Through the Torii

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Through the Torii (1922)
by Yone Noguchi
3676489Through the Torii1922Yone Noguchi
THROUGH THE TORII

“I do not know whether the essay is a Japanese literary form, but if it is not Mr. Noguchi has perfectly realised its possibilities, and has used it in a manner which makes our most delicate masters seem rather heavy-handed. For Mr. Noguchi, though he has lived much in England and America, and knows English literature well, has accepted nothing from the West which might spoil his native virtues. . . Himself we may describe—not necessarily exhaustively—as a mystical dandy.”—Francis Bickley in the Bookman (London).

“Noguchi’s essays leave one advanced in a conception of beauty, and enlarged in understanding; and that is not altogether familiar experience in bookreading.”—The Academy.

Other Books by Yone Noguchi

Seen and Unseen. Orientalia, New York.

The Voice of the Valley. Out of Print.

The American Diary of a Japanese Girl. Out of Print

From the Eastern Sea. Etkin Mathews, London.

The Pilgrimage. Elkin Mathews, London.

Lafcadio Hearn in Japan. Ekin Mathews, London.

The Spirit of Japanese Poetry. John Murray, London.

The Spirit of Japanese Art. Joho Murray, London.

The Story of Yone Noguchi. Chatto and Windus, London.

Japanese Hokkus. The Four Seas Company, Boston.

Hiroshige. Orientalia, New York.

Selected Poems of Yone Noguchi. The Four Seas Company, Boston.

THROUGH THE TORII

BY

YONE NOGUCHI



BOSTON

THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY

1922

printed in japan

TO

EDMUND GOSSE

CONTENTS
Page
Kyoto 1
Nikko 8
Tokyo 16
The Holy Houses of Sleep 21
Daibutsu 27
Spring in Japan 34
The Willow-tree Woman 39
The East: The West 45
Hibachi 53
The Decline of the Japanese Taste of Tongue 58
The Fourteenth of December 66
A Handkerchief 74
Morning-glory 78
The Japanese Plum-blossom 84
Chrysanthemum 88
Cherry-blossom 93
A Japanese on the Poet Rossetti 98
A Japanese on Whistler 104
A Japanese Note on Yeats 110
Oscar Wilde 118
What is the Hokku Poem 126
Again on Hokku 140
On Poetry 149
Again On Poetry (not listed in the ToC)
The Morning Fancy 152
Insularity 156
My Attitude towards the Flowers 161
Faith 165
The Moods 167
Life 169
Happiness 172
Beauties 175
Truth 178
Ugliness 181
Netsukes 183
From a Japanese Ink Slab 195