It is for ever the man’s city, if we can call Kyoto the city of women for the sake of comparison; in consequence, it is apt to be naked, bizarre and often arrogant, but there is no other city like Tokyo, which is honest and simple. As a piece of the art the city is sadly unfinished; in its unfinishedness we fee! a charm, as I said before, the charm of weariness that rather breaks, in spite of itself, an artistic unity. Consciousness of perfection is unknown to the city; while it is quick and bright on the one hand, it is, on the other, verily lazy and uncivilised, like the Japanese temperament itself. I can count, on the spot, many a street which raises an apologetic look, as if they did not approve their own existence even themselves; it is quite natural, I say, as it is the city as a whole, withuot a definite purpose.
I think that “New Japan” (what a skeptic shallow sound it has!) has little to do with the real Japan of human beauty, because it was created largely by the advertisement, for which we paid the most exorbitant price to get the mere name of that; in short, we bought it with ready cash. Therefore it is no wonder that it
