Page:Through the torii (IA throughtorii00noguiala).pdf/34

 the Orient, ever dreamed. Figuratively speaking, we were changing our kimono of old brocade, precious with tradition, for a plain sack-coat, perhaps made in Chicago. The municipality has been for the last two or three years spending an enormous amount of money for the sudden enlarging of the streets, and the hasty building of houses of brick or stone, of white or red; but I wonder why our Japanese city should be one and the same with that of the West. And again I wonder if it was her weakness or strength that she accepted the foreign things so easily. It makes me reflect what right she has, however, to object to the foreign invasion, as she had no definite purpose as a city originally. And is it the only way to put the Western morality in the old heart of the city? Can she ever become really civilised? Rh