After Dinner. A Chinese Caricature. (From a Figure in the British Museum.)[33]
The burlesque which thus imposed upon a London editor was a creditable specimen of Puck's comic talent: "His majesty having ascended the throne, the envoys were led to the space at its foot, when they performed the ceremony of inclining the body. They did not kneel. By the side of the steps there was placed a yellow table, and the envoys stood in rank to read out their credentials, the British having the leading place. When he had read a few sentences, he began to tremble from head to foot, and was incapable of completing the perusal. The emperor asked, 'Is the prince of your country well?' But he could utter no reply. The emperor again asked, 'You have besought permission to see me time and time again. What is it you have to say?' But again he was unable to make an answer. The next proceeding was to hand in the credentials; but, in doing this, he fell down on the ground time after time, and not a syllable could he articulate. Upon this Prince Kung laughed loud at him before the entire court, exclaimed 'Chicken-feather!' and gave orders to have him assisted down the steps. He was unable to move of his own accord, and sat down on the floor, perspiring and panting for breath. The whole twelve shook their heads and whispered together no one knows what. When the time came for the assembly at the banquet, they still remained incapable, and dispersed in hurried confusion. Prince Kung said to them, 'You would not believe that it is no light matter to come face to face with his majesty; but what have you got to say about it to-day?'"
CHAPTER XVII.
COMIC ART IN JAPAN.
The bright, good-tempered people of Japan are familiar with humor in many forms, and know how to sport with pencil as well as with pen. Their very sermons are not devoid of the jocular. When a preacher has pointed his moral by a comical tale, he will turn to the audience in the most familiar, confidential manner, and say, "Now, isn't that a funny story?" or, "Wasn't that delightful?" Sometimes he will half apologize for the introduction of mirth-moving anecdotes: "Now, my sermons are not written for the learned. I address myself to farmers and tradesmen, who, hard pressed by their daily business, have no time for study.... Now, positively you must not laugh if I introduce a light story now and then. Levity is not my object; I only want to put things in a plain and easy manner."[34] Nothing yet brought from that country is more interesting to us than the specimens given in Mr. Mitford's book of the short, homely, humorous, sound Japanese sermons. The existence of this work is another proof of the wisdom of giving consular and diplomatic appointments to men who know how to use their eyes, their hands, and their minds. The sumptuous work upon Japan by M. Aimé Humbert could scarcely have been produced if the author had not been at the head of a powerful embassy.
The Japanese are a gentler and kindlier people than the Chinese; women occupy a better position among them; and hence the allusions to the sex in their literature are less contemptuous and satirical. The preacher whose sermons Mr. Mitford selects for translation is what we should term an eclectic—one who owns fealty to none of the great religions of the East, but gleans lessons of truth and wisdom from them all. Imagine him clad in gorgeous robes of red and white, attended by an acolyte, entering a chapel—a spacious, pleasant apartment which opens into a garden—bowing to the sacred picture over the altar, and taking a seat at a table. Some prayers are intoned, incense is burned, offerings are received, a passage from a sacred book is read, a cup of tea is quaffed, and then the preacher rises and begins his chatty, humorous, anecdotical discourse. Whenever he makes a point, the audience utters a responsive "Nimmiyô," varying the sound so as to accord with the sentiment expressed by the speaker. Indeed, it would be difficult to name one rite, or observance, or custom, or eccentricity of religion practiced among us here in the United States, the counterpart of which has not been familiar to the Japanese from time immemorial. They have sacred books, a peculiar cross, liturgies, temples, acolytes, nunneries, monasteries, holy water, incense, prayers, sermons, collections, the poor-box, responses, priestly robes, the bell, a series of ceremonies strongly resembling the mass, followed by a sermon, sacred pictures, anointing, shaven crowns, sects, orders, and systems of theology.
Their sermons abound in parables and similes. The preacher just mentioned illustrates his points with amusing ingenuity. For example, in a sermon on the folly of putting excessive trust in wealth, strength, or any other advantage merely external or transitory, he relates a parable of a shell-fish—the sazayé—noted for the extreme hardness of its shell. One day, just after a large sazayé had been vaunting his perfect security against the dangers to which other fish were exposed, there came a great splash in the water. "Mr. Sazayé," continued the preacher, "shut his lid as quickly as possible, kept quite still, and thought to himself what in the world the noise could be. Could it be a net? Could it be a fish-hook? Were the tai and the other fish caught? he wondered; and he felt quite anxious about them. However, at any rate, he was safe. And so the time passed; and when he thought all was over, he stealthily opened his shell, and slipped out his head and looked all round him, and there seemed to be something wrong—something with which he was not familiar. As he looked a little more carefully, lo and behold! there he was in a fish-monger's shop, and with a card, marked 'Sixteen Cash,' on his back.
"Isn't that a funny story?" cries the jovial preacher, smiling complacently upon the congregation. "Poor shell-fish! I think there are people not unlike him to be found in China and India." This is a favorite joke with the preacher. He frequently closes a satirical passage by a similar remark. "I don't mean to say that there are any such persons here. Oh no. Still, there are plenty of them to be found—say, for instance, in the back streets of India."
The tone of this merry instructor in righteousness when he is speaking of women is that of a tender father toward children. He assumes that "women and children" can not understand any thing profound and philosophical. Righteousness he defines as "the fitting," the ought-to-be; and he considers it "fitting" that women should be the assiduous, respectful, and ever-obedient servants of men. A parable illustrates his meaning. A great preacher of old was once the guest of a rich man of low rank, who was "particularly fond of sermons," and had a lovely daughter of fifteen, who waited upon the preacher at dinner, and entertained him afterward upon the harp. "Really," said the learned preacher, "it must be a very difficult thing to educate a young lady up to such a pitch as this." The flattered parents, could not refrain from boasting of their daughter's accomplishments—her drawing, painting, singing, and flower-plaiting. The wily preacher, Socrates-like, rejoined: "This is something quite out of the common run. Of course she knows how to rub the shoulders and loins, and has learned the art of shampooing?" This remark offends the fond father. "I have not fallen so low as to let my daughter learn shampooing!" The preacher blandly advises him not to put himself in a passion, and proceeds to descant upon the Whole Duty of Woman, as understood in Japan. "She must look upon her husband's parents as her own. If her honored father-in-law or mother-in-law fall ill, her being able to plait flowers and paint pictures and make tea will be of no use in the sick-room. To shampoo her parents-in-law, and nurse them affectionately, without employing a shampooer or servant-maid, is the right path of a daughter-in-law." Upon hearing these words, the father sees his error, and blushes with shame; whereupon the preacher admits that music and painting are not bad in themselves, only they must not be pursued to the exclusion of things more important, of which shampooing is one.
He draws a sad picture of a wife who has learned nothing but the graceful arts. Before the bottom of the family kettle is scorched black the husband will be sick of his bargain—a wife all untidy about the head, her apron fastened round her as a girdle, a baby twisted somehow into the bosom of her dress, and nothing in the house to eat but some wretched bean-soup, and that bought at a store. "What a ten-million-times miserable thing it is when parents, making their little girls hug a great guitar, listen with pleasure to the poor little things playing on instruments big enough for them to climb upon, and squeaking out songs in their shrill treble voices!" Such girls, if not closely watched, will be prematurely falling in love and running away to be married.
These sermons are so curiously different from any thing which we are accustomed to think of as sermons that I am tempted to extract the conclusion of one of them. The text is a passage from "Môshi," which touches upon the folly of men in being more ashamed of a bodily defect than of a moral fault. Mark how the merry Japanese preacher "improves" the subject: