Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/148

. Japanese matrons, who, a few years ago, led the most quiet and secluded existence, now preside with ease and grace over large establishments, built and maintained like the official residences of London or Berlin. Their struggles with the difficulties of a new language, dress, and etiquette were heroic. Mothers and daughters studied together with the same English governess, and princesses and diplomats’ wives, returning from abroad, gave new ideas to their friends at home. Two Japanese ladies, now foremost at court, are graduates of Vassar College, and many high officials are happily married to foreign wives; American, English, and German women having assumed Japanese names with their wedding vows. The court has its reigning beauty in the wife of the grand master of ceremonies, the richest peer of his day, and representative of that family which gave its name to the finest porcelain known to the ceramic art of the empire.

Tokio society delights in dancing, and every one at court dances well. Leaders of fashion go through the quadrille d'honneur, with which state balls open, and follow' the changes of the lancers with the exactness of soldiers on drill, every step and movement as precise and finished as the bending of the fingers in cha no yu. The careless foreigner who attempts to dance an unfamiliar figure repents him of his folly. Japanese politeness is incomparable, but the sedateness, the precision, and exactness of the other dancers in the set will reproach the blunderer until he feels himself a criminal. The ball is the more usual form of state entertainments. The prime-minister gives a ball on the night of the Emperor’s birthday, and the governor of Tokio gives a ball each winter. From time to time the imperial princes and the ministers of state offer similar entertainments, and every legation has its ball-room. The members of the diplomatic corps are as much in social unison with 132