doubtless put Joseph’s coat of many colors quite out of countenance.  Combinations and brilliancy that to the Western eye of culture seem crude and gaudy, typical of barbaric splendor, are in constant use, and are apparently thought to be fine.  The Japanese display both taste and its lack in the choice of colors for clothing; this contradiction is the more striking in view of the taste manifest in the decorations of the homes of all classes of the people.  Few sights are more ludicrously unaesthetic than the red, yellow, and blue worsted crocheted caps and shawls for infants, which shock all our ideas of aesthetic harmony.

In connection with Western ways or articles of clothing, the native aesthetic faculty often seems to take its flight.  In a foreign house many a Japanese seems to lose his sense of fitness.  I have had schoolboys, and even gentlemen, enter my home with hobnailed muddied boots, without wiping their feet on the conspicuous door mat, which is the more remarkable since, in their own homes, they invariably take off their shoes on entering.  I have frequently noticed that in railway cars the first comers monopolize the seats, and the later ones receive not the slightest notice, being often compelled to stand for an hour at a time, although, with a little moving, there would be abundant room for all.  I have noticed this so often that I cannot think it an exceptional occurrence.  I do not believe it to be intentional rudeness, but to be due simply to a lack of real heart politeness.  Yet a true and deep aesthetic development, so far at least as relates to conduct, to say nothing of the spirit of altruism, would not permit such indifference to another’s discomfort.

My explanation for this, and for all similar defects in etiquette, is somewhat as follows.  Etiquette is popularly conceived as consisting of rules of conduct, rather than as the outward expression of the state of the heart.  From time immemorial rules for the ordinary affairs of life have been formulated by superiors and have been taught the people.  In all usual and conventional relations, therefore, the average farmer and peasant know how to express perfect courtesy.  But in certain situations, as in foreign houses and the railroad car, where there are no precedents to follow, or rules to obey, all evidence of politeness takes its flight.  The old rules do not fit the new conditions.  Not being grounded on the inner principles of etiquette, the people are not able to formulate new rules for new conditions.  To the Westerner, on the other hand, these seem to follow from the simplest principles of common sense and kindliness.  The general collapse of etiquette in Japan, which native writers note and deplore, is due, therefore, not only to the withdrawal of feudal pressure, but also to introduction of strange circumstances for which the people have no rules, and to the fact that the people have not been taught those underlying principles of high courtesy which are applicable on all occasions.