We
Europeans regard this in the light of heroism--and it would be heroism
in the case of a European. But with the sacrifice of his individual life
in the interest of the community, the Japanese instinctively yields the
smaller value. In the same way Greeks and Romans did not attach very
much importance to life; suicide was very common, and frequently
committed without any special motive. As true love is based on
personality, it is impossible for the modern East-Asiatic to know love
in our sense. Lowell agrees with this: "Love, as we understand it, is an
unknown feeling in the East." He reports that Japanese women will appear
before strangers entirely nude, without the least trace of
embarrassment--as would Greek women!--because they are innocent of that
other aspect of personality--the feeling of shame. To be ashamed implies
the desire of concealing something individual and intimate; where this
is not the case, there can be no feeling of shame. Finally, I should
like to point out that the perversity and sexual refinement peculiar to
China and Japan are attributable simply to the fact that the limits of
sexuality cannot be overstepped, and that sexuality is therefore
dependent on vice and perversity to satisfy its craving for variety.
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