GOOD MANNERS 475 



as they all do at home, they are still awkward. Like all 

 undersized mammals, they have heads which are too big ; 

 they are, so to speak, of a regular pony build. 



Still, they are very charming, the Japanese women, 

 and graceful in their way. The dancing of the geisha- 

 girls is full of meaning and singularly attractive; and 

 while, like Chaucer's nun, who " intuned in hir nose ful 

 swetely," their singing is monotonous, it, too, has its good 

 side. A geisha never shrieks, as all too many of our 

 singers do ; and, after all, may not the style of singing 

 be a mere matter of taste ? A superb soprano aria sent 

 the members of an early Japanese embassy to Europe 

 into peals of laughter, and yet we are forced to acknowl- 

 edge their keen artistic instinct. In grace and dignity 

 and exquisite pantomime, the dancers are far and away 

 beyond our own, whose posturing and kicking are nowa- 

 days mostly directed at the occupants of the orchestra 

 stalls, much as a well-known preacher was once said to 

 have delivered the most eloquent prayer ever addressed to 

 a Boston audience. The Japanese woman's dress is pretty, 

 if not graceful. The skirts, cut scant so as discreetly to 

 clothe the person in whatever position she may assume 

 and she squats half the time lack the pleasant lines of 

 the best European fashions. 



But if manners make the man (and woman) in beauty 

 as well as charm, then the Japanese stand distinctly at 

 the head of the list. So delightful a people can nowhere 

 else be found ; and if they lack grace of person, they pos- 

 sess grace of manner in superabundant measure, and the 

 truest form of politeness. That this has always been so 

 is testified to by no less a witness than St. Francis Xavier, 

 who was in Japan in the sixteenth century. " This na- 

 tion is the delight of my soul," he writes. On the other 

 hand, the aesthetic Japanese has neither the accuracy, re- 



