the work of none could have been given to the world without Japanese
help.

But as the outward strangeness of Japan proves to be full of beauty,
so the inward strangeness appears to have its charm,--an ethical
charm reflected in the common life of the people. The attractive
aspects of that life do not indeed imply, to the ordinary observer, a
psychological differentiation measurable by scores of centuries: only
a scientific mind, like that of Mr. Percival Lowell, immediately
perceives the problem presented. The less gifted stranger, if
naturally sympathetic, is merely pleased and puzzled, and tries to
explain, by his own experience of happy life on the other side of the
world, the social conditions that charm him. Let us suppose that he
has the good fortune of being able to [12] live for six months or a
year in some old-fashioned town of the interior. From the beginning
of this sojourn he call scarcely fail to be impressed by the apparent
kindliness and joyousness of the existence about him. In the
relations of the people to each other, as well as in all their
relations to himself, he will find a constant amenity, a tact, a
good-nature such as he will elsewhere have met with only in the
friendship of exclusive circles. Everybody greets everybody with
happy looks and pleasant words; faces are always smiling; the
commonest incidents of everyday life are transfigured by a courtesy
at once so artless and so faultless that it appears to spring
directly from the heart, without any teaching. Under all
circumstances a certain outward cheerfulness never falls: no matter
what troubles may come,--storm or fire, flood or earthquake,--the
laughter of greeting voices, the bright smile and graceful bow, the
kindly inquiry and the wish to please, continue to make existence
beautiful. Religion brings no gloom into this sunshine: before the