If  I  do  not  seem  to  take  the  Japanese  seriously
in  this  book,  it  is  because  the  book  itself  is  not
serious.  As  the  pictures  by  the  great  Japanese
artist  will  indicate,  I  have  chiefly  tried  to  depict  the
humours  of  Japanese  life — one  might  almost  say
the  humours  of  Japanese  street-life.     Except  when

xiii


INTRODUCTION

I  am  quoting  from  the  Japanese  themselves,  I  do
not  attempt  to  give  any  ghmpses  of  the  Hfe  of
ladies  and  gentlemen.  Japanese  great  people  are
more  dignified  than  other  great  people ;  they  are
not  a  legitimate  subject  for  comedy.  For  the
same  reason,  I  say  little  of  Japanese  progress.  The
Japanese  are  a  first-class  Power ;  there  is  nothing
funny  about  their  army,  or  their  navy,  or  their
pohtics.  Their  great  national  institutions  are
desperately  in  earnest,  because  from  the  moment
they  were  conscious  that  they  were  a  first-class
Power  they  have  been  conscious  that  they  may
suddenly  be  called  upon  to  make  a  life-and-death
struggle  for  their  existence.  They  stand  in  the
path  of  Russia,  and,  if  Russia  can  crowd  them
out,  she  will.
I  fortunately  knew  Japan  before  she  knew  that
she  was  a  first-class  Power,  in  the  days  when  the
foreigners  were  so  ignorant  as  to  suppose  that
Japan  was  a  nation  at  play ;  so  I  was  chiefly  on
the  look-out  for  the  humours  of  the  country ;  and
the  servants,  small  shopkeepers,  riksha  boys,  and
workpeople,  among  whom  the  foreigners  lived  and
moved  and  had  their  being,  were  intensely  humor-
ous, in  spite  of  a  poverty  that  almost  amounted  to
tragedy,  in  Japan  as  I  knew  it.
