MORALS 467 



"Under roof honorable guests how many as to^' the 

 last two words suggesting the quant d of the French. For 

 all this, to us, utterly wrong-headed method, the Japanese, 

 when Perry's black ships first approached their shores, 

 Avere a wonderfully civilized people. 



It has been truly remarked that the Japanese are great 

 in small things, and small in great things. Their art is 

 true and exquisite, but it is not a broad art like that of 

 Athens or the Renaissance. They cannot erect a Parthe- 

 non or a St. Peter's, for theirs is a land of earthqualces ; 

 still their architecture and the setting of their temples are 

 noble, and they can decorate as no one else ever has. 

 They have done wonders in small work : their lacquer, 

 ivories, porcelains, embroideries, are marvellous ; but they 

 have never created a Hermes or a David ; they have 

 never conceived a Panathenaic Procession or a Parnassus. 

 In landscape-gardening they are masters ; in landscape- 

 architecture, if the distinction may be allowed me, we 

 have better work. The Mito and the Hama Gardens in 

 Tokyo are, each in its way, perfect ; but neither has size 

 nor breadth of treatment such as one ma}^ see in Central 

 Park. 



There can scarcely be said to be a positive code of 

 morals. The Decalogue did not prevent Solomon from 

 having three hundred wives and seven hundred concu- 

 bines — I believe that was the number. You cannot main- 

 tain that the Hindoo mother, who, in the frenz}^ of wor- 

 ship, tears from her breast the sucking child and casts it 

 to the sacred crocodile in the Ganges — the greatest act of 

 self-immolation of which a human being is capable — is 

 guilty of infanticide. So with the Japanese. The present 

 crown-prince is the son of a concubine, but he is none the 

 less crown -prince. How far back do we have to go in 

 English history to find an equal origin of many noble 



