touch of genius. The following—so far as we apprehend its obscurities through the mist of poetic license—would appear to be a dithyramb in praise of woman, who is apostrophised as the cement of society, or, to use the youthful bard's own realistic expression, "social glue."
Her Glee.
The purest flame, the hottest heat
Is Woman's Power ever earth;
Which mighty black and pale down beat,
And made the Eden, place of birth.
Of what? of what? can thou tell me?
A birth of Noble, High, value—
The station He destined for thee—
Of woman, Mother, Social Glue.
Let her be moved from earth, to try,
What dark mist overhelms human Race!
Let Lady claim with all the cry:—
"Can you still hold and hold your peace?"
How sweet, how mirthful, gay is Name!
What boon, thing, may exceed in kind?
Would She be praised, entolled—not Shame:
Tie Pale, of Both, to bound, to bind.
And now, Japanese readers, if haply any such favour this little book with their perusal, rise not in your wrath to indict us of treachery and unkindness. We mean nothing against the honour of Japan. But finding Tōkyō life dull on the whole, we solace ourselves by a little innocent laughter at an innocent foible whenever we can find one to laugh at. You yourselves could doubtless make up, on the subject of Japanese as she is Englished, an article which should be no less comical,—an article which should transcribe the first lispings in "globe-trotterese," and the perhaps still funnier, because more pretentions, efforts of those of us who think themselves rather adepts in Japanese as spoken in the upper circles. For our own part, we can feel our heavy British accent dragging down to earth every light-winged syllable of Japanese
