Between 3 and 4 the increase of power is like a leap. But after that (in the higher schools) I don’t think there is much progress. Thereafter I fancy that in most cases the highest capacity has been reached, and then the strain comes. The students attempt to do on rice and gruel what foreign students can only do on beef, eggs, puddings, heavy nutritious diet. In the eternal order of things the overstrain comes. The higher education will not give the desired results for at least another generation,—because the physique of the student must be raised to meet it. The higher education requires a physiological change,—an increase of brain capacity in actual development of tissue, an increase of nervous energy, and consequently a higher standard of living. That there have been wonderful exceptions in Japanese scholarship makes no difference: it is a question of general averages. The student of to-day is not sufficiently strong and sufficiently nourished to bear the tremendous strain put upon him at the higher schools and the university. Wherefore he loses some of his best qualities in mere effort. The higher schools don’t feed their boys well—not so well by half as the Government feeds the soldiers. At least so I have been assured.... Yours faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Nishida,—Your charming letter has just come, full of news and things to be grateful for. There is some news here too. Mr. Kano is gone! We are all very, very sorry....
Perhaps I might go to Niigata during the summer. Setsu is always, always, always talking about Tōkyō. I suppose I shall have to take her there. And I want to visit Kompira, and Zenkōji in Nagano (?)—where all the Souls of the Dead go,—and one might do all that and see Niigata too. I am very anxious to see the dear kind Governor and his daughter again. That kind of Governor is rare, and I think will soon cease to exist in Japan. He always seemed to me a delightful type of the old days,—like the princes of the ehon: the modernized Governor scarcely seems to belong to the same race. And the Japanese of the next generation will not be kind and open-hearted and unselfish, I fear: they will become hard of character like the Western people,—more intellectual and less moral. For old Japan, in unselfishness, was as far in advance of the West as she was materially behind it.
The curling-up of the toe in the statue of Inada-Hime is not according to the canons of Western sculpture (which is still generally governed by the Greek spirit),—because it shows the member in what is considered an ungraceful position. But I thought after looking awhile at it, that it was really natural. Not natural from the standpoint of a modern people whose toes have lost both symmetry and flexibility owing to the wearing of leather shoes; but natural among a people whose feet are well shaped and whose toes remain supple, and to some degree, prehensile. Among tropical races the toes retain extraordinary flexibility; but I don’t think any English girl could put her great-toe into the attitude taken by that of Inada-Hime. I imagined that this movement represented in the statue a little nervous feeling,—the involuntary shrinking of a woman from sharp cold steel. But that is only a guess. What it really means I should like to know.
I forgot in another letter to tell you that Herbert Spencer, in one of his recent volumes (“Individual Life”) severely criticized some of the Mombushō Readers and other publications as immoral,—because appealing to the desire of revenge and the passion of hatred and bloodshed.... One thing is certain, that Readers for Japanese students ought to be edited in Japan, and edited in a particular manner with especial reference to national character and feeling. I prize the Mombushō Readers, because I learn so much from them; but as text-books they are not well written, and they do not appeal to the student’s natural love of novelty. It is hopeless to interest boys in stories they know already by heart in their own language. They want what is new and strange and beautiful.—But no thanks will ever be given to the man who tries to do the work well; and his work itself will almost certainly be spoiled by the emendations and interpolations of a committee of men without knowledge or taste,—unless the thing should be done quite independently of officialdom.
I am trying to teach Setsu English by a fast memory-system. I can’t tell whether I will succeed or not: if I find it strains her too much I must stop,—for the system is exhausting. In the course of teaching I notice something of what you tell me about Izumo pronunciation. It makes the difficulty much greater.
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,—This is not going to be a pleasant letter,—though it may have interest for you. I don’t hesitate to tell my friends about shadows as well as lights, and I rather think the latter alone would cease to be interesting. Besides, we are all most interested in what most closely relates to the realities of life; and the realities of life are ugly to no small degree. Dreams are realities—of desire for things out of reach; but the diet of dreams is not substantial enough for the sense of friendship to live upon. So here goes for the lamentations,—or as a Frenchman would say, a jérémiade....
I might cite a fourth, a fifth;—but happily there are lights. I made one delightful friend here, Professor Chamberlain, and I told you about Major McDonald....
I am perfectly conscious that to a thorough man of the world I must be only a contemptible fool. Even to a friend like you who are not spoiled and cannot be spoiled by your milieu, I must seem something of a fool. Be that as it may,—here I am. Now what is this fool to do?...
Suppose I should seek a place as teacher of English literature. Everybody thinks he can teach English literature, and the public doesn’t care particularly: it takes its pabulum largely on trust. On whose trust? Oh! the trust of the trustees,—and the respectable people. Now I am not respectable. I am under the odium theologicum of every Christian faith. Small and mean as I am, I am spotted. Don’t imagine this is vanity! It doesn’t require any greatness to be spotted. It is just like a prostitute trying to become an honest woman, or a convicted thief endeavouring to get employment. There is nothing great about it. If I had any position worth hunting up, the cry would be raised that an atheist, a debauchee, a disreputable ex-reporter was corrupting the morals of the young under pretence of teaching literature. That is position No. 3. As Fiske says, the heretic is not now burned at the stake; but there is an organized policy to starve him by injuring his reputation and lying about him. And even Fiske (because he is poor) dares not take the whole position of Spencer.
But I don’t want to pretend myself a martyr for any worthy cause. I am not. I am not respectable: that is the whole matter,—and the pardoning influence of women would never be exerted for me, because I am physically disagreeable,—and what I could win by my own merit I could not keep, because I have no aggressiveness and no cunning. And I am only now learning all this,—with my hair grey. There is no chance of becoming independent, as I will never be allowed to hold a position that pays well. I shall never be able to do my best in literary matters; for I shall never have the leisure, the means, or the opportunities of travel I want....
To all this jérémiade, then, you must think for reply, in the words of Herbert Spencer: “My dear friend, the first necessity for success in life is to be a good animal. As an animal you don’t work well at all. Furthermore you are out of harmony mentally and morally with the life of society: you represent broken-down tissue. There is some good in the ghostly part of you, but it would never have been developed under comfortable circumstances. Hard knocks and intellectual starvation have brought your miserable little animula into some sort of shape. It will never have full opportunity to express itself, doubtless; but perhaps that is better. It might otherwise make too many mistakes; and it has not sufficient original force to move the sea of human mind to any storm of aspiration. Perhaps, in some future state of—” But here Spencer stops....
I think civilization is a fraud, because I don’t like the hopeless struggle. If I were very rich I should perhaps think quite differently—or, what would be still more rational, try not to think at all about it. Religion under an empire preaches the divinity of autocracy; under a monarchy, the divinity of aristocracy. In this industrial epoch it is the servant of the monster business, and is paid to declare that religion is governed by God, and business by religion,—“whoever says the contrary, let him be anathema!” Business has its fixed standard of hypocrisy; everything above or below that is to be denounced by the ministers of the gospel of God and business. Hence the howl about Jay Gould, who, with splendid, brutal frankness, exposed to the entire universe the real laws of business,—without any preaching at all,—and overrode society and law and became supreme. Wherefore I hold that a statue should be erected to him. Here we have been having a newspaper fight. All the missionaries are down on “that anonymous writer” as usual. I wrote an article to prove that Gould was the grandest moral teacher of the century. Even sermons were preached in Tōkyō denouncing the writer of that article. I was accused of declaring that the end justified the means. I had not said so; but I quoted American authorities to show Gould had created and made effective the railroad-transportation system of the West; and then I quoted English financial authorities to prove that that very transportation system alone was now saving the United States from bankruptcy. The facts were unanswerable (at least by the clerics); and they proved that in order to get power to save a whole nation from ruin,—Gould had to ruin a few thousand people. Wherefore I am called “immoral, low, beastly.” Nobody knows it is I; but some suspect. I am already deemed the “moral plague-spot” of Japan by the dear missionaries. Next week I‘ll try them with an article on “The Abomination of Civilization.” ...
But I have at home a little world of about eleven people, to whom I am Love and Light and Food. It is a very gentle world. It is only happy when I am happy. If I even look tired, it is silent, and walks on tiptoe. It is a moral force. I dare not fret about anything when I can help it,—for others would fret more. So I try to keep right. My little wife and I have saved nearly 2000 Japanese dollars between us. I think I‘ll be able to make her independent. When I‘ve done that, I can let the teaching go, and wander about awhile, and write “sketches” at $10 per page.
Ever affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,— ... You never wrote a more wonderful letter than that last letter full of penetrating things. Now one of my shortcomings is a total ignorance of practical worldly wisdom;—for instance, I could not sit down and talk to a man in polite enigmas which both of us would understand, at all. All that world of business is to me a mystery and a marvel incomprehensible. Moreover, it is the revelation of mental powers of a very subtle order, as much beyond me as mathematics,—so that I cannot but respect the forces manifested, even if I deplore the directions in which they are sometimes exercised. Your sketch of the two men, and the interview, and the psychological relations was perfectly delicious,—and like nearly everything you write to me, gave me the pleasure of a novel sensation....
Your criticism about ——’s criticism was not exactly what I thought you might make:—it is true that we like to be thought, and to believe ourselves, capable of doing vast harm, and credit ourselves more for our goodness perhaps on account of that belief. But I don’t agree with you in thinking the remark uncomplimentary. I think it was true, and in the sense I take it, beautiful. Ask yourself could you really do anything you knew to be terribly cruel under any personal provocation,—at least after the first burst of sudden anger was over? And you will find you could not. Any nature sincerely sympathetic—with a complex nerve-system—cannot inflict pain without receiving at least as much, if not more pain than it gives. I believe you could kill a man, under just provocation; but that is not bad, or cruel—indeed, it might be a duty. The terrible men are the men who do everything in cold blood, icily, with calculation, infinite patience, and infinite pleasure. But the capacity to be thus dangerous means also a low development of those qualities which give sweetness to character and amiability to life,—and chivalry to a man’s soul.
Now here is the very immoral side of Western civilization. Being wholly aggressive and selfish, the hard, cold qualities of character are being prodigiously developed by it. The emotional qualities, you might suggest, are also indirectly developed by the suffering the others inflict;—there is action and reaction. Yes, that is true. But the terrible men—the men of the type of that manager—represent not only a constantly increasing class, but a leading one—the class whose name is Power. Now Power multiplies. In wealth and luxury multiplication is rapid and facile. They are less fertile comparatively than other classes; but the cost of their individuality is infinitely greater, and one type can outlive, outwork, outplan a hundred of the emotional sort,—as a general rule. The ultimate tendency is to settle all power in the hands of those without moral scruple. It may take another few centuries to do this; but the tendency is obvious, and the danger is steadily growing. I think the West can never become as moral as the Orient. But it may become infinitely more wicked.
This is one way of seeing the matter. Another I wrote you about in my last letter,—the sexual question in the West,—something never dreamed of in the East. What must be the ultimate results of this Western worship of the Eternal Feminine? Must not one be, the contempt of old age, and universal irreverence for things the most naturally deserving of reverence? Already, in the West, the Family has almost ceased to exist.
To an Oriental it seems utterly monstrous that grown-up children should not live with their father, mother, and grandparents, and support and love them more than their own children, wives, or husbands. It seems to him sheer wickedness that a man should not love his mother-in-law,—or that he should love his own wife even half as well as his own father or mother. Our whole existence seems to him disgustingly immoral. He would deem worthy of death the man who wrote—
He first most loves his father,—then his mother,—then his father-in-law and mother-in-law,—then his children,—and lastly, his wife. His wife is not of the family proper,—a stranger,—not of the blood of the ancestors,—how can he love her like his own parents!
Now I half suspect the Oriental is right.
To him the people of the West with their novels and poems about love seem a race of very lascivious people. If indeed he should think more kindly of them at all, it would be through pity,—as a race of sexually starved beings, frantic with nymphomania and all forms of erotomania, through refusal to obey the laws of nature. “They talk about their wives!—they write novels about their lusts!—they do not support their parents!—they do not obey their mothers-in-law! Truly they are savages!” Now they write love-stories in Japan. But who are the women of these love-stories? Dancing-girls. “If one must write stories about the passion of sex, let him at least not write such things about wives and daughters of honest men—let him write about whores! A whore’s business is to excite passion. That of a pure woman is to quench it. What horribly immoral people the Western people are!”
—Don Juan is the imagination of the West. No Japanese Don Juan—no Chinese Don Juan—ever existed or could exist. He is a common type at home. But the Orient rejoices also in exemption from one of the most terrible creations of Western life;—no Oriental is haunted by “the Woman thou shalt never know.”
What a curse and a delusion is that beautiful spectre! How many lives she makes desolate! How many crimes does she inspire, “the Woman thou shalt never know!”—the impossible ideal, not of love, but of artistic passion, pursued by warm hearts from youth till age, always in vain. As her pursuer grows more old, she becomes ever more young and fair. He waits for her through the years,—waits till his hair is grey. Then,—wifeless, childless, blasé, ennuyé, cynical, misanthropic,—he looks in the glass and finds that he has been cheated out of youth and life. But does he give up the chase? No!—the hair of Lilith—just one—has been twisted round his heart,—an ever-tightening fine spider-line of gold. And he sees her smile just ere he passes into the Eternal darkness.
Then again, our social morals! We never in the West talk to people of their duties. Do orators make speeches about duties? Do any, except priests, talk about social duties? But what do we talk to the people about? We talk to them about their rights,—“by G—d!” Always, incessantly, ad nauseam, about their rights. Now to talk to people who know nothing of social science, of political economy, of ethical ideas in their relation to eternal truths,—to talk to such people about their rights, is like giving a new-born baby a razor to play with. Or putting a loaded revolver in the hands of a mischievous child. Or inviting a crowd of urchins to make a bonfire in the immediate vicinity of ten thousand barrels of gunpowder. And the Oriental knows this. (Wherefore in China it was a law that he who should say or invent anything new should be put to death,—an extreme view of the necessities of the case, but not much more extreme than our own philistinism.)
The Japanese of the new school do not, however, keep to the Chinese wisdom. They show evidence now of a desire to put to death those who say anything older than yesterday. They are becoming infected with the Western moral poison. They are beginning to love their wives more than their fathers and mothers;—it is much cheaper....
By the way, I am in a world of new sensations. My first child will be born, I expect, about September next. The rest of my family have come from Matsue,—father-in-law, father’s father also, a nice old man of 84. We are now all together. There is universal joy because of the birth in prospect. And I am accused of not seeming joyful enough. I am not sorry. But I hope my little one will never have to face life in the West, but may always dwell in a Buddhist atmosphere.
Ever most faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,—Your most welcome lines of March 1 came to me during a lonesome spring vacation—to brighten it up. Your wish about a Japanese love-story has been partly answered in the March Atlantic; and in the June number, you will have a paper of mine, entitled the “Japanese Smile,” which you will find as philosophical as you could wish.—No, I have been working well, but for a book only; and of that book only five or six chapters can be published in a magazine. I am not yet sure if the book will be published in the shape I want,—although the publishers show some signs of yielding.
So much for me. I was too egotistic last time, and will not be so much so again, unless I get a very awful attack of the blues within the next five years....
To return to Japan and Japanese life. What do you think of the following? It happened near Kumamoto. A peasant went to consult an astrologer what to do for his mother’s eyes: she had become blind. The astrologer said that she would get her sight back if she could eat a little human liver,—taken fresh and from a young body. The peasant went home crying, and told his wife. She said: “We have only one boy. He is beautiful. You can get another wife as good, or better than I, very easily, but might never be able to get another son. Therefore, you must kill me instead of the son, and give my liver to your mother.” They embraced; and the husband killed her with a sword, and cut out the liver and began to cook it, when the child awoke and screamed. Neighbours and police came. In the police court, the peasant told his tale with childish frankness and cited stories from the Buddhist scriptures. The judges were moved to tears. They did not condemn the man to death;—they gave only nine years in prison. Really the man who ought to have been killed was the astrologer. And this but a few miles off from where they are teaching integral calculus, trigonometry, and Herbert Spencer! yet Western science and religion could never inspire that idolatrous self-devotion to a mother which the old ignorant peasant and his wife had. She thought it her sacred duty to die for her mother-in-law....
I am going to have the delight of a visit from the author of “The Soul of the Far East.” He is a lucky man,—wonderful genius, strength, youth, and plenty of money. He spends six months of each year in the Orient. Professor Chamberlain, my other friend, spent a few days with me last week. He speaks Japanese better than the Japanese;—in fact, he is Professor of Japanese in the Imperial University of Japan. He mentions me in his books; and Conder, who writes those beautiful books about Japanese flower arrangement and Japanese gardens, has just written a book with a kindly reference to me.
Enough to tire you, I fear, already. Well, au revoir, till the next mail. Affectionately ever,
Lafcadio Hearn.
My dear Nishida,—About the sentence that puzzles you (as it well might puzzle anybody unaccustomed to what we call “rant”),—the phrase simply signifies the Bible. It is based on the idea that Christ is the “Light of the World” (Light and Glory being used synonymously); and the origin of this expression again goes back beyond Christianity into ancient Gnostic ideas,—probably based on the Iranian belief of Ormuzd, the (Persian or Iranian) God of Light, as distinguished from Ahriman, the Spirit of Evil and Darkness. The common Christian people know nothing of this; but from childhood, they are accustomed to hear the word “Bible” coupled with the words “light” and “glory” and “illumination,”—and to see pictures representing a Bible surrounded with rays of light beaming from it as from a sun. “The glory of the mechanic’s shop,” i. e., illuminating the darkness of labour, the suffering and gloom, by light of consolation, etc.—But I must say that all this is what we call “rant” (worse than “cant”);—it is of no earthly use to let the boys read it. I used always to skip it. The article is not even good English: it is fanatical “gush” and humbug. If I were you, I would not bother with it at all,—except for your own amusement, as a study of queer ideas. I don’t mean to say all writing of this sort is bad;—some of it is very beautiful, although the ideas be false. But that stuff in Sanders’s Reader is the sort we call “cheap rant,”—such as any uneducated Sunday-school teacher can spout by the mile....
I do not think Setsu can travel again this year. I expect to become a father about September, or perhaps even sooner. So we shall not see Tōkyō in 1893, at all events. And the chances are that I shall not be able to travel very far;—as I shall have to be in constant weekly communication with the mail-steamers for America. The preparation of the printed proofs will be hard work.
I am sorry about Goto. You summed him up, however, very keenly a long time ago.—We have a wonderful drawing-master here, who painted a wonderful oil-portrait of Mr. Akizuki. And that man is only getting $12 a month (counting the deduction of his salary for building warships)! Yet he is really a fine artist.
Besides the letter of introduction I gave you to Mr. Kano, I also wrote him a long letter about you last year. Should you go to Tōkyō, therefore, remind him of that. Or, if you wish, I will write you at once a third letter to take with you. You will like Mr. Kano at sight. He charms even the most reserved foreigners, and still he is perfectly easy and simple in his manners. Faithfully yours,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,— ... I hear rarely from America, and have no definite news from Boston up to date. They send me a paper—the Sunday edition, full of poetry about love, woodcuts of beauties of fashion, and all sorts of chatter about women and new styles of undergarments. To-day, after three years in the most Eastern East, when I look at that paper, I can hardly believe my eyes. The East has opened my eyes. How affected the whole thing seems! Yet it never seemed so to me before. My students say to me, “Dear Teacher, why are your English novels all filled with nonsense about love and women?—we do not like such things.” Then I tell them partly why. “You must know, my dear young gentlemen, that in England and America, marriage is a most important matter,—though it is something you never even speak about in Japan. For in Japan, it is as easy to get married as it is to eat a bowl of rice. But for educated young men in the West, it is very difficult and dangerous to marry. It is necessary to be rich to marry well,—or to be, at least, what you would call rich. And the struggle for life is very bitter and very terrible—so bitter and terrible that you cannot possibly imagine what it means. It is hard to live at all,—made harder to marry. Therefore the whole object of life is to succeed in order to get married. And the parents have nothing to do with the matter, as in Japan; the young man must please the girl, and must win her away from all other young men who want to get her. That is why the English and others write all that stuff about love and beauty and marriage, and why everybody buys those books and laughs or weeps over them—though to you they are simply disgusting.”
But that was not all the truth. The whole truth is always suggested to me by the Sunday paper. We live in the musky atmosphere of desire in the West;—an erotic perfume emanates from all that artificial life of ours;—we keep the senses perpetually stimulated with a million ideas of the eternal feminine; and our very language reflects the strain. The Western civilization is using all its arts, its sciences, its philosophy in stimulating and exaggerating and exacerbating the thought of sex. An Oriental would almost faint with astonishment and shame to see a Western ballet. He would scream at the sight of a French nude. He would be scandalized by a Greek statue. He would rightly and instantly estimate all this as being exactly what it is,—artificial stimulus of dangerous senses. The whole West is steeped in it. It now seems, even to me, almost disgusting.
Yet what does it mean? Certainly it pollutes literature, creates and fosters a hundred vices, accentuates the misery of those devoted by the law of life as the victims of lust. It turns art from Nature to sex. It cultivates one æsthetic faculty at the expense of all the rest. And yet—perhaps its working is divine behind all that veil of vulgarity and lustfulness. It is cultivating also, beyond any question, a capacity for tenderness the Orient knows nothing of. Tenderness is not of the Orient man. He is without brutality, but he is also without that immense reserve force of deep love and forgiving-power which even the rougher men of the West have. The Oriental is intellectually, rationally capable of all self-sacrifice and loyalty: he does the noblest and grandest things without even the ghost of a tender feeling. His feeblest passion is that of sex, because with him the natural need has never been starved or exasperated. He marries at sixteen or seventeen perhaps,—is a father of two or three children at twenty. All that sort of thing for him belongs to the natural appetites: he would no more talk about his wife or tell you he had a child born, than he would tell you that his organs performed their function regularly at 6.30 A.M. He is ashamed of appearing to have any sexual love at all in public;—and his family live all their lives in the shadow—do not appear to visitors. Well, his nature may lose something by this. It loses certainly in capacities that mean everything for us—tenderness, deep sympathy, a world of sensations not indeed sexual with us, yet surely developed out of sexualism to no small extent,—just as the sense of moral beauty developed out of the sense of physical beauty.
I guess this must bore you, however. More anon of other matters.
Ever faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,—I am not quite sure that you are right about the Oriental view of things. It is very difficult to understand at first. It is not want of refinement or sensibility to beautiful things. It is rather a tendency to silence and secrecy in regard to the highest emotions. So that a cultivated Japanese never even speaks of his wife and family, or hints of his fondness for them. Of course, our idea is nobler and higher. But it is a question with me whether it cannot be, and has not been, developed to excess. I think we have filled the whole universe with an ideal of woman. Star-swarms and all cosmical glories exist for us only in an infinity of passional pantheism. I suspect that we see Nature especially through the beauty of woman. A splendid tree, a fragrant bud, delicacy of petals, songs of birds, undulations of hills, mobility of waters, sounds of foliage, murmur of breezes and their caress, laughter of streamlets, even the gold light—do not all these things remind us of woman? You might cite the ruggedness of oaks and the grimness of crags as masculine. True, we have visions of Nature as masculine—for rugged and mighty contrasts. But how enormously preponderant is the eternal feminine! Even our language is a language of gender,—in which I think the feminine predominates. But in our thought the masculine at once suggests the feminine, and creates a new idea. All precious things, too, remind us of what is not masculine, because “far and from the uttermost coasts is the price of her.”
Now the Oriental sees Nature in no such way. His language has no gender. He does not think of a young girl when he sees a palm, nor of the lines of a beautiful body when he sees the undulations of the hills. Neither does he see Nature as masculine. He sees it as neuter. His geographical nomenclature shows this. He sees things as they are. The immediate inference would be that he finds less enjoyment in them. But his art shows that he finds more. He sees in Nature much that we can‘t see at all. He sees beauty in stones,—in common stones,—in clouds, fogs, smoke, curling water, shapes of trees, shapes of insects. In my friend’s alcove is a stone. When you can learn that that stone is more beautiful than a beautiful painting, you can begin to understand that there is another way of seeing Nature. In my own garden there are a number of large stones. Their value is seven hundred dollars. No American would give five cents for them—no! he would not dream of taking them as a gift—no! he would consider himself highly insulted by the offer! Then why are they worth seven hundred dollars? Because they are beautiful. You would say: “I can’t see it!” You can’t see it because you see all Nature through the idea of woman. And it is just faintly possible (I don’t say certain) that our way—your way of seeing Nature is all wrong. It is like peeping through an atmosphere which makes everything iridescent and deflects the lines of forms.
Now, why do I suspect that our way of looking at Nature may not be the highest,—besides the plain fact that it is not according to the Eternal order of things? I suspect it because the evolution of the ideal has been chiefly physical. It has not been an ideal of soul. Is the soul of a woman more beautiful than that of a man—outside of maternal tenderness? You have just had a divine glimpse of two souls—excuse the personal question (for it is a highly important one): which seemed to you the largest and deepest?—in which were the glories more profound and radiant? And is it not essential that the woman-beauty of soul must be the lesser; for its scope must be limited by its eternal duty. We are in the presence, however, of the undeniable fact that we rarely get glimpses of the higher possibilities of the man-soul. Life is too hard and bitter. But in the twilight of every home one sees the woman-souls glowing like fireflies. We think only of the lights we see. The circling darknesses are opaque to us,—like burnt-out suns.
Reading over the list of things in your notebook I was impressed by several facts. It is well to set down everything that impresses you. But—I cannot help thinking that you do not look for the highest,—that you miss a universe of beautiful things. The obtrusive, the eccentric, the sharply bitter, the “Distorted Souls” as you call them, naturally compel attention first,—just as in real life the forward, the selfish, the aggressive, force themselves upon us. It is of the highest possible value, as a means of self-preservation, to understand them. But I suspect that it is of no value at all to draw them, to photograph them, to give them artistic treatment except in a contrast-study. They are not beautiful. They are not good. They are, using the word in the Miltonic sense, obscene—like owls. On the other hand the beautiful in life must be sought, and coaxed, and caressed to make it show its colours. It does not appear very often spontaneously. Yet I feel convinced it is all about us. It travels on railroads too, and lodges at hotels. It fights for life against ugliness and wickedness and apathy and selfishness: it is Ormuzd against Ahriman. Now what is the artist’s moral duty? (Of course he may take any subject he pleases and be great in it.) But what is his duty in the eternal order of things, to art and to ethics? Is it not to extract the gold from the ore,—the rubies and emeralds from the rubble? I think it is—though many may laugh at me. Thus newer and higher ideals are created. We advance only by new ideals. I don’t mean to say we should make statues of pure gold, or a table, like that of some Caliph, out of a single emerald. But I think that in modern life we should use the dross and slag only when their lightness, worthlessness, or rudeness brings out in higher relief the light of the pure jewel, the weight of the pure metal, the value of that which gives the radiance or the gravity. And in the order of research I would seek the lodes and veins first;—the rest is always easy to find and handle, though requiring much scientific skill, of course, to use artistically.
There is a world, I suppose, almost as barren as the Alkali Plains, where convention has strangled all feeling, and where the development of selfish capacities has choked the other growths. But either below this world or above it there are Americas to discover—full of warmth, light, and beauty—continents chained to each other by snow-peaks, watered by Amazons and Mississippis.
Below, I think, more than above,—for the nearer to Nature, the nearer to truth. And the value, artistically, of our high-pressure civilization seems to me to be that its monstrosities and glooms and tragedies infernal give an opportunity for the grandest contrasts ever made. What I would pray you to do is “to put a lily in the mouth of Hell”—using one of Carlyle’s phrases. Then the petals of the lily will change into pure light, like those of the Lotus of Amida Buddha....
Good-bye, with affectionate wishes,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,—To continue from my last:—
It seems to me you might have mistaken my meaning in my half-criticism of the contents of your notebook. I don’t wish you should think I find any fault with them per se. Indeed you cannot set down too much. Only I think you have been collecting only shadow-and-fire material. You have no sky-blues,—no rose and violet and purple and gold-yellow,—no cadmium, no iridescences. You have that which will give them all value—artistic value. Even if you have only one light for ten darknesses, it will be enough to illume them all.
And now for Ego and Egotisms. In my home the women are all making baby-clothes,—funny little Japanese baby-clothes. All the tender Buddhist divinities, who love little children, have been invoked except one,—he who cares for them only when they are dead, and plays little ghostly games with them in the shadowy world. Letters of congratulation come from all directions, and queer, pretty presents; for the announcement of pregnancy is a subject of great gladness in Japan. And one theme of rejoicing is that the child will look more like a Japanese than the children of other foreigners, because the father is dark. Behind all this, of course, there is a universe of new sensations,—new ideas,—revelations of things in Buddhist faith and in the religion of the more ancient gods, which are very beautiful and touching. About the world an atmosphere of delicious, sacred naïveté,—difficult to describe, because resembling nothing in the Western world.—Some doubts and fears for me, of course; but they are passing away gradually. I have only some anxiety about her: still she is so strong that I trust the gods will be kind to us....
This summer I shall not be able to travel far. First, of course, I can’t leave my little woman too long alone; second, I have proofs to correct; third, I am economizing. We have now nearly $3500 between us; and I want to try to provide for her as soon as I can,—so that once the chances of ill luck are off my mind, I can make a few long voyages to other places east of Japan. The Chinese ports are only a few days distant; and there is Manila, there is the French Orient to see. I hope to be able to do this in a few years more. You will be glad to hear I am very strong, though getting grey,—much stronger than I was at thirty.
Professor Chamberlain and I have a secret project in hand,—a book on Japanese folk-lore. Whether we can carry it out I do not know; but if the dear Professor’s health keeps up we shall do something together....
Ever faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Nishida,—I got your kind letter,—and the money,—and the ballads; for all of which a thousand thanks. I feel you have been very, very kind in all this, even while you were sick: so that my poor thanks signify little of what I really feel towards you. It has given me much pleasure to hear of your being better; but I am disappointed at your being unable to travel,—very much disappointed, as I fear I will not be able to leave Kumamoto again this vacation....
I see that, as regards Kyūshū compared with Tōkyō, you take the moral aspect of the question, while I have possibly been ruled too much by the artistic side. I cannot fully understand the moral side, of course: I can only perceive that the Kyūshū students are allowed to dress as simply as possible,— are encouraged to be frugal and frank, and rough in their sports,—and are generally said to be extremely independent and what you call katai, isn’t it? But whether they are really any better than Matsue students, I don’t know. Certainly they have no pleasures to soften their minds. There is nothing to see, and nowhere to go. And Kyōto is the most delightful city in the whole of Japan. However, I suppose it has also temptations for students of a dangerous sort....
I had no luck with Kumagae Masayoshi, and was obliged to send the boy back to Oki, after he had worried and made unhappy everybody in the house. He was an extraordinarily clever boy,—both at school, and at everything he undertook,—extremely skilful with his hands, and almost diabolically intelligent. But he had no affection at all, and seemed to be naturally very cruel and cunning. He was strictly honest, and trustworthy,—for all that. But his character was supremely selfish and malignant. He made nasty songs about people, and sang them, and gave us the impression of being a small devil.
I am trying to do some literary work. Your ballad of Shuntoku-maru proved quite useful to me in the course of an essay I wrote on the difficulty experienced by Japanese in understanding a certain class of English poetry and fiction. It revealed a popular conception of things,—that ballad, which I took for an illustration, in showing the total unlikeness of Western to Oriental society—especially in the family relation; the absence of flirting and kissing and woman-worship which we have in the West. Indeed I think the great difficulty of mutual comprehension between the Japanese and the English is chiefly due to the predominance of a feminine idea in our language, our art, and our whole conception of Nature. Therefore the Oriental can see aspects of Nature to which we remain blind....
Lafcadio Hearn.
My dear Ochiai,—It has given me much pleasure to hear of your success at the examinations. I wish you all good fortune for the coming year, and good health to aid you.
I want also to talk to you about another matter very much to your interest. Please pay attention to my words, and think about them. I only wish your happiness;—therefore remember that what I say deserves your attention and your thought.
I want to talk to you about Christianity, as a religion,—not as a shū, or sect. I hope you will understand the distinction I make. A religion is a moral belief which causes men to live honestly and to be kind and good to each other. A sect is made by a difference of belief as to what is true religious teaching. Thus in Buddhism there are many sects or shū; and in Christianity, there are also many sects or shū. But it is not what makes the sects that has made Buddhism. Neither is it what has made the Christian sects that has made Christianity. Truth makes a religion—moral truth; sects are made by differences of opinion about the meaning of kyō, or the meaning of other sacred texts.
So much for this. I want now to tell you, as your friend, that it is not Christianity to refuse to bow before the portrait of the Emperor, or before the tombs of the great dead. If anybody tells you that is Christianity,—that person is not a Christian, but a bigot, and an enemy of his country. Whenever we sing the English national anthem, we take off our hats. Whenever we enter into the presence of one of Her Majesty’s representatives, we take off our hats. We stand up to drink Her Majesty’s health. We are taught that the Queen rules by divine command. It is the same in Germany, in Austria, in Italy, in Spain,—in all except republican countries. So much for that. It is quite right, even for a Christian, to bow before the Emperor’s picture;—it is loyal, noble, and good to do it. To refuse to do it is ignorant and vulgar. It is not Christian at all.
Now about the question of tombs and temples. What is the Christian custom? The Christian custom is to pay proper and just respect to the religion which other people believe in. If I go into a Christian church,—although I am not a Christian,—I must take off my hat. If I go into a Mohammedan mosque, I must take off my shoes. Such tokens of respect are purely social,—they are just and right. In Mexico, for example, when a religious procession passes, everybody who is polite takes off his hat. That means,—“Although I am not of your religion, I respect your religion,—your prayers to heaven, and your wish to be good.”
Again, when a funeral goes by, we take off our hats. That means, “Although none of my friends have died, I sympathize with your sorrow.” It is courteous and it is right.
Whatever you believe, my dear Ochiai, you need never refuse to show respect to the tomb of an Emperor, to the memory of an ancestor, or the religion of another people or another country. Christianity teaches no such discourtesy. Only bigots teach it,—and even they teach it for reasons you are not able to understand. I do not want to question your religious belief at all;—that is not my duty. I want only to talk to you about social action in reference to real religion. No honest religion ought to cause you any unhappiness, or to cause you to be blamed by others. Religion ought to be of the heart. It is not a question of hats and shoes. Do not refuse to show respect to honest customs and honest reverence for ancestors, by a bow, or a removal of the hat. It will injure your prospects in life to make ill will for yourself by refusing to show respect to the beliefs of your nation and country. Such respect has nothing to do with your faith;—it is a question of social politeness and gentlemanliness. And when you refuse, you will not be judged for your belief,—not at all. You will simply be thought vulgar,—not a true gentleman.
A true gentleman respects all religions. That is the real Western idea. Do not deceive yourself.
This from your true friend and teacher,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,— ... And now for a letter. Your last two letters were full of curious things that call for no answer, but, in connection with foregoing ones, certainly invite comment. More and more, reading your lightning-flash glimpses of life, I think how terribly tragical modern life is becoming. What is its law? Is it not something like this?—