The Mikado's Empire

Orient, is now our nearest Western neighbor. Her people walk our streets; her youth sit, peers and rivals oi our students, in the class-room; her art adorns our homes, and has opened to us a new (rate Beautiful. The wise men from the Vest are, at this writing, opening their treasures of tea, silk, gold-lacquer, bronzes, and porcelain at the, tirst centennial of our nations birth. Ye hail the brightness of the rising of this first among Asiatic nations to enter modern life, to win and hold a place among the foremost peoples of the earth. It is time that a writer treated Japan as Mmeth mg else than an Oriental puzzle, a nation of recluses, a land of fabulous wealth, of universal licentiousness or of Edeiiic purity, the fastness of a treacherous and tickle crew, a Paradise of guileless children, a Utopia of artists and poets. It is time to drop the license of exaggeration, and, with the light of common day, yet with sympathy and without prejudice, seek to know what Dai Xippon is and has been. It has been well said by a literary critic and reader of all the books on the subject that to write a good history of Japan is difficult, not so much from lack of materials, but from the differences in psychology. This I realize. My endeavor, during eight years living contact with these people, has been, from their language, books, life, and customs, to determine their mental parallax, and find out how they think and feel. I have not made this book in libraries at home, but largely on the hoil of the mikados empire. I have slight obligation to acknowledge to foreign writers, except, to those working scholars in Japan who have written during the last decade with knowledge of the language. To them I owe much ;first and most of all to Mr. Erne-t Satow, who, in the special department of historical research, stand-- leader. To Messrs. V. Dixon, A ston. Mitford, Hepburn, Brown, (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)