ature, entered into mystic communion
with the spirit of beauty which was also the spirit of life. From that
communion, with that mood about them, they passed out to kill or to
die--to die, it might be, by their own hand, by a process which I think
no Western man can bear even to think of, much less conceive himself as
imitating.

This sense at once of the beauty and of the tragedy of life, this power
of appreciating the one and dominating the other, seems to be the
essence of the Japanese character. In this place, it will be remembered,
is the tomb of Iyeyasu, the greatest statesman Japan has produced.
Appropriately, after his battles and his labours, he sleeps under the
shade of trees, surrounded by chapels and oratories more sumptuous and
superb than anything else in Japan, approached for miles and miles by a
road lined on either side with giant cryptomerias. His spirit, if it
could know, would appreciate, we may be sure, this habitation of beauty.
For these men, ruthless as they were, were none the less sensitive. For
example, the traveller is shown (in Kyoto, I think) a little pavilion in
a garden where Hideyoshi used to sit and contemplate the moon. I believe
it. I think Iyeyasu did the same. And also he wrote this, on a roll here
preserved:

"Life is like unto a long journey with a heavy load. Let thy
steps be slow and steady, that thou stumble not. Persuade
thyself that privations are the natural lot of mortals, and
there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair. When
ambitious desires arise in thy heart, recall the days of
extremity thou hast passed through. Forbearance is the root of
quietness and assurance for ever. Look upon wrath as thy enemy.
If thou knowest only what it is to conquer, and knowest not what
it is to be defeated, woe unto thee! It will fare ill with thee.
Find fault with thyself rather than with others. Better the less
than the more."

Marcus Aurelius might have said that. But Marcus Aurelius belonged to a
race peculiarly insensitive to beauty. The Japanese stoics were also
artists and poets. Their earliest painters were feudal lords, and it was
feudal lords who fostered and acted the No dances. If Nietzsche had
known Japan--I think he did not?--he would surely have found in these
Daimyos and Samurai the forerunners of his Superman. A blood-red blossom
growing out of the battlefield, that, I think, was his ideal. It is one
which, I ho