But a sack, whatever its business in life, is at least an article of considerable duration, it is not made to be used and thrown away the next moment like the paper wrapping of a parcel. Yet it is very few parcels in very few shops which are not wrapped up in paper whose monotonous surface is broken by just one tiny design. The papers in which piece-silks are wrapped, the equivalent to those whitey-brown covers which drapers seem perpetually doing up on our counters, are often really beautiful in both colour and design. I do not think a Japanese can see a blank surface without wanting to design something on it, something little, something beautiful, just to redeem it for art. These designs are to be found, if one looks for them, in the most unexpected places, on the axle-heads of your _kuruma_ for instance. A casual and rather dilapidated _kuruma_ in an out-of-the-way town in Japan had such exquisite flying storks beaten on to the bronze metal of its axle-head that I had to get out and look at them. The _kurumaya_ was amused at my enthusiasm, and entered into a detailed comparison of these axle-heads with all the other axle-heads of all the other _kuruma_ of his acquaintance, explaining their respective merits and defects. If there is no actual design the metal is usually beaten in such a way as to form an irregular pattern. When a Japanese cannot mould the shape of an object, when he cannot redeem it by a design, when in fact he has no control over its creation at all, but it is placed in his hands as it is, finished, he will still contrive to add beauty to it merely by arrangement. I first noticed this on board the steamer going out, where the Japanese “boy” arranged the extra blanket on the berth in a new design each day. He folded it into lotus leaves and chrysanthemums, into half-opened fans and half-shut buds. He had one wonderful arrangement which, being patriotic, was more often repeated than the rest. The blankets of the steamship company had, instead of the usual stripes at top and bottom, just two thick wavy lines of deep red--the steamer’s flag was two wavy red lines on a white ground; by some wonderful twist of his fingers the “boy” would fold that blanket into the rising sun, with the four red lines coming out of it like blood-red rays. It sounds difficult, but he did it so perfectly that I recognised the flag of Japan the moment I saw it. Nor was he exceptional; the other “boys” on board were just as artistic, all the other cabins, for in the course of the voyage I entered most of them, were equally decorated, though in most cases the art had been quite lost on the occupants.