For consider this peculiar circumstance: the position of
European investigators vis-a-vis Japan differs entirely from
that of Japanese vis-a-vis Europe. The Japanese possess every
facility for studying and understanding Europe. Europeans
are warded off by well-nigh insuperable obstacles from
understanding Japan. Europe stands on a hill-top, in the
sunlight, glittering afar. Her people court inspection.
"Come and see how we live"--such was a typical invitation
which the present writer recently received. A thousand
English homes are open to any Japanese student or traveller
who visits our shores. An alphabet of but six-and-twenty
simple letters throws equally wide open to him a literature
clearly revealing our thoughts, so that he who runs may read.
Japan lies in the shadow, away on the rim of the world. Her
houses are far more effectually closed to the stranger by
their paper shutters than are ours by walls of brick or stone.
What we call "society" does not exist there. Her people,
though smiling and courteous, surround themselves by an
atmosphere of reserve, centuries of despotic government having
rendered them suspicious and reticent. True, when a foreigner
of importance visits Japan--some British M.P., perhaps, whose
name figures often in the newspapers, or an American editor,
or the president of a great American college--this personage
is charmingly received. But he is never left free to form his
own opinion of things, even were he capable of so doing.
Circumstances spin an invisible web around him, his hosts
being keenly intent on making him a speaking-trumpet for the
proclamation of their own views.

Again, Japan's non-Aryan speech, marvellously intricate,