Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/44

 cial objects and on special occasions only; the other uses his foreign chambers for social or official purposes alone, returning to his mats and his brazier as quickly as possible. Tōkyō to-day differs little from Yedo of the Tokugawa times, so far as the citizens' dwellings are concerned. That this conservatism should exist in the midst of general change is probably attributable partly to the greater costliness of edifices in European style and the greater expense of living in them, but mainly to the sans-gêne of Japanese customs compared with European or American. It is not merely a question of sitting on chairs instead of on mats, sleeping on beds instead of on wadded quilts, and eating with knives and forks instead of with chopsticks. There is a far more important consideration involved, namely, that whereas a Japanese house has virtually no limit of elasticity in the matter of accommodation and hospitality, a foreign house is incapable of expansion for either purpose. Probably no highly civilised nation has ever been so averse to formal entertainments as the Japanese. There are exceptions, it is true, which at first sight may seem to contradict this assertion. There are cha-no-yu réunions; there are flower-viewing parties; there are meetings of friends in seashore or riverside villas during the dog-days; there are at-homes to introduce a bride and bridegroom to the relatives and acquaintances of their families, and there used to be assemblages to cap stanzas and witness Nō dances.