flowers, and
leaves them to tell their own story. Entering a tea-room in late winter,
you may see a slender spray of wild cherries in combination with a
budding camellia; it is an echo of departing winter coupled with
the prophecy of spring. Again, if you go into a noon-tea on some
irritatingly hot summer day, you may discover in the darkened coolness
of the tokonoma a single lily in a hanging vase; dripping with dew, it
seems to smile at the foolishness of life.

A solo of flowers is interesting, but in a concerto with painting and
sculpture the combination becomes entrancing. Sekishiu once placed some
water-plants in a flat receptacle to suggest the vegetation of lakes and
marshes, and on the wall above he hung a painting by Soami of wild ducks
flying in the air. Shoha, another tea-master, combined a poem on the
Beauty of Solitude by the Sea with a bronze incense burner in the form
of a fisherman's hut and some wild flowers of the beach. One of the
guests has recorded that he felt in the whole composition the breath of
waning autumn.

Flower stories are endless. We shall recount but one more. In the
sixteenth century the morning-glory was as yet a rare plant with us.
Rikiu had an entire garden planted with it, which he cultivated with
assiduous care. The fame of his convulvuli reached the ear of the Taiko,
and he expressed a desire to see them, in consequence of which Rikiu
invited him to a morning tea at his house. On the appointed day Taiko
walked through the garden, but nowhere could he see any vestige of the
convulvus. The ground had been leveled and strewn with fine pebbles and
sand. With sullen anger the despot entered the tea-room, but a sight
waited him there which completely restored his humour. On the tokonoma,
in a rare bronze of Sung workmanship, lay a single morning-glory--the
queen of the whole garden!

In such instances we see the full significance of the Flower Sacrifice.
Perhaps the flowers appreciate the full significance of it. They are not
cowards, like men. Some flowers glory in death--certainly the Japanese
cherry blossoms do, as they freely surrender themselves to the winds.
Anyone who has stood before the fragrant avalanche at Yoshino or
Arashiyama must have realized this. For a moment they hover like
bejewelled clouds and dance above the crystal streams; then, as they
sail away on the laughing waters, they seem to say: "Farewell, O Spring!
We are on to eternity."

VII. Tea-Masters