Edward Sylvester Morse

“ Simple and unpretending as the interior of a Japanese house appears to be, it is wonderful upon how many places in their apparently naked rooms the ingenuity and art-taste of the cabinet-maker can be expended. Naturally, the variety of design and finish of the tokonoma and chigai-dana is unlimited save by the size of their areas; for with the sills and upright posts, the shelves and little closets, sliding-doors with their surfaces for the artists' brush, and the variety of woods employed, the artisan has a wide field in which to display his peculiar skill. ”

“ The garden, with its shrubs, plats of flowers, stepping-stones leading to the fish-pond filled with lotus and lilies, and the bamboo trellis, is a good specimen of an old garden upon which but little care has been bestowed.
In the cities nothing is more surprising to a foreigner than to go from the dust and turmoil of a busy street directly into a rustic yard and the felicity of quiet country life. On one of the busy streets of Tokio I had often passed a low shop, the barred front of which was never opened to traffic, nor was there ever any one present with whom to deal. ”

“ A girl who in our country would deem it immodest to appear among the members of her own family in a robe de chambre, and yet under the glare of a bright gas-light, in the midst of scores of strangers, appears with low corsage, is committing an act which to a Turkish woman would appear inexplicable. To a Japanese, the sight of our dazzling ball-rooms, with girls in décolleté dresses, clasped in the arms of their partners and whirling to the sound of exciting music, must seem the wildest debauch imaginable ”

“ John, and in the northern part of Maine, one sees the wooden houses of the French Canadians having roofs widely projecting, with the eaves gracefully turning upward, presenting a much prettier appearance than does the stiff angular roof of the New England house.
It is indeed a matter of wonder that some one in building a house in this country does not revert to a thatched roof. Our architectural history shows an infinite number of reversions, and if a thatched roof were again brought into vogue, a new charm would be added to our landscape. ”

“ A Japanese familiar with his airy and barn-like theatres, his public readings under an open tent-like structure, or gatherings in a room in which one or all sides may be open to the air even in mid-winter, would look upon the usual public gatherings of our people in lecture-halls, schoolrooms, and other closed apartments, wherein the air often becomes so foul that people faint and struggle to the door to get a breath of fresh air,—a Japanese, I say, would justly look upon such practices as filthy to the last degree. ”

“ Furthermore, in the midst of so much that is evanescent they see the necessity of providing enduring points of interest in the way of little ponds and bridges, odd-shaped stone lanterns and inscribed rocks, summer-houses and rustic fences, quaint paths of stone and pebble, and always a number of evergreen trees and shrubs. We, indeed, have feebly groped that way with our cement vases, jigsaw pavilions green with poisonous compound, and cast-iron fountains of such design that one no longer wonders at the increase of insanity in our midst. ”

“ It is a source of amazement to a foreigner to find in the rear of a row of dull and sombre business-houses independent dwellings, with rooms of exquisite taste and cleanliness. I remember, in one of the busiest streets of Tokio, passing through a lithographer's establishment, with the inky presses and inky workmen in full activity, and coming upon the choicest of tiny gardens and, after crossing a miniature foot-bridge, to a house of rare beauty and finish. It is customary for the common merchant to live under the same roof with the shop, or in a closely contiguous building ”

“ He naturally dislikes the anomaly of a house of the lightest description oftentimes sustaining a roof of the most ponderous character, and fairly loathes a structure that has no king-post, or at least a queen-post, truss; while the glaring absurdity of a house that persists in remaining upright without a foundation, or at least without his kind of a foundation, makes him furious. The mistake made by most writers in criticising Japanese house-structure, and indeed many other matters connected with that country, is that these writers do not regard such matters from a Japanese stand-point. ”

“ After studying the Japanese home for a while, however, one comes to realize that display as such is out of the question with them, and to recognize that a severe Quaker-like simplicity is really one of the great charms of a Japanese room. Absolute cleanliness and refinement, with very few objects in sight upon which the eye may rest contentedly, are the main features in household adornment which the Japanese strive after, and which they attain with a simplicity and effectiveness that we can never hope to reach. ”

“ A BIRD'S-EYE view of a large city in Japan presents an appearance quite unlike that presented by any large assemblage of buildings at home. A view of Tokio, for example, from some elevated point reveals a vast sea of roofs,—the gray of the shingles and dark slate-color of the tiles, with dull reflections from their surfaces, giving a sombre effect to the whole. ”

“ Plots of ground that in this country are too often encumbered with coal-ashes, tea-grounds, tin cans, and the garbage-barrel, in Japan are rendered charming to the eye by the simplest means. With cleanliness, simplicity, a few little evergreen shrubs, one or two little clusters of flowers, a rustic fence projecting from the side of the house, a quaintly shaped flower-pot or two, containing a few choice plants,—the simplest form of garden is attained. So much do the Japanese admire gardens, and garden effects, that their smallest strips of ground are utilized for this purpose. ”

“ He recalls with satisfaction certain works on household art, in which it is maintained that a table with carved cherubs beneath, against whose absurd contours one knocks his legs, is an abomination; and that carpets which have depicted upon them winged angels, lions, or tigers,—or, worse still, a simpering and reddened maiden being made love to by an equally ruddy shepherd,—are hardly the proper surfaces to tread upon with comfort, though one may take a certain grim delight in wiping his soiled boots upon them. ”

“ It sends us metal-work from Birmingham, which is as vulgar in form as it is flimsy in execution. It decorates the finest modern porcelain with the most objectionable character of ornament. It lines our walls with silly representations of vegetable life, or with a mass of uninteresting diaper. It bids us, in short, furnish our houses after the same fashion as we dress ourselves,—and that is with no more sense of real beauty than if art were a dead letter.” Let us contrast our tastes in these matters with those of the Japanese, and perhaps profit by the lesson. ”

“ Unfamiliar as he is with the corner loafer eying every girl that walks by, or with that class which throng our walks with the sole purpose of staring at the girls, who are there for the purpose of being stared at, what must he think of our people when he visits our summer resorts at the seaside and sees a young girl—nay, swarms of them—tripping over the sand under a bright sun, bare-legged, clad only in a single wrapper, which when wet clings to her form and renders her an object of contemplation to a battalion of young men who fringe the beach! ”

“ The kitchen of the common city house in both countries is oftentimes a dark narrow room, ill-lighted, and altogether devoid of comfort for the cook. Among this class of houses the kitchen is the least defined of Japanese rooms; it lacks that tidiness and definition so characteristic of the other rooms. It is often a narrow porch or shed with pent roof, rarely, if ever, possessing a ceiling; its exposed rafters are blackened by the smoke, which finds egress through a scuttle, through which often comes the only light that illuminates the dim interior. ”

“ As one becomes familiar with the picturesqueness and diversity in the Japanese roof and ridge, he wonders why the architects of our own country have not seen fit to extend their taste and ingenuity to the roof, as well as to the sides of the house. There is no reason why the ridge of an ordinary wooden house should invariably be composed of two narrow weather-strips, or why the roof itself should always be stiff, straight, and angular. ”

“ In the manner of building, one recognizes the propriety of constructive art as being in better taste; and in a Japanese house one sees this principle carried out to perfection. The ceiling of boards, the corner posts and middle posts and transverse ties are in plain sight. The corner posts which support the roof play their part as a decorative feature, as they pass stoutly upward from the ground beneath. A fringe of rafters rib the lower surface of the wide overhanging eaves, and these in turn rest firmly on an unhewn beam which runs as a girder from one side of the verandah to the other. ”

“ He further realizes that his personal comfort is enhanced by the absence of many things deemed indispensable at home. In regard to the bed and its arrangements, the Japanese have reduced this affair to its simplest expression. The whole floor, the whole house indeed, is a bed, and one can fling himself down on the soft mats, in the draught or out of it, upstairs or down, and find a smooth, firm, and level surface upon which to sleep,—no creaking springs, hard bunches or awkward hollows awaiting him, but a bed-surface as wide as the room itself, and comfortable to the last degree. ”

“ While in a Japanese house, as we have seen, the most ample conveniences exist for taking a hot or cold bath, the minor conveniences for washing the face and hands are not always so apparent. In such attempts one is more often reminded of a primitive country house at home, where one either goes down to the kitchen, and amid a clutter of pails and pans manages to wash himself, or else takes a tin basin and goes out to the well,—and this on a fresh cool morning is by far the more agreeable. ”

“ It is no wonder, then, that as our people have gradually become awakened within recent years to some idea of fitness and harmony of color, the conventional flower-bed has been hopelessly abandoned, and now green grass grows over the graves of most of these futile attempts to defy Nature. ”

“ On top of these a little rustic lookout with thatched roof is made, from which if a view of Fuji can be got the acme is indeed reached. In still larger gardens,—that is, gardens measuring several hundred feet each way,—the ponds and bridges, small hills and meandering paths, with shrubs trimmed in round balls of various sizes, and grotesquely-shaped pines with long tortuous branches running near the ground, are all combined in such a way by the skilful landscape gardener that the area seems, without exaggeration of statement, ten times as vast. ”

“ So far as I know, a national impulse has never led the Japanese to commemorate great deeds in the nation's life by enduring monuments of stone. The reason may be that the plucky little nation has always been successful in repelling invasion; and a peculiar quality in their temperament has prevented them from perpetuating in a public way, either by monuments or by the naming of streets and bridges, the memories of victories won by one section of the country over another. ”

“ Fig 10.—Roof-frame of Large Building. The roof, if it be of tile or thatch, represents a massive weight,—the tiles being thick and quite heavy, and always bedded in a thick layer of mud. The thatch, though not so heavy, often becomes so after a long rain. The roof-framing consequently has oftentimes to support a great weight; and though in its structure looking weak, or at least primitive in design, yet experience must have taught the Japanese carpenter that their methods were not only the simplest and most economical, but that they answered all requirements. ”

“ When it is understood, however, that the Japanese working classes—such as the carpenters, masons, and others—often bathe two or three times a day, and must of necessity enter the bath in a state of cleanliness such as our workmen rarely if ever attain, the statement loses some of its force. When it is further added that these people do not wash in the baths, but boil or soak in them for a while, and then upon a platform, with an extra bucket of water and a towel, wash and dry themselves, the filthy character of this performance assumes quite another aspect. ”

“ Not only do they show their superiority in their work, but in their versatile ability in making new things. One is amazed to see how patiently a Japanese carpenter or cabinet-maker will struggle over plans, not only drawn in ways new and strange to him, but of objects equally new,—and struggle successfully. It is a notorious fact that most of the carpenters in our smaller towns and villages are utterly incompetent to carry out any special demand made upon them, outside the building of the conventional two-storied house and ordinary roof. ”