Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/305

Rh Noticeable as these differences in the self are, they are as nothing compared with the contrast that confronts an Anglo-Saxon in the Japanese race. Its indirect manifestations are so striking that they have found embodiment in aphorism. The well-worn epigram that the Japanese are the French of the far East really rests on this. So does, also, the less trite one that Japan is the feminine half of the world. For her delicacy, her daintiness, and her dignity instantly suggest to our more coarse, more direct, more original mind something of the fair sex. An etiquette of soul, I can hear some one phrase it. Certainly in emotion both go through the world gloved, but the resemblance rests on something below the surface. Very different as are femininity and far-orientallsm in most things, there is strangely enough in both a relative absence of self.

Japan is at present engaged in making the resemblance evident in an interesting if objectionable manner. When a woman once lets go her old rules of conduct, she will go pretty much any lengths in the new. Just as a fine woman will make even fine men blush, so a low one will stagger even her