rvous
organisation!

Why not amuse yourselves at our expense? Asia returns the compliment.
There would be further food for merriment if you were to know all
that we have imagined and written about you. All the glamour of the
perspective is there, all the unconscious homage of wonder, all the
silent resentment of the new and undefined. You have been loaded with
virtues too refined to be envied, and accused of crimes too
picturesque to be condemned. Our writers in the past--the wise men who
knew--informed us that you had bushy tails somewhere hidden in your
garments, and often dined off a fricassee of newborn babes! Nay, we had
something worse against you: we used to think you the most impracticable
people on the earth, for you were said to preach what you never
practiced.

Such misconceptions are fast vanishing amongst us. Commerce has forced
the European tongues on many an Eastern port. Asiatic youths are
flocking to Western colleges for the equipment of modern education.
Our insight does not penetrate your culture deeply, but at least we are
willing to learn. Some of my compatriots have adopted too much of
your customs and too much of your etiquette, in the delusion that the
acquisition of stiff collars and tall silk hats comprised the attainment
of your civilisation. Pathetic and deplorable as such affectations
are, they evince our willingness to approach the West on our knees.
Unfortunately the Western attitude is unfavourable to the understanding
of the East. The Christian missionary goes to impart, but not to
receive. Your information is based on the meagre translations of our
immense literature, if not on the unreliable anecdotes of passing
travellers. It is rarely that the chivalrous pen of a Lafcadio Hearn
or that of the author of "The Web of Indian Life" enlivens the Oriental
darkness with the torch of our own sentiments.

Perhaps I betray my own ignorance of the Tea Cult by being so outspoken.
Its very spirit of politeness exacts that you say what you are expected
to say, and no more. But I am not to be a polite Teaist. So much harm
has been done already by the mutual misunderstanding of the New World
and the Old, that one need not apologise for contributing his tithe
to the furtherance of a better understanding. The beginning of the
twentieth century would have been spared the spectacle of sanguinary
warfare if Russia had condescended to know Japan better. What dire
consequences to humanity lie in the con