s fails to reveal in them a relevancy to anybody.
That the commonest objects should bear titles because of their
connection with some particular person is comprehensible, but what
excuse can be made for a phrase like the following, "It respectfully
does that the august seat exists," all of which simply means "is," and
may be applied to anything, being the common word--in Japanese it is all
one word now--for that apparently simple idea. It would seem a sad
waste of valuable material. The real reason why so much distinguished
consideration is shown the article in question lies in the fact that
it is treated as existing with reference to the person addressed, and
therefore becomes ipso facto august.

Here is a still subtler example. You are, we will suppose, at a
tea-house, and you wish for sugar. The following almost stereotyped
conversation is pretty sure to take place. I translate it literally,
simply prefacing that every tea-house girl, usually in the first
blush of youth, is generically addressed as "elder sister,"--another
honorific, at least so considered in Japan.

You clap your hands. (Enter tea-house maiden.)

You. Hai, elder sister, augustly exists there sugar?

The T. H. M. The honorable sugar, augustly is it?

You. So, augustly.

The T. H. M. He (indescribable expression of assent).
(Exit tea-house maiden to fetch the sugar.)

Now, the "augustlies" go almost without saying, but why is the sugar
honorable? Simply because it is eventually going to be offered to you.
But she would have spoken of it by precisely the same respectful title,
if she had been obliged to inform you that there was none, in which case
it never could have become yours. Such is politeness. We may note,
in passing, that all her remarks and all yours, barring your initial
question, meant absolutely nothing. She understood you perfectly from
the first, and you knew she did; but then, if all of us were to say only
what were necessary, the delightful art of conversation would soon be
nothing but a science.

The average Far Oriental, indeed, talks as much to no purpose as his
Western cousin, only in his chit-chat politeness replaces personalities.
With him, self is suppressed, and an ever-present regard for others is
substituted in its stead.

A lack of personality is, as we have seen, the occasion of this
courtesy; it is also its cause.

That politeness should be one of the most marked results of
impersonality may appear s