The books which have been written of late years about Japan have either been compiled from official records, or have contained the sketchy impressions of passing travelers. Of the inner life of the Japanese the world at large knows but little: their religion, their superstitions, their ways of thought, the hidden springs by which they move -- all these are as yet mysteries. Nor is this to be wondered at. The recent revolution in Japan has wrought changes social as well as political; and it may be that when, in addition to the advance which has already been made, railways and telegraphs shall have connected the principal points of the Land of Sunrise, the old Japanese, such as he was and had been for centuries when we found him eleven short years ago, will have become extinct. . . .
-- Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford,
Lord Redesdale, G.C.V.O., K.C.B.
Formerly Second Secretary
to the British Legation in Japan