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246 would ever have thought of joking about. Nor need a European joke about it. Have we not rather cause for wonder, perplexity, almost awe, in the spectacle of a nation's intellect going off on such devious tracks as this incense-sniffing and the still more intricate tea ceremonies, and on bouquets arranged philosophically, and gardens representing the cardinal virtues? Such strict rules, such grave faces, such endless terminologies, so much ado about nothing!

This article, read together with the Articles on Things Japanese/Esotericism and the Things Japanese/Tea Ceremonies and with portions of those on Things Japanese/Flowers and Things Japanese/Gardens, will afford a glimpse into a singular phase of the Oriental character, its proneness to dwell on subjects simply because they are old and mysterious, its love of elaborately conceived methods of killing time.

 Indian Influence on Japan is a vast and somewhat obscure subject, which the present writer does not feel himself fitted to cope with:—he merely suggests it in the hope that some betterequipped scholar will take it up and do it justice. In a sense Japan may be said to owe everything to India; for from India came Buddhism, and Buddhism brought civilisation, Chinese civilisation; but then China had been far more deeply tinged with the Indian dye than is generally admitted even by the Chinese themselves. The Japanese, while knowing, of course? full well that Buddhism is Indian, not only habitually underrate the influence of Buddhism in great matters; they have no adequate notion of the way in which smaller details of their lives and thoughts have been moulded by it. They do not realise, for instance, that the elderly man or woman who becomes, as they say, inkyo, that is, hands over the care of the household to the next generation, and amuses him or herself by going to the theatre or visiting friends,—they do not realise that this cheery and eminently practical old individual is the lineal representative of the deeply religious Brahman householder, who, at a certain