Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1886-04-02
Japanese Homes

II is getting to be very embarrassing, this
civilization, especially to our women. We
are accumulating so much, our establishments
are becoming so complicated, that daily life
IL an effort. There are too many things"
Our houses are getting to be museums. A
house now is library, an art gallery, brio
a brac shop, q furniture warehouse, crock
cry store, combined. 1t is a great establish
ment run for the benefit of servants plumb
ers, furnace-men, grocers, tinkers. Regarded
in one light, it is very interesting place,
and in another, it is an eleemosynary insti
tion. We are accustomed to consider it a
mark Of high civilization that ID to say, the
more complicaie ed and overloaded we make
our domestic lives, the more civilized we re-
gard ourselves Now perhaps We are on the
wrong track altogether. Perhaps the way to
high civilization is toward simplicity and dis
ENHANCEMENT, 80 that the human being will
be less a slave to his surroundings and i'm
pedmentia and have more leisure for his
own cultivation and enjoyment Perhaps
life on much simpler terms than we now car.
ry it on with would be on a really higher
plane. We have been looking at some pict-
ures of Japanese dwellings, interiors How
simple they are how little furniture or
adornment how few 'things" to care for
and be anxious about. Now the Japanese
are a very ancient people. They are people
of high breeding, polish, refinement. They
are in some respects like the Chinese, who
have passed through ages and cycles of ex-
peTience, worn out about all the PHILOSOPHERS
and religions then on, and come out on the
other side of everything, They have learned
to take things rather easily, not to fret, and
to get along without great many encum-
brances that we still YEARLY carry along.
When we look at the Japanese houses and at
their comparatively simple life, are we war
ranted in saying that they are behind us in
civilizationI May it not be true that they
have lived through all our experiences, and
| come down to an easy mOduS 0iDendiY ? They
may have had their brio a-brac period, their
over rloaded-establlshment age, their various
measles stages of civilization, before they
reached condition in which life is a compare
lively simple affair. This thought must strike
any one who sees the present Japanese in this
country. For, instead of adopting the Jap.
Anese simplicity in our dwelling, we are add
ing the Japanese ecoentricities to our other
accumulatons of odds and ends from all ere
alton, and increasing the inoongruity and the
! complication of our daily life. What help
| less being is the housewife in the midst OF
her treasures The Drawer has had occasion
to speak lately of the recent enthusiasm il
| this country for the cultivation of the
mind" 1t has become almost a fashion
| Clubs are formed for this express purpose.
| But what chance is there for it in the increas
| ing anxieties Of our more and more involved
and overloaded domestic life? Suppose We
have olubs-Japanese clubs they might be
called-for the simpliication of our dwell
iugs and for getting rid of much of our em
barrassing 8leildge ~ Charles Dudley Warner
in april Hdrper's