THREE:For hundreds of years Japan has been famous for its productions of porcelain of various kinds, from the tiny cup no larger than a lady's thimble to the elaborately decorated vase with a capacity of many gallons. Each province of Japan has its peculiar product, and sometimes one is in fashion, and sometimes another. For the last few years the favor has turned in the direction of Satsuma ware, which has commanded enormous figures, especially for the antique pieces. So great was the demand for old Satsuma that a good many manufacturers turned their attention to its production. They offer to make it to any amount, just as the wine-dealers in New York can accommodate a customer with wine of any vintage he requires, if he will only give them time enough to put on the proper labels. It is proper to say, on behalf of the Japanese, that they learned this trick from the foreigners; and their natural shrewdness has taught them to improve upon the lesson, so that in some instances they have actually sold to their instructors new ware for old, and convinced the purchasers of its genuineness."Their dresses are folded around them, and then held in place by an obi, which is nothing more nor less than a wide belt. It is of the most[Pg 259] expensive material that the wearer can afford; and sometimes it costs a great deal of money. Generally it is of silk, and they have it of all colors, and occasionally it is heavily embroidered. It is several yards long, and the work of winding it into place is no small affair. I shall enclose some pictures of Japanese women in this letter, and you can see from them what the dress of the women looks like, and understand much better than you will by what I write. I think the women look very pretty in their dressesmuch better, in fact, than when they put on European garments. Their hair is always black, and they dress it with more grease than I wish they would. It fairly makes the hair shine, it is laid on so thick. But they have some very pretty ornaments for their hair, which they stick in with large pins, something like the hair-pins you use at home. I am told that you can distinguish the social position by the number and style of the hair-ornaments worn on a woman's head;[Pg 260] but I have not yet learned how to do it. I suppose I shall find out if I stay long enough in Japan.
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FORE:The boys had been much amused at the appearance of a Japanese they met on the road just before reaching Odiwara, and wondered if they would be obliged to adopt that mode of riding before they finished their journey. The man in question was seated on a horse, not in the way in which we are accustomed to sit, but literally on the back of the animal. His baggage was fastened around him behind and on each side, and he was rather uncomfortably crouched (at least, so it seemed to Fred) on a flat pad like the one used by a circus-rider. A servant led the horse, and the pace was a walking one. Altogether, the appearance of the man was decidedly ludicrous, and the boys were somewhat surprised to learn that this was the ordinary way of travelling on horseback in the olden time."Why, what do you mean? You know we're here to rejoin the company as it comes down from union Church to camp here to-night. That's what we're here for."
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FORE:Gregg paused abruptly, as though arriving at some crisis in his thought. "It must be so. There is no other explanation to cover what we have seen. Man, as we know him, is no more or less than what his nervous system allows him[Pg 183] to be. A creature of action, his actions are nevertheless strictly prescribed by the limitations of his neural organism. In the case of the Clockwork man we are confronted by the phenomenon of an enormous extension of nervous activity. One imagines terrific waves of energy unimpededor, relatively unimpededby the inhibitory processes that check expenditure in the case of a normal organism. Of course, there must be inhibition of some sort, but the whole system of the Clockwork man is on so grand a scale that his actions take place in a different order of time. His relapses, as he describes them, are simply the parallel of that degeneration of tissue which accompanies ordinary human fatigue. That is why his ineptitude appears ghastly to us. Again, his perceptions would be different. He would see relatively far more of the universe, and his actions would carry him further and further into the future, far beyond those laws which we have fashioned for ourselves, in accordance with our neural limitations. For, just as man is at the mercy of his nervous system, so his conception of universal laws is the natural outcome of nervous apprehension; and the universe is no more or less than what we think it is.""But did she leave any message?" enquired the Doctor, fixing her with his eye-glass.
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FORE:STORKS, DRAWN BY A NATIVE ARTIST. STORKS, DRAWN BY A NATIVE ARTIST.
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