reward the investigator. He will, unless he be a person of
a singularly unemotional disposition, utterly lacking in all those
finer feelings which especially distinguish man from the brutes,
hardly fail of being, before he has proceeded far in his
investigations, quickly under the alluring influences of this Far
Eastern land, entering heartily, zealously, and enthusiastically into
its national life and the developments thereof in all their various
ramifications.

The fascination that Japan has exercised upon writers such as Arnold
and Hearn is what it does, though no doubt in a smaller degree, upon
less gifted men. It is given to few to drink in and absorb the subtle
charm of the country so thoroughly and express it so graphically and
delicately, with such beauty and power and withal so much truth as
have those brilliant men. I regard this great and growing fascination
of Occidentals for this fair Eastern land and its inhabitants as a
long step in the direction of the realisation of the brotherhood of
man; that ideal state of things which we hope for so expectantly,
longingly, perhaps too often sceptically; that happy time when
national prejudices, jealousies, and animosities will have faded into
oblivion, when nations by the simple process of studying one another,
as Japan has been studied of recent years, will get to understand one
another, when the literature and art of nations will be no longer
merely national, but world possessions, when wars shall have ceased
and the policy of aggression have come to be regarded as an evil
thing, when, in a word, the brotherhood of man shall be no longer an
idle dream, a mere speculative aspiration which no practical person
ever expected to see realised, but an actuality within measurable
distance of being accomplished. All these things may as yet be dreams,
but let us dream them. The more they are dreamed, the more likely is
the prospect of their realisation. One thing at least fills me with
ardent hope, and that is the Japan, as I see it to-day, compared with
the Japan of forty years ago. If such an upheaval is possible for one
nation, who shall put any bounds to the potentialities of the world?
So let us dream our dreams, and in our waking moments cast afar our
eyes upon the land of the Rising, aye, now the Risen Sun, take heart
and dream again in quiet confidence that some day, in some future
reincarnation, mayhap, we shall witness the realisation of our hopes,
and see that