s morose and dejected in the extreme. This
disposition is ever stimulated by the religious teachings of Buddhism.
Its great message has been the evanescent character of the present
life. Life is not worth living, it urges; though life may have some
pleasures, the total result is disappointment and sorrow. Buddhism has
found a warm welcome in the hearts of many Japanese. For more than a
thousand years it has been exercising a potent influence on their
thoughts and lives. Yet how is this consistent with the cheerful
disposition which seems so characteristic of Japan? The answer is not
far to seek. Pessimism is by its very nature separative, isolating,
silent. Those oppressed by it do not enter into public joys. They hide
themselves in monasteries, or in the home. The result is that by its
very nature the actual pessimism of Japan is not a conspicuous feature
of national character. The judgment that all Japanese are cheerful
rests on shallow grounds. Because, forsooth, millions on holidays bear
that appearance, and because on ordinary occasions the average man and
woman seem cheerful and happy, the conclusion is reached that all are
so. No effort is made to learn of those whose lives are spent in
sadness and isolation. I am convinced that the Japan of old, for all
its apparent cheer, had likewise its side of deep tragedy. Conditions
of life that struck down countless individuals, and mental conditions
which made Buddhism so popular, both point to this conclusion.

Again I wish to call attention to the fact that the prominence of
children and young people is in part the cause of the appearance of
general happiness. The Japanese live on the street as no Western
people do. The stores and workshops are the homes; when these are
open, the homes are open. When the children go out of the house to
play they use the streets, for they seldom have yards. Here they
gather in great numbers and play most enthusiastically, utterly
regardless of the passers-by, for these latter are all on foot or in
jinrikishas, and, consequently, never cause the children any alarm.

The Japanese give the double impression of being industrious and
diligent on the one hand, and, on the other, of being lazy and utterly
indifferent to the lapse of time. The long hours during which they
keep at work is a constant wonder to the Occidental. I have often been
amazed in Fukuoka to find stores and workshops open, apparently in
operation, after ten and sometimes e