CONTENTS I The issue of the war--Some Forecasts--English and French papers --Political situation in the summer of 1905--Beaconsfield--Japanese fictions and their plots--Some similarities between the customs of Greece, Rome, and Japan--Love stories--A Japanese love tale--Custom of adoption--_Jane Eyre_ and Japan--Japanese art--Japanese gardening--Full description of marriage ceremonies--Preliminary inquiries--Description of the rooms, and decorations--Butterflies --The banquet--Wedding presents--Position of the women in Japan --Japanese mothers and wives--A Samurai mother illustrated by a drama--Lays of Ancient Rome and Commandant Hirosé--Japanese notions of pardon and forgiving--Trip to Japan II Greek inspiration--Semitic sympathy--Religion--Difference between Japanese and European chivalry--What is the Bushi?--The weakest point of a hereditary military organisation--Introduction of the new system--New commoners and the history of their emancipation--Combination of democratic ideas and conservative traditions--Old bottles and new wine--The Great Change of 1867--Napoleon--Negligence of a proper estimation--Scenery of Japan---History of Tokio--European and Japanese method of dwelling--President Roosevelt and jiujitsu III Japanese art and the West--Night-fêtes--Sale of flowers and plants--Singing Insects--A discussion on the moon, flowers, snow, etc.--Music of snow and rain--Lines on hailstones--A particular evening for lunar perspective--A blind scholar and his wife--The deaf, dumb, and blind of Japan--The calendar and its radical change in Japan--Calumnies on Japan, and an anonymous letter--Japanese ways of counting ages--The question of women and a lady's opinion on Japanese women--Lafcadio Hearn--Japanese names--Difficulty of distinguishing between 'L' and 'R'--Discussion on pronunciation--London and Tokio patois--Japanese nobility and the method of addressing nobility--Books on Japan--Once more on Lafcadio Hearn--Discussion on women's education--_The Risen Sun_ IV A talk on brackens--Eating of fruits without peeling--A pet tortoise--Remarks on languages--Discourses on jiujitsu--Comparison of jiujitsu and wrestling--Japanese art and the Kokkwa--Pictures in the Gospel--Discourse on Bushido, its history and the origin of the term--Explanation of the terms Daimio, Samurai, and Bushi--Its literature--Japanese revenge and European duel--Japanese sword--Soul of Samurai--General Stoessel and a broken sword--Discussion on Japanese social morality--Japan far cleaner than any other nation--The condition at the time of the transition--General view of the westernised Japan--Occidental vulgarity V