Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/379

Rh gold lace, which assort so ill with the freshness of the Cherry trees in bloom.

Yes, they are imposing, it is true, for dignity is the stuff that is in a man, not on him; but as much cannot be said for many of the Japanese nobility and gentry, who are forced, by Imperial Edict if not by inclination, to ape the foreigner in the most hideous garb known to civilized man (I do not even exclude that of the Korean)—the silk hat, frock-coat, and striped tubular trousers of the Western world—in place of the beautiful, low-toned, heavy silks, of the graceful, yet imposing, ceremonial garb of their own land; while on feet accustomed to the foot-freedom of spotless white tabi, and geta of the most exquisitely wrought bamboo, are forced stiff, ugly, and unyielding patent leather boots.

And the ladies—the dear, demure little ladies—are cheapened, vulgarized almost beyond recognition, by the adoption of stays, of frilled and furbelowed dresses from Vienna or Paris, instead of the subdued richness of their own graciously revealing lines of kimono and obi! Big hats and feathers conceal the glossy black hair and pretty coiffure of the old days, and the whole outrageous garb turns them from sweet and charming Japanese ladies into objects of only slightly superior Eurasian aspect. Japanese men often look extremely well in foreign dress, but the women almost never do.

All this, at the most poetic of outdoor fêtes,