Even
the royal palaces at Kyoto are small, the rooms, exquisite as they are,
with perfect joinery and ancient paintings, being seldom more than a few
feet square, with very low ceilings. I went over two of these palaces,
falling into the hands, at each, of English-speaking officials whose
ciceronage was touched with a kind of rapture. At the Nijo, especially,
was my guide an enthusiast, becoming lyrical over the famous cartoons of
the "Wet Heron" and the "Sleeping Sparrows."
In India I had grown accustomed to removing my shoes at the threshold of
mosques. There it was out of deference to Allah, but in Japan the
concession is demanded solely in the interests of floor polish, and you
take your shoes off not only in palaces and houses but in some of the
shops. It gave one an odd burglarious feeling to be creeping noiselessly
from room to room of the Nijo; but there was nothing to steal. The place
was empty, save for decoration.
There is a certain amplitude in some of the larger Kyoto temples, with
their long galleries and massive gateways, but these only serve to
accentuate the littleness elsewhere. In the principal Kyoto temple I had
for guide a minute Japanese with the ecstatic passion for trifles that
seems to mark his race. A picture representing the miracle of the "Fly-
away Sparrows," as he called them, was the treasure on which he
concentrated, and next to that he drew my attention to the boards of the
gangway uniting two buildings, which, as one stepped on them, emitted a
sound that the Japanese believe to resemble the song of Philomela.
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