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[Illustration: 'I trust you, honourable sir, to speak further if you so desire.']
G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1906
To hope to understand in a few short years or even in a lifetime the development of the humane, refined, and notably progressive people of Japan would be presumptuous; yet, if I can in these pages contribute in some degree toward that end, I shall feel amply rewarded.
I am indebted to those who have preceded me in this field for much of my detail. I shall, moreover, always hold that to my Japanese friends and others, who so cheerfully rendered me assistance in obtaining original matter, should be attributed any merit which this tale of old Japan may possess. Without them it could not have been, and for its shortcomings I alone am responsible.
NOTE.--The superior figures throughout the text refer to the notes in the appendix.
"I TRUST YOU, HONOURABLE SIR, TO SPEAK FURTHER IF YOU SO DESIRE" _Frontispiece_
THE TWO-LIPPED CUP WAS OFFERED ... TAKARA MOISTENED HER LIPS THEREFROM, THEN PASSED IT TO THE BRIDEGROOM 62
KINSAN SAT IN DEEP THOUGHT ... WITH THE CHILD FONDLED IN HER LAP 172
THEIR STEELS RANG WITH THE PERFECTION OF THEIR MAKING 276
That to the new the old must yield had ever been exemplified in Japan, as elsewhere, though until the time of this narrative she had not chosen earnestly to measure the test outside the confines of her own borders. The flowery kingdom of Nippon[1] did not know the world as others knew it, nor had she as yet cared to know it, for she was occupied and contented within her own sphere, hence satisfied and progressive without coming into contact with another civilisation.
In love as in law this kindly civil and quaintly constituted people had been moved and swayed, governed and ruled, by the one master spirit, ancestor worship, as marriage was contracted and government prosecuted in accordance with its divine precepts. Regardless of mutual love or natural affinity, the family in its official capacity chose for the husband a wife; and without its decree there was no release, though love was the basic element of their social existence.