The delicacy of the Asiatic touch is exemplified in the wood-carving upon the doorways and pediments of the Japanese dwelling. Arabesques and reproductions of subjects from Nature are executed with a clearness and precision such as we are accustomed to admire on the lacquered-ware cabinets and bronzes of Japan. With us, wood has almost completely disappeared as a glyptic material. The introduction of mindless automatic machinery has starved out the chisel. Mouldings are run out for us by the mile, like iron from the rolling-mill or tunes from a musical-box, as cheap and as soulless. Forms innately beautiful thus become almost hateful, because hackneyed. If all the women we see were at once faultlessly beautiful and absolute duplicates of each other in the minutest details of feature, complexion, dress and figure, we should be in danger of conceiving an aversion to the sex. So there is a certain pleasure in tracing in a carven object, even though it be hideous, the patient, faithful, watchful work of the human hand guided at every instant by the human eye. And this Japanese tracery is by no means hideous. The plants and animals are well studied from reality, and truer than the average of popular designs in Europe a century ago, if not now. It is simple justice to add that for workmanlike thoroughness this structure does not suffer in comparison with those around it.
Besides this dwelling for its employés, the Japanese government has in a more central situation, close to the Judges' Pavilion, another building. The style of this is equally characteristic. Together, the two structures will do what houses may toward making us acquainted with the public and private ménage of Japan.
In the neat little Swedish School-house, of unpainted wood, that stands next to the main Japanese building, we have another meeting of antipodes. Northern Europe is proud to place close under the eye of Eastern Asia a specimen of what she is doing for education. Sweden has indeed distinguished herself by the interest she has shown in the exposition. At the head of her commission was placed Mr. Dannfeldt, who supervised her display at Vienna. His activity and judgment have obviously not suffered from the lapse of three years. This school-house is attractive for neatness and peculiarity of construction. It was erected by Swedish carpenters. The descendants of the hardy sea-rovers, convinced that their inherited vigor and thrift could not be adequately illustrated by an exclusively in-doors exhibition, sent their portable contributions in a fine steamer of Swedish build, the largest ever sent to sea from the Venice of the North, and not unworthy her namesake of the Adriatic. To compete in two of its specialties with the cradle of the common school and the steamship is a step that tells of the bold Scandinavian spirit.
The contemporaries and ancient foes of the Northmen, who overthrew the Goths on land and checkmated the Vikings in the southern seas, have a memorial in the beautiful Alhambra-like edifice of the Spanish government. Spain has no architecture so distinctive as that of the Moors, and the selection of their style for the present purpose was in good taste. It lends itself well to this class of building, designed especially for summer use; and many other examples of it will be found upon the grounds. The Mohammedan arch is suited better to materials, like wood and iron, which sustain themselves in part by cohesion, than to stone, which depends upon gravitation alone. Although it stands in stone in a long cordon of colonnades from the Ganges to the Guadalquivir, the eye never quite reconciles itself to the suggestion of untruth and feebleness in the recurved base of the arch. This defect, however, is obtrusive only when the weight supported is great; and the Moorish builders have generally avoided subjecting it to that test.
Spain also has taken the liberty of widening the range of her contributions. Soldiers, for instance, find no place in the official classification of subjects for exhibition. She naturally thought it worth while to show that the famous infanteria of Alva, Gonsalvo, and Cuesta "still lived." So she sends us specimens of the first, if not just now the foremost, of all infantry. This microscopic invasion of our soil by an armed force will be useful in reminding us of the untiring tenacity which takes no note of time or of defeat, and which, indifferent whether the struggle were of six, fifty, or seven hundred years, wore down in succession the Saracens, the Flemings and the French.
Samples in this particular walk of competition come likewise from the battle-ground of Europe, Belgium sending a detachment of her troops for police duty. We may add that the Centennial has brought back the red-coats, a detachment of Royal Engineers, backed by part of Inspector Bucket's men, doing duty in the British division.