Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/338

298 living in lonely defiance of public opinion and private remorse. She would still be gentle, submissive, modest, until the lapse of time should restore her liberty, unless the rascaldom that would beset her pathway for five long years should coarsen and undo her natural goodness. The Japanese used to boast that they were born good; that only the Chinese, and such barbarians, require a code of prohibitive clauses defining and forbidding sin. It is a charming theory, and many foreigners have subscribed to it. It is certain that if you deduct from Yoshiwara the heinousness which Western moralists impute, a tangle of pros and cons would confuse the Japanese conservative who knows anything of Western wickedness. But, as I wavered to the sentimental side of Oriental legality, seduced by the condoning circumstances of politeness and security, I suddenly remembered that this city of pleasure was founded upon a marsh, for all night long the frogs, like thousands of sinister voices, sustained their croaking chorus, as if in ironic commentary on the