se are passed round--and the pastime consists
in placing the different qualities in the order of the beauty of their
perfume--would almost suggest that the West had neglected the
cultivation of one of the five senses.

At a dinner-party at a well-known restaurant, the other night, it was
forcibly brought to my mind what a lot they would have to teach us
regarding the enjoyment of such social functions. A perfect din and
rattle of plates and knives filled the air, a mob of undisciplined
servants charged about tumultuously, garish lights lit up vulgar
ornamentation, and one almost had to shout to be heard across the
table, while a band of music outside ineffectually endeavoured to
drown the din within. There were flowers, it is true, but their
profusion was no compensation for an utter lack of artistic
arrangement. But there was a complete absence of that repose, that
restfulness, that calm, which is considered, and justly considered,
amongst Easterns as the essential atmosphere for the enjoyment of a
social repast. The Japanese have raised entertainment to the level of
a fine art. Their tea ceremonies, as we have badly translated the
"Cha'-no-yu," but which might be preferably rendered as "The Fine Art
of Welcome and Hospitality," have been a strong influence in
preventing them from drifting into the meretricious gaudiness so
blatantly _en evidence_ in restaurants like the Carlton, and minister
to that purity and simplicity of taste which is so characteristic of
Japanese art. Five is considered by them the best number for a
dinner-party, as with a larger number separate conversational groups
are apt to be formed. The Japanese gentleman has rooms specially built
for these parties, and rooms only just large enough to hold his guests
comfortably. One scroll is hung in the kakemono, and in front of it
one ornament, and afterwards a solitary flower. It would be
considered by them extremely bad taste to confuse or dissipate the
attention by a variety of ornaments.

A Japanese lady once showed me a photo of the drawing-room at
Sandringham, which greatly amused her, and which she kept as a
curiosity. (She was too polite to say as a curiosity of barbarism.)
But she said, laughing, "Is it not just like a curio-dealer's shop?"

The dinner, which actually precedes the tea-drinking, is served by the
host in person, thus doing away with the intrusion of even their deft
and quiet-moving servants. Every cup, every plate, is an indivi