"Another peculiar fabric has produced very thin teapots of a gray stone-ware, showing the marks of the workman's hands. Mr. Mitford has furnished me with the following note respecting them: 'For some thirty years past a man named Banko Insetzu, of Kuana, in the province of Isé, has been famous for producing a curious kind of pottery, which, being finished off with the finger and thumb before being subjected to the fire, shows the lines of the skin of the hand upon its surface. No teapots equal those of Banko for producing a delicate infusion of tea, and all lovers of tea patronize them; they are fragile to a degree, the paste being as thin as a wafer.'" The peach, or, as the Japanese term it, the "peach of longevity," is a favorite decoration with the Japanese; we can appreciate its value, as one of the finest fruits of our temperate zone. We give here (Fig. 124) a teapot showing the fruit with some of the leaves. This is copied from Jacquemart; but the curious may see a better example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from Mr. Avery's Oriental collection. Japanese art is still more marked than the Chinese in that it is as free and yet more delicate. The artist clearly was a close observer of Nature, and saw and felt its infinite variety; saw, too, that Nature was never square, or round, or double. Nothing in Nature need duplicate any other thing. We Occidentals have delighted in the use of-- The square, The circle, and Of pairs, or a symmetrical arrangement of ornament, or of columns, or openings. We have also found a crude satisfaction in the use of strong, glaring colors. We have delighted to _copy_ and to tell a common story in a common way in our decorations. I believe this is wholly wrong. The Japanese artist never uses the square, or the circle, or the pair. Nor does he use crude and glaring colors; always the most subtile and fascinating shades and vanishing tints. He _suggests_ the story; he never tells it as Watteau did. [Illustration: FIG. 124.--_Teapot with Peach Decoration._] A pair of vases belonging to Mrs. James, of Cambridge, have a picture of a gentleman and lady, above whose heads is seen a canopy or roof. The meaning is thus explained by a Japanese gentleman of this day, who was in Boston: The figures represented are a nobleman and his wife, one of the five hundred families of the _flowery class_; they are dressed in the ancient costume of Japan, now no longer worn. The part of a tent or pavilion indicates that they are out-of-doors, at a picnic; the white blossoms of the cherry which surround them show a favorite tree in Japan; the color of this vase and the kind of crackle prove its age. All is suggested; the imagination is spoken to, not the intellect; the artist feels, and makes us feel.