2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



So lie has given us these in his writings on Japan so vividly 

 and artistically that we can almost hear the soft- voiced welcome 

 of the serving maiden, as the soji is noiselessly pushed aside, and 

 amid the subtle fragrance of the plum blossoms sink back among 

 the silken cushions with that delicious sense of repose, while 

 lulled to rest by the melodic echo of the koto strings, and find 

 ourselves once more in fairyland Japan. And would it were only 

 true ! 



Yet we are not all of us poets, and few of us are artists, and so 

 find that there is prose beneath the fragrant blossoms that the 

 poet's pen has so lavishly scattered over things Japanese. On the 



The Siesta. 



other hand, we find that the sweeping assertions regarding Japa- 

 nese ethics and morals — or rather lack of morals — as contained in 

 other writings on Japan, are both unjust and untrue. 



On the one hand, Sir Edwin Arnold tells us that the women of 

 Japan approach our ideal of the angelic, while another writer 

 cries out against the utter lack of morality in Japanese women. 

 Such diametrically opposed statements are distressingly confus- 

 ing, and the characteristics of " angelic immorality " are hard to 

 conceive of, and must be rather paradoxical, to say the least. 



Should we desire to gain any true idea of the "prose and 

 poetry " of Japan, we must look into the details of the home life 

 of the people ; for, after all, it is the daily routine, the domestic 

 and social duties, the thoughts, pastimes, and aspirations typical 



