466 TOPSY-TURVYNESS 



acclimating our steam and electricity. But her own civil- 

 ization was quite another, as were also her morals, relig- 

 ion, habits. 



Like every other purely human structure, the term civil- 

 ization is relative. So, for the matter of that, is morals. 

 So is religion. So is cleanliness. If the end of civilization 

 be to make men happy and contented, then Japan has had 

 the greater. If morals be to do nothing of which you 

 need be ashamed in the eyes of your own particular world, 

 then the Japanese moral code is quite as good as ours. 

 If the end of religion be to make men and women good 

 members of society, and to prepare them for rest in what- 

 ever future state they may be called to, then the Shinto- 

 Buddhism of Japan has accomplished it. If to bathe sev- 

 eral times a day be cleanliness, then the Japanese is the 

 cleanest of mortals. 



But though a highly civilized being, the Japanese has 

 always done things in, to us, a topsy-turvy way. As 

 Chamberlain points out, the beginning of a book is on our 

 last page. A big full -stop heads every newspaper para- 

 graph. Men make merry with wine before, not after din- 

 ner, and sweets precede meat. Boats are hauled up on 

 the beach stern-foremost. People wear white for mourn- 

 ing. They carry babies on their backs, not in their arms. 

 Keys turn left-handed. A carpenter planes and saws tow- 

 ards him, and builds the roof of a house first. It is an 

 act of politeness to remove your shoes, not your hat. 

 The Japanese dries himself with a damp towel, and dries 

 his lacquer in a damp room. He mounts his horse from 

 the off side ; all buckles are placed on the off side, and 

 when the horse is stabled, he is backed into the stall and 

 fed in a tub where our drain is wont to be. His very 

 language is what we should style perverse. If you w r ant 

 to ask how many guests there are in the hotel, you say : 



