Page:Sketches of Tokyo Life (1895).djvu/107

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HE four great ills that flesh is heir to in Japan are said to be earthquake, thunder, fire, and tidal wave. Graceless sons have, however, substituted father for the last of these, and nowadays paternal authority is commonly spoken of as being the fourth of the great evils of life. Well may the earthquake be put at the head of calamities, for the destruction it works is the most appalling in man’s experience. Thunder, on the other hand, is comparatively harmless. In summer the farmer welcomes it; and the popular way to escape the thunderbolt is to run into a mosquito-net and set up a knife and a joss-stick. The tidal wave, dreadful as is its effect when it overwhelms a coast, is rare and even then felt only on the sea-shore. As to the father, all mortals have to put up with him; but he is not so inexorable as the earthquake or tidal wave. He may be tamed by submission and even be coaxed into giving freely of his substance for his prodigal sons