There are five qualities possessed by the Japanese in a marked degree. The first is frugality. From time immemorial the great mass of the people have lived in absolute ignorance of luxury in any form and in the perpetual presence of a necessity to economize. Amid these circumstances there has emerged capacity to make a little go a long way and to be content with the most meagre fare. The second quality is endurance. It is born of causes cognate with those which have begotten frugality. The average Japanese may be said to live without artificial heat; his paper doors admit the light but do not exclude the cold. His brazier barely suffices to warm his hands and his face. Equally is he a stranger to methods of artificial cooling. He takes the frost that winter inflicts and the fever that summer brings as unavoidable visitors. The third quality is obedience; the offspring of eight centuries passed under the shadow of military autocracy. Whatever he is authoritatively bidden to do, that the Japanese will do. The fourth quality is altruism. In the upper classes the welfare of the family has been set above the interests of each member. The fifth quality is a genius for detail. Probably this is the outcome of an extraordinarily elaborate system of social etiquette. Each generation has added something to the canons of its predecessor, and for every ten points preserved not more than one has been discarded. An instinctive respect for minutiae has thus been inculcated, and has gradually extended to all the affairs of life. That this accuracy may sometimes degenerate into triviality, and that such absorption in trifles may occasionally hide the broad horizon, is conceivable. But the only hitherto apparent evidence of such defects is an excessive clinging to the letter of the law; a marked reluctance to exercise discretion; and that, perhaps, is attributable rather to the habit of obedience. Certainly the Japanese have proved themselves capable of great things, and their achievements seem to have been helped rather than retarded by their attention to detail. III.--LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE