Japan.
When a man or woman feels his or her soul stirred, the first instinct is
to quietly suppress any indication of it. In rare instances is the
tongue set free by an irresistible spirit, when we have eloquence of
sincerity and fervor. It is putting a premium upon a breach of the third
commandment to encourage speaking lightly of spiritual experience. It is
truly jarring to Japanese ears to hear the most sacred words, the most
secret heart experiences, thrown out in promiscuous audiences. "Dost
thou feel the soil of thy soul stirred with tender thoughts? It is time
for seeds to sprout. Disturb it not with speech; but let it work alone
in quietness and secrecy,"--writes a young samurai in his diary.

To give in so many articulate words one's inmost thoughts and
feelings--notably the religious--is taken among us as an unmistakable
sign that they are neither very profound nor very sincere. "Only a
pomegranate is he"--so runs a popular saying--"who, when he gapes his
mouth, displays the contents of his heart."

It is not altogether perverseness of oriental minds that the instant our
emotions are moved we try to guard our lips in order to hide them.
Speech is very often with us, as the Frenchman defined it, "the art of
concealing thought."

Call upon a Japanese friend in time of deepest affliction and he will
invariably receive you laughing, with red eyes or moist cheeks. At first
you may think him hysterical. Press him for explanation and you will get
a few broken commonplaces--"Human life has sorrow;" "They who meet must
part;" "He that is born must die;" "It is foolish to count the years of
a child that is gone, but a woman's heart will indulge in follies;" and
the like. So the noble words of a noble Hohenzollern--"Lerne zu leiden
ohne Klagen"--had found many responsive minds among us, long before they
were uttered.

Indeed, the Japanese have recourse to risibility whenever the frailties
of human nature are put to severest test. I think we possess a better
reason than Democritus himself for our Abderian tendency; for laughter
with us oftenest veils an effort to regain balance of temper, when
disturbed by any untoward circumstance. It is a counterpoise of sorrow
or rage.

The suppression of feelings being thus steadily insisted upon, they find
their safety-valve in poetical aphorism. A poet of the tenth century
writes, "In Japan and China as well, humanity, when moved by sorrow,
tells its bitter grief in verse." A