brought in, saying he would give it to any one present whom it would fit. All the guests tried it in vain; at last Osiris laid himself down in it, and the conspirators, rushing forward, fastened down the lid with nails and molten lead. Then the box was carried to the riverside. It floated down the stream and was carried by the waves of the sea to the coast of Byblos, and lodged in the branches of a tamarisk bush. There is much more of this fable in Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s great book—not all of it very edifying reading; but that is how the tamarisk became a sacred tree.
While treating of the superstitions and legends belonging to trees, it has been impossible to avoid touching upon the belief in ghosts. That faith exists in every part of the world. The fetichists of the African priests, the totemists of North America, the wildest savages of the South Seas with their uncouth idols, the aborigines of Australia and New Zealand—all stand in terror of ghosts. I long years ago translated a collection of Pekingese stories of haunted houses; but in many moves and journeys the manuscript has been lost—no great matter of regret, for these tales are always the same, the two leading causes for apparitions being remorse or revenge. The story of the ghost of Sakura Sōgorō, perhaps the most famous ghost story of the Far East, which I have translated in my “Tales of Old Japan,” has, apart from its local colouring, no feature differing from many such traditions which have been handed down in Europe. But the true interest of these superstitions, call them fables, myths—what you will—lies in the proof that all over the world there is implanted in man the instinctive conviction that death is not the end of all things—the mere return of dust to dust, of ashes to ashes; if that were so, there could be no thought of ghosts. The belief depends upon the existence of that mysterious intuitive feeling that when the thread of fate has been severed, there still remains another life which death itself cannot kill, and that other life is the soul.
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But the fairies—where are they? Can it be that the Bakémono-zakura—the haunted cherry trees of Japan—when they were ruthlessly torn out of the soil of the country of the gods ten years ago, indignantly burst their barken bonds, and taking wing for refuge to the sacred groves of Mount Fugi, from some wild bird’s eyrie watched their beloved old homes being wafted away to new and uncertain climes across the terrors of the Pacific Ocean? And yet often, even here, I see a merry band of flaxen-haired dwarfs playing about the enchanted trees. Fairy-land is rich in surprises and mystifications. Who knows? Perhaps these little sprites are themselves fairies who have chosen for their abode the forsaken dwellings of the dark eastern Bakémono—“good folk” sent by a kindly Providence to shed a fleeting ray of the sunshine of poetry over the wintry prose of an octogenarian’s life.
QUEEN VICTORIA AND MARIE THERESIA