Then came the most surprising incident of the evening,--the corroboration of these adverse criticisms by his excellency the Japanese Minister, with the apologetic remark that

the prints referred to "were only regarded as common things in Japan." Common things I Common, perhaps, in the judgment of other generations; aesthetic luxuries to-day. The artists named were Hokusai, Toyokuni, Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, Kunisada! But his excellency seemed to think the subject trifling; for he took occasion to call away the attention of the meeting, irrelevantly as patriotically, to the triumphs of the war. In this he reflected faithfully the Japanese Zeitgeist, which can scarcely now endure the foreign praise of Japanese art. Unfortunately, those dominated by the just and natural martial pride of the hour do not reflect that while the development and maintenance of great armaments--unless effected with the greatest economical caution--might lead in short order to national bankruptcy, the future industrial prosperity of the country is likely to depend in no small degree upon the conservation and cultivation of the national art sense. Nay, those very means by which Japan won her late victories were largely purchased by the commercial results of that very art sense to which his excellency seemed to attach no importance. Japan must

continue to depend upon her aesthetic faculty, even in so commonplace a field of industry as the manufacture of mattings; for in mere cheap production she will never be able to undersell China.

II

Although the criticisms provoked by Mr. Strange's essay were unjust to Japanese art, they were natural, and indicated nothing worse than ignorance of that art and miscomprehension of its purpose. It is not an art of which the meaning can be read at a glance: years of study are necessary for a right comprehension of it. I cannot pretend that I have mastered the knowledge of its moods and tenses, but I can say truthfully that the faces in the old picture-books and in the cheap prints of to-day, especially those of the illustrated Japanese newspapers, do not seem to me in the least unreal, much less "absolutely insane." There was a time when they did appear to me fantastic. Now I find them always interesting, occasionally beautiful. If I am told that no other European would say so, then I must declare all other