IV
A FLYINQ VISIT TO BERLIN*

Somehow I don't care much for Germany. I
rather think I have contracted this dislike for the
country from my hatred of its language. Nobody
(except some cranky heads) likes a foreign tongue
from the beginning ; but I have never been able to
educate myself into a tolerant attitude towards the
German language. I began to study the language
at the comparatively early age of seventeen—I did
not know a word of P'rench before I was twenty.
I cannot now clearly recollect the motive which
prompted me to learn the language ; but it seems I
got the idea into my head that one would not be
regarded as an educated person in Japan without a
knowledge of German. There is a superstition
among  the  professed   scholars   of   Japan  that   a
 

*The article appeared in the " Far East," October 1913.