Page:Hermione and her little group of serious thinkers (1923, c1916).djvu/168

 THE JAPANESE ARE WONDERFUL; IF YOU GET WHAT I MEAN

ON'T you just dote on the Japanese? They're so esoteric—and subtle and all that sort of thing, aren't they?

Just look at Buddhism and Shintoism, for instance. Could anything be more subtle and esoteric?

We've been taking them up—our Little Group of Serious Thinkers, you know—and they're wonderful, simply wonderful!

Not, of course, that one would be a Buddhist or a Shintoist—but it's broadening to the mind, don't you think, to come into contact with the great thought of—of—well, really of people like Shinto, you know, and those other sages?

And how wonderfully artistic they are—the Japanese!

The new parasols are quite Japanese, you know. Haven't you seen them?

I have three, for different costumes. One is covered with embroidered Japanese crêpe, and another with martine silk. [154]