--'That's a rather difficult question. In your sacred book you have a picture where Christ talks about "lilies." He stands in a field, utters His words, pointing to some pure white lilies blooming, but not in abundance, in the field. There is a perfect picture, the symbolic meaning of the pure white flowers standing out vividly before your eyes. In another place you see Christ entering a boat on a lake. There is another picture. A lake calm and serene, surrounded by undulating hills, perhaps with the shadow of the hills and trees reflected on the surface of the water. There one or two fishermen handle oars in a fantastic boat. A sage calls them from the shore to come to Him. A perfect landscape! An immense expanse and an eternal stillness of the universe almost unconsciously arises before the mind's eye of the onlooker. Such is, then, a type of the ideals of our pictorial worlds.' --'I can well imagine it,' said the young nobleman. 'Your chromographs of even small objects, such as picture postcards, are very fine and artistic and, at the same time, so simple. Look at ours: they have neither feeling nor taste, and usually are showy and gorgeous, and, indeed, often vulgar.' --'I must say I agree with you to some extent. I am rather sorry that such monthly publications as _Kokkwa_ do not pay well in Japan. The present publisher of the journal is the proprietor of a large newspaper, and not a regular book publisher. He is himself a great collector of our _objets d'art_, of which he is very fond, and this is the sole reason why he took up the publication after it had been nearly discontinued by its former publisher. He is now trying to see if an English edition of it will pay, although the end he has in view is to make Japan known to the West, rather than any pecuniary personal gain. Indeed, it is for that reason he has sent me this copy, asking me to show it to those who have a taste for such things. I really think that, for the general good, the publication is worth continuing.' --'Certainly,' said the duchess. 'Let me see, it is only two yen per number, that is five francs per month; cheap enough. I will subscribe at once.' The young nobleman now left our party, for he had another engagement. He has a talent for music, and when a private concert was given only a few weeks ago in the garden of an aristocratic family which I know, he was the conductor, although only an amateur. This the young ladies told me, and the circumstance led me to ask if they also were not musical. One of them, she told me, played the piano, and the other the violin, and I said I hoped that one day they would let me have the pleasure of hearing them. I further said that the piano was only known in Japan to a slight degree, and that only recently; but that we had always had an instrument much resembling the violin. The duke held in his hand an English literary weekly of the highest repute. Turning to me he said: