Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/369

Rh of snobbery is so peculiarly Anglo-Saxon that we doubt whether any language but English even has a word for it.

 Numerical Categories. Number has long exercised a peculiar fascination over the Far-Eastern mind. European languages, no doubt, have such expressions as "the Four Cardinal Virtues" and "the Seven Deadly Sins;" but it is no part of our mental disposition to divide up and parcel out almost all things visible and invisible into numerical categories fixed by unchanging custom, as is the case among the nations from India eastward. The Chinese speak of their "Three Religions," of "the Three Forms of Obedience," "the Four Classics," "the Five Duties," "the Eight Diagrams," "the Four-and-Twenty Paragons of Filial Piety," whole pages of their books of reference being devoted to lists of expressions of this kind. The Japanese have followed suit. They have adopted most of the Chinese numerical categories, and have invented new ones of their own. Here are ten of the commonest (ten being the Japanese dozen), chosen from among many scores:

(三景), namely, Matsushima near Sendai in the North, Miyajima in the Inland Sea, and Ama-no-Hashidale on the Sea of Japan. These are considered the three most beautiful places in the empire.

(三府五港). The former are Tōkyō, Kyōto, and Ōsaka; the latter are Yokohama, Kōbe, Nagasaki, Niigata, and Hakodate.

(五節句). They are the 7th January, the 3rd March, the 5th May, the 7th July, and the 9th September. (See Article on Things Japanese/Festivals.)

"" (秋の七草), sung by Japanese poets from very early times:— Hagi ga hana,


 * Obana, Kuzu-hana,

Nadeshiko no 