individualism a source of weakness. But Japan's marvellous rise, the position she has won for herself in a single generation of officially directed effort, supplies an incontestable proof to the contrary. She has succeeded, as Prussia succeeded, through centralisation; her five-and-forty millions move as one man.
The functions—we hesitate to call them entertainments, so little entertaining are they—incident to Japanese society as at present constituted, are of two kinds. First, dinners in native style for men only, often served by singing-girls, meetings of political or scientific associations, club gatherings, and the like:—these do offer a modicum of fun and interest, and much sans-gêne, but lack that refinement which the presence of ladies would confer. The other category includes dinners in European style, where, if foreigners are present, the language difficulty, combined with the paucity of mutually interesting topics of conversation, doubles and trebles that gloom of dullness which the absence of social talent and of the habit of society spreads in deep layers over the whole surface of Tokyō life. Besides dinners, there are balls at which the Japanese have now—after an ineffectual attempt—practically ceased to dance, and garden parties consisting either of men alone (!) or of men and women. Some well-advised hosts supply an actual performance on such occasions,—jugglers, day fireworks, the Nō dance, or a public story-teller (see Article so entitled). Occasionally, too, nowadays there is a band; but in the lack of all talent for music, it were better dispensed with. The foreign residents of Tōkyō—or rather the members of the diplomatic body—entertain each other a great deal. In fact, more dinners are given there during the winter than in many a European capital; for, in the absence of European theatres, concerts, galleries, lectures, and intellectual interests generally, what remains but the "pleasures of the table?" Needless to say, however, that this charmed circle is fast closed to travellers, unless they happen to be personally intimate with one of its members.
It will be judged from the above that social functions are not
