Former colleagues who have risen to eminence—Kiderlin-Waechter—Aehrenthal—Colonel Klepsch—The discomfiture1 of an inquisitive2 journalist—Origin of certain Russian scares—Tokyo—Dulness of Geisha dinners—Japanese culinary curiosities—"Musical Chairs"—Lack of colour in Japan—The Tokugawa dynasty—Japanese Gardens—The transplanted suburban4 Embassy house—Cherry-blossom—Japanese Politeness—An unfortunate incident in Rome—Eastern courtesy—The country in Japan—An Imperial duck catching5 party—An up-to-date Tokyo house—A Shinto Temple—Linguistic6 difficulties at a dinner-party—The economical colleague—Japan defaced by advertisements.
Petrograd was the only capital at which I was stationed in which there was a diplomatic table d'hôte. In one of the French restaurants there, a room was specially7 set apart for the diplomats8, and here the "chers collègues" foregathered nightly, when they had no other engagements. When a Spaniard and a Dane, a Roumanian and a Dutchman, a Hungarian and an Englishman dine together frequently, it becomes a subject of thankfulness that the universal use of the French language as a means of international communication has mitigated10 the linguistic difficulties brought about by the ambitious tower-builders of Babel.
Two men whom I met frequently at that diplomatic table d'hôte rose afterwards to important
{306}
positions in their own countries. They were Baron11 von Kiderlin-Waechter, the German, and Baron von Aehrenthal, the Austrian, both of whom became Ministers for Foreign Affairs in their respective countries, and both of whom are now dead. Kiderlin-Waechter arrived in Petrograd as quite a young man with the reputation of being Bismarck's favourite and most promising12 pupil. Though a South German by birth, Kiderlin-Waechter had acquired an overbearing and dictatorial13 manner of the most approved Prussian type. When a number of young men, all of whom are on very friendly terms with each other, constantly meet, there is naturally a good deal of fun and chaff14 passed to and fro between them. Diplomats are no exception to this rule, and the fact that the ten young men talking together may be of ten different nationalities is no bar to the interchange of humorous personalities15, thanks to the convenient French language, which lends itself peculiarly to "persiflage17."
Germans can never understand the form of friendly banter18 which we term chaff, and always resent it deeply. I have known German diplomats so offended at a harmless joke that they have threatened to challenge the author of it to a duel19. I should like to pay a belated tribute to the memory of the late Count Lovendal, Danish Minister in Petrograd; peace to his ashes! This kindly20, tactful, middle-aged21 man must during my time in Petrograd have stopped at least eight duels22. People in trouble went straight to Count Lovendal, and this
{307}
shrewd, kind-hearted, experienced man of the world heard them with infinite patience, and then always gave them sound advice. As years went on, Count Lovendal came to be a sort of recognised Court of Honour, to whom all knotty23 and delicate points were referred. He, if anyone, should have "Blessed are the peacemakers" inscribed24 on his tomb. At least four of the duels he averted26 were due to the inability of Germans to stand chaff. Kiderlin-Waechter, for instance, was for ever taking offence at harmless jokes, and threatening swords and pistols in answer to them. He was a very big, gross-looking, fair-haired man; with exactly the type of face that a caricaturist associates with the average Prussian.
His face was slashed27 with a generous allowance of the scars of which Germans are so proud, as testifying to their prowess in their student-duelling days. I think that it was the late Sir Wilfrid Lawson who, referring to the beer-drinking habits of German students and their passionate28 love of face-slashing, described them as living in a perpetual atmosphere of "scars and swipes." Though from South Germany, Kiderlin snapped out his words with true "Preussische Grobheit" in speaking German. Fortunately, it is impossible to obtain this bullying30 effect in the French language. It does not lend itself to it. I should be guilty of exaggeration were I to say that Kiderlin-Waechter was wildly adored by his foreign colleagues. He became Minister for Foreign Affairs of the German
{308}
Empire, but made the same mistake as some of his predecessors32, notably33 Count Herbert Bismarck, had done. They attributed Bismarck's phenomenal success to his habitual34 dictatorial, bullying manner. This was easily copied; they forgot the genius behind the bully31, which could not be copied, and did not realise that Bismarck's tremendous brain had not fallen to their portion. Kiderlin-Waechter's tenure35 of office was a short one; he died very suddenly in 1912. He was a violent Anglophobe.
Baron von Aehrenthal was a very different stamp of man. He was of Semitic origin, and in appearance was a good-looking, tall, slim, dark young fellow with very pleasing manners. Some people indeed thought his manners too pleasant, and termed them subservient36. I knew Aehrenthal very well indeed, and liked him, but I never suspected that under that very quiet exterior37 there lay the most intense personal ambition. He became Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1907, being raised to the rank of Count next year. This quiet, sleepy-mannered man began embarking38 on a recklessly bold foreign policy, and, to the surprise of those who fancied that they knew him well, exhibited a most domineering spirit. The old Emperor Francis Joseph's mental powers were failing, and it was Aehrenthal who persuaded him to put an end to the understanding with Russia under which the status quo in the Balkan States was guaranteed, and to astonish Europe in 1908 by proclaiming the annexation40 of Bosnia and Herzegovina
{309}
to the Austrian Empire. This step, owing to the seething41 discontent it aroused in Bosnia, led directly to the catastrophe42 of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and plunged43 Europe into the most terrible war of history. Aehrenthal, whether intentionally44 or not, played directly into the hands of the Pan-Germanic party, and succeeded in tying his own country, a pliant46 vassal47, to the chariot-wheels of Berlin. It was Aehrenthal who brought the immemorially old Hapsburg Monarchy48 crashing to the ground and by his foreign policy caused the proud Austrian Empire to collapse49 like a house of cards. He did not live to see the final results of his work, for he died in 1912.
Colonel Klepsch, the Austro-Hungarian Military Attaché at Petrograd, another habitué of the diplomatic table d'hôte, was a most remarkable50 man. He knew more of the real state of affairs in Russia, and of the inner workings and intentions of the Russian Government, than any other foreigner in the country, and his information was invariably correct. Nearly all the foreign Ambassadors consulted Colonel Klepsch as to the probable trend of affairs in Russia, and at times he called on them and volunteered pieces of information. It was well known that his source of intelligence was a feminine one, and experience had proved that it was always to be relied upon. To this day I do not know whether this mysterious, taciturn man was at times used as a convenient mouthpiece by the Russian Government, at the instigation of a
{310}
certain person to whom he was devotedly51 attached; whether he acted on instructions from his own Ambassador, or if he took the steps he did on his own initiative. This tall, red-haired, silent man, with his uncanny knowledge of every detail of what was happening in the country, will always remain an enigma52 to me.
I mentioned earlier in these reminiscences that Lord Dufferin on one occasion accomplished53 the difficult feat54 of turning an English newspaper correspondent out of his house with the most charming courtesy.
After an interval55 of nearly forty years, I can without indiscretion say how this came about. The person in question, whom we will call Mr. Q., was an exceedingly enterprising journalist, the correspondent of a big London daily. He was also pretty unscrupulous as to the methods he employed in gathering56 information. It is quite obviously the duty of a newspaper correspondent to collect information for his paper. It is equally clearly the duty of those to whom official secrets are entrusted57 to prevent their becoming public property; so here we have conflicting interests. At times it happens that an "incident" arises between two Governments apparently58 trivial in itself, but capable of being fanned into such a fierce flame by popular opinion as to make it difficult for either Government to recede59 from the position they had originally taken up. The Press screams loudly on both sides, and every Government shrinks from
{311}
incurring60 the unpopularity which a charge of betraying the national interests would bring upon it. Experience has shown that in these cases the difficulties can usually be smoothed down, provided the whole matter be kept secret, and that neither the public nor the Press of either of the two countries concerned have an inkling of the awkward situation that has arisen. An indiscreet or hysterical61 Press can blow a tiny spark into a roaring conflagration62 and work up popular feeling to fever-pitch. It may surprise people to learn that barely twenty years ago such a situation arose between our own country and another European Power (not Germany). Those in charge of the negotiations63 on both sides very wisely determined64 that the matter should be concealed65 absolutely from the public and the Press of both countries, and not one word about it was allowed to leak out. Otherwise the situation might have been one of extreme gravity, for it was again one of those cases where neither Government could give way without being accused of pusillanimity66. As it was, the matter was settled amicably67 in a week, and to this day very few people know that this very serious difficulty ever occurred.
Nearly forty years ago, just such a situation had arisen between us and the Russian Government; but the Ambassador was convinced that he could smooth it away provided that the whole thing were kept secret.
Mr. Q. was a first-rate journalist, and his flair68
{312}
as a newspaperman told him that something was wrong. From the Russians he could learn nothing; they were as close as wax; so Mr. Q. turned his attention to the Chancery of the British Embassy. His methods were simple. He gained admission to the Chancery on some pretext69 or another, and then walking about the room, and talking most volubly, he cast a roving eye over any papers that might be lying about on the tables. In all Chanceries a book called the Register is kept in which every document received or sent out is entered, with, of course, its date, and a short summary of its contents. It is a large book, and reposes70 on its own high desk. Ours stood in a window overlooking the Neva. Mr. Q. was not troubled with false delicacy71. Under pretence72 of admiring the view over the river, he attempted to throw a rapid eye over the Register. A colleague of mine, as a gentle hint, removed the Register from under Mr. Q.'s very nose, and locked it up in the archive press. Mr. Q., however, was not thin-skinned. He came back again and again, till the man became a positive nuisance. We always cleared away every paper before he was allowed admittance. I was only twenty-two or twenty-three then, and I devised a strictly73 private scheme of my own for Mr. Q.'s discomfiture. All despatches received from the Foreign Office in those days were kept folded in packets of ten, with a docket on each, giving a summary of its contents. I prepared two despatches for Mr. Q.'s private eye and, after much
{313}
cogitation75, settled that they should be about Afghanistan, which did not happen to be the particular point in dispute between the two Governments at that time. I also decided76 on a rhyming docket. It struck me as a pleasing novelty, and I thought the jingle77 would impress itself on Mr. Q.'s memory, for he was meant to see this bogus despatch74. I took eight sheets of foolscap, virgin78, spotless, unblackened, folded them in the orthodox fashion, and docketed them in a way I remember to this day. It ran: first the particular year, then "Foreign Office No. 3527. Secret and Confidential79. Dated March 3. Received March 11." Then came the rhyming docket,
"General Kaufman's rumoured80 plan
To make Abdurrahman Khan
Ruler of Afghanistan."
Under that I wrote in red ink in a different hand, with a fine pen,
"Urgent. Instructions already acted on. See further instructions re Afghanistan in No. 3534."
Two men whom I met frequently at that diplomatic table d'hôte rose afterwards to important
{306}
positions in their own countries. They were Baron11 von Kiderlin-Waechter, the German, and Baron von Aehrenthal, the Austrian, both of whom became Ministers for Foreign Affairs in their respective countries, and both of whom are now dead. Kiderlin-Waechter arrived in Petrograd as quite a young man with the reputation of being Bismarck's favourite and most promising12 pupil. Though a South German by birth, Kiderlin-Waechter had acquired an overbearing and dictatorial13 manner of the most approved Prussian type. When a number of young men, all of whom are on very friendly terms with each other, constantly meet, there is naturally a good deal of fun and chaff14 passed to and fro between them. Diplomats are no exception to this rule, and the fact that the ten young men talking together may be of ten different nationalities is no bar to the interchange of humorous personalities15, thanks to the convenient French language, which lends itself peculiarly to "persiflage17."
Germans can never understand the form of friendly banter18 which we term chaff, and always resent it deeply. I have known German diplomats so offended at a harmless joke that they have threatened to challenge the author of it to a duel19. I should like to pay a belated tribute to the memory of the late Count Lovendal, Danish Minister in Petrograd; peace to his ashes! This kindly20, tactful, middle-aged21 man must during my time in Petrograd have stopped at least eight duels22. People in trouble went straight to Count Lovendal, and this
{307}
shrewd, kind-hearted, experienced man of the world heard them with infinite patience, and then always gave them sound advice. As years went on, Count Lovendal came to be a sort of recognised Court of Honour, to whom all knotty23 and delicate points were referred. He, if anyone, should have "Blessed are the peacemakers" inscribed24 on his tomb. At least four of the duels he averted26 were due to the inability of Germans to stand chaff. Kiderlin-Waechter, for instance, was for ever taking offence at harmless jokes, and threatening swords and pistols in answer to them. He was a very big, gross-looking, fair-haired man; with exactly the type of face that a caricaturist associates with the average Prussian.
His face was slashed27 with a generous allowance of the scars of which Germans are so proud, as testifying to their prowess in their student-duelling days. I think that it was the late Sir Wilfrid Lawson who, referring to the beer-drinking habits of German students and their passionate28 love of face-slashing, described them as living in a perpetual atmosphere of "scars and swipes." Though from South Germany, Kiderlin snapped out his words with true "Preussische Grobheit" in speaking German. Fortunately, it is impossible to obtain this bullying30 effect in the French language. It does not lend itself to it. I should be guilty of exaggeration were I to say that Kiderlin-Waechter was wildly adored by his foreign colleagues. He became Minister for Foreign Affairs of the German
{308}
Empire, but made the same mistake as some of his predecessors32, notably33 Count Herbert Bismarck, had done. They attributed Bismarck's phenomenal success to his habitual34 dictatorial, bullying manner. This was easily copied; they forgot the genius behind the bully31, which could not be copied, and did not realise that Bismarck's tremendous brain had not fallen to their portion. Kiderlin-Waechter's tenure35 of office was a short one; he died very suddenly in 1912. He was a violent Anglophobe.
Baron von Aehrenthal was a very different stamp of man. He was of Semitic origin, and in appearance was a good-looking, tall, slim, dark young fellow with very pleasing manners. Some people indeed thought his manners too pleasant, and termed them subservient36. I knew Aehrenthal very well indeed, and liked him, but I never suspected that under that very quiet exterior37 there lay the most intense personal ambition. He became Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1907, being raised to the rank of Count next year. This quiet, sleepy-mannered man began embarking38 on a recklessly bold foreign policy, and, to the surprise of those who fancied that they knew him well, exhibited a most domineering spirit. The old Emperor Francis Joseph's mental powers were failing, and it was Aehrenthal who persuaded him to put an end to the understanding with Russia under which the status quo in the Balkan States was guaranteed, and to astonish Europe in 1908 by proclaiming the annexation40 of Bosnia and Herzegovina
{309}
to the Austrian Empire. This step, owing to the seething41 discontent it aroused in Bosnia, led directly to the catastrophe42 of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and plunged43 Europe into the most terrible war of history. Aehrenthal, whether intentionally44 or not, played directly into the hands of the Pan-Germanic party, and succeeded in tying his own country, a pliant46 vassal47, to the chariot-wheels of Berlin. It was Aehrenthal who brought the immemorially old Hapsburg Monarchy48 crashing to the ground and by his foreign policy caused the proud Austrian Empire to collapse49 like a house of cards. He did not live to see the final results of his work, for he died in 1912.
Colonel Klepsch, the Austro-Hungarian Military Attaché at Petrograd, another habitué of the diplomatic table d'hôte, was a most remarkable50 man. He knew more of the real state of affairs in Russia, and of the inner workings and intentions of the Russian Government, than any other foreigner in the country, and his information was invariably correct. Nearly all the foreign Ambassadors consulted Colonel Klepsch as to the probable trend of affairs in Russia, and at times he called on them and volunteered pieces of information. It was well known that his source of intelligence was a feminine one, and experience had proved that it was always to be relied upon. To this day I do not know whether this mysterious, taciturn man was at times used as a convenient mouthpiece by the Russian Government, at the instigation of a
{310}
certain person to whom he was devotedly51 attached; whether he acted on instructions from his own Ambassador, or if he took the steps he did on his own initiative. This tall, red-haired, silent man, with his uncanny knowledge of every detail of what was happening in the country, will always remain an enigma52 to me.
I mentioned earlier in these reminiscences that Lord Dufferin on one occasion accomplished53 the difficult feat54 of turning an English newspaper correspondent out of his house with the most charming courtesy.
After an interval55 of nearly forty years, I can without indiscretion say how this came about. The person in question, whom we will call Mr. Q., was an exceedingly enterprising journalist, the correspondent of a big London daily. He was also pretty unscrupulous as to the methods he employed in gathering56 information. It is quite obviously the duty of a newspaper correspondent to collect information for his paper. It is equally clearly the duty of those to whom official secrets are entrusted57 to prevent their becoming public property; so here we have conflicting interests. At times it happens that an "incident" arises between two Governments apparently58 trivial in itself, but capable of being fanned into such a fierce flame by popular opinion as to make it difficult for either Government to recede59 from the position they had originally taken up. The Press screams loudly on both sides, and every Government shrinks from
{311}
incurring60 the unpopularity which a charge of betraying the national interests would bring upon it. Experience has shown that in these cases the difficulties can usually be smoothed down, provided the whole matter be kept secret, and that neither the public nor the Press of either of the two countries concerned have an inkling of the awkward situation that has arisen. An indiscreet or hysterical61 Press can blow a tiny spark into a roaring conflagration62 and work up popular feeling to fever-pitch. It may surprise people to learn that barely twenty years ago such a situation arose between our own country and another European Power (not Germany). Those in charge of the negotiations63 on both sides very wisely determined64 that the matter should be concealed65 absolutely from the public and the Press of both countries, and not one word about it was allowed to leak out. Otherwise the situation might have been one of extreme gravity, for it was again one of those cases where neither Government could give way without being accused of pusillanimity66. As it was, the matter was settled amicably67 in a week, and to this day very few people know that this very serious difficulty ever occurred.
Nearly forty years ago, just such a situation had arisen between us and the Russian Government; but the Ambassador was convinced that he could smooth it away provided that the whole thing were kept secret.
Mr. Q. was a first-rate journalist, and his flair68
{312}
as a newspaperman told him that something was wrong. From the Russians he could learn nothing; they were as close as wax; so Mr. Q. turned his attention to the Chancery of the British Embassy. His methods were simple. He gained admission to the Chancery on some pretext69 or another, and then walking about the room, and talking most volubly, he cast a roving eye over any papers that might be lying about on the tables. In all Chanceries a book called the Register is kept in which every document received or sent out is entered, with, of course, its date, and a short summary of its contents. It is a large book, and reposes70 on its own high desk. Ours stood in a window overlooking the Neva. Mr. Q. was not troubled with false delicacy71. Under pretence72 of admiring the view over the river, he attempted to throw a rapid eye over the Register. A colleague of mine, as a gentle hint, removed the Register from under Mr. Q.'s very nose, and locked it up in the archive press. Mr. Q., however, was not thin-skinned. He came back again and again, till the man became a positive nuisance. We always cleared away every paper before he was allowed admittance. I was only twenty-two or twenty-three then, and I devised a strictly73 private scheme of my own for Mr. Q.'s discomfiture. All despatches received from the Foreign Office in those days were kept folded in packets of ten, with a docket on each, giving a summary of its contents. I prepared two despatches for Mr. Q.'s private eye and, after much
{313}
cogitation75, settled that they should be about Afghanistan, which did not happen to be the particular point in dispute between the two Governments at that time. I also decided76 on a rhyming docket. It struck me as a pleasing novelty, and I thought the jingle77 would impress itself on Mr. Q.'s memory, for he was meant to see this bogus despatch74. I took eight sheets of foolscap, virgin78, spotless, unblackened, folded them in the orthodox fashion, and docketed them in a way I remember to this day. It ran: first the particular year, then "Foreign Office No. 3527. Secret and Confidential79. Dated March 3. Received March 11." Then came the rhyming docket,
"General Kaufman's rumoured80 plan
To make Abdurrahman Khan
Ruler of Afghanistan."
Under that I wrote in red ink in a different hand, with a fine pen,
"Urgent. Instructions already acted on. See further instructions re Afghanistan in No. 3534."
I was only twenty-two then, and my sense of responsibility was not fully81 developed, or I should not have acted so flightily. It still strikes me though as an irresistibly82 attractive baited hook to offer to an inquisitive newspaperman. I grieve to say that I also wrote a "fake" decypher of a purely84 apocryphal85 code telegram purporting86 to have come from London. This was also on the subject of
{314}
Afghanistan. It struck me at the time as a perfectly87 legitimate88 thing to do, in order to throw this Paul Pry89 off the scent90, for the Ambassador had impressed on us all the vital importance of not disclosing the real matter in dispute. I put these flagrant forgeries91 in a drawer of my table and waited. I had not to wait long. My colleagues having all gone out to luncheon92, I was alone in the Chancery one day, when Mr. Q.'s card was brought in to me. I kept him waiting until I had cleared every single despatch from the tables and had locked them up. I also locked up the Register, but put an eight-year-old one, exactly similar in appearance, in its place, opening it at a date two days earlier than the actual date, in order that Mr. Q. might not notice that the page (and "to-morrow's" page as well) was already filled up, and the bogus despatch and fake telegram from my drawer were duly laid on the centre table. At twenty-two I was a smooth-faced youth, in appearance, I believe, much younger than my real age. Mr. Q. came in. He had the "Well, old man" style, accompanied by a thump93 on the back, which I peculiarly detest94. He must have blessed his luck in finding such a simple youth in sole charge of the Chancery. Mr. Q. pursued his usual tactics. He talked volubly in a loud voice, walking about the room meanwhile. The idiotic95 boy smoked cigarettes, and gaped96 inanely97. Mr. Q. went as usual to the window where the Register lay in order to admire the view, and the pudding-brained youth noticed nothing, but lit
{315}
a fresh cigarette. That young fool never saw that Mr. Paul Pry read unblushingly half a column of the eight-year-old Register (How it must have puzzled him!) under his very eyes. Mr. Q. then went to the centre table, where he had, of course, noticed the two papers lying, and proceeded to light a cigar. That cigar must have drawn98 very badly, for Mr. Q. had occasion to light it again and again, bending well over the table as he did so. He kept the unsuspicious youth engaged in incessant99 conversation meanwhile. So careless and stupid a boy ought never to have been left in charge of important documents. Finally Mr. Q., having gained all the information for which he had been thirsting so long, left in a jubilant frame of mind, perfectly unconscious that he had been subjected to the slightest crural tension.
When the Councillor of Embassy returned, I made a clean breast of what I had done, and showed him the bogus despatch and telegram I had contrived100. Quite rightly, I received a very severe reprimand. I was warned against ever acting101 in such an irregular fashion again, under the direst penalties. In extenuation102, I pointed103 out to the Councillor that the inquisitive Mr. Q. was now convinced that our difficulty with Russia was over Afghanistan.
I further added that should anyone be dishonourable enough to come into the Chancery and deliberately104 read confidential documents which he knew were not intended for his eye, I clearly could not
{316}
be held responsible for any false impressions he might derive105 from reading them. That, I was told sharply, was no excuse for my conduct. After this "official wigging," the Councillor invited me to dine with him that night, when we laughed loudly over Mr. Q.'s discomfiture. That person became at length such a nuisance that "his name was put on the gate," and he was refused admission to the Embassy.
The great London daily which Mr. Q. represented at Petrograd published some strong articles on the grave menace to the Empire which a change of rulers in Afghanistan might bring about; coupled with Cassandra-like wails106 over the purblind107 British statesmen who were wilfully108 shutting their eyes to this impending109 danger, as well as to baneful110 Russian machinations on our Indian frontier. There were also some unflattering allusions111 to Abdurrahman Khan. I, knowing that the whole story had originated in my own brain, could not restrain a chuckle112 whilst perusing113 these jeremiads. After reading some particularly violent screed114, the Councillor of Embassy would shake his head at me. "This is more of your work, you wretched boy!" After an interval of forty years this little episode can be recounted without harm.
Talking of newspaper enterprise, many years later, when the Emperor Alexander III died, the editor of a well-known London evening paper, a great friend of mine, told me in confidence of a journalistic "scoop115" he was meditating116. Alexander III
{317}
had died at Livadia in the Crimea, and his body was to make a sort of triumphal progress through Russia. The editor (he is no longer with us, but when I term him "Harry117" I shall be revealing his identity to the few) was sending out a Frenchman as special correspondent, armed with a goodly store of roubles, and instructions to get himself engaged as temporary assistant to the undertaker in charge of the Emperor's funeral. This cost, I believe, a considerable sum, but the Frenchman, having entered on his gruesome duties, was enabled to furnish the London evening paper with the fullest details of all the funeral ceremonies.
The reason the younger diplomats foregathered so in Petrograd was that, as I said before, Petrograd was to all intents and purposes extra-European. Apart from its charming society, the town, qua town, offered but few resources. The younger Continental118 diplomats felt the entire absence of cafés, of music-halls, and of places of light entertainment very acutely; so they were thrown on each other's society. In Far Eastern posts such as Pekin or Tokyo, the diplomats live entirely119 amongst themselves. For a European, there are practically no resources whatever in Tokyo. No one could possibly wish to frequent a Japanese theatre, or a Japanese restaurant, when once the novelty had worn off, and even Geisha entertainments are deadly dull to one who cannot understand a word of the language. Let us imagine a party of Europeans arriving at some fashionable
{318}
Japanese restaurant for a Geisha entertainment. They will, of course, remove their shoes before proceeding120 upstairs. I was always unfortunate enough to find on these occasions one or more holes in my socks gaping121 blatantly122. In time one learns in Japan to subject one's socks to a close scrutiny123 in order to make sure that they are intact, for everyone must be prepared to remove his shoes at all hours of the day. We will follow the Europeans up to a room on the upper floor, tastefully arranged in Japanese fashion, and spotlessly neat and clean. The temperature in this room in the winter months would be Arctic, with three or four "fire-pots" containing a few specks124 of mildly-glowing charcoal125 waging a futile126 contest against the penetrating127 cold.
The room is apparently empty, but from behind the sliding-panels giggles128 and titters begin, gradually increasing in volume until the panels slide back, and a number of self-conscious overdressed children step into the room, one taking her place beside each guest. These are "Micos"; little girls being trained as professional Geishas. The European conception of a Geisha is a totally wrong one. They are simply entertainers; trained singers, dancers, and story-tellers. The guests seat themselves clumsily and uncomfortably on the floor and the dinner begins. Japanese dishes are meant to please the eye, which is fortunate, for they certainly do not appeal to the palate. I invariably drew one of the big pots of flowers which always
{319}
decorate these places close up to me, and consigned129 to its kindly keeping all the delicacies130 of the Japanese cuisine131 which were beyond my assimilative powers, such as slices of raw fish sprinkled with sugar, and seasoned with salted ginger132. The tiresome133 little Micos kept up an incessant chatter134. Their stories were doubtless extraordinarily135 humorous to anyone understanding Japanese, but were apt to lose their point for those ignorant of the language. The abortive136 attempts of the Europeans to eat with chopsticks afforded endless amusement to these bedizened children; they shook with laughter at seeing all the food slide away from these unaccustomed table implements137. Not till the dinner was over did the Geishas proper make their appearance. In Japan the amount of bright colour in a woman's dress varies in inverse138 ratio to her moral rectitude. As our Geishas were all habited in sober mouse-colour, or dull neutral-blue, I can only infer that they were ladies of the very highest respectability. They were certainly wonderfully attractive little people. They were not pretty according to our standards, but there was a vivacity139 and a sort of air of dainty grace about them that were very captivating. Their singing is frankly140 awful. I have heard four-footed musicians on the London tiles produce sweeter sounds, but their dancing is graceful141 to a degree. Unfortunately, one of the favourite amusements of these charming and vivacious142 little people is to play "Musical Chairs"—without any chairs! They made all the
{320}
European men follow them round and round the room whilst two Geishas thrummed on a sort of guitar. As soon as the music stopped everyone was expected to sit down with a bang on the floor, To these little Japs five feet high, the process was easy, and may have seemed good fun; to a middle-aged gentleman, "vir pietate gravis," these violent shocks were more than painful, and I failed to derive the smallest amusement from them. No Japanese dinner would be complete without copious143 miniature cups of sake. This rice-spirit is always drunken hot; it is not disagreeable to the taste, being like warm sherry with a dash of methylated spirit thrown in, but the little sake bottles and cups are a joy to the eye. This innately144 artistic145 people delight to lavish146 loving care in fashioning minute objects; many English drawing-rooms contain sake bottles in enamel147 or porcelain148 ranged in cabinets as works of art. Their form would be more familiar to most people than their use. Japanese always seem to look on a love of colour as showing rather vulgar tastes. The more refined the individual, the more will he adhere to sober black and white and neutral tints149 in his house and personal belongings150. The Emperor's palace in Kyoto is decorated entirely in black and white, with unpainted, unlacquered woodwork, and no colour anywhere. The Kyoto palace of the great Tokugawa family, on the other hand, a place of astounding151 beauty, blazes with gilding152, enamels153, and lacquer, as do all the tombs and temples erected154 by this dynasty. The Tokugawas usurped155 power as
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Shoguns in 1603, reducing the Mikado to a mere156 figure-head as spiritual Ruler, and the Shoguns ruled Japan absolutely until 1868, when they were overthrown157, and Shogun and Mikado were merged158 into one under the title of Emperor. I fancy that the Japanese look upon the polychrome splendour of all the buildings erected by the Tokugawas as proof that they were very inferior to the ancient dynasty, who contented159 themselves with plain buildings severely160 decorated in black and white. The lack of colour in Japan is very noticeable on arriving from untidy, picturesque161 China. The beautiful neatness and cleanliness of Japan are very refreshing162 after slovenly163 China, but the endless rows of little brown, unpainted, tidy houses, looking like so many rabbit hutches, are depressing to a degree. The perpetual earthquakes are responsible for the low elevation164 of these houses and also for their being invariably built of wood, as is indeed everything else in the country. I was immensely disappointed at the sight of the first temples I visited in Japan. The forms were beautiful enough, but they were all of unpainted wood, without any colour whatever, and looked horribly neutral-tinted. All the famous temples of Kyoto are of plain, unpainted, unvarnished wood. The splendid group of temples at Nikko are the last word in Japanese art. They glow with colour; with scarlet165 and black lacquer, gilding, enamels, and bronzes, every detail finished like jewellers' work with exquisite166 craftmanship, and they are amongst the most
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beautiful things in the world; but they were all erected by the Tokugawa dynasty, as were the equally superb temples in the Shiba Park at Tokyo. This family seemed determined to leave Japan less colourless than they found it; in their great love for scarlet lacquer they must have been the first people who thought of painting a town red.
The same lack of colour is found in the gardens. I had pictured a Japanese garden as a dream of beauty, so when I was shewn a heap of stones interspersed167 with little green shrubs168 and dwarf169 trees, without one single flower, I was naturally disappointed, nor had I sufficient imagination to picture a streak170 of whitewash171 daubed down a rock as a quivering cascade172 of foaming173 water. "Our gardens, sir," said my host, "are not intended to inspire hilarit .. ee, but rather to create a gentle melanchol .. ee." As regards myself, his certainly succeeded in its object.
A friend of mine, whose gardens, not a hundred miles from London, are justly famous, takes immense pride in her Japanese garden, as she fondly imagines it to be. At the time of King George's Coronation she invited the special Japanese Envoys175 to luncheon, for the express purpose of showing them her gardens afterwards. She kept the Japanese garden to the last as a bonne-bouche, half-expecting these children of the Land of the Rising Sun to burst into happy tears at this reminder176 of their distant island home. The special Envoys thanked her with true Japanese politeness, and loudly
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expressed their delight at seeing a real English garden. They added that they had never even imagined anything like this in Japan, and begged for a design of it, in order that they might create a real English garden in their native land on their return home.
As I have said, no Japanese woman can wear bright colours without sacrificing her moral reputation, but little girls may wear all the colours of the rainbow until they are eight years old or so. These little girls, with their hair cut straight across their forehead, are very attractive-looking creatures, whereas a Japanese boy, with his cropped head, round face, and projecting teeth, is the most comically hideous177 little object imaginable. These children's appearance is spoilt by an objectionable superstition178 which decrees it unlucky to use a pocket-handkerchief on a child until he, or she, is nine years old. The result is unspeakably deplorable.
The interior of our Embassy at Tokyo was rather a surprise. Owing to the constant earthquakes in Tokyo and Yokohama, all the buildings have to be of wood. The British Embassy was built in London (I believe by a very well-known firm in Tottenham Court Road), and was shipped out to Japan complete down to its last detail. The architect who designed it unhappily took a glorified179 suburban villa180 as his model. So the Tokyo Embassy house is an enlarged "Belmont," or "The Cedars," or "Tokyo Towers." Every
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familiar detail is there; the tiled hall, the glazed181 door into the garden, and the heavy mahogany chimneypieces and overmantels. In the library with its mahogany book-cases, green morocco chairs, and green plush curtains, it was difficult to realise that one was not in Hampstead or Upper Tooting. I always felt that I was quite out of the picture unless I sallied forth182 at 9 a.m. with a little black bag in my hand, and returned at 6 p.m. with some fish in a bass-basket. In spite of being common-place, the house was undeniably comfortable. Everything Japanese was rigidly183 excluded from it. That in far-off lands is very natural. People do not care to be reminded perpetually of the distance they are away from home. In Calcutta the Maidan, the local Hyde Park, has nothing Eastern about it. Except in the Eden Gardens in one corner of it, where there is a splendid tangle184 of tropical vegetation, there is not one single palm tree on the Maidan. The broad sweeps of turf, clumps186 of trees, and winding187 roads make an excellent imitation of Hyde Park transferred to the banks of the Hooghly, and this is intentional45. There is one spot in particular, where the tall Gothic spire174 of St. Paul's Cathedral rises out of a clump185 of trees beyond a great tank (it may be pointed out that "tank" in India does not refer to a clumsy, mobile engine of destruction, but is the word used for a pool or pond), which might be in Kensington Gardens but for the temperature. The average Briton likes to be reminded of his home, and generally manages to carry
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it about with him somehow. The Russian Embassy at Tokyo had been built in the same way in Paris and sent out, and was a perfect reproduction of a French Louis XV house. The garden of the British Embassy had one striking feature which I have seen nowhere else; hedges of clipped camellias, four feet high. When these blossomed in the spring, they looked like solid walls of pink, crimson188, or white flowers, a really beautiful sight!
Some former British Minister had planted the public roads round the Embassy with avenues of the pink-flowering cherry, as a present to the city of Tokyo. The Japanese affect to look down on the pink cherry, when compared to their adored white cherry-blossom, I suppose because there is colour in it. Certainly the acres of white cherry-blossom in the Uyeno Park at Tokyo are one of the sights of Japan. In no other country in the world would the railways run special trains to enable the country-people to see the cherries in full bloom in this Uyeno Park. The blossom is only supposed to be at its best for three days. In no other country either would people flock by hundreds to a temple, as they did at Kyoto, to look at a locally-famed contrast of red plum-blossom against dark-brown maple189 leaves. I liked these Japanese country-people. The scrupulously190 neat old peasant women, with their grey hair combed carefully back, and their rosy191 faces, were quite attractive. Their intense ceremonious politeness to each other always amused me. Whole family parties would continue
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bowing to each other for ten minutes on end at railway stations, sucking their breath, and rubbing their knees. When they had finished, someone would recommence, and the whole process would have to be gone through again, the children sucking their breath louder even than their elders. Anybody who has lived in a warm climate must be familiar with the curious sound of thousands of frogs croaking192 at once in a pond or marsh193 at night-time. The sound of hundreds of Japanese wooden clogs194 clattering195 against the tiles of a railway platform is exactly like that. In the big Shimbashi station at Tokyo, as the clogs pattered over the tiles, by shutting my eyes I could imagine that I was listening to a frogs' orchestra in some large marsh.
Excessive politeness brings at times its own penalty. At the beginning of these reminiscences I have related how I went with a Special Embassy to Rome in my extreme youth. The day before our departure from Rome, King Humbert gave a farewell luncheon party at the Quirinal to the Special British Ambassador and his suite196, including of course myself. At this luncheon a somewhat comical incident occurred.
When we took our leave, Queen Margherita, then still radiantly beautiful, offered her hand first to the Special British Ambassador. He, a courtly and gallant197 gentleman of the old school, at once dropped on one knee, in spite of his age, and kissed the Queen's hand "in the grand manner." The permanent British Ambassador, the late Sir Augustus Paget,
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most courteous198 and genial199 of men, followed his temporary colleague's example, and also dropped on one knee. The Italian Ministers present could not do less than follow the lead of the foreigners, or show themselves less courteous than the forestieri, so they too had perforce to drop on one knee whilst kissing the Queen's hand. A hugely obese200 Minister, buttoned into the tightest of frockcoats, approached the Queen. With immense difficulty he lowered himself on to one knee, and kissed the Royal hand; but no power on earth seemed equal to raising him to his feet again. The corpulent Minister grew purple in the face; the most ominous201 sounds of the rending202 of cloth and linen203 re-echoed through the room; but still he could not manage to rise. The Queen held out her hand to assist her husband's adipose204 adviser205 to regain206 his feet, but he was too dignified207, or too polite, to accept it. The rending of the statesman's most intimate garments became more audible than ever; the portly Minister seemed on the verge208 of an attack of apoplexy. It must be understood that the Queen was standing39 alone before the throne, with this unfortunate dignitary kneeling before her; the remainder of the guests were standing in a semi-circle some twenty feet away. The Queen's mouth began to twitch209 ominously210, until, in spite of her self-control, after a few preliminary splutters of involuntary merriment, she broke down, and absolutely shook with laughter. Sir Augustus Paget and a Roman Prince came up and saved the situation by raising, with infinite difficulty, the unfortunate
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Italian statesman to his feet. As he resumed a standing position, a perfect Niagara of oddments of apparel, of tags and scraps212 of his most private under-garments, rained upon the floor, and we all experienced a feeling of intense relief when this capable, if corpulent, Cabinet Minister was enabled to regain the background with all his clothing outwardly intact.
And all this came about from an excess of politeness. The East has always been the land of flowery compliments, also the land of hyperbole. I once saw the answer the Viceroy of India had received from a certain tributary213 Prince, who had been reprimanded in the sharpest fashion by the Government of India. The native Prince had been warned in the bluntest of language that unless he mended his ways at once he would be forthwith deposed214, and another ruler put in his place. A list of his recent enormities was added, in order to refresh his memory, and the warning as to the future was again emphasized. The Prince's answer, addressed direct to the Viceroy, began as follows:
"Your Excellency's gracious message has reached me. It was more precious to the eyes than a casket of rubies215; sweeter to the taste than a honeycomb; more delightful216 to the ears than the song of ten thousand nightingales. I spread it out before me, and read it repeatedly: each time with renewed pleasure."
Considering the nature of the communication, that native Prince must have been of a touchingly217 grateful disposition218.
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The late Duke of Edinburgh was once presented with an address at Hong Kong from the Corporation of Chinese Merchants, in which he was told, amongst other things, that he "was more glorious than a phoenix219 sitting in a crimson nest with fourteen golden tails streaming behind him." Surely a charming flight of fancy!
True politeness in China demands that you should depreciate220 everything of your own and exalt221 everything belonging to your correspondent. Thus, should you be asking a friend to dinner, you would entreat222 him "to leave for one evening the silver and alabaster223 palace in which you habitually224 dwell, and to condescend225 to honour the tumble-down vermin-ridden hovel in which I drag out a wretched existence. Furthermore, could you forget for one evening the bird's-nest soup, the delicious sea-slugs, and the plump puppy-dogs on which you habitually feast, and deign226 to poke227 your head into my swill-trough, and there devour228 such loathsome229 garbage as a starving dog would reject, I shall feel unspeakably honoured." The answer will probably come in some such form as this: "With rapturous delight have I learnt that, thanks to your courtesy, I may escape from the pestilential shanty230 I inhabit, and pass one unworthy evening in a glorious palace of crystal and gold in your company. After starving for months on putrid231 offal, I shall at length banquet on unimagined delicacies, etc." Should it be a large dinner-party, it must tax the host's ingenuity232 to vary the self-depreciatory epithets233 sufficiently234.
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The mention of food reminds me that it is an acute difficulty to the stranger in Japan, should he wander off the beaten track and away from European hotels. Japanese use neither bread, butter, nor milk, and these things, as well as meat, are unprocurable in country districts. Europeans miss bread terribly, and the Japanese substitute of cold rice is frankly horrible. Instead of the snowy piles of smoking-hot, beautifully cooked rice of India, rice in Japan means a cold, clammy, gelatinous mass, hideously235 distasteful to a European interior. That, eggs, and tea like a decoction of hay constitute the standard menu of a Japanese country inn. I never saw either a sheep or cow in Japan, as there is no pasture. The universal bamboo-grass, with its sharp edges, pierces the intestines236 of any animal feeding on it, and so is worse than useless as fodder237 for cattle or sheep. All milk and butter are imported in a frozen state from Australia, but do not, of course, penetrate238 beyond Europe-fashion hotels, as the people of the country do not care for them.
The exquisite neatness of Japanese farm houses, with their black and white walls, thatched roofs, and trim little bamboo fences and gates, is a real joy to the eye of one who has grown accustomed to the slipshod untidy East, or even to the happy-go-lucky methods of the American Continent. I never remember a Japanese village unequipped with either electric light or telephones. I really think geographers239 must have placed the 180th degree in the wrong place, and that Japs are really
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the most Western of Westerns, instead of being the most Eastern of Easterns. Pretty and attractive as the Japanese country is, its charm was spoilt for me by the almost total absence of bird and animal life. There are hardly any wild flowers either, except deliciously fragrant240 wild violets. Being in Japan, it is hardly necessary to say that these violets, instead of being of the orthodox colour, are bright yellow. They would be in Japan. This quaint241 people who only like trees when they are contorted, who love flowerless gardens, whose grass kills cattle, who have evolved peach, plum and cherry trees which flower gloriously but never bear any fruit, would naturally have yellow violets. They are certainly a wonderfully hardy242 race. I was at beautiful Nikko in the early spring when they were building a dam across the Nikko river. The stream has a tremendous current, and is ice-cold. Men were working at the dam up to their waists in the icy river, and little boys kept bringing them baskets of building stones, up to their necks in the swift current. Both men and boys issued from the river as scarlet as lobsters243 from the intense cold, and yet they stood about quite unconcernedly in their dripping thin cotton clothes in the keen wind. Had they been Europeans, they would all have died of pneumonia244 in two days' time. A race must have great powers of endurance that live in houses with paper walls without any heating appliances during the sharp cold of a Japanese winter, and that find thin cotton clothing sufficient for their wants.
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The outlines and pleasing details of those black and white country dwellings246 with the graceful curves of their roofs are a relief to the eye after the endless miles of ugly little brown rabbit hutches of the towns. At Tokyo the enclosure and park of the Emperor's palace lay just outside the gates of our Embassy, surrounded by a moat so broad that it could be almost called a lake. It was curious in the heart of a town to see this moat covered with innumerable wild duck. Although I have been in the Imperial palace at Kyoto, I was never inside the one at Tokyo, so I cannot give any details about it. The glimpses one obtained from outside of its severe black and white outlines recalled a European mediæval castle, and had something strangely familiar about them. I was never fortunate enough either to be invited to an Imperial duck-catching party, which I would have given anything to witness. The idea of catching wild duck in butterfly nets would never occur to anyone but the Japanese. The place where this quaint amusement was indulged in was an extensive tract83 of flat ground intersected by countless247 reed-fringed little canals and waterways, much on the lines of a marsh in the Norfolk Broad district. I saw the Ambassador on his return from a duck-catching party. With superhuman efforts, and a vast amount of exercise, he had managed to capture three ducks, and he told me that he had had to run like a hare to achieve even this modest success. All the guests were expected to appear in high hats and frock-coats
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on these occasions, and I should have dearly loved to see the Ambassador arrayed in frock-coat and high hat bounding hot-foot over the marshes248, his butterfly net poised249 aloft, in pursuit of his quacking250 quarry251. The newspapers informed us the next day that the Crown Prince had headed the list as usual with a bag of twenty-seven ducks, and I always believe what I see in print. Really Europeans start heavily handicapped at this peculiar16 diversion. I have known many families in England where the sons of the house are instructed from a very early age in riding, and in the art of handling a gun and a trout252 rod, but even in the most sport-loving British families the science of catching wild duck in butterfly nets forms but seldom part of the sporting curriculum of the rising generation. Though the Imperial family are Shintoists, I expect that the Buddhist253 horror of taking animal life is at the bottom of this idea of duck-catching, for the ducks are, I believe, all set free again after their capture.
We always heard that the Emperor and his family lived entirely on rice and fish in the frugal254 Japanese fashion, and that they never tasted meat.
I had the opportunity of seeing a very fine house of sixty rooms, built in strict Japanese style, and just completed. Count Mitsu is one of the few very wealthy men in Japan; he can also trace his pedigree back for three thousand years. He had built this house in Tokyo, and as it was supposed to be the last word in purity of style ("Itchi-Ban," or "Number One," as the Japanese express it), he very
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kindly invited the ambassador and myself to go all over it with him. We had, of course, to remove our shoes on entering, and my pleasure was somewhat marred255 by the discovery of a large hole in one sock, on which I fancied the gaze of the entire Mitsu family was riveted256. Nothing can equal the high-bred courtesy and politeness of Japanese of really ancient lineage. Countess Mitsu, of a family as old as her husband's, had a type of face which we do not usually associate with Japan, and is only found in ladies of the Imperial family and some others equally old. In place of the large head, full cheeks, and flat features of the ordinary Japanese woman, Countess Mitsu and her daughters had thin faces with high aquiline257 features, giving them an extraordinarily high-bred and distinguished258 appearance. This great house consisted of a vast number of perfectly empty rooms, destitute259 of one single scrap211 of furniture. There was fine matting on the floor, a niche260 with one kakemono hanging in it, one bronze or other work of art, and a vase with one single flower, and nothing else whatever. The Mitsus being a very high caste family, there was no colour anywhere. The decoration was confined to black and white and beautifully-finished, unpainted, unvarnished woodwork, except for the exquisitely261 chased bronze door-grips (door-handles would be an incorrect term for these grips to open and close the sliding panels). I must confess that I never saw a more supremely262 uncomfortable-looking dwelling245 in my life. The children's nurseries upstairs
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were a real joy. The panels had been painted by a Japanese artist with everything calculated to amuse a child. There were pictures of pink and blue rabbits, purple frogs, scarlet porcupines263, and grass-green guinea-pigs, all with the most comical expressions imaginable on their faces. The lamps were of fish-skin shaped over thin strips of bamboo into the form of the living fish, then highly coloured, and fitted with electric globes inside them; weird264, luminous265 marine266 monsters! Each child had a little Chinese dressing-table of mother-of-pearl eighteen inches high, and a tub of real Chinese "powder-blue" porcelain as a bath. The windows looked on to a fascinating dwarf garden ten feet square, with real waterfalls, tiny rivers of real water, miniature mountains and dwarf trees, all in perfect proportion. It was like looking at an extensive landscape through the wrong end of a telescope.
The polite infants who inhabited this child's paradise received us with immense courtesy, lying at full length on the floor on their little tummies, and wagging their little heads in salutation, till I really thought they would come off.
The most interesting thing in Count Mitsu's house was a beautiful little Shinto temple of bronze-gold lacquer, where all the names of his many ancestors were inscribed on gilt267 tablets. Here he and all his sons (women take no part in ancestor worship) came nightly, and made a full confession268 before the tablets of their ancestors of all they had done during the day; craving269 for pardon should
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they have acted in a fashion unworthy of their family and of Japan. The Count and his sons then lighted the little red lamps before the tablets of their forebears to show that they were not forgotten, and placed the exquisitely carved little ivory "ghost-ship" two inches long in its place, should any of their ancestors wish to return that night from the Land of Spirits to their old home.
The underlying270 idea of undying family affection is rather a beautiful one.
That same evening I went to a very interesting dinner-party at the house of Prince Arisugawa, a son-in-law of the Emperor's. Both the dinner and the house were on European lines, but the main point of interest was that it was a gathering of all the Generals and Admirals who had taken a prominent part in the Russo-Japanese war. I was placed between an Admiral and a General, but found it difficult to communicate with them, Japanese being conspicuously271 bad linguists272. The General could speak a little fairly unintelligible273 German; the Admiral could stutter a very little Russian. It was a pity that the roads of communication were so blocked for us, for I shall probably never again sit between two men who had had such thrilling experiences. I cursed the builders of the Tower of Babel for erecting274 this linguistic barrier between us.
I found that I was a full head taller than all the Japanese in the room. Princess Arisugawa appeared later. This tiny, dainty, graceful little lady
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had the same strongly aquiline type of features as Countess Mitsu, and the same high-bred look of distinction. She was beautifully dressed in European style, and had Rue29 de la Paix written all over her clothes and her jewels. I have seldom seen anyone with such taking graceful dignity as this daughter of the Imperial house, in spite of her diminutive275 stature276.
The old families in Japan have a pretty custom of presenting every European guest with a little black-and-gold lacquer box, two inches high, full of sweetmeats, of the sort we called in my youth "hundreds and thousands." These little boxes bear on their tops in gold lacquer the badge or crest277 of the family, thus serving as permanent souvenirs.
In a small community such as the European diplomats formed at Tokyo, the peculiarities278 and foibles of the "chers collègues" formed naturally an unending topic of conversation. There was one foreign representative who was determined to avoid bankruptcy279, could the most rigorously careful regulation of his expenditure280 avert25 such a catastrophe. His official position forced him to give occasional dinner-parties, much, I imagine, against his inclinations281. He always, in the winter months, borrowed all the available oil-stoves from his colleagues and friends, when one of these festivities was contemplated282, in order to warm his official residence without having to go to the expense of fires. He had in some mad fit of extravagance bought two dozen of
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a really fine claret some years before. The wine had long since been drunk; the bottles he still retained with their labels. It was his custom to buy the cheapest and roughest red wine he could find, and then enshrine it in these old bottles with their mendacious283 labels. At his dinner-parties these time-worn bottles were always ranged down the tables. The evidence of palate and eye was conflicting. The palate (as far as it could discriminate284 through the awful reek285 with which the oil-stoves filled the room), pronounced it sour, immature286 vin ordinaire. The label on the bottle proclaimed it Château Margaux of 1874, actually bottled at the Château itself. Politeness dictated287 that we should compliment our host on this exquisite vintage, which had, perhaps, begun to feel (as we all do) the effects of extreme old age. A cynical288 Dutch colleague might possibly hazard a few remarks, lamenting289 the effects of the Japanese climate on "les premiers290 crus de Bordeaux."
Life at any post would be dull were it not for the little failings of the "chers collègues," which always give one something to talk of.
The Japanese are ruining the beauty of their country by their insane mania9 for advertising291. The railways are lined with advertisements; a beautiful hillside is desecrated292 by a giant advertisement, cut in the turf, and filled in with white concrete. Even the ugly little streets of brown packing-cases are plastered with advertisements. The fact that these advertisements are all in Chinese characters
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give them a rather pleasing exotic flavour at first; that soon wears off, and then one is only too thankful not to be able to read them. They remain a hideous disfigurement of a fair land.
One large Japanese-owned department store in Tokyo had a brass293 band playing in front of it all day, producing an ear-splitting din3. The bandsmen were little Japanese boys dressed, of all things in the world, as Highlanders. No one who has not seen it can imagine the intensely grotesque295 effect of a little stumpy, bandy-legged Jap boy in a red tartan kilt, bare knees, and a Glengarry bonnet296. No one who has not heard them can conceive the appalling297 sounds they produced from their brass instruments, or can form any conception of the Japanese idea of "rag-time."
We have in this country some very competent amateurs who, to judge from the picture papers, have reduced the gentle art of self-advertisement to a science.
I think these ladies would be repaid for the trouble of a voyage to Japan by the new ideas in advertisement they would pick up from that enterprising people. They need not blow their own trumpets298, like the little Jap Highlander294 bandsmen; they can get it done for them as they know, by the Press.
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Afghanistan. It struck me at the time as a perfectly87 legitimate88 thing to do, in order to throw this Paul Pry89 off the scent90, for the Ambassador had impressed on us all the vital importance of not disclosing the real matter in dispute. I put these flagrant forgeries91 in a drawer of my table and waited. I had not to wait long. My colleagues having all gone out to luncheon92, I was alone in the Chancery one day, when Mr. Q.'s card was brought in to me. I kept him waiting until I had cleared every single despatch from the tables and had locked them up. I also locked up the Register, but put an eight-year-old one, exactly similar in appearance, in its place, opening it at a date two days earlier than the actual date, in order that Mr. Q. might not notice that the page (and "to-morrow's" page as well) was already filled up, and the bogus despatch and fake telegram from my drawer were duly laid on the centre table. At twenty-two I was a smooth-faced youth, in appearance, I believe, much younger than my real age. Mr. Q. came in. He had the "Well, old man" style, accompanied by a thump93 on the back, which I peculiarly detest94. He must have blessed his luck in finding such a simple youth in sole charge of the Chancery. Mr. Q. pursued his usual tactics. He talked volubly in a loud voice, walking about the room meanwhile. The idiotic95 boy smoked cigarettes, and gaped96 inanely97. Mr. Q. went as usual to the window where the Register lay in order to admire the view, and the pudding-brained youth noticed nothing, but lit
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a fresh cigarette. That young fool never saw that Mr. Paul Pry read unblushingly half a column of the eight-year-old Register (How it must have puzzled him!) under his very eyes. Mr. Q. then went to the centre table, where he had, of course, noticed the two papers lying, and proceeded to light a cigar. That cigar must have drawn98 very badly, for Mr. Q. had occasion to light it again and again, bending well over the table as he did so. He kept the unsuspicious youth engaged in incessant99 conversation meanwhile. So careless and stupid a boy ought never to have been left in charge of important documents. Finally Mr. Q., having gained all the information for which he had been thirsting so long, left in a jubilant frame of mind, perfectly unconscious that he had been subjected to the slightest crural tension.
When the Councillor of Embassy returned, I made a clean breast of what I had done, and showed him the bogus despatch and telegram I had contrived100. Quite rightly, I received a very severe reprimand. I was warned against ever acting101 in such an irregular fashion again, under the direst penalties. In extenuation102, I pointed103 out to the Councillor that the inquisitive Mr. Q. was now convinced that our difficulty with Russia was over Afghanistan.
I further added that should anyone be dishonourable enough to come into the Chancery and deliberately104 read confidential documents which he knew were not intended for his eye, I clearly could not
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be held responsible for any false impressions he might derive105 from reading them. That, I was told sharply, was no excuse for my conduct. After this "official wigging," the Councillor invited me to dine with him that night, when we laughed loudly over Mr. Q.'s discomfiture. That person became at length such a nuisance that "his name was put on the gate," and he was refused admission to the Embassy.
The great London daily which Mr. Q. represented at Petrograd published some strong articles on the grave menace to the Empire which a change of rulers in Afghanistan might bring about; coupled with Cassandra-like wails106 over the purblind107 British statesmen who were wilfully108 shutting their eyes to this impending109 danger, as well as to baneful110 Russian machinations on our Indian frontier. There were also some unflattering allusions111 to Abdurrahman Khan. I, knowing that the whole story had originated in my own brain, could not restrain a chuckle112 whilst perusing113 these jeremiads. After reading some particularly violent screed114, the Councillor of Embassy would shake his head at me. "This is more of your work, you wretched boy!" After an interval of forty years this little episode can be recounted without harm.
Talking of newspaper enterprise, many years later, when the Emperor Alexander III died, the editor of a well-known London evening paper, a great friend of mine, told me in confidence of a journalistic "scoop115" he was meditating116. Alexander III
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had died at Livadia in the Crimea, and his body was to make a sort of triumphal progress through Russia. The editor (he is no longer with us, but when I term him "Harry117" I shall be revealing his identity to the few) was sending out a Frenchman as special correspondent, armed with a goodly store of roubles, and instructions to get himself engaged as temporary assistant to the undertaker in charge of the Emperor's funeral. This cost, I believe, a considerable sum, but the Frenchman, having entered on his gruesome duties, was enabled to furnish the London evening paper with the fullest details of all the funeral ceremonies.
The reason the younger diplomats foregathered so in Petrograd was that, as I said before, Petrograd was to all intents and purposes extra-European. Apart from its charming society, the town, qua town, offered but few resources. The younger Continental118 diplomats felt the entire absence of cafés, of music-halls, and of places of light entertainment very acutely; so they were thrown on each other's society. In Far Eastern posts such as Pekin or Tokyo, the diplomats live entirely119 amongst themselves. For a European, there are practically no resources whatever in Tokyo. No one could possibly wish to frequent a Japanese theatre, or a Japanese restaurant, when once the novelty had worn off, and even Geisha entertainments are deadly dull to one who cannot understand a word of the language. Let us imagine a party of Europeans arriving at some fashionable
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Japanese restaurant for a Geisha entertainment. They will, of course, remove their shoes before proceeding120 upstairs. I was always unfortunate enough to find on these occasions one or more holes in my socks gaping121 blatantly122. In time one learns in Japan to subject one's socks to a close scrutiny123 in order to make sure that they are intact, for everyone must be prepared to remove his shoes at all hours of the day. We will follow the Europeans up to a room on the upper floor, tastefully arranged in Japanese fashion, and spotlessly neat and clean. The temperature in this room in the winter months would be Arctic, with three or four "fire-pots" containing a few specks124 of mildly-glowing charcoal125 waging a futile126 contest against the penetrating127 cold.
The room is apparently empty, but from behind the sliding-panels giggles128 and titters begin, gradually increasing in volume until the panels slide back, and a number of self-conscious overdressed children step into the room, one taking her place beside each guest. These are "Micos"; little girls being trained as professional Geishas. The European conception of a Geisha is a totally wrong one. They are simply entertainers; trained singers, dancers, and story-tellers. The guests seat themselves clumsily and uncomfortably on the floor and the dinner begins. Japanese dishes are meant to please the eye, which is fortunate, for they certainly do not appeal to the palate. I invariably drew one of the big pots of flowers which always
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decorate these places close up to me, and consigned129 to its kindly keeping all the delicacies130 of the Japanese cuisine131 which were beyond my assimilative powers, such as slices of raw fish sprinkled with sugar, and seasoned with salted ginger132. The tiresome133 little Micos kept up an incessant chatter134. Their stories were doubtless extraordinarily135 humorous to anyone understanding Japanese, but were apt to lose their point for those ignorant of the language. The abortive136 attempts of the Europeans to eat with chopsticks afforded endless amusement to these bedizened children; they shook with laughter at seeing all the food slide away from these unaccustomed table implements137. Not till the dinner was over did the Geishas proper make their appearance. In Japan the amount of bright colour in a woman's dress varies in inverse138 ratio to her moral rectitude. As our Geishas were all habited in sober mouse-colour, or dull neutral-blue, I can only infer that they were ladies of the very highest respectability. They were certainly wonderfully attractive little people. They were not pretty according to our standards, but there was a vivacity139 and a sort of air of dainty grace about them that were very captivating. Their singing is frankly140 awful. I have heard four-footed musicians on the London tiles produce sweeter sounds, but their dancing is graceful141 to a degree. Unfortunately, one of the favourite amusements of these charming and vivacious142 little people is to play "Musical Chairs"—without any chairs! They made all the
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European men follow them round and round the room whilst two Geishas thrummed on a sort of guitar. As soon as the music stopped everyone was expected to sit down with a bang on the floor, To these little Japs five feet high, the process was easy, and may have seemed good fun; to a middle-aged gentleman, "vir pietate gravis," these violent shocks were more than painful, and I failed to derive the smallest amusement from them. No Japanese dinner would be complete without copious143 miniature cups of sake. This rice-spirit is always drunken hot; it is not disagreeable to the taste, being like warm sherry with a dash of methylated spirit thrown in, but the little sake bottles and cups are a joy to the eye. This innately144 artistic145 people delight to lavish146 loving care in fashioning minute objects; many English drawing-rooms contain sake bottles in enamel147 or porcelain148 ranged in cabinets as works of art. Their form would be more familiar to most people than their use. Japanese always seem to look on a love of colour as showing rather vulgar tastes. The more refined the individual, the more will he adhere to sober black and white and neutral tints149 in his house and personal belongings150. The Emperor's palace in Kyoto is decorated entirely in black and white, with unpainted, unlacquered woodwork, and no colour anywhere. The Kyoto palace of the great Tokugawa family, on the other hand, a place of astounding151 beauty, blazes with gilding152, enamels153, and lacquer, as do all the tombs and temples erected154 by this dynasty. The Tokugawas usurped155 power as
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Shoguns in 1603, reducing the Mikado to a mere156 figure-head as spiritual Ruler, and the Shoguns ruled Japan absolutely until 1868, when they were overthrown157, and Shogun and Mikado were merged158 into one under the title of Emperor. I fancy that the Japanese look upon the polychrome splendour of all the buildings erected by the Tokugawas as proof that they were very inferior to the ancient dynasty, who contented159 themselves with plain buildings severely160 decorated in black and white. The lack of colour in Japan is very noticeable on arriving from untidy, picturesque161 China. The beautiful neatness and cleanliness of Japan are very refreshing162 after slovenly163 China, but the endless rows of little brown, unpainted, tidy houses, looking like so many rabbit hutches, are depressing to a degree. The perpetual earthquakes are responsible for the low elevation164 of these houses and also for their being invariably built of wood, as is indeed everything else in the country. I was immensely disappointed at the sight of the first temples I visited in Japan. The forms were beautiful enough, but they were all of unpainted wood, without any colour whatever, and looked horribly neutral-tinted. All the famous temples of Kyoto are of plain, unpainted, unvarnished wood. The splendid group of temples at Nikko are the last word in Japanese art. They glow with colour; with scarlet165 and black lacquer, gilding, enamels, and bronzes, every detail finished like jewellers' work with exquisite166 craftmanship, and they are amongst the most
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beautiful things in the world; but they were all erected by the Tokugawa dynasty, as were the equally superb temples in the Shiba Park at Tokyo. This family seemed determined to leave Japan less colourless than they found it; in their great love for scarlet lacquer they must have been the first people who thought of painting a town red.
The same lack of colour is found in the gardens. I had pictured a Japanese garden as a dream of beauty, so when I was shewn a heap of stones interspersed167 with little green shrubs168 and dwarf169 trees, without one single flower, I was naturally disappointed, nor had I sufficient imagination to picture a streak170 of whitewash171 daubed down a rock as a quivering cascade172 of foaming173 water. "Our gardens, sir," said my host, "are not intended to inspire hilarit .. ee, but rather to create a gentle melanchol .. ee." As regards myself, his certainly succeeded in its object.
A friend of mine, whose gardens, not a hundred miles from London, are justly famous, takes immense pride in her Japanese garden, as she fondly imagines it to be. At the time of King George's Coronation she invited the special Japanese Envoys175 to luncheon, for the express purpose of showing them her gardens afterwards. She kept the Japanese garden to the last as a bonne-bouche, half-expecting these children of the Land of the Rising Sun to burst into happy tears at this reminder176 of their distant island home. The special Envoys thanked her with true Japanese politeness, and loudly
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expressed their delight at seeing a real English garden. They added that they had never even imagined anything like this in Japan, and begged for a design of it, in order that they might create a real English garden in their native land on their return home.
As I have said, no Japanese woman can wear bright colours without sacrificing her moral reputation, but little girls may wear all the colours of the rainbow until they are eight years old or so. These little girls, with their hair cut straight across their forehead, are very attractive-looking creatures, whereas a Japanese boy, with his cropped head, round face, and projecting teeth, is the most comically hideous177 little object imaginable. These children's appearance is spoilt by an objectionable superstition178 which decrees it unlucky to use a pocket-handkerchief on a child until he, or she, is nine years old. The result is unspeakably deplorable.
The interior of our Embassy at Tokyo was rather a surprise. Owing to the constant earthquakes in Tokyo and Yokohama, all the buildings have to be of wood. The British Embassy was built in London (I believe by a very well-known firm in Tottenham Court Road), and was shipped out to Japan complete down to its last detail. The architect who designed it unhappily took a glorified179 suburban villa180 as his model. So the Tokyo Embassy house is an enlarged "Belmont," or "The Cedars," or "Tokyo Towers." Every
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familiar detail is there; the tiled hall, the glazed181 door into the garden, and the heavy mahogany chimneypieces and overmantels. In the library with its mahogany book-cases, green morocco chairs, and green plush curtains, it was difficult to realise that one was not in Hampstead or Upper Tooting. I always felt that I was quite out of the picture unless I sallied forth182 at 9 a.m. with a little black bag in my hand, and returned at 6 p.m. with some fish in a bass-basket. In spite of being common-place, the house was undeniably comfortable. Everything Japanese was rigidly183 excluded from it. That in far-off lands is very natural. People do not care to be reminded perpetually of the distance they are away from home. In Calcutta the Maidan, the local Hyde Park, has nothing Eastern about it. Except in the Eden Gardens in one corner of it, where there is a splendid tangle184 of tropical vegetation, there is not one single palm tree on the Maidan. The broad sweeps of turf, clumps186 of trees, and winding187 roads make an excellent imitation of Hyde Park transferred to the banks of the Hooghly, and this is intentional45. There is one spot in particular, where the tall Gothic spire174 of St. Paul's Cathedral rises out of a clump185 of trees beyond a great tank (it may be pointed out that "tank" in India does not refer to a clumsy, mobile engine of destruction, but is the word used for a pool or pond), which might be in Kensington Gardens but for the temperature. The average Briton likes to be reminded of his home, and generally manages to carry
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it about with him somehow. The Russian Embassy at Tokyo had been built in the same way in Paris and sent out, and was a perfect reproduction of a French Louis XV house. The garden of the British Embassy had one striking feature which I have seen nowhere else; hedges of clipped camellias, four feet high. When these blossomed in the spring, they looked like solid walls of pink, crimson188, or white flowers, a really beautiful sight!
Some former British Minister had planted the public roads round the Embassy with avenues of the pink-flowering cherry, as a present to the city of Tokyo. The Japanese affect to look down on the pink cherry, when compared to their adored white cherry-blossom, I suppose because there is colour in it. Certainly the acres of white cherry-blossom in the Uyeno Park at Tokyo are one of the sights of Japan. In no other country in the world would the railways run special trains to enable the country-people to see the cherries in full bloom in this Uyeno Park. The blossom is only supposed to be at its best for three days. In no other country either would people flock by hundreds to a temple, as they did at Kyoto, to look at a locally-famed contrast of red plum-blossom against dark-brown maple189 leaves. I liked these Japanese country-people. The scrupulously190 neat old peasant women, with their grey hair combed carefully back, and their rosy191 faces, were quite attractive. Their intense ceremonious politeness to each other always amused me. Whole family parties would continue
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bowing to each other for ten minutes on end at railway stations, sucking their breath, and rubbing their knees. When they had finished, someone would recommence, and the whole process would have to be gone through again, the children sucking their breath louder even than their elders. Anybody who has lived in a warm climate must be familiar with the curious sound of thousands of frogs croaking192 at once in a pond or marsh193 at night-time. The sound of hundreds of Japanese wooden clogs194 clattering195 against the tiles of a railway platform is exactly like that. In the big Shimbashi station at Tokyo, as the clogs pattered over the tiles, by shutting my eyes I could imagine that I was listening to a frogs' orchestra in some large marsh.
Excessive politeness brings at times its own penalty. At the beginning of these reminiscences I have related how I went with a Special Embassy to Rome in my extreme youth. The day before our departure from Rome, King Humbert gave a farewell luncheon party at the Quirinal to the Special British Ambassador and his suite196, including of course myself. At this luncheon a somewhat comical incident occurred.
When we took our leave, Queen Margherita, then still radiantly beautiful, offered her hand first to the Special British Ambassador. He, a courtly and gallant197 gentleman of the old school, at once dropped on one knee, in spite of his age, and kissed the Queen's hand "in the grand manner." The permanent British Ambassador, the late Sir Augustus Paget,
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most courteous198 and genial199 of men, followed his temporary colleague's example, and also dropped on one knee. The Italian Ministers present could not do less than follow the lead of the foreigners, or show themselves less courteous than the forestieri, so they too had perforce to drop on one knee whilst kissing the Queen's hand. A hugely obese200 Minister, buttoned into the tightest of frockcoats, approached the Queen. With immense difficulty he lowered himself on to one knee, and kissed the Royal hand; but no power on earth seemed equal to raising him to his feet again. The corpulent Minister grew purple in the face; the most ominous201 sounds of the rending202 of cloth and linen203 re-echoed through the room; but still he could not manage to rise. The Queen held out her hand to assist her husband's adipose204 adviser205 to regain206 his feet, but he was too dignified207, or too polite, to accept it. The rending of the statesman's most intimate garments became more audible than ever; the portly Minister seemed on the verge208 of an attack of apoplexy. It must be understood that the Queen was standing39 alone before the throne, with this unfortunate dignitary kneeling before her; the remainder of the guests were standing in a semi-circle some twenty feet away. The Queen's mouth began to twitch209 ominously210, until, in spite of her self-control, after a few preliminary splutters of involuntary merriment, she broke down, and absolutely shook with laughter. Sir Augustus Paget and a Roman Prince came up and saved the situation by raising, with infinite difficulty, the unfortunate
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Italian statesman to his feet. As he resumed a standing position, a perfect Niagara of oddments of apparel, of tags and scraps212 of his most private under-garments, rained upon the floor, and we all experienced a feeling of intense relief when this capable, if corpulent, Cabinet Minister was enabled to regain the background with all his clothing outwardly intact.
And all this came about from an excess of politeness. The East has always been the land of flowery compliments, also the land of hyperbole. I once saw the answer the Viceroy of India had received from a certain tributary213 Prince, who had been reprimanded in the sharpest fashion by the Government of India. The native Prince had been warned in the bluntest of language that unless he mended his ways at once he would be forthwith deposed214, and another ruler put in his place. A list of his recent enormities was added, in order to refresh his memory, and the warning as to the future was again emphasized. The Prince's answer, addressed direct to the Viceroy, began as follows:
"Your Excellency's gracious message has reached me. It was more precious to the eyes than a casket of rubies215; sweeter to the taste than a honeycomb; more delightful216 to the ears than the song of ten thousand nightingales. I spread it out before me, and read it repeatedly: each time with renewed pleasure."
Considering the nature of the communication, that native Prince must have been of a touchingly217 grateful disposition218.
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The late Duke of Edinburgh was once presented with an address at Hong Kong from the Corporation of Chinese Merchants, in which he was told, amongst other things, that he "was more glorious than a phoenix219 sitting in a crimson nest with fourteen golden tails streaming behind him." Surely a charming flight of fancy!
True politeness in China demands that you should depreciate220 everything of your own and exalt221 everything belonging to your correspondent. Thus, should you be asking a friend to dinner, you would entreat222 him "to leave for one evening the silver and alabaster223 palace in which you habitually224 dwell, and to condescend225 to honour the tumble-down vermin-ridden hovel in which I drag out a wretched existence. Furthermore, could you forget for one evening the bird's-nest soup, the delicious sea-slugs, and the plump puppy-dogs on which you habitually feast, and deign226 to poke227 your head into my swill-trough, and there devour228 such loathsome229 garbage as a starving dog would reject, I shall feel unspeakably honoured." The answer will probably come in some such form as this: "With rapturous delight have I learnt that, thanks to your courtesy, I may escape from the pestilential shanty230 I inhabit, and pass one unworthy evening in a glorious palace of crystal and gold in your company. After starving for months on putrid231 offal, I shall at length banquet on unimagined delicacies, etc." Should it be a large dinner-party, it must tax the host's ingenuity232 to vary the self-depreciatory epithets233 sufficiently234.
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The mention of food reminds me that it is an acute difficulty to the stranger in Japan, should he wander off the beaten track and away from European hotels. Japanese use neither bread, butter, nor milk, and these things, as well as meat, are unprocurable in country districts. Europeans miss bread terribly, and the Japanese substitute of cold rice is frankly horrible. Instead of the snowy piles of smoking-hot, beautifully cooked rice of India, rice in Japan means a cold, clammy, gelatinous mass, hideously235 distasteful to a European interior. That, eggs, and tea like a decoction of hay constitute the standard menu of a Japanese country inn. I never saw either a sheep or cow in Japan, as there is no pasture. The universal bamboo-grass, with its sharp edges, pierces the intestines236 of any animal feeding on it, and so is worse than useless as fodder237 for cattle or sheep. All milk and butter are imported in a frozen state from Australia, but do not, of course, penetrate238 beyond Europe-fashion hotels, as the people of the country do not care for them.
The exquisite neatness of Japanese farm houses, with their black and white walls, thatched roofs, and trim little bamboo fences and gates, is a real joy to the eye of one who has grown accustomed to the slipshod untidy East, or even to the happy-go-lucky methods of the American Continent. I never remember a Japanese village unequipped with either electric light or telephones. I really think geographers239 must have placed the 180th degree in the wrong place, and that Japs are really
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the most Western of Westerns, instead of being the most Eastern of Easterns. Pretty and attractive as the Japanese country is, its charm was spoilt for me by the almost total absence of bird and animal life. There are hardly any wild flowers either, except deliciously fragrant240 wild violets. Being in Japan, it is hardly necessary to say that these violets, instead of being of the orthodox colour, are bright yellow. They would be in Japan. This quaint241 people who only like trees when they are contorted, who love flowerless gardens, whose grass kills cattle, who have evolved peach, plum and cherry trees which flower gloriously but never bear any fruit, would naturally have yellow violets. They are certainly a wonderfully hardy242 race. I was at beautiful Nikko in the early spring when they were building a dam across the Nikko river. The stream has a tremendous current, and is ice-cold. Men were working at the dam up to their waists in the icy river, and little boys kept bringing them baskets of building stones, up to their necks in the swift current. Both men and boys issued from the river as scarlet as lobsters243 from the intense cold, and yet they stood about quite unconcernedly in their dripping thin cotton clothes in the keen wind. Had they been Europeans, they would all have died of pneumonia244 in two days' time. A race must have great powers of endurance that live in houses with paper walls without any heating appliances during the sharp cold of a Japanese winter, and that find thin cotton clothing sufficient for their wants.
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The outlines and pleasing details of those black and white country dwellings246 with the graceful curves of their roofs are a relief to the eye after the endless miles of ugly little brown rabbit hutches of the towns. At Tokyo the enclosure and park of the Emperor's palace lay just outside the gates of our Embassy, surrounded by a moat so broad that it could be almost called a lake. It was curious in the heart of a town to see this moat covered with innumerable wild duck. Although I have been in the Imperial palace at Kyoto, I was never inside the one at Tokyo, so I cannot give any details about it. The glimpses one obtained from outside of its severe black and white outlines recalled a European mediæval castle, and had something strangely familiar about them. I was never fortunate enough either to be invited to an Imperial duck-catching party, which I would have given anything to witness. The idea of catching wild duck in butterfly nets would never occur to anyone but the Japanese. The place where this quaint amusement was indulged in was an extensive tract83 of flat ground intersected by countless247 reed-fringed little canals and waterways, much on the lines of a marsh in the Norfolk Broad district. I saw the Ambassador on his return from a duck-catching party. With superhuman efforts, and a vast amount of exercise, he had managed to capture three ducks, and he told me that he had had to run like a hare to achieve even this modest success. All the guests were expected to appear in high hats and frock-coats
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on these occasions, and I should have dearly loved to see the Ambassador arrayed in frock-coat and high hat bounding hot-foot over the marshes248, his butterfly net poised249 aloft, in pursuit of his quacking250 quarry251. The newspapers informed us the next day that the Crown Prince had headed the list as usual with a bag of twenty-seven ducks, and I always believe what I see in print. Really Europeans start heavily handicapped at this peculiar16 diversion. I have known many families in England where the sons of the house are instructed from a very early age in riding, and in the art of handling a gun and a trout252 rod, but even in the most sport-loving British families the science of catching wild duck in butterfly nets forms but seldom part of the sporting curriculum of the rising generation. Though the Imperial family are Shintoists, I expect that the Buddhist253 horror of taking animal life is at the bottom of this idea of duck-catching, for the ducks are, I believe, all set free again after their capture.
We always heard that the Emperor and his family lived entirely on rice and fish in the frugal254 Japanese fashion, and that they never tasted meat.
I had the opportunity of seeing a very fine house of sixty rooms, built in strict Japanese style, and just completed. Count Mitsu is one of the few very wealthy men in Japan; he can also trace his pedigree back for three thousand years. He had built this house in Tokyo, and as it was supposed to be the last word in purity of style ("Itchi-Ban," or "Number One," as the Japanese express it), he very
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kindly invited the ambassador and myself to go all over it with him. We had, of course, to remove our shoes on entering, and my pleasure was somewhat marred255 by the discovery of a large hole in one sock, on which I fancied the gaze of the entire Mitsu family was riveted256. Nothing can equal the high-bred courtesy and politeness of Japanese of really ancient lineage. Countess Mitsu, of a family as old as her husband's, had a type of face which we do not usually associate with Japan, and is only found in ladies of the Imperial family and some others equally old. In place of the large head, full cheeks, and flat features of the ordinary Japanese woman, Countess Mitsu and her daughters had thin faces with high aquiline257 features, giving them an extraordinarily high-bred and distinguished258 appearance. This great house consisted of a vast number of perfectly empty rooms, destitute259 of one single scrap211 of furniture. There was fine matting on the floor, a niche260 with one kakemono hanging in it, one bronze or other work of art, and a vase with one single flower, and nothing else whatever. The Mitsus being a very high caste family, there was no colour anywhere. The decoration was confined to black and white and beautifully-finished, unpainted, unvarnished woodwork, except for the exquisitely261 chased bronze door-grips (door-handles would be an incorrect term for these grips to open and close the sliding panels). I must confess that I never saw a more supremely262 uncomfortable-looking dwelling245 in my life. The children's nurseries upstairs
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were a real joy. The panels had been painted by a Japanese artist with everything calculated to amuse a child. There were pictures of pink and blue rabbits, purple frogs, scarlet porcupines263, and grass-green guinea-pigs, all with the most comical expressions imaginable on their faces. The lamps were of fish-skin shaped over thin strips of bamboo into the form of the living fish, then highly coloured, and fitted with electric globes inside them; weird264, luminous265 marine266 monsters! Each child had a little Chinese dressing-table of mother-of-pearl eighteen inches high, and a tub of real Chinese "powder-blue" porcelain as a bath. The windows looked on to a fascinating dwarf garden ten feet square, with real waterfalls, tiny rivers of real water, miniature mountains and dwarf trees, all in perfect proportion. It was like looking at an extensive landscape through the wrong end of a telescope.
The polite infants who inhabited this child's paradise received us with immense courtesy, lying at full length on the floor on their little tummies, and wagging their little heads in salutation, till I really thought they would come off.
The most interesting thing in Count Mitsu's house was a beautiful little Shinto temple of bronze-gold lacquer, where all the names of his many ancestors were inscribed on gilt267 tablets. Here he and all his sons (women take no part in ancestor worship) came nightly, and made a full confession268 before the tablets of their ancestors of all they had done during the day; craving269 for pardon should
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they have acted in a fashion unworthy of their family and of Japan. The Count and his sons then lighted the little red lamps before the tablets of their forebears to show that they were not forgotten, and placed the exquisitely carved little ivory "ghost-ship" two inches long in its place, should any of their ancestors wish to return that night from the Land of Spirits to their old home.
The underlying270 idea of undying family affection is rather a beautiful one.
That same evening I went to a very interesting dinner-party at the house of Prince Arisugawa, a son-in-law of the Emperor's. Both the dinner and the house were on European lines, but the main point of interest was that it was a gathering of all the Generals and Admirals who had taken a prominent part in the Russo-Japanese war. I was placed between an Admiral and a General, but found it difficult to communicate with them, Japanese being conspicuously271 bad linguists272. The General could speak a little fairly unintelligible273 German; the Admiral could stutter a very little Russian. It was a pity that the roads of communication were so blocked for us, for I shall probably never again sit between two men who had had such thrilling experiences. I cursed the builders of the Tower of Babel for erecting274 this linguistic barrier between us.
I found that I was a full head taller than all the Japanese in the room. Princess Arisugawa appeared later. This tiny, dainty, graceful little lady
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had the same strongly aquiline type of features as Countess Mitsu, and the same high-bred look of distinction. She was beautifully dressed in European style, and had Rue29 de la Paix written all over her clothes and her jewels. I have seldom seen anyone with such taking graceful dignity as this daughter of the Imperial house, in spite of her diminutive275 stature276.
The old families in Japan have a pretty custom of presenting every European guest with a little black-and-gold lacquer box, two inches high, full of sweetmeats, of the sort we called in my youth "hundreds and thousands." These little boxes bear on their tops in gold lacquer the badge or crest277 of the family, thus serving as permanent souvenirs.
In a small community such as the European diplomats formed at Tokyo, the peculiarities278 and foibles of the "chers collègues" formed naturally an unending topic of conversation. There was one foreign representative who was determined to avoid bankruptcy279, could the most rigorously careful regulation of his expenditure280 avert25 such a catastrophe. His official position forced him to give occasional dinner-parties, much, I imagine, against his inclinations281. He always, in the winter months, borrowed all the available oil-stoves from his colleagues and friends, when one of these festivities was contemplated282, in order to warm his official residence without having to go to the expense of fires. He had in some mad fit of extravagance bought two dozen of
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a really fine claret some years before. The wine had long since been drunk; the bottles he still retained with their labels. It was his custom to buy the cheapest and roughest red wine he could find, and then enshrine it in these old bottles with their mendacious283 labels. At his dinner-parties these time-worn bottles were always ranged down the tables. The evidence of palate and eye was conflicting. The palate (as far as it could discriminate284 through the awful reek285 with which the oil-stoves filled the room), pronounced it sour, immature286 vin ordinaire. The label on the bottle proclaimed it Château Margaux of 1874, actually bottled at the Château itself. Politeness dictated287 that we should compliment our host on this exquisite vintage, which had, perhaps, begun to feel (as we all do) the effects of extreme old age. A cynical288 Dutch colleague might possibly hazard a few remarks, lamenting289 the effects of the Japanese climate on "les premiers290 crus de Bordeaux."
Life at any post would be dull were it not for the little failings of the "chers collègues," which always give one something to talk of.
The Japanese are ruining the beauty of their country by their insane mania9 for advertising291. The railways are lined with advertisements; a beautiful hillside is desecrated292 by a giant advertisement, cut in the turf, and filled in with white concrete. Even the ugly little streets of brown packing-cases are plastered with advertisements. The fact that these advertisements are all in Chinese characters
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give them a rather pleasing exotic flavour at first; that soon wears off, and then one is only too thankful not to be able to read them. They remain a hideous disfigurement of a fair land.
One large Japanese-owned department store in Tokyo had a brass293 band playing in front of it all day, producing an ear-splitting din3. The bandsmen were little Japanese boys dressed, of all things in the world, as Highlanders. No one who has not seen it can imagine the intensely grotesque295 effect of a little stumpy, bandy-legged Jap boy in a red tartan kilt, bare knees, and a Glengarry bonnet296. No one who has not heard them can conceive the appalling297 sounds they produced from their brass instruments, or can form any conception of the Japanese idea of "rag-time."
We have in this country some very competent amateurs who, to judge from the picture papers, have reduced the gentle art of self-advertisement to a science.
I think these ladies would be repaid for the trouble of a voyage to Japan by the new ideas in advertisement they would pick up from that enterprising people. They need not blow their own trumpets298, like the little Jap Highlander294 bandsmen; they can get it done for them as they know, by the Press.
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discomfiture
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| n.崩溃；大败；挫败；困惑 | |
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inquisitive
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| adj.求知欲强的，好奇的，好寻根究底的 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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6
linguistic
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| adj.语言的，语言学的 | |
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7
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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8
diplomats
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| n.外交官( diplomat的名词复数 )；有手腕的人，善于交际的人 | |
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mania
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| n.疯狂；躁狂症，狂热，癖好 | |
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mitigated
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| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11
baron
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| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
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12
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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13
dictatorial
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| adj. 独裁的，专断的 | |
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14
chaff
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| v.取笑，嘲笑；n.谷壳 | |
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15
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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16
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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17
persiflage
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| n.戏弄；挖苦 | |
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18
banter
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| n.嘲弄，戏谑；v.取笑，逗弄，开玩笑 | |
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19
duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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20
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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21
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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22
duels
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| n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争 | |
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23
knotty
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| adj.有结的，多节的，多瘤的，棘手的 | |
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24
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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25
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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26
averted
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| 防止，避免( avert的过去式和过去分词 )； 转移 | |
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27
slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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28
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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29
rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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30
bullying
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| v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈 | |
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31
bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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32
predecessors
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| n.前任( predecessor的名词复数 )；前辈；（被取代的）原有事物；前身 | |
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33
notably
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| adv.值得注意地，显著地，尤其地，特别地 | |
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34
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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35
tenure
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| n.终身职位；任期；(土地)保有权，保有期 | |
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36
subservient
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| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
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37
exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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38
embarking
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| 乘船( embark的现在分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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39
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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40
annexation
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| n.吞并，合并 | |
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41
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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42
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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43
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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44
intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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45
intentional
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| adj.故意的，有意（识）的 | |
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46
pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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47
vassal
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| n.附庸的；属下；adj.奴仆的 | |
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48
monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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49
collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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50
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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51
devotedly
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| 专心地； 恩爱地； 忠实地； 一心一意地 | |
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52
enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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53
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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54
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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55
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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56
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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57
entrusted
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| v.委托，托付( entrust的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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58
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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59
recede
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| vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进 | |
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60
incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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61
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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62
conflagration
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| n.建筑物或森林大火 | |
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63
negotiations
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| 协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过 | |
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64
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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65
concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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66
pusillanimity
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| n.无气力，胆怯 | |
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67
amicably
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| adv.友善地 | |
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68
flair
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| n.天赋，本领，才华；洞察力 | |
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69
pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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70
reposes
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| v.将（手臂等）靠在某人（某物）上( repose的第三人称单数 ) | |
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71
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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72
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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73
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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74
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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75
cogitation
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| n.仔细思考，计划，设计 | |
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76
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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77
jingle
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| n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵 | |
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78
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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79
confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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80
rumoured
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| adj.谣传的；传说的；风 | |
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81
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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82
irresistibly
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| adv.无法抵抗地，不能自持地；极为诱惑人地 | |
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83
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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84
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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85
apocryphal
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| adj.假冒的，虚假的 | |
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86
purporting
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| v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的现在分词 ) | |
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87
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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88
legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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89
pry
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| vi.窥(刺)探，打听；vt.撬动(开，起) | |
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90
scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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91
forgeries
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| 伪造( forgery的名词复数 )； 伪造的文件、签名等 | |
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92
luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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93
thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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94
detest
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| vt.痛恨，憎恶 | |
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95
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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96
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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97
inanely
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98
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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99
incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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100
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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101
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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102
extenuation
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| n.减轻罪孽的借口；酌情减轻；细 | |
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103
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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104
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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105
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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106
wails
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| 痛哭，哭声( wail的名词复数 ) | |
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107
purblind
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| adj.半盲的；愚笨的 | |
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108
wilfully
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| adv.任性固执地；蓄意地 | |
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109
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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110
baneful
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| adj.有害的 | |
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111
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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112
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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113
perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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114
screed
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| n.长篇大论 | |
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115
scoop
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| n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出 | |
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116
meditating
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| a.沉思的，冥想的 | |
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117
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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118
continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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119
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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120
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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121
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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122
blatantly
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| ad.公开地 | |
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123
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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124
specks
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| n.眼镜；斑点，微粒，污点( speck的名词复数 ) | |
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125
charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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126
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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127
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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128
giggles
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| n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 ) | |
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129
consigned
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| v.把…置于（令人不快的境地）( consign的过去式和过去分词 )；把…托付给；把…托人代售；丟弃 | |
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130
delicacies
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| n.棘手( delicacy的名词复数 )；精致；精美的食物；周到 | |
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131
cuisine
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| n.烹调，烹饪法 | |
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132
ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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133
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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134
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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135
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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136
abortive
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| adj.不成功的，发育不全的 | |
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137
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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138
inverse
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| adj.相反的，倒转的，反转的；n.相反之物；v.倒转 | |
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139
vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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140
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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141
graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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142
vivacious
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| adj.活泼的，快活的 | |
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143
copious
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| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
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144
innately
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| adv.天赋地；内在地，固有地 | |
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145
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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146
lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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147
enamel
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| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
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148
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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149
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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150
belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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151
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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152
gilding
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| n.贴金箔，镀金 | |
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153
enamels
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| 搪瓷( enamel的名词复数 )； 珐琅； 釉药； 瓷漆 | |
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154
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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155
usurped
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| 篡夺，霸占( usurp的过去式和过去分词 )； 盗用； 篡夺，篡权 | |
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156
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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157
overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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158
merged
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| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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159
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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160
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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161
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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162
refreshing
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| adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的 | |
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163
slovenly
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| adj.懒散的，不整齐的，邋遢的 | |
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164
elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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165
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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166
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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167
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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168
shrubs
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| 灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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169
dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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170
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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171
whitewash
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| v.粉刷，掩饰；n.石灰水，粉刷，掩饰 | |
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172
cascade
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| n.小瀑布，喷流；层叠；vi.成瀑布落下 | |
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173
foaming
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| adj.布满泡沫的；发泡 | |
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174
spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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175
envoys
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| 使节( envoy的名词复数 )； 公使； 谈判代表； 使节身份 | |
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176
reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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177
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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178
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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179
glorified
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| 美其名的，变荣耀的 | |
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180
villa
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| n.别墅，城郊小屋 | |
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181
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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182
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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183
rigidly
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| adv.刻板地，僵化地 | |
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184
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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185
clump
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| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
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186
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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187
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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188
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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189
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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190
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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191
rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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192
croaking
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的现在分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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193
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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194
clogs
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| 木屐； 木底鞋，木屐( clog的名词复数 ) | |
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195
clattering
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| 发出咔哒声（clatter的现在分词形式） | |
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196
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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197
gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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198
courteous
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| adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的 | |
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199
genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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200
obese
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| adj.过度肥胖的，肥大的 | |
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201
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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202
rending
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| v.撕碎( rend的现在分词 )；分裂；（因愤怒、痛苦等而）揪扯（衣服或头发等）；（声音等）刺破 | |
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203
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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204
adipose
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| adj.脂肪质的，脂肪多的；n.（储于脂肪组织中的）动物脂肪；肥胖 | |
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205
adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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206
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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207
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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208
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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209
twitch
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| v.急拉，抽动，痉挛，抽搐；n.扯，阵痛，痉挛 | |
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210
ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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211
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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212
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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213
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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214
deposed
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| v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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215
rubies
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| 红宝石( ruby的名词复数 )； 红宝石色，深红色 | |
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216
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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217
touchingly
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| adv.令人同情地，感人地，动人地 | |
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218
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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219
phoenix
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| n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生 | |
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220
depreciate
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| v.降价，贬值，折旧 | |
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221
exalt
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| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
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222
entreat
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| v.恳求，恳请 | |
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223
alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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224
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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225
condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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226
deign
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| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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227
poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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228
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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229
loathsome
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| adj.讨厌的，令人厌恶的 | |
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230
shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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231
putrid
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| adj.腐臭的；有毒的；已腐烂的；卑劣的 | |
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232
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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233
epithets
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| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
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234
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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235
hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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236
intestines
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| n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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237
fodder
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| n.草料；炮灰 | |
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238
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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239
geographers
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| 地理学家( geographer的名词复数 ) | |
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240
fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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241
quaint
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| adj.古雅的，离奇有趣的，奇怪的 | |
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242
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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243
lobsters
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| 龙虾( lobster的名词复数 )； 龙虾肉 | |
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244
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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245
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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246
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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247
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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248
marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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249
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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250
quacking
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| v.（鸭子）发出嘎嘎声( quack的现在分词 ) | |
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251
quarry
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| n.采石场；v.采石；费力地找 | |
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252
trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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253
Buddhist
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| adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒 | |
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254
frugal
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|
| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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255
marred
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| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
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256
riveted
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|
| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
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257
aquiline
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| adj.钩状的，鹰的 | |
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258
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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259
destitute
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| adj.缺乏的；穷困的 | |
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260
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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261
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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262
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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263
porcupines
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| n.豪猪，箭猪( porcupine的名词复数 ) | |
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264
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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265
luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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266
marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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267
gilt
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| adj.镀金的；n.金边证券 | |
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268
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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269
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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270
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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271
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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272
linguists
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| n.通晓数国语言的人( linguist的名词复数 )；语言学家 | |
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273
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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274
erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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275
diminutive
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| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
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276
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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277
crest
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| n.顶点；饰章；羽冠；vt.达到顶点；vi.形成浪尖 | |
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278
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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279
bankruptcy
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| n.破产；无偿付能力 | |
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280
expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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281
inclinations
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| 倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡 | |
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282
contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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283
mendacious
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| adj.不真的，撒谎的 | |
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284
discriminate
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| v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待 | |
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285
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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286
immature
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| adj.未成熟的，发育未全的，未充分发展的 | |
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287
dictated
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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288
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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289
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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290
premiers
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| n.总理，首相( premier的名词复数 )；首席官员， | |
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291
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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292
desecrated
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| 毁坏或亵渎( desecrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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293
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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294
highlander
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| n.高地的人，苏格兰高地地区的人 | |
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295
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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296
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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297
appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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298
trumpets
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| 喇叭( trumpet的名词复数 )； 小号； 喇叭形物； （尤指）绽开的水仙花 | |
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