JAPAN
they would not have been thought worthy of preservation. But they certainly bear witness to the refinements of the era and to the affinities of its civilisation, just as the ornaments of a French salon in the sixteenth century bear witness to the graces of life at that time and to the Italian influences that then pervaded French æstheticism. Many of the Totai-ji treasures are of Chinese provenance; a few are Indian, and a still smaller number, Persian. China's large contribution might have been expected, for if the Japanese in the seventh and eighth centuries regarded their continental neighbour as the source of everything that was best in matters legislative, ethical, philosophical, political, and literary, they would naturally look to her also for standards of social refinement. The story these relics tell is that the occupants of the Nara palace had their rice served in small covered cups of stone-ware, with céladon glaze—these from Chinese potteries, for as yet the manufacture of vitrifiable glazes was beyond the capacity of Japanese keramists;—ate fruit from deep dishes of white agate; poured water from golden ewers of Persian form, having bird-shaped spouts, narrow necks and bands of frond diaper; played the game of go on boards of rich lacquer, using discs of white jade and red coral for pieces; burned incense in censers of bronze inlaid with gems, and kept the incense in small boxes of Paullownia wood with gold lacquer decoration—these of Japanese make,—or in
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