But this artificial impression disappears as with all novelty in people, and when one of the youngest of these child-women, at some moment in the evening, removed the mask of the jolly fat woman (that you know by the prints), behind which she had been singing, the little sad face told its contradictory story as touchingly as with any of her Aryan sisters. And late in the evening, when the fun, I suppose, was uproarious, we went to the extreme of writing and painting on fans, and one of our merchant guests wasted India-ink in mock tattooing of his bared arm and shoulder.
September 21.
We leave to-morrow morning.
This has been Sunday, our last day in Kioto. I have been trundled all day in a fearful rain, to see last sights, to look up shops for the last time. My runners have taken me to this or that place, near the great temples, where I hope finally to decide upon some little Buddha or Amida, which have tempted me among other sculptures, and I have dallied in the other shops that supply the small things that adhere to worship, and finally I have made a long visit to the good lady who has sold me pottery, and who once shocked my Western prudery by dilating upon the merits of unmentionable designs and indescribable bric-à-brac.
At length I return in the gray noon, giving a last look at each shop that I know; at the long facade of the "Inn of Great Wealth," at the signs and the flags of the theater; at the little gei-shas trotting about in couples, whom I recognize (for how can I tell them from those whom I know?); at the quaint, amusing little children, always a fresh delight; at the little pavilion near us, where the archers shoot; at the places where horses stand under the trees to be ridden by amateurs; at the small tea garden's pretty gates; at the latticed windows which open in the dusk; and then, with their coats sticking to their backs, and wet, stained legs, my runners leave me at the gate of the hotel; final settlement of purchases in boxes, packing, and receiving visits of departure.
In the late afternoon we go to the temples on the edge of the hill near us (the temples of Kiyomidzu) with two of our good friends and their children. Our runners insist upon dragging and bumping us up many steps, and finally escort us, almost to the temple itself, in a procession of double file, which, like a long tail, halts when we stop, and again waggles after us in uncertainty when we set off anew. We walk along the ascending street and stop to bargain at the innumerable little shops, full of little odds and ends, half playthings and half religious emblems or images, which are sold certainly to the pleasure of the many children who throng the place. And I, too, feel pleased at having children with us, and at having occasionally the timid little fingers of Miss Kimi in mine. In her other small hand she holds a fan that I painted yesterday for her father, and I wonder occasionally whether she wishes me to notice her possession. I surmise that the foreign gentleman gives her sometimes a little doubtful fear, as I catch her eyes looking up cautiously from below her "bangs." We talk, exactly of what it would be hard to say, for there is not with us enough of any one language "to go round," and our interpreter has been left out; but we feel distinctly that we understand each other, and our older companions explain quite a number of things in this partnership of a few words.
We ascend the high steps on one side of the tower and pass with the Sunday crowd through the great hall, like a corridor, along which are seated on altar steps golden images of gods, in a shadow dusted by the long beams of the afternoon sun, that pour across it from one open side. Through this veil of dancing motes we see the statues and the great gilded lotuses and candelabra, and the forms of attendant priests, and the crowd that passes, and that stops for a moment in prayer. The words that they repeat come into cadence with the shuffling of their feet, and the creaking of the planks of the flooring, and the sounds of the dropping of offerings.
The crowd is quiet, orderly, but amused at being out. The women smile out of their slanting eyes and walk leaning forwards, and their black hair shines like lacquer, and the artificial flowers in the great folds of the coiffure dance in the sunlight. They are quietly dressed, all but the young girls, who wear bright colors and blue satin sashes. The men slide about, also in quiet silk or cotton. A large part of them are dressed in every shade of blue; occasionally the bare leg comes out, but all wear holiday dress, except our runners or their fellows, who keep their workday looks. And the children—they are all everywhere, and all at home; they are all dressed up, with full, many-colored skirts, and showy sashes, and every little head with some new and unexplainable spot of tonsure.
Many of the crowd turn around the building, or its veranda, touching the columns with their hands and following tracks, worn deep like ruts, in the planking of enormous thickness. Oye-San points this out to me, and indicates its religious intention. Both he and our other companion clap their hands and pray for a moment. A wave of seriousness and abstraction passes over their faces; then again all is as before, and we step out upon the wide balcony, which, built upon gigantic piles, hangs over a deep hollow filled with trees and buildings, all in the shadow now. From below rise, with the coolness of the green trees and grass, the sounds of dropping waters. In time we descend the path and the steps, and drink from one of the streams which fall from gigantic gargoyles, out of a great mass of wall.
But it is late: we look again upon Kioto from the temple above, all swimming in light and haze, and walk back to our kurumas, a final good-by to the children, but we shall see their parents again; and then we return, and look from our veranda for the last time at the city stretched out in the evening, lost almost entirely in the twilight of a great lake of violet fog. A few shapes are just felt in the misty space, but no more than as waves in water, or as greater densities in the undulations of the colored vapor. So uncertain is everything that the nearest temple building loses its place, and floats all below its roof; but its wet tiles glitter, reflecting the rose-colored drift in the highest pale turquoise sky.
Below us, the trees make a delicate pattern of dark, wet lace.
Then the rose-color deepens and dulls, the upper sky becomes colorless; all floats in unreal space, and Kioto disappears from before my eyes: forever, I suppose—as the charm of this scene, which will never come again; as the little maiden whom I met to-day, only for an eternal good-by.
A JAPANESE DAY.—FROM KIOTO TO GIFU
Nagoya, September.
Notwithstanding the long parting, which kept us up very late, the same courteous Japanese friends were at the hotel in the morning to bid us a still more final good-by. Oye-San alone remained faithful to his self-intrusted care of us, and determined to see us as far as the land would allow,—that is to say, to the shores of Biwa Lake.
The caravan was smaller now, diminished by our parting with Awoki, the interpreter, and the men necessary to trundle him about. Still we were a goodly company,—nineteen men in all, of whom two were masters, one the servant, and the rest the runners who were to get us and our baggage to Otzu on Biwa Lake long before noon. There was to be no novelty on our road, it being merely the highway from the capital to the lake. It was a lovely morning, the sun long risen, and all the places and buildings now a part of our memories glistening in the shadow and the dew. We turned our backs for the last time on Kiyomidzu, and ran through the great gate of the temple near us; then, bumping down the steep steps under it, skirted the great wall of Dai Butzu and the interminable side of the Sanjiu sangendo (the hall of the thirty-three spaces),[10] along which in old times the archers used to shoot. Then we gradually got out of the city, into the road filled with traffic going both ways. There seemed to be no break between town and country. Here and there the mountain side, covered with trees, descended to the road. But the effect was that of a long street, deep among hills, and continuously spotted with buildings. Long trains of beautiful black bulls, drawing lumber or merchandise, or carrying straw-covered bales, streamed peacefully along. We passed peasant women,—hardy, tall, sometimes handsome, with scarlet undergowns held up; occasionally one riding on a pack-horse, or in her place a child perched on the hump of the wooden saddle. Or, again, peasants bearing loads on their backs, or carriers with weighty merchandise swung between them on poles; priests, young and old, stepping gravely in their white, or yellow, or black dresses—some with umbrellas open, others, whose quicker step meant that they had not far to go (perhaps only to some wayside temple), protecting their shaven heads with outspread fan. Or a kuruma, usually with one runner, taking into town, economically, two women together, one old, one young, and followed by another kuruma carrying some old gentleman, very thin or very fat, the head of a family. Kurumas carrying Japanese tourists or travelers, with hideous billycock hats, or Anglo-Indian helmets, or wide straw hats à la mode de Third Avenue, these abominable head-pieces contrasting with their graceful gowns, as did their luggage, wrapped up in silk handkerchiefs with their European traveling rugs. Or, again, other kurumas carrying unprotected females in pairs, with the usual indifferent or forlorn look; or couples of young girls more gaily dressed, with flowery hairpins, the one evidently a chaperon to the other; then a Government official, all European, with hurrying runners; sometimes, but rarely, the Japanese litter, or kago, or several if for a party, their occupants lying at their ease as to their backs, but twisted into knots as to their feet, and swaying with the movement of the trotting carriers. Bent to one side by the heavy ridgepole, which passes too low to allow the head to lie in the axis of the body, sweet-eyed women's faces, tea-rose or peach-colored, looked up from the bamboo basket of the litter. With proper indifference their lords and masters looked at us obliquely. On the roofs was spread a miscellaneous quantity of luggage.
From time to time troopers or officers, of course in European costume, mounted on Japanese chargers, cantered past. Two hours of this; then the sides of the road, which had risen and fallen with hill and valley, melted away, and the harbor of Otzu and Lake Biwa and blue mountains over the water, and others sketched in the air, were spread before us in the blaze of sunlight seen through the cool shadow of the mountains.
We rode down the hill to a little jetty, marvelously like a North River dock, with big sheds where passengers were waiting, and a little steamer fastened to the wharf. We bade good-by for the last time to Oye-San, who said many things that we appreciated but did not understand the words of, and who pointed to the square Japanese sails glittering in the far-off light, saying, "Fune, Fune!" ("The boats, the boats!") We dismissed kurumas and kurumaya and sailed off with Hakodate (the courier) alone. We stretched ourselves on the upper deck, half in sun, half in shadow, and blinked lazily at the distant blue mountains and the great sea-like lake.
Two hours later we had landed at a long jetty, in a heavy sea, with tossing dark blue water, different from the quiet azure of our sail. The brisk wind, blowing the white clouds over the blue sky, was clear and cold. We got out of its reach, as I felt neuralgic, and tried to sleep in a little tea-house, waking to the screams of the tea-house girl, "Mairimasho!" and I had but time to get into the train. Whether it started from there or had arrived there, I never knew. I had been glad to forget everything in dreamland.
I remember little of my railroad ride, what with neuralgia and heat, and the effects of the dance of the little steamer on Lake Biwa. There were mountains and ravines, and vast engineering protections for our path, and everywhere the evidence of a struggle with the many running waters we crossed or skirted. The blue and silver of the lake that we had crossed, and the sweetness of its air, were shut out in the dust and the heat of mountain sides. We had not seen the Eight Beauties of Biwa Lake.[11] The "Autumn Moon from Ishiyama" had set long before we passed, and the idea of other temples to be seen brought out A——'s antagonism to more climbing, only to be rewarded by promenades through lanterns and shrines and confused struggling with dates and divinities. "The Evening Snow on Hira-yama" was not to fall until we should be across the Pacific; nor could we ask of that blue September morning "The Blaze of Evening at Seta" nor "The Evening Bell of Mii-dera"—though we heard the bell early, and wondered whether it were still uninjured, from the time when big Benkei carried it off and exchanged it for too much soup, exactly seven hundred years ago; nor "Rain by Night at Karasaki," the place of the famous pine-tree, which was growing, they say, twenty-four hundred years ago, when Jimmu was emperor. There I might have met, perhaps, the "Old Man and the Old Woman" you have seen over and over again in the pictures and on the fans. (They are the spirits of the other old pine-trees of Takasago and Sumiyoshi, and they are fond of visiting each other.) Nor did we see "The Wild Geese alighting at Katada," but I felt as if I had seen "The Boats sailing back from Yabase" and "The Bright Sky with a Breeze at Awadzu." If I had not, I still had seen boats sailing over and under as lovely a blue as can be spread by early September days. I suppose that our friend Oye-San was trying to recall these last classical quotations to me when he bade me good-by at the landing in Otzu. An ocean rolls between his Parnassus and ours, but he lives much nearer to the mood that once made beautiful the names of Tempe and Helicon and the winding Meander.
With all this dreaming I fell asleep, and woke free from pain, but stupid and unimpressionable, as our train stopped at the little station from which we were to ride to Gifu. This was a little, new way-station (of course I don't remember its name), so like, and so unlike, one of ours, with the same look of the railroad being laid down—"imposed"—on an earth which did not understand what it all meant—grass struggling to get back to the sides of filled-up ditches; timbers lying about; new, astonished buildings, in one of which we washed, and waited, and dined. Meanwhile Hakodate went after the runners who were to drag us on our afternoon ride, and then, if "we suited," to run with us the whole week, thirty-five miles a day, along the Tokaido, back toward Yokohama.
When all was ready it was late afternoon, and our procession ran along what seemed to be a vast plain of tableland, with high mountains for an edge. All seemed as clear and neat as the air we rode in. Somewhere there we must have passed the hill of "The Turning Back of the Chariot": this means that, long ago,—that is to say, about 1470,—the regent Yoshimoto, while traveling here, found that the inhabitants, to do him honor, had put in order, neat and trim, the thatch of every building. What the prince was looking for is what we call the picturesque. To miss all the charms that ruin brings was too much for his esthetic soul, and he ordered the wheels of his chariot to be turned for home. So did not we. Neater and neater grew the inclosures, farms, and villages; the fences had pretty gates,—curious patterns of bamboo pickets,—a far-away, out-of-the-world flavor of Holland or Flanders. Even the ordinary setting out of wayside trees, in this province of forestry, insisted on the analogy, confused perhaps with a dream of Lombard plains and mountains in a cool blue distance, for the mind insists on clinging to reminiscences, as if afraid to trust itself to the full sea of new impressions.
As I rode along, so neat and clean was each picture, framed in sunlight if we were in shadow, or in clear shade when we were in sunlight, that I thought I could remember enough small facts for sketches and notes when I should get to Gifu. We reached Gifu in the early twilight, and had no special one impression; we were framed in by the streets, and confused by turning corners, and disturbed by anxiety to get in. But we had one great triumph. Our guide was new to the place—as we were; and we chose our inn at our own sweet will, with a feeling of authority and personal responsibility delicious to experience after such ignominy of guidance. Up we went to our rooms, and opening the shojis[12] looked out upon the river, which seemed broad as a great lake. Our house was right upon it, and the open casement framed nothing but water and pointed mountains, stealing away in the obscure clearness of a colorless twilight. The running of the river, sloping down from the hills on a bed of pebbles, cut off the noises of the town, if there were any, and the silence was like that of far-away country heights. In this semi-painful tension the day's pictures disappeared from my mind. I was all prepared to have something happen, for which I should have been listening, when suddenly our host appeared, to say that the boats were coming down the river. The chilly evening air gave us new freshness, and off we started, deaf to the remonstrances of Hakodate, who had prepared and set out his very best for supper. We rushed past the artist in cookery, whose feelings I could yet appreciate, and plunged after our host into the dark streets. In a few minutes we were by the riverside, and could see far off what we took for our boat, with its roof and lanterns. The proffered backs of our lantern-bearing attendants gave the solution of how we were to get to it. Straddling our human nags, we were carried far out into the shallow, pebbly river, landed into the boat, and poled out into deeper water, nothing to be seen but the night and the conical hills, one of which I fancied to be Inaba, where was once Nobunaga's castle. Some faint mists were white in the distance, as if lighted by a rising moon. At no great distance from us, perhaps at a quarter of a mile, a light flickered over the water. On our approach we could distinguish a man connected with it, who apparently walked on the dark surface. He was evidently a fisherman or a shrimper, and his movements had all the strangeness of some long-legged aquatic bird. He knew his path, and, far out, followed some track or ford, adding to the loneliness as does a crane in a marshy landscape. Then I saw him no more, for he headed up the river toward an opening between the hills. Suddenly a haze of light rounded the corner of the nearest mountain, then grew into a line of fire coming toward us. Above the rustle of the river's course, and our own against it, came the beating of a cry in unison. The line of flame broke into many fires, and we could see the boats rushing down upon us. As quickly as I can write it, they came in an even line, wide apart—perhaps fifty feet or so—enough for us to pass between, whereupon we reversed our movement and drifted along with them. In the front of each boat, hung upon a bent pole, blazed a large cresset filled with pine knots, making above a cloud of smoke, starred with sparks and long needles of red cinders. Below, in the circle of each light, and on its outer rim, swam many birds, glossy black and white cormorants, straining so at the cords that held them that they appeared to be dragging the boats. As they spread like a fan before the dark shadow of the bows, the cords which fastened them glistened or were black in the night. Each string ran through the fingers of the master-fisher at the bows, and was fastened to his waist and lost in the glittering straw of his rain-skirt. Like a four-in-hand driver, he seemed to feel his birds' movements. His fingers loosened or tightened, or, as suddenly, with a clutch pulled back. Then came a rebellious fluttering, and the white glitter of fish in the beaks disappeared—unavailingly; each bird was forcibly drawn up to the gunwale, and seized by the neck encircled by its string-bearing collar. Then a squeeze—a white fish glittered out again and was thrown back into the boat. The bird scuttled away, dropped back into the water, and, shaking itself, was at work again. They swam with necks erect, their eyes apparently looking over everything, and so indifferent to small matters as to allow the big cinders to lie unnoticed on their oily, flat heads. But, every few seconds, one would stoop down, then throw back its head wildly with a fish crosswise in its mouth. When that fish was a small one it was allowed by the master of the bird to remain in the capacious gullet. Each pack guided by a master varied in numbers, but I counted thirteen fastened to the waist of the fisherman nearest to us. Behind him stood another poling: then farther back an apprentice, with a single bird, was learning to manage his feathered tools. In the stern stood the steersman, using a long pole. Every man shouted, as huntsmen encouraging a pack, "Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!"—making the cry whose rhythm we had heard when the flotilla bore down upon us.
Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, more passed as we kept alongside with motionless celerity. I tried to sketch in the insufficient light—making sometimes one sketch right upon another, so little could I see my lines in the treacherous light. Then the boats swerved off and were driven to the shore together, or as far as we could get to it, in the shallow water. Above us rose the steep green hillside, the trees and rocks lit up in an arabesque of light and dark by the now diminished flames.
The birds rested, standing in the water, preening their oily backs and white bellies, and flapping their ragged wings, which seemed to have been clipped. The apprentice caressed his bird, the fishermen and the steerers laughed and exchanged jokes and chatted generally, with all the good nature and making light of hard work which is so essentially Japanese.
Then the birds began to fight, and to show that peace was not their pleasure. Fresh pine knots were thrown into the cressets; each man took his place; the polers pushed off; the birds strained at the strings; and all da capo. A little longer we watched, and then we let the boats glide past us; the fires faded again into a haze of light as they went down the river toward the bridges of the town, now dotted with people.
Then we were carried to the shore as we had left it, and were piloted home through the streets, now filled with lanterns and movement. We found our outraged artist in cookery still indignant over our neglect of food, but he was gradually appeased, and made up for his hungry masters a fairly sufficient meal. Cigars, a scrutiny of my despairing sketches, and a long look at the lovely melancholy of the river and mountains before we closed the shojis for the night.
FROM KAMBARA TO MIYANOSHITA—A LETTER FROM A KAGO
September 28.
I am writing in a kago.[13] You do not know what an achievement this is, but I shall explain later on what a kago is, why I am in it, and why it is not exactly the place to expect a letter from. To begin at the beginning, we were yesterday afternoon at Kambara, on the gulf of Suruga Bay. We had eaten there in an inn by the water, while I watched through the screens the waving of a palm tree in the wind, which was now blowing autumnally and had cleared the sky and enlivened us with a hope of continuous view of Fuji. Along the beach, as we rode away, the breakers ran far up the sand, and the water was green as emerald from the brown, wet shore to the distant blue haze of the ocean in the south. At the end of the great curve of the gulf stretched the lines of green and purple mountains, which run far off into Idzu, and above them stood Fuji in the sky, very pale and clear, with one enormous band of cloud half-way up its long slope, and melting into infinite distance toward the ocean. Its nearest point hung half across the mountain's base, more solid than the mountain itself, and cast a long shadow upon it for miles of distance. Above, the eye could but just detect a faint haze in the delicate blue of the sky. Best of all weather, we thought; a breeder of bad weather, according to our men, who, alas! knew more of it than we did. For a mile now, perhaps, we ran along between the sea and the abrupt green wall of hills, so steep that we could not see them, and, turning sharply around a corner, beheld Fuji, now filling the entire field of sight, seeming to rise even from below us into the upper sky, and framed at its base by near green mountains; these opened as a gate, and showed the glittering streak of the swollen Fujikawa, the swiftest river in Japan.
The lower eastern slope was cut off by clouds, but its western line, ineffably delicate in clearness, stretched to the left out of our range of vision. Below its violet edge the golden slope spread in the sun, of the color of an autumn leaf. Along the center of this province of space the shadow of the great cloud rested. The marks of the spurs of the mountain were as faint as the streaks of the wind on a grain-field. Its cone was of a deep violet color, and as free of snow as though this had been the day of poetic tradition upon which the snow entirely disappears to fall again the following night. No words can recall adequately the simple splendor of the divine mountain. As A—— remarked, it was worth coming to far Japan for this single day.
Right into this marvelous picture we rode, through green plantations and rice-fields, which edged the bases of the nearest hills and lay between us and the river. There we found no means of crossing. All bridges had been carried away by the flood. The plain was inundated; travelers had been detained for a week by a sea of waters, and were scattered there and in neighboring villages, filling every resting-place; and, worst of all, the police officials would not allow us to tempt the fishermen to make the dangerous crossing.
The occasion was a solemn one. The police representative, upon seeing us come in person to request help, slipped off the easy Japanese dress which he was wearing in these days of forced idleness, and reappeared from behind the screen clad in his official European costume. I have no doubt that our interpreter explained to him what important persons we were, and what important letters we bore to important people of the land, for he kindly suggested that we might sail past the mouth of the river, from near Kambara, whence we had just come, so as to land far away from the spread of all this devastation; and he offered to send a deputy with a requisition for a junk and sufficient sailors from the nearest fishing-village on the bay—and so we returned. While Hakodate and the messenger went on to make all arrangements, A—— and myself stopped at the place where we had had our view of Fuji, to make a more careful sketch. You can have no idea of how much closer the clearer mind worked out the true outline of the mountain, which my excitement had heightened at least a couple of thousand feet; nor should I forget how my two-legged horse of a runner held my paint-box for me, and seemed to know exactly when and where I wished to dip my brush. It seemed to me that only a few moments had passed when the messenger returned to say that the boat was ready to launch, and that we must hurry to be out at sea before sunset; this too in view of the storm, which we might escape if we hurried. The implied threat made no impression on me. The picture before us had not changed any more than if painted by man. The great cloud hung fixed, apparently, in the same place. All was still: perhaps in the uppermost sky one could distinguish some outlines of white in the blue. Still we hurried off and arrived upon a scene of confusion and wild excitement. A captain and a crew had been found; their boat stood high up on the crest of the surf, now beating on the shore, and carried the line with which to pull out the small junk, still far up on the beach. The wheels of our kurumas had been taken off and their bodies had been placed in the hold.
As we got on board at least a hundred naked men pushed and tugged to start the junk upon the slope of sand. The sun was setting suddenly behind the headland of Shizuoka, and the air was filled with the moisture from the sea; a rosy bloom, pink as the clouds themselves, filled the entire air, near and far, toward the light. On the other side the distance was fading into gray and violet mist. The great mountain was still a great clear mass, but colorless, like the northern sky behind it, while, bathed in the color of fairyland, we rose and fell over the breakers—the spray, the waves, the boat, the bodies of the men, glistening and suffused with pink.
No painter ever saw a more ideal light. And suddenly it faded, leaving us in a still brilliant twilight, through which we looked at the tossing of the hazy sea. The mast was lifted and set, the great square sail was hoisted, and the captain took hold of the ponderous tiller. We stretched ourselves on the poop deck, prepared for a dance of seventeen miles; then under my protecting blanket I fell asleep—to wake and see before me a sheet of rain. The predicted storm had flooded us; we lay in the water that covered the deck, our waterproofs insufficient, and glad to be able to find some protection under the Japanese rain-coats of straw, whose merits I had not yet understood.
From under my shelter I could see that our mast was lowered, and that the captain and the sailors forward were working at the heavy sweeps. Below, under hatches, I could hear the groaning of our seasick runners. Between the gusts of rain came the voice of the captain, now in the straining agony of seasickness, next keeping up a steady, chanted talk with a mate forward. A lantern was lashed to the post of the tiller, and the captain's bare feet rose and fell with his steps at the great oar, showing sharply the action of tendons and muscles. I tried to sketch under my cover, then dozed,—sleepy with the rocking and the cold and the wet,—and with every waking hearing the whistling of the wind and the continuous monotonous voice in a language not understood. So passed the night.
We saw the morning break on a lonely, high, gray bank, streaked by the sea lines of different tides, and crowned with a line of pines of all sizes and shapes, stretching for miles dark green against the white clouds which covered the base of the mountains behind. Out of these white banks stood dull blue peaks, while the highest mountains were lost in cloud, and all was gray and desolate with the rain. The surf broke on the sand not more than a hundred yards from us. We lay there some time, waiting for more light, for all wind had ceased; then four men swam ashore with a rope, and towed us along the bank. The surf had abated, but landing was too difficult, and we were to be dragged, while our other men worked at the big sculls and pushed us along. We wore along four miles to a little bar, over which we were pulled by the men now in the water into a singular little harbor with an entrance not more than a hundred feet wide. On this the surf broke gently—white on the gray sea. To our left the backs of two sand-spits dotted the water, and on the right, looking out to sea, rose the edge of a grove of pines, with four or five houses, heavy roofed and thatched, against its green darkness.
On the curve of the beach before it stood a high pointed rock almost touched by the water, edged around and covered with pines—all but the perpendicular side facing the harbor. On its summit stood a little red temple, whose back we saw. On the other side, landwards, as we left our boat and followed our guides ashore around its base, a hundred steps ran straight up to the front of the little shrine—so steep and sudden that we could just look along their edge. From the high rock, recessed, ran back the shore, on which stood in a row three large junks with their sterns to the sea—behind them trees and houses. On the opposite side of the little harbor four of our men, up to their middle or up to their armpits in water, slowly dragged our junk nearer to the shore. All was quiet and gray—the men reflected in the moving water, the boat creaking along slowly. As I went up the beach, following our guide and the boatmen, I thought how like this was to the Homeric haven—the grove looking out to sea and frequented by "fowls maritimal"; the sacred rock; the meadows and the little stream; the long galleys drawn up on the beach. The little houses of the fishing-village were surrounded by gardens, and their walls largely made of plaited bamboo. There was no inn, but we found a house half shop, and were welcomed to some tea and to a room which the family hastened to abandon for us. There were only two rooms besides the entrance, which was a large passage floored with earth, and along one side of it a raised surface, from which began the level of our flooring.
Sliding partitions, hurriedly run up, made us a room, but the outside screens were full of holes, through which, in a few minutes, peered all the women and children of the village, who occasionally even pushed aside the screens to see more completely. The little passage in front of our open room was filled with girls and children intent upon our ways of smoking, of taking tea, and of eating—for we had biscuits with us, and fifteen hours at least without food had made us fairly hungry. Meanwhile the men landed their wagons and the trunks, and took their meal of rice, hastily made up, on the ledge of the platform on which we sat. This they did in a row, the whole twenty eating quietly but rapidly,—I was going to say firmly,—shoving into their mouths the rice from the bowls, and tearing with their fingers the fish just cooked. Meanwhile, among all the ugliness around us in women, shone out, with beautiful complexions,—lost in the others by exposure to wind and sun, by hard work, and probably by child-bearing,—three girls, who stood before us a long time, with sweet faces and bright eyes and teeth. They stared hard at us until stared at in return, when they dispersed, to watch us again like children from the doors and from the kitchen.
Our hostess, small, fat, good-natured, and polite, showing black-lacquered teeth between rosy lips, like ripe seeds in a watermelon, bustled about hurrying everything, and at the end of our meal our host appeared—from the kitchen apparently—and knelt before us. Poor and ragged as the house was, with ceilings black with age and smoke, and screens torn and worn by rubbing, the little tokonoma held a fairly good picture, and a pretty vase with flowers below it. But it was evidently one of the poorest of places, and had never seen a foreigner in it. This may have been the cause of the appearance of the ubiquitous Japanese policeman within five minutes of our arrival. He alone betrayed no curiosity, and disappeared with dignity on getting our credentials.
The rain still held off. We entered our kurumas, now ready, and hastened to the main road which we were to find at Numadsu, if that be the name of the place. But, alas! the rain came down, and my views were confined within the outline of an umbrella. My only adventure was stopping at some hovel on the road to buy some more of that heavy yellow oiled paper which replaces the leather apron that we usually find attached to our European carriages. By and by I consented to have the hood of my wagon put up, through which I could see little more than the thatched backs of my runners, their bowls of hats, off which the rain spattered upon their straw cloaks and aprons, and their wet brown legs, lifted with the regularity of automatons. It was getting cold, too, and women under their umbrellas wore the graceful short overcoat they call haori, and tottered over the wet ground on high wooden pattens.
This I noticed as we came into Mishima, from which place we were to begin our ascent up the Hakone Pass. On our way, were it to clear, we might see Fuji again—at any rate, if it cleared in the least we would enjoy the mountains. Meanwhile we shivered at lunch, trying to get into corners where the wind would not leak through the cracks of the shojis, and beginning to experience the discomforts of Japanese inns. And now my bashfulness having gradually abandoned me, I could take my hot bath, separated from the household by a screen not over high, over which the fat servant-girls kindly handed me my towels. Excuse these trivial details, but I cannot otherwise give you the "local color," and my journal is one of small things. Had I come here in the old days when I first fell in love with Japan, I might have met with some thrilling experience in an inn.
I might have had such an experience as our poor friend Fauvel met with not far from here. I might have met some young sworded men, anxious to maintain their dignity and ripe for a quarrel with the foreigner. Do you remember that he jostled the sword of some youngster—"the sword, the soul of the Samurai"—which its owner had left upon the floor. The insult would have been impossible to explain away had not some sensible Japanese official decided that a man who was so careless with his sword as to leave it on the mat, instead of on the reputable sword-rack, had no right to complain of another's inadvertence.
I sometimes wonder which of the courteous persons I meet, when age allows the supposition, obeyed these rules when they were younger; which ones now dressed in black broadcloth wore the great helmet with branching horns, or strapped the two great swords at their waist. And I am lost in respect and bewilderment to think that all this wondrous change—as great as any that the world can have seen—was effected with such success and accepted in such a lofty spirit.
We were now to give up the kuruma and to travel by the kago, which, you will remember, I promised to describe. The kago is a curious institution, partly superseded by the kuruma, but lingering in many places, and necessary where the pack-horse would be unsafe, and where one would otherwise have to walk. It consists of a small litter hung by stiff bamboos from a great pole, over which is steadied a little matted roof, from which various protections from rain or sun can be dropped. The kago has its discomforts: one lies down in it all doubled up, with legs crossed as far as they can be made to, because the basket, which is the body of the litter, is only about three feet long; and with head to one side, because, if one lifted it, it might strike the ridge-pole. The proper way is to lie not quite in the axis. This is all the more natural, as the men at either end do not carry it in a straight line, but at an angle, so that from one side you can see a little in front of you.
Into the kagos we were folded, and in a torrent of rain we departed. I resisted my being shut up in my litter by the oiled-paper sides that are used in the rain, and I depended upon mackintosh and blanket to protect me. The rain came down in sheets. We trotted uphill, the men going on for a few minutes, then changing shoulders, and then again another pair taking their turn—four to each litter. Meanwhile they sang, as they trotted, something which sounded like "Hey, hey, hey, het tue hey." The road was almost all paved, and in the steeper ascents was very bad.
And now I began to experience some novel sensations not easy to describe. My feet were turned in upon the calves of the legs like an Indian Buddha's, and I soon began to ache along sciatic lines; then elsewhere, then everywhere. Then I determined to break with this arrangement, as anger seized me; fortunately a sort of paralysis set in, and I became torpid and gradually resigned; and gradually also I fell asleep with the curious motion and the chant of the men, and woke accustomed, and so I am writing.
I can just remember large trees and roads protected by them; some places where we seemed alone in the world, where we left trees and stood in some narrow path, just able to see above its sides—all else shut out of existence by the rain; and I have all along enjoyed the novel sensation of moving on the level of the plants and shrubs.
We are now going downhill again, and can look down an avenue of great trees and many steps which we descend. We are coming to Hakone; I can see the lake beyond a Torii, and at the first corner of the road under the trees begins the village.
Miyanoshita, September 28.
Again the kago, and the rain as soon as we departed. I turned as well as I could, to find the lovely lines, now lost in general shapes and values, blurred into masses. Once the light opened on the top of some high hill, and I could see, with wild roses right against me, some flat milestone marked with an image against the edges of distant mountains, and a sky of faint twilight pink; or again we pattered along in wet grass, past a great rock with a great bas-relief image—a Jizo (patron of travelers) sitting in the loneliness with a few flowers before him. Then in the rain, and mingling with the mist, thicker cloudings marked the steam from hot springs, which make these parts of the mountains a resort for invalids and bathers.
Soon the darkness: then pine knots were lighted and we descended among the trees, in a path like a torrent, the water running along between the stones, which the feet of the bearers seemed to find instinctively. The arms of the torch-bearers were modeled in wild lights and shadows; the hats of the men made a dusky halo around their heads; the rain-coats of straw glistened with wet; occasionally some branch came out, distinct in every leaf, between the smoke and the big sparks and embers. The noise of torrents near by rose above the rain and the patter and the song of the men. The steepness of the path seemed only to increase the rapidity of our runners, who bounded along from stone to stone. After a time anxiety was lost in the excitement of the thing and in our success, but quite late in our course I heard behind me a commotion—one of A——'s runners had slipped and the kago had come down; no one hurt—the kago keeps its occupant packed too tightly. Then the path left the wild descent; we trotted through regular, muddy roads, stopped once on disbanding our torch-bearers, and reached the Europeanized hotel at Miyanoshita, where I intend to sleep to-night on a European bed, with a bureau and a looking-glass in my room. One little touch not quite like ours, as a gentle lady of uncertain age offers me her services for the relief of fatigue by massage, before I descend to drink Bass's ale in the dining-room, alongside of Britons from the neighboring Yokohama, only one day's journey farther.
POSTSCRIPT
[This much of my letters, or all but a few pages, has been published at intervals in "The Century Magazine." I had hoped for time to add some further notes on Japanese art, and some fragments of my journal, but neither time nor health allows me more. I should have preferred also to replace some of the drawings and photographs here engraved by some pages from note-books nearer to the feeling of the text—something more serious and less finished than suits a magazine.
With some regret I let these matters stand; with less regret because my notes are merely impressions of a given date. Since then Loti has written, and Mr. Lafcadio Hearn has written and writes with his usual charm. Mr. Lowell has opened singular pages, Mr. Chamberlain's authority has been given to popular information; Mrs. Coates has written in laughter; Miss Scidmore has adorned the guide-book, Mr. Parsons, Mr. East ... the list is too long.
I must thank Mr. H. Shugio for the "grass characters" of his elegant translation of my preface; and Mr. M. Tsuchiya for much information.]
APPENDIX
I give as an appendix the "Suruga Gobunsho," the letter of Iyéyasŭ to his daughter-in-law, in which he defines the position of Iyémitsŭ's brother. I have it at two removes from the original, so that, as a Japanese acquaintance remarks, "Recollecting the shadow of the original hanging in a corner of my memory, I hardly recognize the energetic style of the 'old badger'—Furu Danuki—as Iyéyasŭ was called by his antagonists." Notwithstanding, I give it with all these defects, there being nothing fixed in history but documents; and this document gives us the real mind of a great man, his make-believe appearance, his intimate resemblance to other great managers, and a statement of the correct ideas of his time, to which he gave a fixed form.
LETTER OF IYÉYASŬ
It is getting warmer daily, and life is again quite pleasant. How is it with you and your children? When last I had the pleasure of visiting you I was charmed by the friendly reception which was given to me, and I beg that you will present my thanks therefor to your lord. It pleases me much to hear that both my grandchildren—Take[14] and Kuni[15]—have grown. When I was with you I advised you to select a tutor for Take. Have you already done this? Kuni is really very clever; which is a thing to rejoice in, and you ought to hold him especially dear. I have had some experience, and therefore proceed to communicate to you my views as to how you can bring him up to be a good man.
If a child, however clever and gifted, be allowed to grow up entirely free and without discipline, it will become in riper age wilful and positive. Children are usually disobedient to their parents. If they are made to obey their parents they will yet still less accommodate themselves to their surrounding. But will they be able as men to rule over States? Not in the least, since they have not been able even to rule themselves. Considering how naïve is youth, a severe education does not seem at first sight to be fitting, but herein man resembles a plant. Of a tree, for instance, only a little sprig first shows; with careful attendance little by little the branches and leaves are developed; then a prop is given to the same that it may grow straight, and the poor growths are cut off. If each year one goes on carefully with this treatment one may obtain straight, beautiful trees. With man it is just the same. As the child comes to be four or five years a prop is given him in the person of a good tutor who shall remove the bad growths, shall subdue wilfulness, and make a fine man out of him. Often this foresight of care is neglected, allowing the child to grow up in freedom without protecting him against his own self-will. Only when the child can already think for itself do the elders begin their admonitions, but then it is quite too late: the branches of wilfulness are already too far grown, and the stem can no longer bring forth new branches. A good tree is no longer to be aimed at.
In this connection I have a lively recollection of Saburo.[16] When he was born I was still a young man, and I was enchanted by the first child. He was somewhat weakly, and on that account I thought that he should be especially protected and given the greatest liberty. I was not severe with him and allowed him all that he wished. After he had grown up I often found occasion to blame this and that in him, and to give him admonition and advice, but I had no success therein, because in his youth no one had taken trouble about his conduct and speech. He had never learned to treat his parents with thoughtfulness, and to respect them as filial duty ordered, but behaved toward them as if they were his equals, so that finally it had to come to a quarrel, and the results are that he hates them now, and is quite estranged from them. Warned by these evil experiences, I undertook other rules for the education of other children. For instance, I chose persons to attend the child who themselves had been brought up from youth with the greatest severity, and I ordered them to let me know at once when the slightest trace of wilfulness or other similar defect was discovered. And I called the child to me, gave him a rebuke, and extended to him some few strong words of advice. Through following this education the child grew to be as faultless as a straight grown tree; knew no self-will, because he considered the will of his parents as the highest law. He practised self-control and learned continually how one should best honor one's parents.
In the families of princes a child holds another standing, and is subjected to other influences than in the families of subjects. In provision of this and of the future position of the child, his education must be different in certain points. The parents should always oblige the child to follow the admonitions of those placed about him, otherwise after their death the child would succumb entirely to its own wilfulness, and at the end forfeit the throne, as many examples have taught us before this. Therefore, it is the duty of the educator to implant in his scholar from the earliest youth and before everything veneration for his parents, the yielding of the will to Providence, gentleness toward subjects, and high-mindedness; only so can he bring him up to be a real man.
A separation between the lord and the subjects is certainly necessary for the upholding of social order, and is commanded by the circumstances, but the lord must also consider that he is the subject of his subjects. My tutor, Abe Okura, repeated over and over again the following precept to me in my youth, and I find it very well founded: If in ordinary circumstances the subjects yield to their master, even when he is unjust, and follow his service even when he acts as a tyrant, yet in extraordinary emergencies all this may change very easily. Therefore, the ruler should behave compassionately toward his subjects and distribute impartial reward and punishment strictly and with justice; he should see in these subjects the foundation of his government, for without a Servant there can be no Master. In order that they may have these truths before their eyes in riper age, children should be trained in time to value the opinions of those about them, and to be guided by them, because out of the words and deeds of those who are nearest to us we can best judge the worth of our own deeds. A wilful man is never contented, for if he yields only to his own will he forgets the duty of reverence for his parents, and earns in consequence both from them, his relations, his friends, and even from his servants, only displeasure and depreciation, and finally he is unable to reach what he had proposed. As he notices these failures, he comes to hate the disposition of Providence, his fellow-men, and finally himself, and from discontent will become unsound in mind. Therefore, we should always remind youth that it is given to no man to find in this world all his wish and will.
In a princely family the second son should also be made to notice that he stands in relation to the elder as a subject. If the second son holds more power than the eldest, dissensions in the family are inevitable. In the education of the younger people one must attend to this, that they acquire polite and dignified demeanor, and, before everything, avoid rash and rude words; yet not so exaggerated importance should be attached to a dignified carriage that a disregard of inferiors should arise; otherwise an understanding of the real position is lost, and a compassionate feeling for the ills of dependents cannot exist. As often as an opportunity may occur one should explain to the children of sovereigns the use of certain things, out of what country they come, that they are of this or that province, what prince rules there, what fortunes the ruling house has passed through, and so forth. Also, with their own subjects one should try to make them acquainted in a similar way, naming, for example, a prominent man as descended from a famous general, relating that his family has been for centuries in the land, and on account of its great services has good fame. And such like things. In this way the youth will learn to estimate his subjects and, when a man, to take the correct position toward them. Besides, every prince should be carefully trained in youth to all knightly arts, such as riding, drawing the bow, and fencing.
Of course the descendant of a princely house needs not to go deeply into the studies of a scientific education. It is sufficient that he be made acquainted by professional men with the main features of the particular branches of science. But it is important and necessary that he be informed of the deeds of great generals and faithful subjects, and conversely of the fate of faithless officers who misled their superiors, brought mischief to their country, and finally ruined houses which had reigned for centuries. From such examples, detestable or worthy of imitation, he can draw the best lessons for his own acts. One ought not to judge one's own doing or not doing after one's own view of right and wrong, but ought to look at it in the mirror of the people's opinion. But you cannot keep this mirror like one made of metal, brilliant by polishing its outside; you can only keep it clean and bright through the purity of your own heart. Evil conduct makes the mirror lose its power of reflection. It remains then clear only when we listen to the judgment of our fellow-men upon our acts. If a ruler is pleased that one should make him mindful of his own faults, if he strives to put them aside and recompense those who have done him this service, then that mirror will always shine in brightest splendor, and the ruler will recognize in it his own image truly rendered; and, besides, he will also see which of his subjects think ill and which well of him, and what opinion of him the people have in general. If he wishes to hear only his praise from every mouth, his hypocritical surrounding will try to please him with suitable flattery, while his really loyal subjects will draw near to him only if he be willing to see his faults discovered and to receive admonition willingly. A ruler should always consider this, and never be contented with a surrounding perhaps clever, but over-flexible and complying, and wanting in deliberation and sincerity. If he mistake, then doors and towers are open to his hypocritical inferiors, loyal outwardly but traitorous in heart.
Ji Hiobu talked little and listened continually whenever we were considering a matter, on which account he made a mediocre impression on outsiders. But as soon as he had acquired a clear view of the matter, he handled it with a free mind. Quite especially was I pleased with him that face to face, and privately, he drew my attention to a possible mistake contemplated; therefore I preferred mostly to consider everything alone with him first, and then only to discuss the matter publicly.
Tastes and talent are so separate that in some people they seem to be in opposition. One man has the greatest liking for something which the other detests, and this one acquires with ease by virtue of his gifts what the other, notwithstanding diligence and energy, cannot achieve. In the judgment of the worth of a man and of his faculties one ought not to proceed rashly and one-sidedly, as an example from the vegetable world teaches us; each flower develops its full splendor in the season of its bloom, and each one possesses some particular beauty for which we treasure it. But there is a plant called the Dokudami[17] whose ugly exterior and evil smell make us avoid it and consider it useless; and yet it fulfils a very beneficent end. For instance, if you boil it quite long it becomes a remarkable remedy for lepers. So it is with men. Many a man is misunderstood and neglected, and yet each is gifted with certain faculties and can become an able and useful member of society if one understand how to employ him rightly; to every one shall come a time wherein he fulfils his destiny. We usually hold as useless and tiresome things that others study with zeal, but which we do not like. Yet that is not reasonable, especially with a ruler. Until my maturer age I could not understand the game of Go,[18] and could not see how a man could busy himself with such a useless thing, which gave trouble but no pleasure; therefore I thought all people stupid who gave themselves up to it. To-day, since I have thoroughly understood the game, I find it very amusing, especially in rainy weather when I am not allowed to go out, and I play now eagerly with those whom I once derided. Through this I have come to guess that what has not been handed down from old times is somewhat useless. It is a great mistake to think that all that pleases us is good and what displeases us is bad, and that one's own taste is the only right one.
It often happens that a child in its anger at hearing something unpleasant destroys the nearest available thing; parents should not think that this is a consequence of worms, and therefore let it go unpunished; such indulgence works like poison on the character of the child. If really a disease be the cause of such excitement one ought to use right away the suitable medicine. He who in his youth has acquired such habits yields to them later when something displeases him; then it will be seen what bad results unsubdued wilfulness can have. The object destroyed often matters little; but the spoiled child, with time, vents his wrath mostly upon those around him, and often feels contented only when he has punished his victims with death. Parents can only prevent such excesses in the future by keeping down from the beginning every stirring of wilfulness and impatience in their descendants. The most necessary and the most beautiful virtue of every man, especially of a ruler, is self-control. Whoever commands his own will with regard to any good thing will carry out the will of Providence, will live in harmony with his fellow-men, will not forfeit lands and castles that his ancestors left him, and will dispense rewards and punishments justly among the whole people, both among those further away and among those just about him. Under all circumstances he will keep a promise once given, and, if he serves a master, be ready to give his life; he will not care first for himself and then only for others, but he will unselfishly strive for the welfare of others, and early and late keep the rules of high behavior. He will not praise himself haughtily and depreciate others; he will face his master without flattery or hypocrisy, openly and honestly; and his parents also, as all other people. He will not strive to do everything after his own opinion, but will pay regard to traditional forms in every act.
In all five senses one can practise self-control: as to the eyes, in not allowing one's self to be deceived by beautiful dress, a handsome face, or by the exterior of anything. As to the sense of smell, by use one can get accustomed not only to pleasant odors, but to the most singular stenches. As to the sense of hearing, one can push on bravely through the noise and tumult of battle, reckless of the thunder of cannon or the hissing of arrows, to obtain the rich rewards of war. As to taste, one can avoid excess in eating and drinking, and not accustom the palate to luxurious meals; finally, as to the sense of feeling, one can overcome sensitiveness, and keep especially one's hands and feet entirely within one's control. Only he who through all his life thus tries to obtain control over himself shall upon the throne increase the glory of his house and establish peace in his country; if he be a subject, he shall rise and make his family happy and honored. But one must persevere in self-control, otherwise there can be no such results. If, for instance, some one has to practise self-control in ten cases to obtain a known result, and he is able to control himself nine times, but on the tenth his strength leaves him, then all his previous exertions were in vain. Many people who control themselves for a long time finally lose patience, thinking it impossible to protract their mastery. It might happen that some person might not really be strong enough, but in most cases I should think it a person's own fault if he forfeits in such a case his life, his position, or his throne. Something like this is seen in shooting with the bow. If one has taken the right position and attitude of the body, if one has directed the weapon rightly and firmly and has the aim well in the eye, but at the moment of discharge the hand is unsteady, the shot goes wrong, and all this trouble was in vain. So also is self-command worthless and useless if it be not persevered in to the end.
I know of only one man until now in our history whose self-control reached this degree of perfection, and that is Masashige Kusunoki.[19] A man, on the contrary, who had no self-command and confessed that he had not himself in his own power was Katsuyori Takeda;[20] hence his whole life was a tissue of failures, and he ended by losing his power and his life. Nobunaga Oda[21] was certainly a distinguished leader of armies, marked for his courage and generosity, and possessing in a high degree all faculties needed for a good ruler; and yet his lack of self-control brought on that he was murdered by his retainer Mitsuhide. Hideyoshi[22] was generous, shrewd, valiant, and almost perfect in self-control; hence he rose within twenty years from nothing to be the ruler of the entire Japanese Empire. But his generosity went beyond rightful limits. Generosity is a noble virtue, but it must fit the circumstances. Presents and gifts should not represent much over the value of the good deed whose reward they are meant to be; but Hideyoshi over-estimated the merits of those to whom he owed his position and behaved with more than generosity—with prodigality.
The way to obtain domination and to keep it permanently is not through prodigality, but through close economy. Inferiors often think that the master appears strange in comparison with other sovereigns who toss about presents; but history teaches that just the wisest rulers have been accustomed to make few presents, and have avoided all luxury.
A master desiring good and obedient servants should be ready with admonition at every mistake committed. My efforts since youth have been continually directed to this, wherefor my servants have stripped off all their faults. In any case one ought not to give up hope too soon, and at once decide that somebody is incorrigible. If in one's admonition the talk is only about the fault committed, the result will be that the person admonished acquires an unjust aversion to his master; and even servants who had served diligently before become careless and discontented; the cause of this is to be sought in the manner of the admonition. If this is to have any result, the following method should be employed: summon the culprit to one's presence, and dismiss from the room every one else but one who is to play the part of the mediator. Then speak with milder words than usual about the former services of the subordinate, make some recognition of his zeal, both former and present; in short, try to make him as happy as possible. Thereupon show him with due regard his faults, and explain to him that you did not expect them of such an attentive subject, and that you must hope that in the future you will need no more to blame; indeed, that all the more you reckon upon his former solicitude and loyalty. Such an admonition brings any one in fault to yield, to recognize his own defects, and to correct himself. The ruler of the house should make it his chief aim to make useful people of his servants, in which he can succeed only by resenting every fault, even if committed by a person of the lowest position. It should even be difficult for the cleverest servants to obtain the full approbation of the master. How much more should this be the case with the average person, concerning whom the master should consider it his task to remove imperfections as far as possible. He is to blame if oftener than is necessary faults come about. From the manner of those about him one can easily draw a conclusion as to the manner of the master. Therefore, he should keep a watchful eye upon the manner of his attendants, especially that those whom he loves and distinguishes serve as an example to the other inferiors, whether they be good or bad. Further than this, it is very desirable that the master should be quite acquainted with the circumstances of his servants; and that, on the contrary, these should get to know as little as possible about his affairs.
It is not favorable to health that one should give one's self up entirely to indulgence in time of peace. If one has nothing to do habitually, many bad things usually come up. Therefore, for each moment from waking to going to sleep one should appoint a task, and live conscientiously from day to day according to this plan. Further, one should not eat only savory food, for one becomes tired of that in time. On ordinary days one should take as simple a meal as possible; for it is enough, I believe, to eat two or three times a month something especially savory.
For several years I repeat my prayers every day 60,000 times. Many consider this exaggerated on the part of so old a man, and they advise me to diminish somewhat the number. It would indeed be a relief for me could I follow this advice; but because I was born in times of war, and as a commander I have caused the death of many men, I should like to do penance in my prayers for my many sins, and hence I keep to my old habit. Beyond this, the quiet and idle life which I must now lead is hard to bear, because from my youth I never had an hour of rest, but was always overladen with work, and as I can no more attend to other business, so must I make work for myself in my prayers. I rise early every morning, and I go to bed in the evening not very early, in consequence of which I have a very good digestion, and believe that I should be thankful for this to my prayers. An old proverb says, "If one wishes to know the manner of life of a man, ask him if he have a regular time for rising and for going to sleep, and if he can or cannot be moderate in eating and drinking." That is also my way of looking at it.
Courage is a virtue which every man should possess; but too much courage can easily become dangerous, as it seduces us very often to desire obtaining everything by force; and then things go ill with us generally. Rightly says the proverb: a hard thing is easily broken. Therefore one obtains better results through gentleness and generosity than by vehemence and recklessness. Advise your attendants in this manner that they may always have a composed demeanor; and so teach your children that they always show due respect to every member of the family.
Give this letter to Kuni, and impress upon him that he realize and lay to heart its contents.
Finally, my best greetings to all.
This 25th of February.
N.B.—I beg you once more to pay attention to Kuni. If you bring him up according to my advice I shall have no reason for anxiety about his future.