Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/295

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THE SHRINES OF ISE.
273

trate no farther than his feet may pass, he may well say with the disappointed tourist whom Chamberlain quotes in the guidebook, in warning to such as would visit these shrines: "There is nothing to see; and they won't let you see it."

II.

Indeed, materially, there is little within save the eight petaled mirror, known by tradition to be there, emblem of the Great Goddess of the Sun.

But there is something there not yet down in the guide-book; not even fully appreciated by the priests themselves. For revelation comes only to those who stand ready to perceive it. It chanced to me in this wise.

Never having made the pilgrimage to these famous shrines, I was minded, after my intimacy with deity, to do so; and, accordingly, under the kind auspices of the high-priest of the Shinshiu sect, was properly accredited to the priests.

The Shrines, technically so called, consist of two congeries of temples inclosed by elaborate series of palisades and bosomed in grand old parks. One is known as the