Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/151

Rh my own opinions. Have I not? I ask myself.

I remember the Frenchman who, with some delicacy, sums up the question of marriage in every clime where any ceremony is attached to the rite: “Given a woman and one possesses the possibility of great happiness—or its exact antithesis,” and I am thankful that my experiment so far has resulted well.

Mousmé is neither the serpent nor the eel of another French writer’s experience, but is always fresh, always charming. She is a graduate in the art of pleasing. She knows nothing further of astronomy than to suspect that the stars are really big diamonds, nor of mathematics than what generally enables her to make a good bargain for an obi, dress or hairpin. Hers are entirely applied mathematics, and of the simplest kind. All this ignorance is very stupid, no doubt, to you. I can well imagine the