Through the Torii/Chapter 28
We are revellers at the banquet of the moods under the moon or forest; ask us not whether we are right or wrong, happy or sad, sane or mad. I only know that my life grows with the growing moods, and my literature with the growing life; that’s quite enough. Let us sing, dance, and sing again; we may, in course of time, fight or theorise or assert or deny, as if a sad creature, only to make afterward our song and dance doubly fresh and free. Thought is great, doubtless; but the moods are greater. Thought, when it comes into existence with no touch of the moods, can be, at its best, a still-born child; it may look quite perfect, but, alas! it is dead. It was the life of the moods that created, in olden days, the gods and goddesses, and peopled the forest and stream; and it is the life of our modern moods as artists to make a forest or stream turn to a mass of green and light on the canvas. The moods are everything; for the sake of the high soar of my moods, I ask the women, wine, music, flowers, and birds to make their own sacrifices, It is from the moods that the clouds fly, and the rains fall. We need not attempt to restrain our moods, but should let them take their own natural course; when they are bad and worthless, they are bound to die, without waiting for your force to be used. And there is always hope and passion when they grow and live; the things that grow and live are ever divine.