THE CHRYSALIS
and literature. It exhibits all the subtleness of European class distinction, plus the element of caste as understood in India. We can here but indicate its main phases.
First, over all was the Mikado. That sacred conception is the thought-inheritance of Japan from her very beginning. Mythology has consecrated it, history has endeared it, and poetry has idealized it. Buddhism has enriched it with that reverence which India pays to the "Protector of the Law," and Confucianism has confirmed it with the loyalty which China offers to the "Son of Heaven." The Mikado may cease to govern, but he always reigns. He exists not by divine right, but by divine law,—a fact of man and nature. He is always there, like our beloved mountain of Fuji, which stands eternally in silent
27
