Much was talked of the Tokugawa race, and some cruelty was shown to their memory as a family of parvenus who had usurped the power theoretically invested in the mikados an usurpation practised over and over again by every successful shogun, as by Yoritomo, Taikosama. Indeed, the Ashikaga move through Japanese history against a background of mikados. And when O- - comes in later he talks of Masashigi, and of others, who during centuries, at long intervals, attempted to realize what has now been accomplished, the restoration of the mikado to his ancient powers and rulership of twenty centuries ago.

Yes, the Tokugawa splendor was that of parvenus. Their half-divine masters lie in no gilded shrines nor under monumental bronze, but buried beneath the elements, their graves marked only by mounds or trees, as it might have been with their earliest ancestors, the peaceful chieftains of a primitive family; a simplicity recalled to-day by the little fragment of dried fish that accompanies presents, in memory of the original humility of the fishing tribes, the ancestors of this almost over-cultivated race.

These Tokugawa, then, were parvenus, and naturally asked of art, which lasts and has lasted and is to last, an affirmation of their new departure. This splendor was made for them, and its delicious refinement has not quite escaped that something which troubled me at Shiba an anxiety that all should be splendid and perfect, an unwillingness to take anything for granted. And yet, by comparison, this looks like a fairyland of refinement. What should we do when called to help a new man to assist or to sweeten his acquired position? What vulgarity of vulgarities should we produce? Think of the preposterous dwellings, the vulgar adornments given to the rich; the second-hand clothing in which newly acquired power is wrapped. The English cad and the Frenchman not good enough for home put the finishing touch upon the proofs of culture which are to represent them to their children. I need not refer to what is seen in San Francisco as an example. At home in New York we have more than are pleasant to think of. I know that some may say that we have only what we deserve for thinking that we can escape, in the laws that govern art, the rules that we have found to hold in everything else. Some years ago I told you how once a purveyor of decorations for the millionaire, a great man in his line, explained to me how and why he had met his clients half-way. "You despise my work," he said, "though you are too polite to say so," for we were friendly in a manner,-" and yet I can say that I am more thoroughly in the right than

those who would seek to give these men an artistic clothing fit for princes. Is there anything more certain than that the artist represents his age, and is all the greater for embodying it. Now, that is what I do. You will say, that my work is not deeply considered, though it is extremely careful in execution; that its aims are not high; that it is not sober; that it is showy, perhaps even more; that it is loud occasionally-when it is not tame; that it shows for all it is worth, and is never better than it looks. And who, pray, are the people that live surrounded by what I make? Are they not represented by what I do? Do they not want show of such a kind as can be easily understood, refinement that shall not remind others of a refinement greater than theirs, money spent largely, but showing for every dollar? They want everything quick, because they have always been in a hurry; they want it on time, whatever happens, because they are accustomed to time bargains; they want it advertisable, because they live by advertising; and they gradually believe in the value of the pretences they have made to others. They are not troubled by what they feel is transient, because their experience has been to pass on to others the things they preferred not to keep. They feel suspicious of anything that claims or seems to be better than it looks; is not their business to sell dearer than they buy? They must not be singular, because they must fit into some place already occupied.

"I claim to have fully expressed all this of them in what I do, and I care little for the envious contempt of the architects who have to employ me and who would like to have my place and wield my influence. And so I reflect my clients, and my art will have given what they are."

Thus the great German rolled out his mind with the Teutonic delight at giving an appearance of pure intellect to the interested working of his will-incidentally sneering at the peacock feathers, the sad-eyed dados, the povertystricken sentimentality, half esthetic, half shopkeeper, of his English rivals, or at the blunders in art which Mr. Stanford White once called our "native Hottentot style."

Of course my German was merely using a current sophistry that is only worth quoting to emphasize the truth.

Augustus, the greatest of all parvenus, did not ask of Virgil to recall in verse the cruelties of civil war. No true artist has ever sought to be degraded; no worker of the Middle Ages has reflected the brutality of the world around him. On the contrary, he has appealed to its chivalry and its religion. No treacherous adventurer of the Renaissance is pictured

in the sunny, refined architecture that was made for him. You and I know that art is not the attempt at reflecting others, at taking possession of others, who belong to themselves, but that it is an attempt at keeping possession of one's self. It is often a protest at what is displeasing and mean about us; it is an appeal to what is better. That is its most real value. It is an appeal to peace in time of brutal war, an appeal to courageous war in time of ignoble peace; it is an appeal to the permanent reality in presence of the transient; it is an attempt to rest for a moment in the true way. We are augurs conversing together, and we can afford to laugh at any respected absurdity. We know that cleverness is not the way to the reality; cleverness is only man's weak substitute for integrity, which is from God.

All these words-miscalled ideas-poured out by my German friend and his congeners are merely records of merchants' ways of looking at the use of a thing, not at the thing itself. Such people are persuaded that they must surely know about the thing they sell or furnish. If not they, then who? For none can be so impartial, as none are so disinterested, in the use of the thing sold.

It is too far back for you to remember the charming Blanco, the great slave-dealer, but you may have heard of his saying, which covers the side of the dealer. He had been asked why he felt so secure in his judgment of his fellow creatures, and especially of women. "Because," said he, "I have traded in so many" -J'en ai tant vendu. I have sometimes quoted this saying to dealers in works of art, to dealers in knowledge about art, without, however, any success in pleasing them. In fact one has no judgment of one's own in regard to anything sold that is not a matter of utility until one feels quite thoroughly, as if it were one's own, the sense of Talleyrand's treatment of the persuasive dealer. I am sure that you do not know the story. Two friends of his, ladies of rank, had chosen his study as a place of meeting. They wished to select some ring, some bracelet, for a gift, and the great jeweler of Paris was to send one of his salesmen with sufficient to choose from. Of course the choice was soon limited to two, and there paused, until Talleyrand, sitting at the farther end of the long library, called out, "Let me undertake to help you to make your decision. Young man, of these two trinkets tell me which you prefer." "This one, certainly, your Excellency." "Then," ended the experienced cynic, "please accept it for your sweetheart, and I think, ladies, that you had better take the other." I tell you anecdotes; are they not as good as reasons?

Listen to what my Chinese writer says:

"Of language put into other people's mouths, nine-tenths will succeed. Of language based upon weighty authority, seven-tenths. But language which flows constantly over, as from a full goblet, is in accord with God. When language is put into other people's mouths, outside support is sought. Just as a father does not negotiate his son's marriage, for any praise he could bestow would not have the same value as praise by an outsider. Thus the fault is not mine, but that of others, who would not believe me as the original speaker." Again a story of China comes back to me, told by the same writer, who lived before our purer era, and who was, as a Japanese friend remarks, a strategist in thought, fond of side attacks, of presenting some point apparently anecdotic and unimportant, which once listened to turns the truthful mind into channels of fresh inquiry. The anecdote is old, told by the old writer many centuries before Christ, and before any reflections about art troubled our barbarian minds.

It is about a court architect who flourished in celebrity some twenty-seven centuries ago and who answered admiring queries as to how he did such wonderful things. "There is nothing supernatural about it," he said. “I first free my mind and preserve my vitality-my dependence upon God. Then, after a few days, the question of how much money I shall make disappears; a few more days, and I forget fame and the court whose architect I am; another day or so, and I think only of THE THING ITSELF. Then I am ready to go into the forest-the architect and the carpenter were one then-whose wood must contain the form I shall seek. As you see, there is nothing supernatural about it.”

Twenty-seven centuries ago the formula of all good work was the same as it has been since. This looking for "the thing itself," not for the formula to control it, enabled men who were great and men who were little, far down towards us, far down into the times of the Renaissance (until pedantry and night covered human freedom and integrity), to be painters or poets, sculptors or architects, as the occasion required, to the astonishment of our narrowed, specialized vision of the last two hundred years.

Again, if I have not put it clearly enough in this story of the far East, let me add another, which includes the meaning of the first. You will forgive it in honor of the genius loci, for these writings of the Chinese philosophers form a staple of conversation and discussion in social gatherings of cultivated people here. The story is of the greatest of Chinese rulers, the "Yellow Emperor" of some forty-seven centuries ago. He was in pursuit of that law

of things, that sufficient ideal which is called "Tao" ("the Way "), and he sought it in the wilds beyond the world known of China, in the fabulous mountains of Chu-tzu. He was accompanied by Ch'ang Yu and Chang Jo, and others of whom I know nothing; and Fang Ming, of whom I know nothing also, was their charioteer. When they had reached the outside wilderness these seven sages lost their way. By and by they fell in with a boy who was tending horses, and they asked him if he knew the Chu-tzu Mountains. "I do," said the boy. "And can you tell us," said the sages, "where Tao, the law, abides?" "I can," replied the boy. "This is strange," said the Yellow Emperor. "Pray tell me how would you govern the empire?"

"I should govern the empire," replied the boy," in the same way that I tend my horses. What else should I do? When I was a little boy and lived within the points of the compass my eyes grew dim. An old man advised me to visit the wilderness outside of the world. My sight is now better, and I continue to dwell outside of the points of the compass. I should govern the empire in the same way. What else should I do?"

Said the Yellow Emperor, "Government is not your trade, but I should be glad to learn what you would do." The boy refused to answer, but being urged again, said: "What difference is there between governing the empire and looking after horses? See that no harm comes to the horses; that is all."

Thereupon the emperor prostrated himself before the boy; and calling him divine teacher, took his leave.

I am writing these vagaries by the sound of the waterfall in our garden; half of the amados are closed; the paper screens near me I have left open, and the moths and insects of the night flutter around my lamp in orbits as uncertain as the direction of my thoughts. I have given up my drawing; it is too hot to work. And I have already tired myself with looking over prints and designs. Among them there is a sketch by Hokusai which reminds me of the way in which my mind bestrides stray fancies that float past. The picture is that of Tekkai (the beggar), the Sennin exhaling his spiritual essence in a shadowy form, which shadow itself often rides away upon the spirit horse that Chokwaro or Tsuga evokes occasionally from his travelinggourd.

To-day we talked of the legends of these

1 Prémare's "Notitia Lingua Sinicæ," "4 um exemplum. Sic inducit Tchouang-tsee umbram loquentem: Ego quidem existo, sed nescio qua ratione. Ego sum veluti cicadarum tunicæ et Serpentis spolia," etc.

Rishi or Sennin, whose pictures so often come up in the works of Japanese artists.

Rishi or Sennin are beings who enjoy rest,— that is to say, are exempt from transmigration,often in the solitude of mountains for thousands of years, after which delay they again enter the circle of change. If they are merely human, as many of them are, they have obtained this charm of immortality, which forms an important point in the superstitious beliefs and practices of modern Taoism. These appear to have no hold in Japan, as they have in China, but these personages, evolutions of Taoist thought, live here at least in legend and in art.

The original mysticism from which they sprung is full of beauty and of power. General Tcheng-ki-tong has recently stated it well, when he says that Lao Tzu, its great antique propounder, speaks with something of the tone of a prophet. He neither preached nor discussed, yet those who went to him empty departed full. He taught the doctrine which does not find expression in words, the doctrine of Tao, or the Way—a doctrine that becomes untrue and unprofitable when placed in set forms and bound in by pedantry, but which allows teaching by parables and side glimpses and innuendos as long as they are illuminated by that light which exists in the natural heart of man. And I too am pleased to let myself be guided by this light. After many years of wilful energy, of forced battle that I have not shunned, I like to try the freshness of the springs, to see if new impressions come as they once did in childhood. With you I am safe in stating what has come to me from outside. It has come; hence it is true: I did not make it. I can say with the Shadow, personified by my expounder of the Way,1 that when the light of the fire or the sun appears, then I come forth; when the night comes, I lie still: I wait indeed, even as they wait. They come and I come, they go and I go too. The shade waits for the body and for the light to appear, and all things which rise and wait wait upon. the Lord, who alone waits for nothing, needs nothing, and without whom things can neither rise nor set. The radiance of the landscape illuminates my room; the landscape does not come within. I have become as a blank to be filled. I employ my mind as a mirror; it grasps nothing, it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep. And thus I can triumph over things without injury to myself— I am safe in Tao.

John La Farge.

If what I have written is ever seen by H. B. M.'s consul at Tamsui, he will perceive my indebtedness to his most admirable translations.

INTRODUCTION.

JARIS is the typical modern city. In the work of transforming the labyrinthine tangle of narrow, dark, and foul medieval alleys into broad modern thoroughfares, and of providing those appointments and conveniences that distinguish the well-ordered city of our day from the old-time cities which had grown up formless and organless by centuries of accretion-in this brilliant nineteenth century task of reconstructing cities in their physical characters, dealing with them as organic entities, and endeavoring to give such form to the visible body as will best accommodate the expanding life within, Paris has been the unrivaled leader. Berlin and Vienna have accomplished magnificent results in city-making, and great British towns-Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, and others -have in a less ambitious way wrought no less useful reforms; but Paris was the pioneer. French public authorities, architects, and engineers were the first to conceive effectually the ideas of symmetry and spaciousness, of order and convenience, of wholesomeness and cleanliness, in urban arrangements.

There has been some disposition, however slight, among English-speaking people, to undervalue French civilization and to minimize the importance of French services to the world. The attainments of German scholarship in many directions are so colossal, and German energy and prestige are now so dominant, that, in our admiration for the progress and achievements of this younger people, we are in danger, perhaps, of giving the French less than their due. All countries are under lasting obligations for the clear political philosophy that furnished the French Revolution with its principles. And is it a trivial thing that we are indebted to the refined and artistic instincts of the French people for so many of the amenities and comforts of latter-day existence? When they began to show us how to build cities we were far from appreciating the fact that the twentieth century was to dawn upon a race that had, for the majority, adopted city life; and that the difference between good and bad municipal arrangements would mean either the conservation of the race in bodily vigor, and in the education of mind VOL. XLII.-58.

and hand, or else its rapid physical and mental deterioration. But for urban improvements of the sort that the French people instituted the death-rate would be higher than the birth-rate in all large population centers.

In the past decade or two there are other cities, outside of France, that have adopted appointments that are in some respects more scientific and effective than those of Paris; but it remains true that the French capital is the most conspicuous type of the thoroughly modernized city. Considered as such it would require at least a volume to enter with any fullness of description and analysis into the municipal history and life, the public arrangements and administrative methods, of Paris. Maxime Du Camp, a worthy Parisian author, has recently attempted to cover this subject in a work of six large volumes entitled, " Paris, its Organs, its Functions, and its Life in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century" ("Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, et sa vie dans la seconde moitié du dix-neuvième siècle"). It is a monumental work, valuable for reference, but of course too voluminous for the ordinary reader. And now there has appeared another work, also of the highest importance, that should stand next to Du Camp's on the library shelf. It is upon the condition of Paris in 1789-"L'État de Paris en 1789; études et documents sur l'ancien régime à Paris." It is the work of a public commission of historians who have searched old records and official archives. Du Camp describes the new Paris of our time, while the other work reconstructs for our edification the Paris that existed up to the very eve of the cataclysm. The contrast is startling. It is obviously important that there should be placed on record everything that can be known about the Paris of a hundred years ago, the outlines and remains of which have so nearly disappeared.

It is marvelous to note the ceaseless operations of the transforming energy derived from the Revolution. Rather inconspicuously placed in a hallway of one of the buildings in which the municipal authorities of the capital made their extraordinary display at the recent exposition was a map that had a fascinating interest for me. It was a street map of Paris, showing by different colors the periods in which the great boulevards, avenues, squares, and other visible improvements had been constructed. No change in the higher government

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