“Yes, the old proverb fits them, ’A physician breaking the rules of health.’”

“Why do you say that of my people?” I asked in a moment on the defensive.

“Because you literally strain your bodies to hold very high a moral standard for other nations, that you, yourselves fail to follow.”

“What do you mean?”

He went on slowly: 

“I was wondering if it is the custom in your country for ladies to smoke and drink liquor in public places?”

“Ladies!” I repeated amazed.  “American women smoke and drink in public or other places!  Certainly not,” I declared emphatically.  “Why do you hint at such a thing?”

Thirty years’ absence from my country had glorified my ideal of its womanhood.

“Only this,” said Kishimoto San, “several times while in Yokohama I had occasion to visit the Ocean Hotel.  On the broad veranda facing the sea were seated numbers of great men and ladies together, many of them were smoking and I could not count the number of cocktails they consumed.”

“They were not American women,” was my vigorous protest.

“Yes, madam, they were.  First they were beautiful and sparkle with eyes and tongue.  All men bow down to them same as we bow to our Empress.  Then afterwards I examine register and clerk of hotel confirm my thought.”

“Possibly what you say is true, Kishimoto San, but hasn’t it a flavor of littleness to label as a national habit the acts of a few exhilarated travelers?  What have you to say of the vast army of American women who could not be forced into doing the things you mention?”

“Nothing.  Except I was just wondering how America could spare so many missionaries.  You know we do not beg for their company.”

“It is not well for you to forget what your country of all others owes to the missionaries,” I reminded him.  “Though your beliefs are as far apart as the Poles, your sense of justice can but acknowledge that the unselfish service of the missionaries has led your people to heights they never could have reached without them.”

“True,” he responded, “it was not of their work in this country I was speaking, but the need of more work in their own.  You have very good story in your big book about the ‘beam and mote.’  Do not the morals of your own country need uplifting before you insist on sending emissaries to turn my people from the teachings of many centuries?  Has your religion and system of education proved so infallible for yourselves that you must force it upon others?  Ah, madam, America has led us far and high, but the West is for the West and the East is for the East.  So far, on the road to progress they can march side by side.  Further than that, the paths divide and are separated by insurmountable differences, because your country is ruled by the teachings of freedom which you cannot practise.  We are governed by the will of our divine Emperor, and the spirit of our ancestors.  And I pray the great Amida before my country is stripped of her love and reverence for these, my poor spirit will be annihilated.  For if they are taken away, what can we put in their places save the liberty of the Occident, which means license in the Orient.”