Jinrikisha Days in Japan
Volapuk, the new universal language of all nations, offers great difficulties to the Japanese, for although Schleyer, its inventor, kindly left out the r, which the Chinese cannot pronounce, he left in the l, which is a corresponding stumbling-block for the Japanese, who is seldom a natural linguist.
CHAPTER XXX
SENKÉ AND THE MERCHANTS’ DINNER
It required an elaborate negotiation extending through two weeks, as well as the tactful aid of an officer of the Kioto Kencho to arrange for me a cha no yu at the house of Senké, the great master of the oldest school of that art. Senké was about going to Uji to choose his teas; he was changing his teas; he was airing his godowns, and he sent a dozen other excuses to prevent his naming a day. Not until it had been explained fully to this great high-priest of the solemnity that I had studied cha no yu with his pupil, Matsuda, and that, knowing that Matsuda had first studied the Hori no Uji method, I was pursuing the art to its fountain-head, to make sure that no heterodox version of the Senké method had betrayed my inexperience, would he consent to receive me.
Senké is a descendant of Rikiu, the instructor and friend of Hideyoshi, the Taiko. For years they practised the “outward” rites together, and wrote poems to one another, until Hideyoshi admired Rikiu’s beautiful daughter. Rikiu refused her to him, and estrangement followed. Rikiu had built a splendid gate-way for the Daitokuji temple, within which, as was the fashion of the time, he had placed a small wooden statue of himself. Taiko Sama, riding through with his train one day, was
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