Brooklyn Museum Quarterly . m Waseda University. Thedelicate Italian hand in which his letters were written sug-gested that he was a man of old-fashioned scholarship, l)utdid not prepare me for the very tall and very distinguished-looking personage who courteously received me. It wasmid-summer. He wore a long beard and was dressed in asingle Japanese garment of grey silk; his legs were bare andhis feet shod with Japanese straw sandals. He had the air of a cultivated ascetic who had volun-tarily abandoned the world. But there was a light in hiseyes that showed that in spite of his having lived
Brooklyn Museum Quarterly . m Waseda University. Thedelicate Italian hand in which his letters were written sug-gested that he was a man of old-fashioned scholarship, l)utdid not prepare me for the very tall and very distinguished-looking personage who courteously received me. It wasmid-summer. He wore a long beard and was dressed in asingle Japanese garment of grey silk; his legs were bare andhis feet shod with Japanese straw sandals. He had the air of a cultivated ascetic who had volun-tarily abandoned the world. But there was a light in hiseyes that showed that in spite of his having lived in Japanfor nearly half a century he had lost neither touch nor inter-est with the world outside, and this was all the more appar-ent when Ave spoke of things other than the object of myquest. He talked of France and the old French families asthough he himself was the head of one of the oldest lines, andsuch, indeed, I am content to believe him. He told me thatduring the many years he had been in Japan he had diligently 143. PORTRAIT OF HASEKURA ROKUYEMON, JAPANESE AMBASSADORTO ROME, 1615. ROME. inquired for Christian things, hut without success. AVhenin Sendai he had tried to see the Christian rehcs helongingto the Date, hut had been refused. The only phice suchthings v\ere hkely to he found was in the province of Kyushu,and in tlie Goto Ishmds, where Christians had seemed much distressed at his inal)iHty to aid me andsaid he would send out word to all the churches, ^^^lile wew^ere conversing he learned that one of his deacons, HayashiJutaro, had two documents which he thought might interestme. The man l)rought them and I accepted them as a giftand carried them away. On a subsequent visit, made in comjDany with my friend,the artist Gengiro Kataoka, Father de Lezey told me thatduring his residence of forty years in Japan he had seenhut one object that could he referred to the time of the earlyChristians. This was the large key of the old church whicha student had bo
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