These are the little shop-keeping people, mind. Could you imagine one of this class here, writing to ask the meaning of some very involved lines from Chaucer? and from Browning also—yet those are the questions. There was even a discussion on the expectorating habit—the Europeans said it was disgusting, unhealthy, and so on—should they not abandon it if it was unpleasing to others?
Somehow all these little papers drew me very closely to the Japanese—revealed traits I might not have known otherwise. There were, however, many other things which gave me an insight into the ideals some Japanese set before themselves. I will here, too, quote some lines from a poem by the Emperor of Japan—
“The thing we want
Is hearts that rise above life's worries like
The sun at morn, rising above the clouds,
Splendid and strong.”
Of course I went to Kawasaki and saw Kobo Daishi's image—carved by himself when in China, thrown into the sea, drifted to Japan and caught in a fisherman's net, and which then performed miracles—and the village fairs round the temples under the trees formed like junks; was constantly on the Noge-yama full of its Shintu and Buddhist shrines, and its gaily clothed girls sauntering amidst the cherry trees just coming into blossom; went walks and drives everywhere—often with Captain Heinrich and Lieutenant Dzjobek.
I went up and down to Tokio—admired the Mikado's fortress palace, and the beautiful masonry of what remains of the Yasiki or mansions of the great Daimyos; went to this and that temple; disliked the unbuilt spaces here and there in the town and the hideous public buildings in the worst German taste; marvelled at the
