ee days, and the feasibility
was discussed of obtaining a permit from the British Legation to visit
one of the mikado's palaces. But I felt no desire to see the abode of a
europeanised mikado, who dressed in broadcloth, sat on a chair like any
other uninteresting occidental monarch and submitted to the dictates of
a constitution framed on the pattern of the Prussian diet. No
sight-seeing, indeed, had any significance for me, unless it was
connected with memories of a half-blind, eccentric genius, not looked
upon as of any account except by a small circle of literary enthusiasts.

The sphere which has been allotted to us for our short span, grants us
in its daily and yearly revolutions few sensations so delightful as
encountering social conditions, material manifestations, totally
different to anything hitherto experienced or imagined. The impressions
of those enchanted weeks in Japan, however, would have lost half their
charm, had they not been illumined and interpreted by so sympathetic an
expositor as the author of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." To me,
reading his books, full of admiration for his genius, the ancient parts
of the city, the immemorial temples, the gardens still untouched by
European cultivation, became permeated with spiritual and romantic
meaning. A _Shirabyoshi_ lurked behind every screen in the Yoshiwara
quarter; the ululation of the dogs as I heard them across the district
of Tsukiji at night, seemed a howl in which all the primitive cries of
their ancestors were concentrated; every cat was a Tama seeking her dead
kittens, while the songs sung by the children as they played in the
streets gained a new meaning from Hearn's translations. I even wandered
in the ancient parts of the city to see if I could find a Japanese
maiden slipping the eye of the needle over the point of the thread,
instead of putting the thread through the eye of the needle; and there,
seated on _zabutons_ in a little shop, as large--or rather as small--as
life, I caught them in the act. How they laughed, those two little
_musumes_, when they saw me watching them so intently. I felt as I
passed along that I had acquired another proof of the "surprising
_otherness_ of things" to insert amongst my notes on this extraordinary
land of Nippon.

I fear I also violated every rule of etiquette by visiting Japanese
houses in Tokyo without appointment, where I was told people lived who
had known Hearn and could give me information concer