Former colleagues who have risen to
eminence--Kiderlin-Waechter--Aehrenthal--Colonel Klepsch--The
discomfiture of an inquisitive journalist--Origin of certain Russian
scares--Tokyo--Dulness of Geisha dinners--Japanese culinary
curiosities--"Musical Chairs"--Lack of colour in Japan--The Tokugawa
dynasty--Japanese Gardens--The transplanted suburban Embassy
house--Cherry-blossom--Japanese Politeness--An unfortunate incident
in Rome--Eastern courtesy--The country in Japan--An Imperial duck
catching party--An up-to-date Tokyo house--A Shinto
Temple--Linguistic difficulties at a dinner-party--The economical
colleague--Japan defaced by advertisements.
Petrograd was the only capital at which I was stationed in which
there was a diplomatic _table d'hôte_. In one of the French
restaurants there, a room was specially set apart for the diplomats,
and here the "chers collègues" foregathered nightly, when they had no
other engagements. When a Spaniard and a Dane, a Roumanian and a
Dutchman, a Hungarian and an Englishman dine together frequently, it
becomes a subject of thankfulness that the universal use of the
French language as a means of international communication has
mitigated the linguistic difficulties brought about by the ambitious
tower-builders of Babel.
Two men whom I met frequently at that diplomatic _table d'hôte_ rose
afterwards to important {306} positions in their own countries. They
were Baron von Kiderlin-Waechter, the German, and Baron von
Aehrenthal, the Austrian, both of whom became Ministers for Foreign
Affairs in their respective countries, and both of whom are now dead.
Kiderlin-Waechter arrived in Petrograd as quite a young man with the
reputation of being Bismarck's favourite and most promising pupil.
Though a South German by birth, Kiderlin-Waechter had acquired an
overbearing and dictatorial manner of the most approved Prussian
type. When a number of young men, all of whom are on very friendly
terms with each other, constantly meet, there is naturally a good
deal of fun and chaff passed to and fro between them. Diplomats are
no exception to this rule, and the fact that the ten young men
talking together may be of ten different nationalities is no bar to
the interchange of humorous personalities, thanks to the convenient
French language, which lends itself peculiarly to "persiflage."
Germans can never understand the form of friendly banter which we
term chaff, and always resent it deeply. I have known German
diplomats so offended at a harmless joke that they have threatened to
challenge the author of it to a duel. I should like to pay a belated
tribute to the memory of the late Count Lovendal, Danish Minister in
Petrograd; peace to his ashes! This kindly, tactful, middle-aged man
must during my time in Petrograd have stopped at least eight duels.
People in trouble went straight to Count Lovendal, and this {307}
shrewd, kind-hearted, experienced man of the world heard them with
infinite patience, and then always gave them sound advice. As years
went on, Count Lovendal came to be a sort of recognised Court of
Honour, to whom all knotty and delicate points were referred. He, if
anyone, should have "Blessed are the peacemakers" inscribed on his
tomb. At least four of the duels he averted were due to the
inability of Germans to stand chaff. Kiderlin-Waechter, for
instance, was for ever taking offence at harmless jokes, and
threatening swords and pistols in answer to them. He was a very big,
gross-looking, fair-haired man; with exactly the type of face that a
caricaturist associates with the average Prussian.
His face was slashed with a generous allowance of the scars of which
Germans are so proud, as testifying to their prowess in their
student-duelling days. I think that it was the late Sir Wilfrid
Lawson who, referring to the beer-drinking habits of German students
and their passionate love of face-slashing, described them as living
in a perpetual atmosphere of "scars and swipes." Though from South
Germany, Kiderlin snapped out his words with true "Preussische
Grobheit" in speaking German. Fortunately, it is impossible to
obtain this bullying effect in the French language. It does not lend
itself to it. I should be guilty of exaggeration were I to say that
Kiderlin-Waechter was wildly adored by his foreign colleagues. He
became Minister for Foreign Affairs of the German {308} Empire, but
made the same mistake as some of his predecessors, notably Count
Herbert Bismarck, had done. They attributed Bismarck's phenomenal
success to his habitual dictatorial, bullying manner. This was
easily copied; they forgot the genius behind the bully, which could
not be copied, and did not realise that Bismarck's tremendous brain
had not fallen to their portion. Kiderlin-Waechter's tenure of
office was a short one; he died very suddenly in 1912. He was a
violent Anglophobe.
Baron von Aehrenthal was a very different stamp of man. He was of
Semitic origin, and in appearance was a good-looking, tall, slim,
dark young fellow with very pleasing manners. Some people indeed
thought his manners too pleasant, and termed them subservient. I
knew Aehrenthal very well indeed, and liked him, but I never
suspected that under that very quiet exterior there lay the most
intense personal ambition. He became Austro-Hungarian Minister for
Foreign Affairs in 1907, being raised to the rank of Count next year.
This quiet, sleepy-mannered man began embarking on a recklessly bold
foreign policy, and, to the surprise of those who fancied that they
knew him well, exhibited a most domineering spirit. The old Emperor
Francis Joseph's mental powers were failing, and it was Aehrenthal
who persuaded him to put an end to the understanding with Russia
under which the _status quo_ in the Balkan States was guaranteed, and
to astonish Europe in 1908 by proclaiming the annexation of Bosnia
and Herzegovina {309} to the Austrian Empire. This step, owing to
the seething discontent it aroused in Bosnia, led directly to the
catastrophe of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and plunged Europe into the
most terrible war of history. Aehrenthal, whether intentionally or
not, played directly into the hands of the Pan-Germanic party, and
succeeded in tying his own country, a pliant vassal, to the
chariot-wheels of Berlin. It was Aehrenthal who brought the
immemorially old Hapsburg Monarchy crashing to the ground and by his
foreign policy caused the proud Austrian Empire to collapse like a
house of cards. He did not live to see the final results of his
work, for he died in 1912.
Colonel Klepsch, the Austro-Hungarian Military Attaché at Petrograd,
another _habitué_ of the diplomatic _table d'hôte_, was a most
remarkable man. He knew more of the real state of affairs in Russia,
and of the inner workings and intentions of the Russian Government,
than any other foreigner in the country, _and his information was
invariably correct_. Nearly all the foreign Ambassadors consulted
Colonel Klepsch as to the probable trend of affairs in Russia, and at
times he called on them and volunteered pieces of information. It
was well known that his source of intelligence was a feminine one,
and experience had proved that it was always to be relied upon. To
this day I do not know whether this mysterious, taciturn man was at
times used as a convenient mouthpiece by the Russian Government, at
the instigation of a {310} certain person to whom he was devotedly
attached; whether he acted on instructions from his own Ambassador,
or if he took the steps he did on his own initiative. This tall,
red-haired, silent man, with his uncanny knowledge of every detail of
what was happening in the country, will always remain an enigma to me.
I mentioned earlier in these reminiscences that Lord Dufferin on one
occasion accomplished the difficult feat of turning an English
newspaper correspondent out of his house with the most charming
courtesy.
After an interval of nearly forty years, I can without indiscretion
say how this came about. The person in question, whom we will call
Mr. Q., was an exceedingly enterprising journalist, the correspondent
of a big London daily. He was also pretty unscrupulous as to the
methods he employed in gathering information. It is quite obviously
the duty of a newspaper correspondent to collect information for his
paper. It is equally clearly the duty of those to whom official
secrets are entrusted to prevent their becoming public property; so
here we have conflicting interests. At times it happens that an
"incident" arises between two Governments apparently trivial in
itself, but capable of being fanned into such a fierce flame by
popular opinion as to make it difficult for either Government to
recede from the position they had originally taken up. The Press
screams loudly on both sides, and every Government shrinks from {311}
incurring the unpopularity which a charge of betraying the national
interests would bring upon it. Experience has shown that in these
cases the difficulties can usually be smoothed down, provided the
whole matter be kept secret, and that neither the public nor the
Press of either of the two countries concerned have an inkling of the
awkward situation that has arisen. An indiscreet or hysterical Press
can blow a tiny spark into a roaring conflagration and work up
popular feeling to fever-pitch. It may surprise people to learn that
barely twenty years ago such a situation arose between our own
country and another European Power (_not_ Germany). Those in charge
of the negotiations on both sides very wisely determined that the
matter should be concealed absolutely from the public and the Press
of both countries, and not one word about it was allowed to leak out.
Otherwise the situation might have been one of extreme gravity, for
it was again one of those cases where neither Government could give
way without being accused of pusillanimity. As it was, the matter
was settled amicably in a week, and to this day very few people know
that this very serious difficulty ever occurred.
Nearly forty years ago, just such a situation had arisen between us
and the Russian Government; but the Ambassador was convinced that he
could smooth it away provided that the whole thing were kept secret.
Mr. Q. was a first-rate journalist, and his _flair_ {312} as a
newspaperman told him that _something_ was wrong. From the Russians
he could learn nothing; they were as close as wax; so Mr. Q. turned
his attention to the Chancery of the British Embassy. His methods
were simple. He gained admission to the Chancery on some pretext or
another, and then walking about the room, and talking most volubly,
he cast a roving eye over any papers that might be lying about on the
tables. In all Chanceries a book called the Register is kept in
which every document received or sent out is entered, with, of
course, its date, and a short summary of its contents. It is a large
book, and reposes on its own high desk. Ours stood in a window
overlooking the Neva. Mr. Q. was not troubled with false delicacy.
Under pretence of admiring the view over the river, he attempted to
throw a rapid eye over the Register. A colleague of mine, as a
gentle hint, removed the Register from under Mr. Q.'s very nose, and
locked it up in the archive press. Mr. Q., however, was not
thin-skinned. He came back again and again, till the man became a
positive nuisance. We always cleared away every paper before he was
allowed admittance. I was only twenty-two or twenty-three then, and
I devised a strictly private scheme of my own for Mr. Q.'s
discomfiture. All despatches received from the Foreign Office in
those days were kept folded in packets of ten, with a docket on each,
giving a summary of its contents. I prepared two despatches for Mr.
Q.'s private eye and, after much {313} cogitation, settled that they
should be about Afghanistan, which did not happen to be the
particular point in dispute between the two Governments at that time.
I also decided on a rhyming docket. It struck me as a pleasing
novelty, and I thought the jingle would impress itself on Mr. Q.'s
memory, for he was meant to see this bogus despatch. I took eight
sheets of foolscap, virgin, spotless, unblackened, folded them in the
orthodox fashion, and docketed them in a way I remember to this day.
It ran: first the particular year, then "Foreign Office No. 3527.
Secret and Confidential. Dated March 3. Received March 11." Then
came the rhyming docket,
"General Kaufman's rumoured plan
To make Abdurrahman Khan
Ruler of Afghanistan."
Under that I wrote in red ink in a different hand, with a fine pen,
"_Urgent_. Instructions already acted on. See further instructions
re Afghanistan in No. 3534."
I was only twenty-two then, and my sense of responsibility was not
fully developed, or I should not have acted so flightily. It still
strikes me though as an irresistibly attractive baited hook to offer
to an inquisitive newspaperman. I grieve to say that I also wrote a
"fake" decypher of a purely apocryphal code telegram purporting to
have come from London. This was also on the subject of {314}
Afghanistan. It struck me at the time as a perfectly legitimate
thing to do, in order to throw this Paul Pry off the scent, for the
Ambassador had impressed on us all the vital importance of not
disclosing the real matter in dispute. I put these flagrant
forgeries in a drawer of my table and waited. I had not to wait
long. My colleagues having all gone out to luncheon, I was alone in
the Chancery one day, when Mr. Q.'s card was brought in to me. I
kept him waiting until I had cleared every single despatch from the
tables and had locked them up. I also locked up the Register, but
put an eight-year-old one, exactly similar in appearance, in its
place, opening it at a date two days earlier than the actual date, in
order that Mr. Q. might not notice that the page (and "to-morrow's"
page as well) was already filled up, and the bogus despatch and fake
telegram from my drawer were duly laid on the centre table. At
twenty-two I was a smooth-faced youth, in appearance, I believe, much
younger than my real age. Mr. Q. came in. He had the "Well, old
man" style, accompanied by a thump on the back, which I peculiarly
detest. He must have blessed his luck in finding such a simple youth
in sole charge of the Chancery. Mr. Q. pursued his usual tactics.
He talked volubly in a loud voice, walking about the room meanwhile.
The idiotic boy smoked cigarettes, and gaped inanely. Mr. Q. went as
usual to the window where the Register lay in order to admire the
view, and the pudding-brained youth noticed nothing, but lit {315} a
fresh cigarette. That young fool never saw that Mr. Paul Pry read
unblushingly half a column of the eight-year-old Register (How it
must have puzzled him!) under his very eyes. Mr. Q. then went to the
centre table, where he had, of course, noticed the two papers lying,
and proceeded to light a cigar. That cigar must have drawn very
badly, for Mr. Q. had occasion to light it again and again, bending
well over the table as he did so. He kept the unsuspicious youth
engaged in incessant conversation meanwhile. So careless and stupid
a boy ought never to have been left in charge of important documents.
Finally Mr. Q., having gained all the information for which he had
been thirsting so long, left in a jubilant frame of mind, perfectly
unconscious that he had been subjected to the slightest crural
tension.
When the Councillor of Embassy returned, I made a clean breast of
what I had done, and showed him the bogus despatch and telegram I had
contrived. Quite rightly, I received a very severe reprimand. I was
warned against ever acting in such an irregular fashion again, under
the direst penalties. In extenuation, I pointed out to the
Councillor that the inquisitive Mr. Q. was now convinced that our
difficulty with Russia was over Afghanistan.
I further added that should anyone be dishonourable enough to come
into the Chancery and deliberately read confidential documents which
he knew were not intended for his eye, I clearly could not {316} be
held responsible for any false impressions he might derive from
reading them. That, I was told sharply, was no excuse for my
conduct. After this "official wigging," the Councillor invited me to
dine with him that night, when we laughed loudly over Mr. Q.'s
discomfiture. That person became at length such a nuisance that "his
name was put on the gate," and he was refused admission to the
Embassy.
The great London daily which Mr. Q. represented at Petrograd
published some strong articles on the grave menace to the Empire
which a change of rulers in Afghanistan might bring about; coupled
with Cassandra-like wails over the purblind British statesmen who
were wilfully shutting their eyes to this impending danger, as well
as to baneful Russian machinations on our Indian frontier. There
were also some unflattering allusions to Abdurrahman Khan. I,
knowing that the whole story had originated in my own brain, could
not restrain a chuckle whilst perusing these jeremiads. After
reading some particularly violent screed, the Councillor of Embassy
would shake his head at me. "This is more of your work, you wretched
boy!" After an interval of forty years this little episode can be
recounted without harm.
Talking of newspaper enterprise, many years later, when the Emperor
Alexander III died, the editor of a well-known London evening paper,
a great friend of mine, told me in confidence of a journalistic
"scoop" he was meditating. Alexander III {317} had died at Livadia
in the Crimea, and his body was to make a sort of triumphal progress
through Russia. The editor (he is no longer with us, but when I term
him "Harry" I shall be revealing his identity to the few) was sending
out a Frenchman as special correspondent, armed with a goodly store
of roubles, and instructions to get himself engaged as temporary
assistant to the undertaker in charge of the Emperor's funeral. This
cost, I believe, a considerable sum, but the Frenchman, having
entered on his gruesome duties, was enabled to furnish the London
evening paper with the fullest details of all the funeral ceremonies.
The reason the younger diplomats foregathered so in Petrograd was
that, as I said before, Petrograd was to all intents and purposes
extra-European. Apart from its charming society, the town, qua town,
offered but few resources. The younger Continental diplomats felt
the entire absence of cafés, of music-halls, and of places of light
entertainment very acutely; so they were thrown on each other's
society. In Far Eastern posts such as Pekin or Tokyo, the diplomats
live entirely amongst themselves. For a European, there are
practically no resources whatever in Tokyo. No one could possibly
wish to frequent a Japanese theatre, or a Japanese restaurant, when
once the novelty had worn off, and even Geisha entertainments are
deadly dull to one who cannot understand a word of the language. Let
us imagine a party of Europeans arriving at some fashionable {318}
Japanese restaurant for a Geisha entertainment. They will, of
course, remove their shoes before proceeding upstairs. I was always
unfortunate enough to find on these occasions one or more holes in my
socks gaping blatantly. In time one learns in Japan to subject one's
socks to a close scrutiny in order to make sure that they are intact,
for everyone must be prepared to remove his shoes at all hours of the
day. We will follow the Europeans up to a room on the upper floor,
tastefully arranged in Japanese fashion, and spotlessly neat and
clean. The temperature in this room in the winter months would be
Arctic, with three or four "fire-pots" containing a few specks of
mildly-glowing charcoal waging a futile contest against the
penetrating cold.
The room is apparently empty, but from behind the sliding-panels
giggles and titters begin, gradually increasing in volume until the
panels slide back, and a number of self-conscious overdressed
children step into the room, one taking her place beside each guest.
These are "Micos"; little girls being trained as professional
Geishas. The European conception of a Geisha is a totally wrong one.
They are simply entertainers; trained singers, dancers, and
story-tellers. The guests seat themselves clumsily and uncomfortably
on the floor and the dinner begins. Japanese dishes are meant to
please the eye, which is fortunate, for they certainly do not appeal
to the palate. I invariably drew one of the big pots of flowers
which always {319} decorate these places close up to me, and
consigned to its kindly keeping all the delicacies of the Japanese
_cuisine_ which were beyond my assimilative powers, such as slices of
raw fish sprinkled with sugar, and seasoned with salted ginger. The
tiresome little Micos kept up an incessant chatter. Their stories
were doubtless extraordinarily humorous to anyone understanding
Japanese, but were apt to lose their point for those ignorant of the
language. The abortive attempts of the Europeans to eat with
chopsticks afforded endless amusement to these bedizened children;
they shook with laughter at seeing all the food slide away from these
unaccustomed table implements. Not till the dinner was over did the
Geishas proper make their appearance. In Japan the amount of bright
colour in a woman's dress varies in inverse ratio to her moral
rectitude. As our Geishas were all habited in sober mouse-colour, or
dull neutral-blue, I can only infer that they were ladies of the very
highest respectability. They were certainly wonderfully attractive
little people. They were not pretty according to our standards, but
there was a vivacity and a sort of air of dainty grace about them
that were very captivating. Their singing is frankly awful. I have
heard four-footed musicians on the London tiles produce sweeter
sounds, but their dancing is graceful to a degree. Unfortunately,
one of the favourite amusements of these charming and vivacious
little people is to play "Musical Chairs"--without any chairs! They
made all the {320} European men follow them round and round the room
whilst two Geishas thrummed on a sort of guitar. As soon as the
music stopped everyone was expected to sit down with a bang on the
floor, To these little Japs five feet high, the process was easy, and
may have seemed good fun; to a middle-aged gentleman, "vir pietate
gravis," these violent shocks were more than painful, and I failed to
derive the smallest amusement from them. No Japanese dinner would be
complete without copious miniature cups of sake. This rice-spirit is
always drunken hot; it is not disagreeable to the taste, being like
warm sherry with a dash of methylated spirit thrown in, but the
little sake bottles and cups are a joy to the eye. This innately
artistic people delight to lavish loving care in fashioning minute
objects; many English drawing-rooms contain sake bottles in enamel or
porcelain ranged in cabinets as works of art. Their form would be
more familiar to most people than their use. Japanese always seem to
look on a love of colour as showing rather vulgar tastes. The more
refined the individual, the more will he adhere to sober black and
white and neutral tints in his house and personal belongings. The
Emperor's palace in Kyoto is decorated entirely in black and white,
with unpainted, unlacquered woodwork, and no colour anywhere. The
Kyoto palace of the great Tokugawa family, on the other hand, a place
of astounding beauty, blazes with gilding, enamels, and lacquer, as
do all the tombs and temples erected by this dynasty. The Tokugawas
usurped power as {321} Shoguns in 1603, reducing the Mikado to a mere
figure-head as spiritual Ruler, and the Shoguns ruled Japan
absolutely until 1868, when they were overthrown, and Shogun and
Mikado were merged into one under the title of Emperor. I fancy that
the Japanese look upon the polychrome splendour of all the buildings
erected by the Tokugawas as proof that they were very inferior to the
ancient dynasty, who contented themselves with plain buildings
severely decorated in black and white. The lack of colour in Japan
is very noticeable on arriving from untidy, picturesque China. The
beautiful neatness and cleanliness of Japan are very refreshing after
slovenly China, but the endless rows of little brown, unpainted, tidy
houses, looking like so many rabbit hutches, are depressing to a
degree. The perpetual earthquakes are responsible for the low
elevation of these houses and also for their being invariably built
of wood, as is indeed everything else in the country. I was
immensely disappointed at the sight of the first temples I visited in
Japan. The forms were beautiful enough, but they were all of
unpainted wood, without any colour whatever, and looked horribly
neutral-tinted. All the famous temples of Kyoto are of plain,
unpainted, unvarnished wood. The splendid group of temples at Nikko
are the last word in Japanese art. They glow with colour; with
scarlet and black lacquer, gilding, enamels, and bronzes, every
detail finished like jewellers' work with exquisite craftmanship, and
they are amongst the most {322} beautiful things in the world; but
they were all erected by the Tokugawa dynasty, as were the equally
superb temples in the Shiba Park at Tokyo. This family seemed
determined to leave Japan less colourless than they found it; in
their great love for scarlet lacquer they must have been the first
people who thought of painting a town red.
The same lack of colour is found in the gardens. I had pictured a
Japanese garden as a dream of beauty, so when I was shewn a heap of
stones interspersed with little green shrubs and dwarf trees, without
one single flower, I was naturally disappointed, nor had I sufficient
imagination to picture a streak of whitewash daubed down a rock as a
quivering cascade of foaming water. "Our gardens, sir," said my
host, "are not intended to inspire hilarit .. ee, but rather to
create a gentle melanchol .. ee." As regards myself, his certainly
succeeded in its object.
A friend of mine, whose gardens, not a hundred miles from London, are
justly famous, takes immense pride in her Japanese garden, as she
fondly imagines it to be. At the time of King George's Coronation
she invited the special Japanese Envoys to luncheon, for the express
purpose of showing them her gardens afterwards. She kept the
Japanese garden to the last as a _bonne-bouche_, half-expecting these
children of the Land of the Rising Sun to burst into happy tears at
this reminder of their distant island home. The special Envoys
thanked her with true Japanese politeness, and loudly {323} expressed
their delight at seeing a real English garden. They added that they
had never even imagined anything like this in Japan, and begged for a
design of it, in order that they might create a real English garden
in their native land on their return home.
As I have said, no Japanese woman can wear bright colours without
sacrificing her moral reputation, but little girls may wear all the
colours of the rainbow until they are eight years old or so. These
little girls, with their hair cut straight across their forehead, are
very attractive-looking creatures, whereas a Japanese boy, with his
cropped head, round face, and projecting teeth, is the most comically
hideous little object imaginable. These children's appearance is
spoilt by an objectionable superstition which decrees it unlucky to
use a pocket-handkerchief on a child until he, or she, is nine years
old. The result is unspeakably deplorable.
The interior of our Embassy at Tokyo was rather a surprise. Owing to
the constant earthquakes in Tokyo and Yokohama, all the buildings
have to be of wood. The British Embassy was built in London (I
believe by a very well-known firm in Tottenham Court Road), and was
shipped out to Japan complete down to its last detail. The architect
who designed it unhappily took a glorified suburban villa as his
model. So the Tokyo Embassy house is an enlarged "Belmont," or "The
Cedars," or "Tokyo Towers." Every {324} familiar detail is there;
the tiled hall, the glazed door into the garden, and the heavy
mahogany chimneypieces and overmantels. In the library with its
mahogany book-cases, green morocco chairs, and green plush curtains,
it was difficult to realise that one was not in Hampstead or Upper
Tooting. I always felt that I was quite out of the picture unless I
sallied forth at 9 a.m. with a little black bag in my hand, and
returned at 6 p.m. with some fish in a bass-basket. In spite of
being common-place, the house was undeniably comfortable. Everything
Japanese was rigidly excluded from it. That in far-off lands is very
natural. People do not care to be reminded perpetually of the
distance they are away from home. In Calcutta the Maidan, the local
Hyde Park, has nothing Eastern about it. Except in the Eden Gardens
in one corner of it, where there is a splendid tangle of tropical
vegetation, there is not one single palm tree on the Maidan. The
broad sweeps of turf, clumps of trees, and winding roads make an
excellent imitation of Hyde Park transferred to the banks of the
Hooghly, and this is intentional. There is one spot in particular,
where the tall Gothic spire of St. Paul's Cathedral rises out of a
clump of trees beyond a great tank (it may be pointed out that "tank"
in India does not refer to a clumsy, mobile engine of destruction,
but is the word used for a pool or pond), which might be in
Kensington Gardens but for the temperature. The average Briton likes
to be reminded of his home, and generally manages to carry {325} it
about with him somehow. The Russian Embassy at Tokyo had been built
in the same way in Paris and sent out, and was a perfect reproduction
of a French Louis XV house. The garden of the British Embassy had
one striking feature which I have seen nowhere else; hedges of
clipped camellias, four feet high. When these blossomed in the
spring, they looked like solid walls of pink, crimson, or white
flowers, a really beautiful sight!
Some former British Minister had planted the public roads round the
Embassy with avenues of the pink-flowering cherry, as a present to
the city of Tokyo. The Japanese affect to look down on the pink
cherry, when compared to their adored white cherry-blossom, I suppose
because there is colour in it. Certainly the acres of white
cherry-blossom in the Uyeno Park at Tokyo are one of the sights of
Japan. In no other country in the world would the railways run
special trains to enable the country-people to see the cherries in
full bloom in this Uyeno Park. The blossom is only supposed to be at
its best for three days. In no other country either would people
flock by hundreds to a temple, as they did at Kyoto, to look at a
locally-famed contrast of red plum-blossom against dark-brown maple
leaves. I liked these Japanese country-people. The scrupulously
neat old peasant women, with their grey hair combed carefully back,
and their rosy faces, were quite attractive. Their intense
ceremonious politeness to each other always amused me. Whole family
parties would continue {326} bowing to each other for ten minutes on
end at railway stations, sucking their breath, and rubbing their
knees. When they had finished, someone would recommence, and the
whole process would have to be gone through again, the children
sucking their breath louder even than their elders. Anybody who has
lived in a warm climate must be familiar with the curious sound of
thousands of frogs croaking at once in a pond or marsh at night-time.
The sound of hundreds of Japanese wooden clogs clattering against the
tiles of a railway platform is exactly like that. In the big
Shimbashi station at Tokyo, as the clogs pattered over the tiles, by
shutting my eyes I could imagine that I was listening to a frogs'
orchestra in some large marsh.
Excessive politeness brings at times its own penalty. At the
beginning of these reminiscences I have related how I went with a
Special Embassy to Rome in my extreme youth. The day before our
departure from Rome, King Humbert gave a farewell luncheon party at
the Quirinal to the Special British Ambassador and his suite,
including of course myself. At this luncheon a somewhat comical
incident occurred.
When we took our leave, Queen Margherita, then still radiantly
beautiful, offered her hand first to the Special British Ambassador.
He, a courtly and gallant gentleman of the old school, at once
dropped on one knee, in spite of his age, and kissed the Queen's hand
"in the grand manner." The permanent British Ambassador, the late
Sir Augustus Paget, {327} most courteous and genial of men, followed
his temporary colleague's example, and also dropped on one knee. The
Italian Ministers present could not do less than follow the lead of
the foreigners, or show themselves less courteous than the
_forestieri_, so they too had perforce to drop on one knee whilst
kissing the Queen's hand. A hugely obese Minister, buttoned into the
tightest of frockcoats, approached the Queen. With immense
difficulty he lowered himself on to one knee, and kissed the Royal
hand; but no power on earth seemed equal to raising him to his feet
again. The corpulent Minister grew purple in the face; the most
ominous sounds of the rending of cloth and linen re-echoed through
the room; but still he could not manage to rise. The Queen held out
her hand to assist her husband's adipose adviser to regain his feet,
but he was too dignified, or too polite, to accept it. The rending
of the statesman's most intimate garments became more audible than
ever; the portly Minister seemed on the verge of an attack of
apoplexy. It must be understood that the Queen was standing alone
before the throne, with this unfortunate dignitary kneeling before
her; the remainder of the guests were standing in a semi-circle some
twenty feet away. The Queen's mouth began to twitch ominously,
until, in spite of her self-control, after a few preliminary
splutters of involuntary merriment, she broke down, and absolutely
shook with laughter. Sir Augustus Paget and a Roman Prince came up
and saved the situation by raising, with infinite difficulty, the
unfortunate {328} Italian statesman to his feet. As he resumed a
standing position, a perfect Niagara of oddments of apparel, of tags
and scraps of his most private under-garments, rained upon the floor,
and we all experienced a feeling of intense relief when this capable,
if corpulent, Cabinet Minister was enabled to regain the background
with all his clothing outwardly intact.
And all this came about from an excess of politeness. The East has
always been the land of flowery compliments, also the land of
hyperbole. I once saw the answer the Viceroy of India had received
from a certain tributary Prince, who had been reprimanded in the
sharpest fashion by the Government of India. The native Prince had
been warned in the bluntest of language that unless he mended his
ways at once he would be forthwith deposed, and another ruler put in
his place. A list of his recent enormities was added, in order to
refresh his memory, and the warning as to the future was again
emphasized. The Prince's answer, addressed direct to the Viceroy,
began as follows:
"Your Excellency's gracious message has reached me. It was more
precious to the eyes than a casket of rubies; sweeter to the taste
than a honeycomb; more delightful to the ears than the song of ten
thousand nightingales. I spread it out before me, and read it
repeatedly: each time with renewed pleasure."
Considering the nature of the communication, that native Prince must
have been of a touchingly grateful disposition.
{329}
The late Duke of Edinburgh was once presented with an address at Hong
Kong from the Corporation of Chinese Merchants, in which he was told,
amongst other things, that he "was more glorious than a phoenix
sitting in a crimson nest with fourteen golden tails streaming behind
him." Surely a charming flight of fancy!
True politeness in China demands that you should depreciate
everything of your own and exalt everything belonging to your
correspondent. Thus, should you be asking a friend to dinner, you
would entreat him "to leave for one evening the silver and alabaster
palace in which you habitually dwell, and to condescend to honour the
tumble-down vermin-ridden hovel in which I drag out a wretched
existence. Furthermore, could you forget for one evening the
bird's-nest soup, the delicious sea-slugs, and the plump puppy-dogs
on which you habitually feast, and deign to poke your head into my
swill-trough, and there devour such loathsome garbage as a starving
dog would reject, I shall feel unspeakably honoured." The answer
will probably come in some such form as this: "With rapturous delight
have I learnt that, thanks to your courtesy, I may escape from the
pestilential shanty I inhabit, and pass one unworthy evening in a
glorious palace of crystal and gold in your company. After starving
for months on putrid offal, I shall at length banquet on unimagined
delicacies, etc." Should it be a large dinner-party, it must tax the
host's ingenuity to vary the self-depreciatory epithets sufficiently.
{330}
The mention of food reminds me that it is an acute difficulty to the
stranger in Japan, should he wander off the beaten track and away
from European hotels. Japanese use neither bread, butter, nor milk,
and these things, as well as meat, are unprocurable in country
districts. Europeans miss bread terribly, and the Japanese
substitute of cold rice is frankly horrible. Instead of the snowy
piles of smoking-hot, beautifully cooked rice of India, rice in Japan
means a cold, clammy, gelatinous mass, hideously distasteful to a
European interior. That, eggs, and tea like a decoction of hay
constitute the standard menu of a Japanese country inn. I never saw
either a sheep or cow in Japan, as there is no pasture. The
universal bamboo-grass, with its sharp edges, pierces the intestines
of any animal feeding on it, and so is worse than useless as fodder
for cattle or sheep. All milk and butter are imported in a frozen
state from Australia, but do not, of course, penetrate beyond
Europe-fashion hotels, as the people of the country do not care for
them.
The exquisite neatness of Japanese farm houses, with their black and
white walls, thatched roofs, and trim little bamboo fences and gates,
is a real joy to the eye of one who has grown accustomed to the
slipshod untidy East, or even to the happy-go-lucky methods of the
American Continent. I never remember a Japanese village unequipped
with either electric light or telephones. I really think geographers
must have placed the 180th degree in the wrong place, and that Japs
are really {331} the most Western of Westerns, instead of being the
most Eastern of Easterns. Pretty and attractive as the Japanese
country is, its charm was spoilt for me by the almost total absence
of bird and animal life. There are hardly any wild flowers either,
except deliciously fragrant wild violets. Being in Japan, it is
hardly necessary to say that these violets, instead of being of the
orthodox colour, are bright yellow. They would be in Japan. This
quaint people who only like trees when they are contorted, who love
flowerless gardens, whose grass kills cattle, who have evolved peach,
plum and cherry trees which flower gloriously but never bear any
fruit, would naturally have yellow violets. They are certainly a
wonderfully hardy race. I was at beautiful Nikko in the early spring
when they were building a dam across the Nikko river. The stream has
a tremendous current, and is ice-cold. Men were working at the dam
up to their waists in the icy river, and little boys kept bringing
them baskets of building stones, up to their necks in the swift
current. Both men and boys issued from the river as scarlet as
lobsters from the intense cold, and yet they stood about quite
unconcernedly in their dripping thin cotton clothes in the keen wind.
Had they been Europeans, they would all have died of pneumonia in two
days' time. A race must have great powers of endurance that live in
houses with paper walls without any heating appliances during the
sharp cold of a Japanese winter, and that find thin cotton clothing
sufficient for their wants.
{332}
The outlines and pleasing details of those black and white country
dwellings with the graceful curves of their roofs are a relief to the
eye after the endless miles of ugly little brown rabbit hutches of
the towns. At Tokyo the enclosure and park of the Emperor's palace
lay just outside the gates of our Embassy, surrounded by a moat so
broad that it could be almost called a lake. It was curious in the
heart of a town to see this moat covered with innumerable wild duck.
Although I have been in the Imperial palace at Kyoto, I was never
inside the one at Tokyo, so I cannot give any details about it. The
glimpses one obtained from outside of its severe black and white
outlines recalled a European mediæval castle, and had something
strangely familiar about them. I was never fortunate enough either
to be invited to an Imperial duck-catching party, which I would have
given anything to witness. The idea of catching wild duck in
butterfly nets would never occur to anyone but the Japanese. The
place where this quaint amusement was indulged in was an extensive
tract of flat ground intersected by countless reed-fringed little
canals and waterways, much on the lines of a marsh in the Norfolk
Broad district. I saw the Ambassador on his return from a
duck-catching party. With superhuman efforts, and a vast amount of
exercise, he had managed to capture three ducks, and he told me that
he had had to run like a hare to achieve even this modest success.
All the guests were expected to appear in high hats and frock-coats
{333} on these occasions, and I should have dearly loved to see the
Ambassador arrayed in frock-coat and high hat bounding hot-foot over
the marshes, his butterfly net poised aloft, in pursuit of his
quacking quarry. The newspapers informed us the next day that the
Crown Prince had headed the list as usual with a bag of twenty-seven
ducks, and I always believe what I see in print. Really Europeans
start heavily handicapped at this peculiar diversion. I have known
many families in England where the sons of the house are instructed
from a very early age in riding, and in the art of handling a gun and
a trout rod, but even in the most sport-loving British families the
science of catching wild duck in butterfly nets forms but seldom part
of the sporting curriculum of the rising generation. Though the
Imperial family are Shintoists, I expect that the Buddhist horror of
taking animal life is at the bottom of this idea of duck-catching,
for the ducks are, I believe, all set free again after their capture.
We always heard that the Emperor and his family lived entirely on
rice and fish in the frugal Japanese fashion, and that they never
tasted meat.
I had the opportunity of seeing a very fine house of sixty rooms,
built in strict Japanese style, and just completed. Count Mitsu is
one of the few very wealthy men in Japan; he can also trace his
pedigree back for three thousand years. He had built this house in
Tokyo, and as it was supposed to be the last word in purity of style
("Itchi-Ban," or "Number One," as the Japanese express it), he very
{334} kindly invited the ambassador and myself to go all over it with
him. We had, of course, to remove our shoes on entering, and my
pleasure was somewhat marred by the discovery of a large hole in one
sock, on which I fancied the gaze of the entire Mitsu family was
riveted. Nothing can equal the high-bred courtesy and politeness of
Japanese of really ancient lineage. Countess Mitsu, of a family as
old as her husband's, had a type of face which we do not usually
associate with Japan, and is only found in ladies of the Imperial
family and some others equally old. In place of the large head, full
cheeks, and flat features of the ordinary Japanese woman, Countess
Mitsu and her daughters had thin faces with high aquiline features,
giving them an extraordinarily high-bred and distinguished
appearance. This great house consisted of a vast number of perfectly
empty rooms, destitute of one single scrap of furniture. There was
fine matting on the floor, a niche with one kakemono hanging in it,
one bronze or other work of art, and a vase with one single flower,
and nothing else whatever. The Mitsus being a very high caste
family, there was no colour anywhere. The decoration was confined to
black and white and beautifully-finished, unpainted, unvarnished
woodwork, except for the exquisitely chased bronze door-grips
(door-handles would be an incorrect term for these grips to open and
close the sliding panels). I must confess that I never saw a more
supremely uncomfortable-looking dwelling in my life. The children's
nurseries upstairs {335} were a real joy. The panels had been
painted by a Japanese artist with everything calculated to amuse a
child. There were pictures of pink and blue rabbits, purple frogs,
scarlet porcupines, and grass-green guinea-pigs, all with the most
comical expressions imaginable on their faces. The lamps were of
fish-skin shaped over thin strips of bamboo into the form of the
living fish, then highly coloured, and fitted with electric globes
inside them; weird, luminous marine monsters! Each child had a
little Chinese dressing-table of mother-of-pearl eighteen inches
high, and a tub of real Chinese "powder-blue" porcelain as a bath.
The windows looked on to a fascinating dwarf garden ten feet square,
with real waterfalls, tiny rivers of real water, miniature mountains
and dwarf trees, all in perfect proportion. It was like looking at
an extensive landscape through the wrong end of a telescope.
The polite infants who inhabited this child's paradise received us
with immense courtesy, lying at full length on the floor on their
little tummies, and wagging their little heads in salutation, till I
really thought they would come off.
The most interesting thing in Count Mitsu's house was a beautiful
little Shinto temple of bronze-gold lacquer, where all the names of
his many ancestors were inscribed on gilt tablets. Here he and all
his sons (women take no part in ancestor worship) came nightly, and
made a full confession before the tablets of their ancestors of all
they had done during the day; craving for pardon should {336} they
have acted in a fashion unworthy of their family and of Japan. The
Count and his sons then lighted the little red lamps before the
tablets of their forebears to show that they were not forgotten, and
placed the exquisitely carved little ivory "ghost-ship" two inches
long in its place, should any of their ancestors wish to return that
night from the Land of Spirits to their old home.
The underlying idea of undying family affection is rather a beautiful
one.
That same evening I went to a very interesting dinner-party at the
house of Prince Arisugawa, a son-in-law of the Emperor's. Both the
dinner and the house were on European lines, but the main point of
interest was that it was a gathering of all the Generals and Admirals
who had taken a prominent part in the Russo-Japanese war. I was
placed between an Admiral and a General, but found it difficult to
communicate with them, Japanese being conspicuously bad linguists.
The General could speak a little fairly unintelligible German; the
Admiral could stutter a very little Russian. It was a pity that the
roads of communication were so blocked for us, for I shall probably
never again sit between two men who had had such thrilling
experiences. I cursed the builders of the Tower of Babel for
erecting this linguistic barrier between us.
I found that I was a full head taller than all the Japanese in the
room. Princess Arisugawa appeared later. This tiny, dainty,
graceful little lady {337} had the same strongly aquiline type of
features as Countess Mitsu, and the same high-bred look of
distinction. She was beautifully dressed in European style, and had
Rue de la Paix written all over her clothes and her jewels. I have
seldom seen anyone with such taking graceful dignity as this daughter
of the Imperial house, in spite of her diminutive stature.
The old families in Japan have a pretty custom of presenting every
European guest with a little black-and-gold lacquer box, two inches
high, full of sweetmeats, of the sort we called in my youth "hundreds
and thousands." These little boxes bear on their tops in gold
lacquer the badge or crest of the family, thus serving as permanent
souvenirs.
In a small community such as the European diplomats formed at Tokyo,
the peculiarities and foibles of the "chers collègues" formed
naturally an unending topic of conversation. There was one foreign
representative who was determined to avoid bankruptcy, could the most
rigorously careful regulation of his expenditure avert such a
catastrophe. His official position forced him to give occasional
dinner-parties, much, I imagine, against his inclinations. He
always, in the winter months, borrowed all the available oil-stoves
from his colleagues and friends, when one of these festivities was
contemplated, in order to warm his official residence without having
to go to the expense of fires. He had in some mad fit of
extravagance bought two dozen of {338} a really fine claret some
years before. The wine had long since been drunk; the bottles he
still retained _with their labels_. It was his custom to buy the
cheapest and roughest red wine he could find, and then enshrine it in
these old bottles with their mendacious labels. At his
dinner-parties these time-worn bottles were always ranged down the
tables. The evidence of palate and eye was conflicting. The palate
(as far as it could discriminate through the awful reek with which
the oil-stoves filled the room), pronounced it sour, immature _vin
ordinaire_. The label on the bottle proclaimed it Château Margaux of
1874, actually bottled at the Château itself. Politeness dictated
that we should compliment our host on this exquisite vintage, which
had, perhaps, begun to feel (as we all do) the effects of extreme old
age. A cynical Dutch colleague might possibly hazard a few remarks,
lamenting the effects of the Japanese climate on "les premiers crus
de Bordeaux."
Life at any post would be dull were it not for the little failings of
the "chers collègues," which always give one something to talk of.
The Japanese are ruining the beauty of their country by their insane
mania for advertising. The railways are lined with advertisements; a
beautiful hillside is desecrated by a giant advertisement, cut in the
turf, and filled in with white concrete. Even the ugly little
streets of brown packing-cases are plastered with advertisements.
The fact that these advertisements are all in Chinese characters
{339} give them a rather pleasing exotic flavour at first; that soon
wears off, and then one is only too thankful not to be able to read
them. They remain a hideous disfigurement of a fair land.
One large Japanese-owned department store in Tokyo had a brass band
playing in front of it all day, producing an ear-splitting din. The
bandsmen were little Japanese boys dressed, of all things in the
world, as Highlanders. No one who has not seen it can imagine the
intensely grotesque effect of a little stumpy, bandy-legged Jap boy
in a red tartan kilt, bare knees, and a Glengarry bonnet. No one who
has not heard them can conceive the appalling sounds they produced
from their brass instruments, or can form any conception of the
Japanese idea of "rag-time."
We have in this country some very competent amateurs who, to judge
from the picture papers, have reduced the gentle art of
self-advertisement to a science.
I think these ladies would be repaid for the trouble of a voyage to
Japan by the new ideas in advertisement they would pick up from that
enterprising people. They need not blow their own trumpets, like the
little Jap Highlander bandsmen; they can get it done for them as they
know, by the Press.
{340}