r bonds of relationship with women. In Japan
exactly the same demands led, several centuries ago, to the
appearance of the geisha. In the course of an interesting and
precise study of the geisha Mr. R.T. Farrer remarks (_Nineteenth
Century_, April, 1904): "The geisha is in no sense necessarily a
courtesan. She is a woman educated to attract; perfected from her
childhood in all the intricacies of Japanese literature;
practiced in wit and repartee; inured to the rapid give-and-take
of conversation on every topic, human and divine. From her
earliest youth she is broken into an inviolable charm of manner
incomprehensible to the finest European, yet she is almost
invariably a blossom of the lower classes, with dumpy claws, and
squat, ugly nails. Her education, physical and moral, is far
harder than that of the _ballerina_, and her success is achieved
only after years of struggle and a bitter agony of torture....
And the geisha's social position may be compared with that of the
European actress. The Geisha-house offers prizes as desirable as
any of the Western stage. A great geisha with twenty nobles
sitting round her, contending for her laughter, and kept in
constant check by the flashing bodkin of her wit, holds a
position no less high and famous than that of Sarah Bernhardt in
her prime. She is equally sought, equally flattered, quite as
madly adored, that quiet little elderly plain girl in dull blue.
But she is prized thus primarily for her tongue, whose power only
ripens fully as her physical charms decline. She demands vast
sums for her owners, and even so often appears and dances only at
her own pleasure. Few, if any, Westerners ever see a really
famous geisha. She is too great to come before a European, except
for an august or imperial command. Finally she may, and
frequently does, marry into exalted places. In all this there is
not the slightest necessity for any illicit relation."

In some respects the position of the ancient Greek _hetaira_ was
more analogous to that of the Japanese _geisha_ than to that of
the prostitute in the strict sense. For the Greeks, indeed, the
_hetaira_, was not strictly a _porne_ or prostitute at all. The
name meant friend or companion, and the woman to whom the name
was applied held an honorable position, which could not be
accorded to the