The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-21


 Nineteenth Century, Mir. Reginald J. Farrer is at some pains to dispel what he conceives to be delusions current in the west as to the character and status of the women of Japan.
 ."The Japanese lady" he tells us. tcannot be discussed by Europeans, in asmuch as no European ever sets eyes upon her Her husband despises. in- deed, and ignores her yet regards her as so inviolably sacred a piece of the family furniture that never does he al low her within sight of the western barbarian. He shuts her away from outside gaze, even though he himself finds her society tedious and insipid
 "A typical good Japanese wife is one after the heart of Perikles, of whom the least possible is heard, either at home or abroad. She is humble, perfectly quiescent, perfectly amiable, the slave of her lord, who at his pleasure can di- vorce her sans phrase for any ill tenn per. for gossiping, for disrespect or for excessive conversation. Or at will he can bring some beloved geisha into his house as first wife and reduce the lady of his home to subordinate and dis honoring position. She is the mere ser want of her husbands fancies. If he be drunken and unfaithfuI she may, in- deed, remonstrate, but it must be with the utmost humility and inferiority and a disarrning weakness of submission. The end to be attained is his reforma- ton, not the repair of her unconsidered happiness. Her whole individuality should be merged in the mans, and even her share in the sons ceases to be hers when the children have passed their fifth year. Then they are moved into custody of the more honored sex to be molded into men. But the Japanese wife, if established facts prove any thing, is certainly no less happy than her more independent sister of the west. For one matter, eshe has learned through so many ages the lesson of her own worthless weakness and inferiori ty that she takes all the pleasures that come to her-and these, though simple, are many-with an intense passion of joy and gratitude unknown to the west ern woman who throughout her life has grown up in the pursuit of her own de- sires They who demand little of life often get most. And, on the whole, there can be no doubt that the Japanese woman is happier, though in 8 smaller, quieter way, than her febrile ebullient European cousin, who wants so much that she can never be satisfied. The Japanese Woman's life is full of de- lights, even though it's crown be the contending of her husband. Her life's to ,Ala h her highest art, perfection of self-ef- facing good manners and the inf1exble self-control that gratifies a man by sparing him scenes of female tears or adistResses.
 ITO the married lady alone is forbid den that swift brilliance of mind which so clearly marks the Japanese tempera- ment at gravest or at gayest. And thus she is deprived of the strongest chain by which woman can hold the allegi- ance of a man through the long years of marriage. Her husband comes to look upon her as dull thing, to be kept honorably safe, but ignored Mean while he pines for intellectual company andrelaxation. And this he seeks in a special class that arose long ago to sat- isfy just this very need created by the Japanese social system of choiceless marriage. The geisha is in no sense necessarily a courtesan. She is a woman educated to attract, perfected from her childhood in all the intracacies of Japanese literature, practieed in wit and reyartee, irured to rapid give-and- take of conversation on every topic, hu- man and divine From her earliest youth she is broken in to an inviolable charm Of manner ineomprehensible to the finest European, yet she is almost invariably a blossom of the lower ctass- es, with dumpy claws and squat ugly nails. Her education, physical and moral is far harder than that of the bailerina, and her success is achieved only after years of struggle and bitter agony of torture. She dances-dances those slow mines of old Japan, that must be such torment to the dancers end are such joy to the spectator, who lolls upon the mats to watch the sump- tuously graceful figures moving back and forth intricately to the long, plan gent sadnesses of a voice wailing an- cient rhythms of long, forgotten mean
 
 the Samisen. The dances are of inl- mense age, and with their chants, unin- telligible now these many centuries, are all to be learned very hardly and by rote before any girl may take rank as a geisha. These being acquired, and her wit polished to an adamantine brllian- cy, the young voice is broken by an in credible torment of midnight exposure to the low dull tone required by Japa- nese taste. And then at last the trained girl may advance from the gorgeous robes of the little mako, or budding geisha, to the quiet and ever quieter blues and grays that mark the estah- lished artist.
 Many are the sad tales of a geishas love, and many, though fewer, the tales that are not sad Alone among the wo- men of her race she is free and her heart has room to grow. She is no stranger to the bitter loves of the world, even though, to a foreigner her heart remain cloistered garden, impossible of access. She is fiercely beautiful and wild, under that smooth gayety of charm which is the contional robe in whose pageantry her soul goes fiutter- ing across the il1-lit stage of destiny. Yet at times and in popular phrases she is also the cold, mercenary harlot of convention the ruin of young men, the rapacious spoiler of substance, the de-