The Paducah evening sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1906-1929, 1908-03-23

SiutCnln9 ~ inc bunCn of Snalns-
an after dinner speech at Spokane.
said: III you should visit a Japanese
house you would be obliged to remove
your shoes at the doorway. Japanese
floors are beautifully kept. ! know Of
some houses where 80 or 40 servants
have no other duty than the polishing
of the floors"
And Japan is the land Of unrealities.
The whole country is a toy shop.
Everything is small. The horses are
all ponies; the chickens bantams; the
dogs small and shy-with apologize
manners-they wouldn't presume to
bark at your heels without first ask
ing permission; the oysters are about
as large as a quarter; clans no larger
than a dime; bananas not more than
four or FIVE inches long; and oranges
about the size OF lady-apples. Yes.
everything is small. never felt 80
much at home in my life.
Japanese art has had many admir-
ers and many detractors. The latter
have likened their china, sprawling
with dragons and alive with grinning
faces. to a 1T of the jlmJams; their
sunhowers to jellyfish and their chrys-
anthemums 10 cartwheels.
Its admirers claim that all you have
10 io is 10 study up lis symbols, AMI
then go ahead But IL strikes me that
by the time you've learned the sym
bols It would be time TO die. For in
stance, when a Japanese artist draws
a picture OF an April evening. a dys-
peptic moon, nightingale and a cou-
pie OF plum trees. and asks you its
meaning, I'll wager that IL you stood
first on one foot and then on the other
for two mortal hours you couldn't give
the fellow an answer. It's dollars to
doughnuts you couldn't tell the night.
ingale from flshhawk. and you
couldn't tell what he was doing on the
plum tree, or on the moon-it don't
matter which-if they gave you the
whole business-the hawk, the p1im
tree. the moon and the April evening
to take home TO your wife for a
birthday present. For, my dear fell
bowman, that picture means happi-
ness! yes. happiness. And IL you can't
see the artists meaning, and-what's
more TO the point-get your wife TO
see II, you'd better stay right in the
artists studio and
But you won't! You'll rush straight
home with the picture under your arm,
and you'll rush up to your wife and. In
an insane endeavor to expatlate on the
complex beauties of the thing, you'll
say:
Look, Maria! just see this! A pres.
ent for your .birthday-didn't forget
you, did l? Here you are-great!
Look at the willowy moon. and the
nightingale sky, and the plum-hawk-"
And then she'll burst into tears, and
cry: Il knew 1t! knew 1t! I've seen
It coming! oh. knew it!"
know what, for heavens sake?"
THAT you'd begin to SEQ things!
Stopping off at that corner nights has
done it, knew 1t would!-A plum
hawk! oh, Archibald! that you
should come to this! oh. OIL"
And there you are!-hysterics; the
telephone; the doctor; and. let us
hope. quick curtain" as they say
at the theater.
You prop the casus belll on your
knee and thus apostrophize IL:
You call yourself a moon, do your
Why, a half-baked soda biscuit is a
queen to you! And you're night
ingale. are you? Why. you splay-foot-
ed wry-neck. hollow; back, shark-nose
nightmare! setting hen with the
wind-caekles is bird OF paradise to
ycu' Wbat did that idiouc Pilkins,