A Japanese wife has an influence far greater than any outsider can imagine. I can only say, so far as domestic affairs are concerned, she is far more a master of the house than her husband. Think for a moment! If the wife were a mere servant of the house, as is represented by many Western writers, how could it possibly happen that, as a mother, she exercises such austere authority, as the mother of the hero just mentioned did, over her son after her husband's death?' The countess listened to me very attentively; my long explanation did not appear to weary her. When I had finished it she smiled and said: --'Then in your country also mothers play a great rôle in the family. Would you also say like Napoleon, "Women are the mothers of the nation"? But won't tell us a dramatic illustration of a wife?' --'"Too many dishes spoil the appetite," as our saying goes,' I answered, 'so I must not go on endlessly,--but _àpropos_ to the Roman matron, I will tell you an incident which will illustrate that Japanese women, too, do not limit their activity to indoor affairs. You have, no doubt, heard something about Commandant Hirosé, one of our great heroes of Port Arthur. It was in the summer of last year that an eminent English admiral, whom I know very well, wished me to forward to the hero's family a copy of Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_ as a token of his admiration. He said he thought that Japanese warriors bore a great resemblance to Roman warriors, even to Horatius himself, and Hirosé was the most conspicuous among them. Now Hirosé was a bachelor; his brother, who was his senior, is married, and was also at the front. When I forwarded the book to Tokio, Mrs. Hirosé, in the absence of her husband, took the matter in her own hands and wrote a letter of thanks in English to the admiral, accompanying it with a likeness and facsimile of the last poem of the deceased, all of which she forwarded to me, asking me to send on to the admiral. People might think she was audacious, but the fact was she did not shrink from taking the entire responsibility of the matter. I approve of it. The letter ran thus.' So saying, I recited the letter. It is strange, but in dreamland one often remembers by heart that which it is impossible to do when awake. 'I tender my sincere thanks to you for your very kind present of a beautiful edition of Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient Rome_, forwarded to me by Baron Suyematsu. 'The book is so much esteemed in Japan that it is used as a text-book in some schools where English is taught, and part of it was annotated in Japanese in a magazine devoted to the study of English.