It is said, and not without a fair measure of truth, that two gifts are but rarely eum-balance fection. We. but seldom bined iv any one person with an equal meet musical people who can, and do, satisfy their hearers both vocally and instrumentally; and also. we very. seldom' find et who descends to prose without gi is readers at least a shade of disappointment. Sir Edwin Arnold is a poet of the romantic school: "Whatever subject he handles becomes gilded with an ethereal idealism which is fascinating to those who understand it and are themselves sufficient ly idealistic to follow where he leads; but ton very larve class of readers, he is incomprehensible even if reverently admired. Few can withhold their respect for his talent, even when his poems are most enigmatical. When Sir Edwin descends and his' admirers.are comparatively few, to prone, however, the tables are reversed,
and those few are unconsciously influenced by their admiration for his verse. Had he never been a poet, it is doubtful if he could ever have made a vameasan author. Shak speare sya "What's ina name?" There appears no small fortune if that name is win Arnold.
In his prose writings Sir Edwin Arnold cannot shake himself free from his p-eric muse sufficiently to do justice either to himself or his subject. In reading country and ita people the earnest reader, eeking information and desiring to form us correct estimation of a given spot, requires facts and not theories, photographs not fancy etchings, history not roman from Sir Edwin Arnold's desert Japan, while many little charact true stand out clourly ble to those the mn, they nevertheless renaion of the entire country audits people. rong and misleading japan has received a little yift of fame dower of misfortune in. the ridicule, his from the great poet, but an almost larger
thoughtless pen hae awakened. Had Edwin been content to carefully describe Japan, he would have brought her unmixed good, but instead he has ridden " hobby, 8 not hold his memory dear in reverence. He has commit-intentionally or unwittingly, of that which she resents most bitterly, ridiculous, Wh light of By Sea and Land elegvaph, or Japonica"
Magazine, to visit Japan, must not perforce feel a. chill of disappointment with the
model as compared with the pain reality compared with the ideal, with the Sir Edwin Arnold has painted Japan as a country whose people tke no delight in sin, to whom to err at all is under protest an! against their natural incl tion, a people on whose tongue no parties home have no abiding place. Now all th very pretty and very fascinating, but it ry far from true. Sir Edwis stories of Japan mig tions of an advance gu if it were not for one evil, and that rd of the Mill presence of at least the forei, Arnold as he has been to Japan, I will quote a few of the passages which tend to "annoy" residents who happen to have lived in the country instead of visiting it, It stands an absolute fact that there is no oath or foul interjectionary word in Japanese; and when common coolies quarrel, or when a stubborn Chinese pony jibs, the worst you catch is sore! (that that!) or koitsu/ (the fellow)." This reads as if someone had got ups little charade with which to impress upon Sir Kdwin the impossibility for" little passions" rising in the land of Fujisan, It is quite true that no counterpart of any European **b.d word" does exist in the Japanese tongue, but only those who have hestd it can realise the amount of deadly enmity which can be compressed into the small capacity of even "you fellow Uttered with gusto, and with the creepy contraction of the black eyes which fasten on the object of their anger with a glitter which budes no good, a fair toss-up in reality asto whether a Japanese or a Spaniard can swear to the most purpose. It's not so much a word in these cases as the way it la said. Personally I have seen some street fights which would compare sume-what strangely with the above. without exacting far more consideration and deference than might be expected.
wits ""Tels a hard school (in which women are reared) of obedience, sub: sion, resignation, and no pretence to justify the view." "Itisastill greater mystery to me how the Japanese woman has dey her cious sweetness and bright serenity in the atmosphere of unchivalrous mal-estimation surrounding her."
These are conflicting statements; I have not met many instances in which Japanese women obtain their own way or much consideration either. They are immeasurably superior to the men, but the first of these three quotations is desperately misleading, unless it be applied to their intercourse with foreigners, when it must be confessed both men and women servants are fairly clever in getting their own way. Once more, one of the most stu istles of the Japanese is re} articles exactly gratis, batt' forget', the moment how many' thousand yew he' lias received for the four.
Now a brief word in. summary.' "I agree with a great many of Sir Edwin's comments on the Japanese women. 'They' are very nice women: Tuphold him in his assertion that the Japanese are a peaceable and polite people. They are both. What I do object to is the impression conveyed that the Japanese are not like anybody else. Those who know Japan laugh at such nonsense, at shortcomings donot exist, They do exit, the idea that anger, dishonesty, and'si
and Japan herself is the first to laugh at the fancy port which tell the world Jepaniaa good, bright, aigseous, try, but Japan, though she is considerably hindered by conceit, will not hesitate to tell those who judge her honestly that she has her faults the same as other nations, and he most inconvenient of these is a1 lity to carry out a contract, or keep an appointment,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.