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The Soul of the Far East-Part19_Percival Lowell(1855-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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The Far Orientals ought to be a particularly unimaginative set of



people. Such is precisely what they are. Their lack of imagination

is a well-recognized fact. All who have been brought in contact



with them have observed it, merchants as strikingly as students.

Indeed, the slightest intercourse with them could not fail to make



it evident. Their matter-of-fact way of looking at things is truly

distressing, coming as it does from so artistic a people.



One notices it all the more for the shock. To get a prosaic answer

from a man whose appearance and surroundings betoken better things



is not calculated to dull that answer's effect. Aston, in a

pamphlet on the Altaic tongues, cites an instance which is so much



to the point that I venture to repeat it here. He was a true

Chinaman, he says, who, when his English master asked him what he



thought of

"That orbed maiden



With white fires laden

Whom mortals call the moon,"



replied, "My thinkee all same lamp pidgin" (pidgin meaning thing in

the mongrel speech, Chinese in form and English in diction, which



goes by the name of pidgin English).

Their own tongues show the same prosaic character, picturesque as



they appear to us at first sight. That effect is due simply to the

novelty to us of their expressions. To talk of a pass as an



"up-down" has a refreshing turn to our unused ear, but it is a much

more descriptive than imaginative figure of speech. Nor is the



phrase "the being (so) is difficult," in place of "thank you,"

a surprisingly beautiful bit of imagery, delightful as it sounds for



a change. Our own tongue has, in its daily vocabulary, far more

suggestive expressions, only familiarity has rendered us callous to



their use. We employ at every instant words which, could we but

stop to think of them, would strike us as poetic in the ideas they



call up. As has been well said, they were once happy thoughts of

some bright particular genius bequeathed to posterity without so



much as an accompanying name, and which proved so popular that they

soon became but symbols themselves.



Their languages are paralleled by their whole life. A lack of any

fanciful ideas is one of the most salient traits of all Far Eastern



races, if indeed a sad dearth of anything can properly be spoken of

as salient. Indirectly their want of imagination betrays itself in



their every-day sayings and doings, and more directly in every

branch of thought. Originality is not their strong point. Their



utter ignorance of science shows this, and paradoxical as it may

seem, their art, in spite of its merit and its universality, does



the same. That art and imagination are necessarily bound together

receives no very forcible confirmation from a land where, nationally



speaking, at any rate, the first is easily first and the last easily

last, as nations go. It is to quite another quality that their



artisticexcellence must be ascribed. That the Chinese and later

the Japanese have accomplished results at which the rest of the



world will yet live to marvel, is due to their--taste. But taste or

delicacy of perception has absolutely nothing to do with



imagination. That certain of the senses of Far Orientals are

wonderfully keen, as also those parts of the brain that directly



respond to them, is beyond question; but such sensitiveness does not

in the least involve the less earth-tied portions of the intellect.



A peculiar responsiveness to natural beauty, a sort of mental

agreement with its earthlyenvironment, is a marked feature of the



Japanese mind. But appreciation, however intimate, is a very

different thing from originality. The one is commonly the handmaid



of the other, but the other by no means always accompanies the one.

So much for the cause; now for the effect which we might expect to






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