ires laden
Whom mortals call the moon,"

replied, "My thinkee all same lamp pidgin" (pidgin meaning thing in the
mongrel speech, Chinese in form and English in diction, which goes by
the name of pidgin English).

Their own tongues show the same prosaic character, picturesque as they
appear to us at first sight. That effect is due simply to the novelty
to us of their expressions. To talk of a pass as an "up-down" has a
refreshing turn to our unused ear, but it is a much more descriptive
than imaginative figure of speech. Nor is the phrase "the being (so)
is difficult," in place of "thank you," a surprisingly beautiful bit of
imagery, delightful as it sounds for a change. Our own tongue has, in
its daily vocabulary, far more suggestive expressions, only familiarity
has rendered us callous to their use. We employ at every instant words
which, could we but stop to think of them, would strike us as poetic
in the ideas they call up. As has been well said, they were once happy
thoughts of some bright particular genius bequeathed to posterity
without so much as an accompanying name, and which proved so popular
that they soon became but symbols themselves.

Their languages are paralleled by their whole life. A lack of any
fanciful ideas is one of the most salient traits of all Far Eastern
races, if indeed a sad dearth of anything can properly be spoken of as
salient. Indirectly their want of imagination betrays itself in their
every-day sayings and doings, and more directly in every branch of
thought. Originality is not their strong point. Their utter ignorance of
science shows this, and paradoxical as it may seem, their art, in
spite of its merit and its universality, does the same. That art and
imagination are necessarily bound together receives no very forcible
confirmation from a land where, nationally speaking, at any rate, the
first is easily first and the last easily last, as nations go. It is to
quite another quality that their artistic excellence must be ascribed.
That the Chinese and later the Japanese have accomplished results
at which the rest of the world will yet live to marvel, is due to
their--taste. But taste or delicacy of perception has absolutely nothing
to do with imagination. That certain of the senses of Far Orientals are
wonderfully keen, as also those parts of the brain that directly respond
to them, is beyond question; but such sensitiveness does not in the
least involve the less earth-tied porti