Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/404

388 whose charms are depicted with a profuse expenditure of ornate diction, is a dairymaid. Let not the reader suppose that this occupation is meant to suggest pastoral simplicity. On the contrary, it indicates to the Japanese public that the lady is in the forefront of the progressive movement. Formerly cow's milk was not used as food in Japan, and when this novel appeared none but a truly enlightened person would dare to affront the old-fashioned prejudices against it. This dairymaid's favourite reading is Herbert Spencer's treatise on education. She is a member of a ladies' club where croquet and lawn-tennis are played and women's rights discussed. Other characters are—an adherent of Arabi Pasha, who, after his leader's defeat by the "great warrior General Wolseley," was banished from Egypt and took service with a Japanese gentleman; a Chinese cook, who is naturally assigned the role of a subordinate villain, and a number of politicians of the Conservative and Liberal parties. Among the incidents we have a balloon ascent, a contested election, and a dynamite explosion, which is prevented from doing harm by the sagacity of a dog of European breed. All this, it will be observed, indicates a high degree of civilisation.

In the last chapter the dairymaid is married to the advanced politician, who, on the auspicious occasion, wears a clean standing-up collar and a white silk necktie, with white gloves, and a small white orange blossom in the left button-hole of his coat.

The Ladies of New Style has really considerable merit. There is plenty of incident and a coherent plot, and the writer can not only quote Herbert Spencer and Mill, but, what is more to the purpose, has an excellent command of his own language, more especially of the