In these words a learned Japanese has indicated the great range of subject, the unspeakably rich material of the works of the master. By preference he leads us to the work-places of artisans, to woodcarvers, smiths, workers in metal, dyers, weavers, and embroiderers. Then come the pleasures of the nobility, who are displayed in their refinement, reserve, and dignity; the country-folk at their daily avocations, or making merry upon holidays; the fantastic shapes of fabulous animals and demons, who figure in the life of Japanese national heroes, mighty with the sword; apparitions, drunken men, wrestlers, street figures of every conceivable description, mythical reptiles, snow-clad mountain tops, waving rice-fields lashed by the wind, woodland glens, strange gateways of rock, far views over waters with cliffs clothed with pine. The most celebrated of those works which contain landscapes exclusively are the views, published in three volumes in 1834-36, of the mountain of Fuji, the great volcano rising close by Yeddo, and from old time playing a part in the works of Japanese landscape painters. In Hokusai's book the cone of the mountain is sometimes seen rising clear in a cloudless sky, whilst it is sometimes shrouded by clouds of various shapes. Its beautiful outline glimmers through the meshes of a net, through the spindrift of snow falling in great flakes, or through a curtain of rain splashing vertically down. It rises from misty valleys coloured by the rays of the evening sun, or is reflected--itself out of sight--in the smooth surface of a lake, upon the reedy shores of which the wild geese cackle, or it stands in ghostly outlines against the night sky flooded with silver moonlight. Summer breezes and winter storms drive over it, rattling showers of hail, lashed by the wind, or light falls of snow descend round it. In spring the blossoms of peach and plum-trees flutter to the earth, like swarms of white and rosy butterflies. Only famished wolves or dragons, which popular superstition has located in the mountain of Fuji, occasionally animate the grandiose solitude of the landscape.