Birmingham age-herald., 1895-07-01
JAPANESE LOSSES.
The Interesting and Diversified Collection
 of a Curio Dealer.

The Interesting and Diversified Collection
 of Curio Dealer.
 Lafcadio Hearn writes in Tho Atlantic of visit to Japanese curio dealer, who shows him his collection of jossos. He says:
 In the dusk of the great godown the spectacle was more than weird; it was ap- paritional. Arhats and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and tho shapes of mythol ogy older than they filled all the shadowy space, not ranked by hierarchies, as in temple, but mingled without order, as in a silent panic. Out of the wilderness of multiple heads and broken aureolcs and hands upliftcd in menace or in prayer n shimmering confusion of dusty gold half lighted by cobwebbcd air holes in tho heavy walls, could at first discern little. Then, as the dimness cleared, began to distinguish personalities. I saw Wwan- non of many forms, Jezo of many names, Shaka, Yakushi, Amida, the Buddhas and their disciples. They were very old, and their art was not all of Japan, nor of any one place or time. There were shapes from Korea, China, India-trcasures brought over sea in the rich days of the carly Bud dhist missions. Some were seated upon lotus flowers, the lotus flowers of the ap- paritional birth Some rode leopards, ti- gers lions or monsters mystical, typifying lightning, typifying death, One, triple headed and many handed, sinister and splendid, seemed moving through the gloom on throne of gold, unified by phalanx of elephants. Fudo 1 saw, shroud ed and shrined in fire, and Maya Fujin, riding her celestial peacock, and strangely mingling with these Buddhist visions, as in the anachronism of Limbo, armored effigies of daimio and images of the Chi nese sages. There were huge forms of wrath, grasping thunderbolts and rising to tho roof, the Dcya kings, like imperso- nations of hurricane power, the Mo, guardians of long vanished temple gates. Also there were forms voluptuously feni- nine. Tho light grace of the limbs folded within their lotus cups, the suppleness of the fingers numbering the numbers of the good law, were ideals possibly inspired in somc forgotten time by the charm of an Indian dancing girl. Shelved against tho naked brickwork above could perceive multitudes of lesser shapes; demon figures with eyes that burned through the dark like the eyes of black cat. and figures half man, half bird, winged and beakcd like eagles-the Tengu of Japanese fancy.
 NClll VtSIlCu bilO CuilO uoditit Nith 0 chuckle of satisfaction at my evident surprise.
 ''It is very great collection" I re- sponded.
 Ho clapped his hand on my shoulder and exclaimed triumphantly in my ear, "Cost mo s50,000."
 But tho images themselves told me how much more was their cost to forgotten piety, notwithstanding the chcapness of artiAac labor in tho cast; also they told mo of the dead millions whose pilgrim feet had worn hollow the steps leading to their shfines, of the buried mothers who used to suspend little baby dresses before their al tars, of tho generations of children taught to murmur prayers to them, of the count less sorrows and hopes confded to them. Ghosts of the worship of centuries had fol- lowed them into exile. A thin, sweet odor of incense haunted all the dusty place.