LXXY 



BUT I fear I may be losing my chiar-oscuro : to say that 

 there is no modern Japanese rider except the cavalryman, 

 that there is no evidence of there ever having been a 

 horseman in the best sense, and to stop there, savors of 

 injustice to this wonderful people. There is no more in- 

 teresting population in the world. We may indulge in a 

 good-natured laugh at the odd way in which the modern 

 Jap combines his graceful kimono and his odd national 

 clogs with a hideous bean -pot of antiquated pattern, and 

 worn any way but the right way ; or we may scream our 

 protest at his chopping down venerable cryptomerias 

 along the highways in his eagerness to make room for the 

 rigid horror of telegraph-poles ; but the fact remains that 

 the Japanese are a marvellous race, which has done mar- 

 vellous work. 



It is a singular reflection how this nation, starting from 

 the same point as our own woad-painted ancestors, has 

 wrought out a civilization quite as perfect in its way- 

 judging from the Greek standard probably more perfect 

 than the European, for it was an aesthetic rather than a 

 material one and yet as different from ours as black 

 from white. Of course, at the present day, Japan, with a 

 territory and a population as large as Great Britain and 

 Ireland, cannot take the place she aspires to in the society 

 of nations without conforming to the tenets of our semi- 

 mechanical, semi-intellectual civilization. This she is now 

 busied with doing, and has made remarkable strides in 



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