with enamel and inlay and carving and bronze, hammered
work, and the work of the inspired chisel. When he went to his account
he saved himself from the jealousy of his judges, by pointing to the
trefoil pillars for proof that he was only a weak mortal and in no
sense their equals. Men say that never man has given complete drawings,
details, or descriptions of the temples of Nikko. Only a German would
try, and he would fail in spirit. Only a Frenchman could succeed in
spirit, but he would be inaccurate. I have a recollection of passing
through a door with _cloisonnee_ hinges, with a golden lintel and red
lacquer jambs, with panels of tortoise-shell lacquer and clamps of
bronze tracery. It opened into a half-lighted hall on whose blue ceiling
a hundred golden dragons romped and spat fire. A priest moved about the
gloom with noiseless feet, and showed me a pot-bellied lantern four feet
high, that the Dutch traders of old time had sent as a present to the
temple. There were posts of red lacquer dusted over with gold, to
support the roof. On one post lay a rib of lacquer, six inches thick,
that had been carved or punched over with high relief carvings and had
set harder than crystal.

The temple steps were of black lacquer, and the frames of the sliding
screens red. That money, lakhs and lakhs of money, had been lavished on
the wonder impressed me but little. I wished to know who were the men
that, when the _cryptomerias_ were saplings, had sat down and spent
their lives on a niche or corner of the temple, and dying passed on the
duty of adornment to their sons, though neither father nor child hoped
to see the work completed. This question I asked the guide, who plunged
me in a tangle of Daimios and Shoguns, all manifestly extracted from a
guide-book.

After a while the builder's idea entered into my soul.

He had said: "Let us build blood-red chapels in a Cathedral." So they
planted the Cathedral three hundred years ago, knowing that tree-boles
would make the pillars and the sky the roof.

Round each temple stood a small army of priceless bronze or stone
lanterns, stamped, as was everything else, with the three leaves that
make the Daimio's crest. The lanterns were dark green or lichened grey,
and in no way lightened the gloom of the red. Down below, by the sacred
bridge, I believed red was a joyous colour. Up the hillside under the
trees and the shadow of the temple eaves I saw that it was the hue of
sorrow. When the g