_ THE JAPANESE ARE WONDERFUL, IF YOU GET WHAT I MEAN
DON'T you just dote on the Japanese?
They're so esoteric -- and subtle and all that
sort of thing, aren't they?
Just look at Buddhism and Shintoism, for
instance. Could anything be more subtle and
esoteric?
We've been taking them up -- our Little Group
of Serious Thinkers, you know -- and they've
wonderful, simply WONDERFUL!
Not, of course, that one would BE a Buddhist or
a Shintoist -- but it's broadening to the mind, don't
you think, to come in contact with the great
thought of -- of -- well, really of people like Shinto,
you know, and those other sages?
And how wonderfully artistic they are -- the
Japanese!
The new parasols are quite Japanese, you know.
Haven't you seen them?
I have three, for different costumes. One is
covered with embroidered Japanese crepe, and an-
other with martine silk.
But the one, I think that express ME the most
accurately -- the one that represents my individuality,
REALLY -- is made with gold spokes covered with
black Chantilly lace. Japanese shape, you know,
and French workmanship.
And one must strive to represent one's self if one
is to be honest.
One must put one's soul into one's environment.
Although Environment isn't what it used to be.
You don't hear Environment spoken of nearly as
often as you did.
Environment is going out.
But besides being so esoteric and exotic and artistic,
and all that sort of things, the Japanese are
wonderfully up to date, too.
Do you know, they actually have a battleship
named The Tango!
Have you thought deeply of Interstellar Communication?
It promises to be one of the great new problems.
The loveliest man talked to us about it the other
evening. "Interstellar Communication in Its Relation
to Recent Psychic Hypotheses" -- that's the title;
I wrote it down. I always take notes of a title like that.
It helps one to get to the heart of the matter.
Interstellar Communication is wonderful -- simply WONDERFUL!
We're going to take up Mars soon.
Mamma said to me only yesterday: "Hermione,
you SIMPLY MUST drop some of your serious subjects
during the hot weather."
"Mamma," I told her, "that was all very well in
your day -- to take things up and drop them at will.
But people didn't have a Social Conscience in those
times. We advanced thinkers owe a duty to the
race. We must grapple with things. We are not
content to frivol, I WILL take up Mars!"
And, you know, I don't have the temperament to
remain idle. My mind MUST be active. Sometimes
when I think how active my mind is, I wonder my
forehead isn't wrinkled.
And of course that would be a loss -- anything
is a loss that destroys Beauty.
For, after all, Beauty is what the world needs
more than anything else. It's a serious thought --
how far Use should be sacrificed to Beauty, and
Beauty to Use, isn't it?
You know that's why I can't join the suffragists.
I am one, of course, but the suffragist yellow is
such a HORRID color I simply CANNOT wear it. _