TWO: [Pg 88][Pg 114]
TWO:The boys were greatly interested in their shopping excursions, and learned a good deal about Japanese art and industry before they had ended their purchases. By the time they were through they had an excellent collection of porcelain and other ware, of ivory carvings, lacquered boxes, and similar things; silk robes, wrappers, and handkerchiefs; and quite enough fans to set up a small museum. They tried at first to get a sample of each kind of fan that they could find, but the variety proved so great that they were forced to give up the attempt. They bought some curious articles of bamboo, and were surprised to find to how many uses this vegetable production is put. Frank thought it was a pity the bamboo did not grow in America, as it could be turned to even more advantage by the enterprising Yankee than by the plodding Oriental, and Fred was inclined to agree with him. They changed their minds, however,[Pg 253] when the Doctor told them how far the bamboo entered into the life of the people of the East, and on the whole they concluded that the American couldn't improve upon it.
TWO:"No, Richard," said Charlotte, "get my wagon and the little Mexicans." Then to Miss Harper and Camille, "Good-night, dears; I'll wait here that long, if Captain Ferry will allow me." She turned to him with the moonlight in her eyes, that danced riotously as she said in her softest, deepest note, "You're afraid!" and I thanked Heaven that Coralie Rothvelt was still a pulsing reality in the bosom of Charlotte Oliver.ON THE ROAD TO FUSIYAMA.
TWO:"Yes, you wouldn't know about them, although you're not unlike a maker yourself. Only you wear clothes like us, and the makers don't wear clothes. That was what puzzled[Pg 207] me about you. The look in your eyes reminded me of a maker. They came after the last wars. It's all written in history. There was a great deal of fighting and killing and blowing up and poisoning, and then the makers came and they didn't fight. It was they who invented the clock for us, and after that every man had to have a clock fitted into him, and then he didn't have to fight any more, because he could move about in a multiform world where there was plenty of room for everybody.""As you have observed, the Buddhist temples contain the statue of Buddha, while the Shinto temples have nothing of the sort. For all practical purposes, you may compare a Buddhist temple to a Catholic church, with its statues and pictures of the saints; and a Shinto temple to a Protestant church, with its bare walls, and its altar with no ornament of consequence. The Buddhists, like the Catholics, burn a great deal of incense in front of their altars and before their statues; but the Shintoists do not regard the burning of incense as at all necessary to salvation. Both religions have an excellent code of morals; and if all the adherents of either should do as they are told by their sacred teachers, there would not be much wickedness in the country. As for that matter, there is enough of moral precept in nearly every religion in the world to live by, but the trouble is that the whole world will not live as it should. Buddhism is more than five hundred years older than Christianity. The old forms of Shintoism existed before Buddhism was brought to Japan; but the modern is so much changed from the old that it is virtually, as I told you, a reformation of Buddhism. At all events, that was the form which it assumed at the time the Shogoon's government was overthrown.