Peeps at Many Lands: Japan

e result was simply beautiful. That wall was a perfect picture: every fan-holder seemed to be exactly in its right place, and it looked as if the alteration of a single one would affect and disintegrate the whole scheme. I accepted the lesson with due humility, and remained more than ever convinced that the Japanese are what they have justly claimed to be--an essentially artistic people, instinct with living art."

CHAPTER IV

THE JAPANESE BOY

A Japanese boy is the monarch of the household. Japan is thoroughly Eastern in the position which it gives to women. The boy, and afterwards the man, holds absolute rule over sister or wife. It is true that the upper classes in Japan are beginning to take a wider view of such matters. Women of wealthy families are well educated, wear Western dress, and copy Western manners. They sit at table with their husbands, enter a room or a carriage before them, and are treated as English women are tre