. Japan, a record in colour . betterthan we can handle ours ? Every soldier in theJapanese army understands the mechanism of his rifle,and can at any moment pull it to pieces and put ittogether again, even substituting a missing portionif necessary. Could the same be said of our belovedTommy ? The Japanese officers are no less capablethan the privates, and I would guarantee that if bysome mischance the sword of a Japanese officer, beingbadly tempered, should become bent, that officer wouldbe capable of retempering his blade—one of the mostdifficult and delicate tasks imaginable. But how a cert
. Japan, a record in colour . betterthan we can handle ours ? Every soldier in theJapanese army understands the mechanism of his rifle,and can at any moment pull it to pieces and put ittogether again, even substituting a missing portionif necessary. Could the same be said of our belovedTommy ? The Japanese officers are no less capablethan the privates, and I would guarantee that if bysome mischance the sword of a Japanese officer, beingbadly tempered, should become bent, that officer wouldbe capable of retempering his blade—one of the mostdifficult and delicate tasks imaginable. But how a certain class of equally ignorant andinconsistent Westerners cried out when it was knownto the world that Japan had actually begun to useour rifles and to build battleships! They will loseindividuality and degenerate, they are adopting Westernmethods, and it will kill their art, they foolish this is! The Japanese have merelychanged their tools—exchanged the bow and arrow 94 THE TEA-HOUSE OF THE SLENDER TREE „. Art in Practical Life for the sword; they are just as artistic and justas intelligent as in the bow-and-arrow days; andthey have proved themselves to be equal to, if notbetter than, any other soldiers in the world. Japan is not being Westernised in the smallestdegree : she is merely picking our brains. And howquickly the Japs will adopt a Western idea, andimprove upon it! The making of matches, and theunderselling us in all our common printed cotton andwoollen Manchester goods, have not spoilt their facultyfor executing that exquisite Eugene dyeing for whichthe Japanese are famous all the world over; themaking of bolts and bars and battleships has notprevented the metal-workers from producing exquisitework in bronze, so delicate as to resemble the finestlace. The manufacture of our vulgar modern mon-strosities has been taken up by these people, and theycan offer them to us at a cheaper rate and of abetter quality than we can produce ourselves, freightincl
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectart, bookyear1901
