A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

302 Japanese Miscellany
But I felt that I had been startled more than
touched by that sudden suppression of the per-
sonality, the Self, — because of the mystery
thereby made manifest. In one moment, —
under the vapor of a chemical, — voice, motion,
will, thought, all pleasure and pain and memory,
had ceased to be ; — the whole life of the budding
senses, — the delicate machinery of the little
brain, with its possible priceless inheritance from
countless generations, — had been stilled and
stopped as by the very touch of death. And
there remained, to all outward seeming, only the
form, the simulacrum, — a doll of plastic flesh,
with the faint unconscious smile of an icon. . . .
The faces of the little stone Buddhas, who
dream by roadsides or above the graves, have
the soft charm of Japanese infancy. They resemble
the faces of children asleep ; — and you
must have seen Japanese children asleep to know
the curious beauty of the immature features, —
the vague sweetness of the lines of lids and lips.
In the art of the Buddhist image-maker, the
peace of the divine condition is suggested by
the same shadowy smile that makes beautiful
the slumber of the child.