h, in an acorn, besides the nut itself, two oaks,
that one from which it fell, and that other which from it will rise.
These three states, which we may call its potential past, present, and
future, may be observed and studied in three special outgrowths of a
race's character: in its language, in its every-day thoughts, and in its
religion. For in the language of a people we find embalmed the spirit
of its past; in its every-day thoughts, be they of arts or sciences, is
wrapped up its present life; in its religion lie enfolded its dreamings
of a future. From out each of these three subjects in the Far East
impersonality stares us in the face. Upon this quality as a foundation
rests the Far Oriental character. It is individually rather than
nationally that I propose to scan it now. It is the action of a
particle in the wave of world-development I would watch, rather than
the propagation of the wave itself. Inferences about the movement of the
whole will follow of themselves a knowledge of the motion of its parts.

But before we attack the subject esoterically, let us look a moment at
the man as he appears in his relation to the community. Such a glance
will suggest the peculiar atmosphere of impersonality that pervades the
people.

However lacking in cleverness, in merit, or in imagination a man may
be, there are in our Western world, if his existence there be so much as
noticed at all, three occasions on which he appears in print. His birth,
his marriage, and his death are all duly chronicled in type, perhaps as
sufficiently typical of the general unimportance of his life. Mention of
one's birth, it is true, is an aristocratic privilege, confined to the
world of English society. In democratic America, no doubt because all
men there are supposed to be born free and equal, we ignore the first
event, and mention only the last two episodes, about which our national
astuteness asserts no such effacing equality.

Accepting our newspaper record as a fair enough summary of the biography
of an average man, let us look at these three momentous occasions in the
career of a Far Oriental.

Chapter 2. Family.

In the first place, then, the poor little Japanese baby is ushered into
this world in a sadly impersonal manner, for he is not even accorded the
distinction of a birthday. He is permitted instead only the much less
special honor of a birth-year. Not that he begins his separate existence
otherwise than is the custom of m