Rare Days in Japan

The addresses had been on topics in philosophy?chiefly the Philosophy of Religion. The weather proved as uncomfortable and debilitating as Japanese summer weather can easily be. In spite of this, however, about two hundred and fifty men, with few exceptions from the student classes, had been constant in attendance and interest to the very end; and I was asking myself where else in the world under similar discouraging circumstances, such an audience for such a subject could readily be secured. The evening before we were to set out upon our trip, I was given a dinner in the apartments of one of the temples in the suburbs of Tokyo. The whole entertainment was characteristic of old-fashioned Japanese ideals of the most refined hospitality; abrief description of what took place may therefore help to correct any impression that the posturing of geisha girls and the drinking of quantities of hot sake is the only way in which the cultivated gentlemen of Japan know how to amuse themselves. As the principal feature of entertainment on this occasion, an artist of local reputation, who worked with water-colours, had been called to the assistance of the hosts; and we all spent a most pleasant and instructive hour or two, seated on the mats around him and watching the skill of his art in rapid designing and executing. The kakemonos thus produced were then presented to the principal guest as souvenirs of the occasion. The artistic skill of this old gentleman was not indeed eq...