Impressions of a War Correspondent

by George Lynch

From the more important teaching as regards family life, these Oriental missionaries might then endeavour to tell us something of the Fine Arts in the East, and yet more of the spirit which animates their artists. They would be able to show us that "art for art's sake" with them is no empty phrase. It would doubtless surprise many Westerners to know that a Chinese painter would not think of selling his pictures for money, but paints them for his own pleasure, and gives his work as presents to his friends, and would no more dream of selling a picture than an English girl would of selling a kiss.

The Japanese would have a lot to tell us about bringing art, and that their highest and best art, into the utensils of everyday life, and that there is nothing demeaning in expending the best work on things one handles and uses every day. What a lot they would have to tell us of the cultivation and their love of flowers—a love which seems instinct in the poorest peasant, and which in the more cultivated classes is carried to an exquisite degree of refined development! And again, a Japanese incense party, where different qualities of delicately aromatic incense are passed round—and the pastime consists in placing the different qualities in the order of the beauty of their perfume—would almost suggest that the West had neglected the cultivation of one of the five senses.

At a dinner-party at a well-known restaurant, the other night, it was forcibly brought to my mind what a lot they would have to teach us regarding the enjoyment of such social functions. A perfect din and rattle of plates and knives filled the air, a mob of undisciplined servants charged about tumultuously, garish lights lit up vulgar ornamentation, and one almost had to shout to be heard across the table, while a band of music outside ineffectually endeavoured to drown the din within. There were flowers, it is true, but their profusion was no compensation for an utter lack of artistic arrangement. But there was a complete absence of that repose, that restfulness, that calm, which is considered, and justly considered, amongst Easterns as the essential atmosphere for the enjoyment of a social repast. The Japanese have raised entertainment to the level of a fine art. Their tea ceremonies, as we have badly translated the "Cha'-no-yu," but which might be preferably rendered as "The Fine Art of Welcome and Hospitality," have been a strong influence in preventing them from drifting into the meretricious gaudiness so blatantly en évidence in restaurants like the Carlton, and minister to that purity and simplicity of taste which is so characteristic of Japanese art. Five is considered by them the best number for a dinner-party, as with a larger number separate conversational groups are apt to be formed. The Japanese gentleman has rooms specially built for these parties, and rooms only just large enough to hold his guests comfortably. One scroll is hung in the kakemono, and in front of it one ornament, and afterwards a solitary flower. It would be considered by them extremely bad taste to confuse or dissipate the attention by a variety of ornaments.

A Japanese lady once showed me a photo of the drawing-room at Sandringham, which greatly amused her, and which she kept as a curiosity. (She was too polite to say as a curiosity of barbarism.) But she said, laughing, "Is it not just like a curio-dealer's shop?"

The dinner, which actually precedes the tea-drinking, is served by the host in person, thus doing away with the intrusion of even their deft and quiet-moving servants. Every cup, every plate, is an individual art treasure, from the Godown in which the host's artistic treasures are kept in a seclusion that his most intimate friends have never penetrated. They have probably never seen the same picture or the same ornament twice in the kakemono. From the soft mellow music of the old gong which summons them to the repast, on through its various stages, until the rare and beautiful bowl out of which they have had tea is passed round for appreciative inspection, an air of refined repose has characterised the whole proceedings.

General White And Staff On Black Monday.

These social missionaries might progress from giving us some insight into these things to the introduction of another institution which would be an unquestionable advantage to our civilisation—I refer to the Geisha. Supposing that they were successful in grafting this Japanese idea, the Western edition would work out somewhat thuswise. Take, for instance, a bachelor coming up from Oxford or Cambridge, or, say, a merchant up from Liverpool or Manchester, instead of having a solitary dinner at his club, if he wished for the relaxation of vivacious female companionship, he would go to the telephone, and ring up "Geishas, Limited," and send word that he wanted one, or more, for dinner that evening. There would in due course, at the restaurant appointed, appear a girl with the dress, appearance, and manners of a lady. Whatever her looks might be, whatever her attractions, she would unfailingly be bright, intelligent, well-mannered, and, above all, entertaining, for her being entertaining would be her métier, her occupation, her raison d'être. And, contrary to what is frequently supposed from a mistaken acquaintance with this Japanese institution, she would not be in the least facile or accessible. Our ideas of feminine Japan are too much based on the circumscribed experiences of holiday travellers, or books of the bad taste of Pierre Loti's "Madame Chrysanthème." We do not judge the women of England by Leicester Square, nor of Paris by those of the Moulin Rouge. Amongst the accomplishments of these Geisha girls music and singing would be most important. There seems much more refinement and comfort in bringing the music and singing to you than in going to the singing and music. A party of men dining together would not be driven to adjourn to a music-hall after dinner. They could order it as part of the menu.

But these Oriental missionaries, in addition to introducing such an institution, would have a field for their labours in raising their clients and customers to the standard of Japanese civilisation in the enjoyment of it. I present the idea gratis to any enterprising people who are troubled with the question. What to do with our girls!