Orientalia, continued

For many years I have anguished (well, that may be too strong a word) over my attachment to a book that I was otherwise charmed by. It is titled, "The Jingle of a Jap," and was written by Clara Bell Thurston in 1908, an era when sensitivity to racist references was not at its keenest (or so I believed).

It was only this week, however, that I discovered it does, in fact, redeem itself. The story tells of a Japanese boy doll in America who falls impossibly in love with a doll described as follows:

Her eyes were of the
brightest blue;
Her hair the fairest flax,
Her gowns were of the latest cut;
Her cheeks the pinkest wax.

Well, as Woody Allen says, the only true love is unrequited (no consolation to our little Japanese doll) and at the end of the tale, he returns home to Japan, where "he was quite - yes, just as good/As any other doll," and where:

His parents were delighted
To think that he had left a land
Where folks were so benighted.

Well, to my chagrin for all these years I truly hadn't fully understood that "benighted" meant "intellectually or morally ignorant," which comment on the author's part shows remarkable awareness. I can now adore the book with impunity (the PC police had been at my door).

Evidently the book originally came with a small attached Japanese doll, which I hoped to find online and did not. However, in the course of my sleuthing I came upon a reference to a book that makes me think of Princess Haiku. It is by Pierre Loti, written in 1905, and titled, Madame Chrysantheme. I don't know about the illustrations in his book, but I happened upon a postcard of a certain Mademoiselle Chrysantheme, as follows:


It looks to me as if she has carnations in her hair, but I will leave that determination to the experts in the field. Princess Haiku?