"'Halloo!' said the man to the deer, 'what's this? Since you've been there all the time, why did you not roar?'
"Then the stag answered, with an innocent face,
"'Oh, I came here to listen to the lamentations of you gentlemen.'
"Isn't that a funny story?
"Old and young, men and women, rich and poor, never cease grumbling from morning till night. All this is the result of a diseased heart. In short, for the sake of a very trifling inclination or selfish pursuit, they will do any wrong in order to effect that which is impossible. This is want of judgment, and this brings all sorts of trouble upon the world. If once you gain possession of a perfect heart, knowing that which is impossible to be impossible, and recognizing that that which is difficult is difficult, you will not attempt to spare yourself trouble unduly. What says the 'Chin-Yo?' The wise man, whether his lot be cast among rich or poor, among barbarians or in sorrow, understands his position by his own instinct. If men do not understand this, they think that the causes of pain and pleasure are in the body. Putting the heart on one side, they earnestly strive after the comforts of the body, and launch into extravagance, the end of which is miserly parsimony. Instead of pleasure, they meet with grief of the heart, and pass their lives in weeping and wailing. In one way or another, everything in this world depends upon the heart. I implore every one of you to take heed that tears fall not to your lot."
The Rat Rice Merchants. (A Japanese Caricature, from "Japan and the Japanese," by Aimé Humbert.)
A people capable of producing and enjoying sermons like these, so free from the solemn and the sanctimonious, would be likely to wield the humorous pencil also. Turning to the illustrated work of M. Aimé Humbert, we find that the foibles of human nature are satirized by the Japanese draughtsmen in caricatures, of which M. Humbert gives several specimens. These, however, are not executed with the clearness and precision which alone could render them effective in our eyes; and a very large proportion of them employ that most ancient and well-worn device of investing animals with the faculties of human beings. The best is one representing rats performing all the labors of a rice warehouse. Rats, as M. Humbert remarks, are in Japan the most dreaded and determined thieves of the precious rice. The picture contains every feature of the scene—the cashier making his calculations with his bead calculator; the salesman turning over his books in order to show his customers how impossible it is for him to abate a single cash in the price; the shop-men carrying the bales; coolies bearing the straw bags of money at the end of bamboos; porters tugging away at a sack just added to the stock; and a new customer saluting the merchant. The Japanese do not confine themselves to this kind of burlesque. They take pleasure in representing a physician examining with exaggerated gravity a patient's tongue, or peering into ailing eyes through enormous spectacles, while he lifts with extreme caution the corner of the eyelid. A quack shampooing a victim is another of their subjects. One picture represents a band of blind shampooers on their travels, who, in the midst of a ford, are disputing what direction they shall take when they reach the opposite bank. Begging friars, mishaps of fishermen, blind men leading the blind, jealous women, household dissensions, women excessively dressed, furnish opportunities for the satirical pencil of the Japanese artists, who also publish series of comic pictures, as we do, upon such subjects as "Little Troubles in the Great World," "The Fat Man's Household," "The Thin Man's Household." If these efforts of the Japanese caricaturists do not often possess much power to amuse the outside world, they have one qualification that entitles them to respect—most of them are good-tempered.