Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/88

72 A Japanese street-crowd pleasingly lacks that brutality which distinguishes a western one; on the other hand, it has a stare of its own, an unobtrusively obtrusive stare, which knows no outlawing limit of age, and has a vacancy in it that almost bars offense. Apparently it is never outgrown. It alone would convict the race of a lack of self-consciousness and very nearly of a lack of any consciousness whatsoever. I love the Japanese urchin for all that, whether staring or not, but to me advanced age in the starer stales the infinite unvariety of his act. Orderly, however, and good-natured, a Japanese crowd is past praise, and one would think past policemen, which is not, I suppose, why the latter always turn up at such seasons. Here, however, I was much pleased to note their conspicuous absence. And still the concourse grew. When I first counted the folk they numbered one hundred and fifty. Shortly after, as near as I could estimate, there were two hundred and fifty people on the spot, of all ages, sizes, and conditions. The whole countryside had turned out, with or without the baby, according as it existed or not. Nobody's occupation seemed to