Dear Chamberlain,—In writing to you, of course, I’ve not been writing a book—but simply setting down the thoughts and feelings of the moment as they come. I write a book exactly the same way; but all this has to be smoothed, ordinated, corrected, toned over twenty times before a page is ready. It strikes me, however, that the first raw emotion or fancy, which is the base of all, has its value between men who understand each other. You, on the other hand,—differently constituted,—write a letter as you would write a book. You collect and mould the thought instinctively and perhaps unconsciously before setting it on paper.
I’m not quite such an American radical as you think in consequence; for I confess to a belief in the value of aristocracies—a very strong belief. On the other hand, the reality of the thing to the man is its relation to him personally. Don’t you think your comfort in all sorts and conditions may be due to your personal independence of those sorts and conditions? It is like Rufz’s statement that “the first relations between men are delicious”—so long as you are in nobody’s way, and have capacity to please, you have the bright side turned to you. (Again, there is this question: Are you sure the side you see and like is not the artificial side? I don’t say it is, but there are possibilities.) My own dislike of mercantile people in all countries is based upon experiences of the contrary sort. But how can men, trained from childhood to watch for and to take all possible advantage of human weakness, remain a morally superior class. That they don’t, needs no argument; and that the poorest people in all countries are the most moral and self-sacrificing needs no argument either. Both are acknowledged and indisputable facts in sociology,—in the study of civilized races, at least. When to this marrow-bred sense of morality is superadded the courtesy you yourself in a former letter declared without parallel, I see nothing extravagant in the statement that a Japanese hyakushō is more of a gentleman than an English merchant can be—if gentleness means delicate consideration for others, by means of which virtue no man can succeed in life.
I should like to know any story of heroism—sorry not to be near you to coax you for an outline of it. Every fact of goodness makes one better, and an author richer, to know it. There are good heroes and heroines in all walks of life, indeed,—though all walks of life do not necessarily lead to goodness. Indeed, there are some which teach that goodness is foolishness,—but all won’t believe it is true.
The extraordinary wastefulness of foreign life is a fact that strikes one hard after life in the interior. Men work like slaves for no other earthly reason than that conventions require them to live beyond their means; and those who are free to live as they wish live on a scale that seems extravagant in the extreme. All goes right in the end, but I have not yet escaped the sensation of imagining one life devouring a hundred for mere amusement. Here is a man who spends, to my knowledge, more than $500 a week for mere amusement. He lives, therefore, at the rate of more than 1000 Japanese lives. I’m not disputing his right: but in the eternal order of things the whirligig of time must bring in strange revenges....
A paper read by Spencer before the Anthropological Society, on the subject of the Method of Comparative Psychology, came into my hands the other day. It was only four or five pages—so I could read it. What a magnificent teaching for an essay on Japanese psychology! I may try to take up the theme some day. There are some terrible suggestions, however—such as that the Japanese indifference to abstract ideas is not indifference, but incapacity to form general ideas. The language would seem to confirm the suggestion.
P. S. I should like to discuss the “heredity and evolution” topic of child-feeling, but fear to weary you with my scribble. Indeed I wrote a long letter, but concluded not to send to-day. You are quite right about the inherited feeling of the impulse to martial play: the new toy would represent subjectively some slight modifications of inherited pleasure as regards colour, form, and noise,—but the inherited feeling remains the chief factor in the matter. A mask of o tafuku as a toy would not effect modifications in the quality of certain inherited impressions, but only accentuate them, and accentuate others innumerable faintly connected with them.
Ever, with regret that I cannot write more for the moment, yours faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Chamberlain,—I might one of these days get a job in Loochoo, when the country becomes richer,—and explore ghostology. The ghost-business must be simply immense: it must be immense anywhere that the dead are better housed than the living. Of old I felt sure that if the Egyptian demotic texts were translated, the ghostly side of that literature would be amazing—for just the same reason. Well, they have been translated; and the ghost-stories are without parallel. Assyrian ghostology is also very awful; but we don’t know much about their necropoles,—for whatever those were, they were of perishable stuff.
As I told the Houghton firm I had a volume of philosophical fairy-tales in mind, and wanted to read Andersen again, they sent me four volumes; ... the old charm comes back with tenfold force, and makes me despair. How great the art of the man!—the immense volume of fancy,—the magical simplicity—the astounding force of compression! This isn’t mere literary art; it is a soul photographed and phonographed and put, like electricity, in storage. To write like Andersen, one must be Andersen. But the fountain of his inspiration is unexhausted, and I hope to gain by drinking from it. I read, and let the result set up disturbances interiorly. Disturbances emotional I need. I have had no sensations since leaving Kyūshū.
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,— ... Apparently the war is over; and we are glad,—with due apprehension. Possibilities are ugly. The doom of foreign trade in Japan has, I think, begun to be knelled. In twenty-five years more the foreign merchants will be represented here by agents chiefly. The anti-foreign feeling is strong. I am not sure but it is just. Only—the innocent pay, not the guilty.
As for me, I must confess that I am only happy out of the sight of foreign faces and the hearing of English voices. Not quite happy, though—I am always worried for the future. I drew the lots of the gods: they replied yesterday at Kiyomizu in Holy Kyōto: “All you wish you shall have, but not until you are very old.” H’m! Is that Delphic? Can I become very old?
No: Kazuo is not a Japanese rendering of Lafcadio. It signifies only “First of the Excellent,” or “Best of the Peerless Ones,” but it does serve for both purposes to the imagination.
As I watch the little fellow playing, all the dim vague sensations of my own childhood seem to come back to me. I comprehend by unexpected retrospection!
My eye is not yet quite well. But I expect it will last for some years more.
Best thanks for that admirable and timely letter of advice. Of course I shall follow it absolutely. Wish I had the advantage of being closer to my loved adviser,—for more reasons than one.
L. H.
Dear Page,—I paid 35c. postage the other day on a huge envelope the superscription whereof filled my soul with joy. I know it is mean to mention the 35c.; but I do this on purpose,—that I may be properly revenged. Opening the envelope I found a very dear letter, for which I am more than grateful,—and two pieces of pasteboard, for which I am not grateful at all. The promised photo had never been put into the envelope,—only the envelope,—only the pasteboards. The two envelopes had never been opened. And the why and the wherefore of the thing I am at a loss to discern. But as you did not stop sending the paper to Kumamoto for eight months after I had vainly prayed for a change of address, I suppose that you simply forgot in both cases....
About the little Japanese dress. Now the matter of a little girl’s dress is much more complicated than I can tell you—if you want the real thing. Do you wish for a winter, spring, summer, or autumn dress?—for these are quite necessary distinctions. Do you wish for a holiday dress?—a ceremonial dress?—an every-day dress? The winter ceremonial dress for a girl of good family is very expensive, for it consists of silk skirt, koshimaki (body under-petticoat), and four or five heavily wadded silk robes one over the other,—with obi, etc. The obi is the most costly part of the dress—may run to 30 or even 50 yen: it ought to cost at least 20. The summer dress is light, and much cheaper. I think you ought to get a suit for about (yen) 60-70. Of course, no suits are ready-made. The dress must be made to order; and even the girdle worked up. To tie the girdle will be difficult,—unless a Japanese shows you the method.
If you want only a common cotton suit, which is very, very pretty, it would be quite cheap. But I suppose you want the fashionable dress, and that is as dear as you care to pay. Prices may range up into the hundreds. Boys’ dresses—even winter dresses—are not so dear, but my little fellow’s ceremonial dress,—the overdress alone,—cost $27 without counting the adjuncts. Boys’ soft obi cost, however, only 3 or 4 yen; and girls’ obi five or six times as much. Shoes (sandals) and stockings are cheap. The geta could scarcely be managed by a Western child. The straw sandal (zōri), with velvet thong, is easy and pleasant to wear. I have heard of silk tabi, but never saw any, and I think they are worn only by geisha, etc. White cotton tabi are the prettiest; and I have heard that white silk tabi never look really white,—so the coloured tabi would be better in silk. But everybody wears the white cotton tabi, and nothing could be prettier than a little foot in this cleft envelope.
The colours of the dress of a girl are much brighter than those of boys’ dresses; but they change every additional year of the girl’s life. They are covered with designs, generally symbolical,—full of meanings, but meaningless to Western eyes. The finest textures used—crape—silk, etc.—shrink and suffer immensely by washing; for such dresses as you would want are not worn every day—nor at school or in play.
You see the subject is really very complex, and requires years to learn much about. Only a native in any case can be relied on for choice, etc. The suits of “Japanese clothes” usually bought by foreigners in Japan, to take home to their friends, are made to order just to sell to foreigners, and are not Japanese at all—no Japanese would wear them. For the man as for the woman the rules of dress are very strict, and vary precisely according to the age of the wearer.
For a little girl two years old, you would not need a hakama,—divided skirt. Such hakama are worn by little school-girls, and are usually sky-blue. They are not, like the men’s fashionable hakama, made of Sendai silk. The hakama of a high official may be very expensive.
I think what you want could be got for about $40 (American money, including all costs), unless you want a winter dress. It would be very heavy, and likely to make the little one too warm, for this climate is not like that of New Orleans. The chief cost is the obi,—the broad stiff heavy silk girdle.
Thanks for the sweet things you said about my little boy. He was born November 16th, ’93;—so he is younger than your little angel by four or five months. Mrs. Baker was right. Trust a mother’s eye to decide all such problems! And say all the kindest and wisest and prettiest things you can to Mrs. Baker for her kindest message....
Lafcadio Hearn.
P. S. What you wrote about Constance is very beautiful. No man can possibly know what life means, what the world means, what anything means, until he has a child and loves it. And then the whole universe changes,—and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before.
Dear Chamberlain,—I received your kind letter shortly after returning from Kyōto, where I have been living in an old samurai yashiki transformed into a hotel.
I am quite sorry your eyes are troubling you; and indeed I should sincerely advise you to get away from all temptation to reading or writing for some months. Considering how much your translation of that ballad signified in the matter of personal kindness under such circumstances, I cannot but feel pain,—though you will not be sorry to hear that you made a sketch possible, entitled “A Street-Singer,” sent to H. M. & Co. towards the construction of a new book now under way.
I have not written you before because feeling under the weather—hungry for sympathy I cannot get, and have no reason really to expect. It is only long after one gets credit as a writer that one wins any recognition as a thinker. My critics are careful to discriminate. One assures me that as a poet I am impeccable, and “a great man,” but that I must remember my theories can only be decided by the “serious student.” Or in other words that I am never to be taken seriously. The men taken seriously get $10,000 a year for trying to do what I could do much better. Poor myself must try to live on “dream-stuff.”
I am sorry you cannot read. But still you are fortunate, because you are able to live without being at the mercy of cads and clerks. That alone is a great happiness. I am pestered with requests to do vulgar work for fools at prices they would not dare to offer, if they did not imagine me an object of charity. Happily I can get away from them all, and keep the door locked.
What a privilege to live in Kyōto. I should be glad of a very small post there. The Exhibition is marvellous—showing how Japan will revenge herself on the West. Artistically it is very disappointing. There are funny things—a naked woman (not a “nude study,” but simply a naked woman in oil) for which the artist insolently asks $3000. It is worth about three rin. The Japanese don’t like it, and they are right. But I fear they do not know why they are right.
Ever with best regards,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Page,—It was almost unkind, after all to have sent the very dear picture, because it brought back too vividly hours of pleasant talk and kind words and great projects and all sorts of things which have forever passed away. But there was a pleasure in the pain too,—for it is quite a help in life to feel that ever so far away there is somebody who loves you, and whom Time will not quickly change. You look just the same. I—I should scare you were I to send you a picture—you would think Time was much faster than he is. For I am very ancient to behold.
Well, love to you for the picture....
Of news little to tell you that you do not get from other sources. Japan has yielded the Liao-tung Peninsula; but the nation is full of sullen anger against Russia and the interference-powers. The press is officially muzzled; but there is no mistaking the popular feeling. Even an overthrow of the existing Government is not impossible, and a return to that military autocracy which is really the natural government of an essentially military race. If the Japanese house of representatives had not interfered seriously and idiotically with naval expansion, Russian interference would have been almost impossible.
I was on the Matsushima yesterday, the flag-ship. She has few scars outside; but she must have been half torn to pieces inside. Her decks were covered only a few months back with blood and brains. She is only 4280 tons; and she had to fight with two 7400 ton battle-ships and European gunners. She lost half her crew, but won gloriously. (The Japanese really never lost one ship—only a torpedo-boat that got run aground.) The people are proud of her with good reason; and the officers let them come with their babies to look at the decks where stains still tell of the sacrifices for Japan’s sake.
Ever faithfully and affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Page,—Your kindest letter has come. Of course my mention of the postage-payment was only playful spite; for I should be glad to get letters from you upon those conditions. The Japanese P.O. people don’t seem to do things after our fashion just now, since discharging all their foreign employés. The new clerks get about $10.00 a month ($4.50 American money), and most of them are married on that!
No: I do not see the newspapers. The clubs have them; but I take infinite care to avoid the vicinity of clubs. Sometimes a friend sends me a paper (the Herald, for example); and the publishers sent me only a few notices this time,—about three, I think. That Herald I saw, through kindness of a man whom I don’t even know.
I don’t know that you are wrong about not ordering the dress just now. The taller the little Constance gets, the better she will look in one. I fancy that the summer dress will be best,—it shows the figure a little: the winter dress, for a cold day, makes one look a little bit roly-poly. Perhaps a little school-girl’s dress would please you;—though it is not very dear, but rather very cheap, it is pretty,—quite pretty and of many colours. The Japanese robes bought in Japan by foreign ladies are especially made for them;—they are not the real thing. No pretty grown-up American girl would feel comfortable in the Japanese girdle, which is not tied round the waist, but round the hips,—so that Japanese women, well dressed, look shorter-limbed then they really are, and they are short of limb compared with the women of Northern races. Much stuff has been written, however, about the short-legged Japanese. I have seen as well-limbed men as one could care to see:—they are shorter of stature than Northern Europeans or Americans, but they would make a very good comparison with French, Spanish, or Italians—the dark types. They are heavily built, too, sometimes. The Kumamoto troops are very sturdy; and the weight of the men surprised me. But the finest men, except labourers, that I have seen in Japan are the men-of-war’s-men,—the blue-jackets. They are picked from the sturdiest fishing population of Southern Japan, where the men grow big, and I have seen several over six feet.
But I have been digressing. It was very sweet,—your little picture of home life with the darling fillette. She is much more advanced than my boy. He is younger, of course; but girls mature intellectually so much quicker than boys. He is puzzled, too, by having to learn two languages,—each totally different in thought construction; but he knows, when the postman gives him a letter, which language it is written in. I think, though it is not for me to say it, that the whole street loves him;—for everybody brings him presents and pets him. At first he worried me a little by calling out to every foreigner,—some rough ones into the bargain,—“Hei, papa!” But the old sea-captains and the mercantile folk thus addressed would take him up in their arms and pet him; and there is a big captain with a red face who watches for him regularly, to give him candies, etc. We are going soon to another house; and we shall miss the good kind captain.
I’m still out of work, and going to stay out of it. I think I can live by my pen. I am not sure, of course; but I can hang out here a couple of years more, anyhow,—and trust to luck. My publishers seem to be all right.
Infinite thanks about the syndicate project. I can certainly undertake the matter for the figure named,—for I won’t be away more than six months. I have written my publishers to ask if I can get certain proofs of a new book (not quite finished yet—so please don’t mention it) early enough to start about October. I should like one provision,—that I may choose another point, such as Java, in preference to Manila or Ryūkyū,—supposing ugly circumstances, such as cholera, intervene. I might try a French colony,—Tonkin, Noumea, or Pondicherry. At all events this would not hurt the syndicate’s interests. I should hope to be back in spring; and I would not disappoint you as to quality. Perhaps the more queer places I go to, the better for the syndicate.
I don’t know what to tell you about war-matters. The unjust interference of the three powers has to be considered, though, from two points of view. The first is, that the anger of the nation may create such a feeling in the next Diet as to provoke a temporary suspension of the constitution. The second is that most of us feel the check to Japan was rather in the interest of foreign residents. The feeling against foreigners had been very strong, not without reason, as the foreign newspapers, excepting the Mail and the Kōbe Chronicle, had mostly opposed the new treaties, and criticized the war in an unkindly spirit. Besides, there never had been any really good feeling between foreigners and Japanese in the open ports. Now there was really danger that after a roaring triumph, without check, over China, the previous feeling against foreigners would take more violent form. The sympathetic action of England improved the feeling very much; and really I think the check will in the end benefit Japan. She will be obliged to double or triple her naval strength, and wait a generation. In the meantime she will gain much in other power, military and industrial. Then she will be able to tackle Russia,—if she feels as she now does. The army and navy were furiously eager to fight Russia. But Russia has enormous staying power; and the fleets of three nations stood between the 150,000 men abroad and the shores of Japan. Of course it was a risk. England might have settled the naval side of the matter in Japan’s favour. But war would have had sad consequences to industry and commerce. The Japanese statesmen were right. Besides, what does Japan lose?—Nothing, except a position; for the retrocession must be heavily paid for. The anger of the people is only a question of national vanity wounded;—and though they would sacrifice everything for war, it is better that they were not suffered by the few wise heads to do so.
I was sorry about your having to slap that fellow. But you will always be the old-style Knight—preferring to give a straight-out blow, than simply to sit down at a desk and score a man every day, unwearyingly, as Northern editors do.
I am glad to hear of Matas. I used to love him very much....
As to kissing in Japan, there is no kissing. Kissing is not “forbidden” at all;—there is simply no impulse to kiss among the Turanian races. All Aryan races have the impulse, as an affectionate greeting. Children do not kiss their parents;—but the pressing of cheek to cheek is nearly the same thing—as a demonstration. Mothers lip their little ones;—but—how shall I explain? The kiss, as we understand it in the Occident, is considered not as an affectionate, but as a sexual impulse, or as of kin to such an impulse. Now this is absolutely true. Undoubtedly the modern kiss of the cultivated West may have no such meaning in 99,997 cases out of 99,998. But the original primitive signification of pressing lip to lip, as Aryan races do, or even lip to cheek, is physiologically traceable to the love which is too often called l’amour, but which has little to do with the higher sense of affection. With us the impulse of a child to kiss is absolutely instinctive. The Japanese child has no such impulse whatever; but his way of caressing is none the less delicious.
On the other hand, it is significant that the Japanese word for “dear,” “lovable” is also used to signify “sweetness” of the material saccharine kind. But perhaps this is offset by the fact that Japanese confectionery, though delicious, never nauseates through over-sweetness; and that the quantity of sugar used is very much less than with us. One never gets tired of kwashi; but plumcake and bonbons in the West need to be sparingly used. Perhaps we want too much sweetness of all kinds. The Japanese are in all things essentially temperate and self-restrained—as a people. Of course, Western notions and examples begin to spoil them a little.
It is possible by the time this reaches you that I shall have become a Japanese citizen,—for legal reasons. (Say nothing yet about it.) If I marry my wife before the consul, then she becomes English, and loses the right to hold property in her own country. Marrying her by Japanese custom will not be acknowledged as legal, without special permission of the minister of foreign affairs,—but if I get the permission, then she becomes English, and the boy too. So my marriage, though legal according to every moral code, and according to the old law, becomes illegal by new law, and the wife and family—as I really follow the Japanese code, supporting father, mother, and grandparents—have no rights except through a will, which relatives can dispute. I therefore cut the puzzle by changing nationality, and becoming a Japanese. Then I lose all chance of Government employ at a living salary; for the Englishman who becomes a Japanese is only paid by the Japanese scale. Also I lose the really powerful protection given to Englishmen by their own nation. Finally I have to pay taxes much bigger than consular fees, and my boy becomes liable to military service. (But that won’t hurt him.) I hope in any case to give him a scientific education abroad. The trouble is I am now forty-five. I’ll be sleeping in some Buddhist cemetery before I can see him quite independent....
I have lost friends because their wives didn’t like me—more than once;—as Chamberlain says, “No: you’ll never be a ladies’ man.” But the kindly spirit of Mrs. Baker shows even through your own letters;—and if I can ever see you again, I know that, although not a ladies’ man, I won’t be disliked in one friend’s home as a fugitive visitor. Say everything grateful to her for me that you can.
Good-bye, with love to your pretty gold-head,—and regards to all friends.
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Chamberlain,—In reading Schopenhauer (I believe you have the splendid Haldane & Kemp version in three volumes: it is said to preserve even the remarkable sonority of the German original), you may notice where Schopenhauer failed, only through want of knowledge undeveloped in his time. While highly appreciating Lamarck,—the greatest of the evolutionists before Darwin, greater even than Goethe,—he finds fault with his theory as not showing proof of the prototype formless animal from which all organic forms existing are derived. Therefore Schopenhauer insisted on the potential prototype existing in the Will only. But since Schopenhauer’s day, the material formless prototypal animal has been found; and the theory of Schopenhauer as to forms falls back into a region of pure metaphysics. He is none the less valuable on that account. He represents the soul (psyche) of an enormous fact, or at least a soul which can be fitted to the body of science for the time being. He has been justly called a German Buddhist; and his philosophy is entirely based on the study of Brahmanic and Buddhist texts. The only absolutely novel theory in his book is the essay on sexual love,—vol. 3 in your edition. There is one defect in it, but that does not hurt the value of the whole. And then the splendour of style, of self-assertion, of imagery Huxley equalled only, I think twice, in all of his essays. Of course Schopenhauer belongs to the evolutional school; that is the reason why he has been taken up to-day after long neglect. His work gives new force to evolutional psychology of the new school. The most remarkable popular effect of the newer school has not, I think, yet been noticed. It is in fiction; and the success of a work taken in this line recently has made a fortune for publishers and author. Unfortunately, poor I have not the constructive art necessary to attempt anything of the kind—not yet! Perhaps in twenty years more.
Very faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Chamberlain,—A delicious surprise,—though one that gave some pain; for I suffered to think you should have used your eyes to such an extent for my sake. Mason, too, one day actually wrote me that he would copy something for me if I needed it (which luckily I had got from another source): I should be pained to have either of you try your eyes for my poor vagaries. Please don’t think me too selfish;—it was simply lovable of you, but don’t do it again.
I think I may be able to use a fragment or two effectively: what I want now to get is the rhythm used in the singing,—and that none of my people can remember. They said it was very wonderful, but very difficult to catch: so that it would seem some melodies are as hard for the Japanese themselves to learn by ear, as they are for us to so learn. I had the same curious experience at Sakai and in Kizuki; yet I asked persons who had been listening to the singing for several hours, and were natives of the place. They all said, “Ah! that is very difficult. So a good ondo tori is hard to find; and they are paid well to come to our festivals.” But when the woman comes again I shall try to syllabify the measure on paper.
I can feel the popular mind in the peasant songs: in the military songs I cannot. But there is a queer variation in tone used in military singing which is very effective. The leader suddenly turns down his voice nearly a full octave, and all the chorus follow: it is like a sudden and terrible menace,—then all go back to high tenor notes again. What you tell me about Ryūkyū priests’ songs surprised me. You must have got everything that could be got there in an astonishingly short time. I sent you the Nara miko-songs,—mystical hymns about sowing, etc.,—very artless. The Nara and Kompira miko are really virgins. Entre nous I am sorry to say that the miko of Kizuki are not: but, as they ought to be, there is no use specifying in any public way. It would be like denying the virtue of nuns in general, because one or two sisters fall from grace. While the ideal lives anywhere it strikes me as wrong to insist too much on realism.
I know you make a collection of everything relating to Japan, so I must send you a photo of Yuko Hatakeyama. I had it copied from a badly faded one—so it does not come out well. You are not of those who refuse to see beyond the visible; and though there is nothing beautiful or ideal in this figure, it was certainly the earthly chrysalis of a very precious and beautiful soul, which I have tried to make the West love a little bit. So you may prize it.
Some one, thinking to please me, sent me by this mail a large French periodical, full of gravures porno-or semi-pornographiques, Saint Anthony and French courtesans and angels mixed up together. I burned the thing,—astonished at the revulsion of feeling it produced in myself. (The work was beautiful in its way, of course, but the way!) After all, it seems to me that Japanese life is essentially chaste: its ideals are chaste. I can feel now exactly how a Japanese feels about certain foreign tendencies. I know all about Japanese picture-books of a certain class—innocent things in their very frankness: there is more real evil, or at least more moral weakness in any number of certain French public prints. It strikes me also that the charm even of the jōro to the Japanese mind is quite different from any corresponding Western feeling. She figures simply as an ideal lady of old time, and the graces cultivated in her, and the costume donned, are those of an ideal past. The animalism of half-exposures and suggestions of whole exposures is not any more Japanese than it was old-Persian. Even the naughty picture-books were intended for imitations, catechism.
Talking of catechism, I have been thinking of making a Buddhist catechism of a somewhat fantastic sort.
“How old are you?”
“I am millions of millions of years old, as a phenomenon. As absolute I am eternal and older than the universe,” etc.
Faithfully ever,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,— ... I am waiting every day for the sanction of the minister to change my name; and I think it will come soon. This will make me Koizumi Yakumo, or,—arranging the personal and family names in English order,—“Y. Koizumi.” “Eight clouds” is the meaning of “Yakumo,” and is the first part of the most ancient poem extant in the Japanese language. (You will find the whole story in “Glimpses”—article “Yaegaki.”) Well, “Yakumo” is a poetical alternative for Izumo, my beloved province, “the Place of the Issuing of Clouds.” You will understand how the name was chosen.
If all goes well, and I am not obliged to return to America, I shall next year probably return to Izumo, and make a permanent home there. So long as I can travel in winter, I need not care about the weather. When my boy grows big enough, if I live, I shall take him abroad, and try to give him a purely scientific education—modern languages if possible, no waste of time on Latin, Greek, and stupidities. (Literature and history can be best learned at home; and the greatest men are not the products of schools, not in England or America, at least: Germany is an exception.) He might turn out to be very commonplace, in which case all plans must be changed; but I suspect he will not be stupid. He says, by the way, that he was a doctor in his former birth. It is quite possible, for he has my father’s eyes.
In regard to what you asked me about the English literature business, I think there is no way of teaching English literature except by selections,—joined together with an evolutional study of English emotional life, illustrated after the manner of Taine’s “Art in Italy,” etc. But such work, combining history with literature, would involve the use of an immense library, and would be very costly to the teacher. By the way, I hate English literature. French literature is much more interesting. What I should most like would be to make a study of comparative literature—including Sanscrit, Finnish, Arabic, Persian,—systematizing the best specimens of each into kindred groupings on the evolutional plan. That would be worth doing; for it means a study of the evolutional development of all mankind. But such undertakings, I fear, are for the extremely rich.
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,— ... It has often occurred to me to ask whether you think other men feel as I do about some things—you yourself, for example. Work with me is a pain—no pleasure till it is done. It is not voluntary; it is not agreeable. It is forced by necessity. The necessity is a curious one. The mind, in my case, eats itself when unemployed. Reading, you might suggest, would employ it. No: my thoughts wander, and the gnawing goes on just the same. What kind of gnawing? Vexation and anger and imaginings and recollections of unpleasant things said or done. Unless somebody does or says something horribly mean to me, I can’t do certain kinds of work,—the tiresome kinds, that compel a great deal of thinking. The exact force of a hurt I can measure at the time of receiving it: “This will be over in six months;” “This I shall have to fight for two years;” “This will be remembered longer.” When I begin to think about the matter afterwards, then I rush to work. I write page after page of vagaries, metaphysical, emotional, romantic,—throw them aside. Then next day, I go to work rewriting them. I rewrite and rewrite them till they begin to define and arrange themselves into a whole,—and the result is an essay; and the editor of the Atlantic writes, “It is a veritable illumination,”—and no mortal man knows why, or how it was written,—not even I myself,—or what it cost to write it. Pain is therefore to me of exceeding value betimes; and everybody who does me a wrong indirectly does me a right. I wonder if anybody else works on this plan. The benefit of it is that a habit is forming,—a habit of studying and thinking in a way I should otherwise have been too lazy-minded to do. But whenever I begin to forget one burn, new caustic from some unexpected quarter is poured into my brain: then the new pain forces other work. It strikes me as being possibly a peculiar morbid condition. If it is, I trust that some day the power will come to do something really extraordinary—I mean very unique. What is the good of having a morbid sensitive spot, if it cannot be utilized to some purpose worth achieving?
There was a funny suicide here the other day. A boy of seventeen threw himself on the railroad track and was cut to pieces by a train. He left a letter to his employer, saying that the death of the employer’s little son had made the world dark for him. The child would have nobody to play with: so, he said, “I shall go to play with him. But I have a little sister of six;—I pray you to take care of her.”
Ever affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
My dear Chamberlain,—Your paper on Luchu gave me more pleasure, I am sure, than it even did to the president of the society before whom it was read; and I was delighted with the nice things said of you. Of course this paper—being a much more elaborate monograph than the other—differs from its predecessor in the matter of suggestiveness. To me it is like a graded anthropological map,—shading off the direction of character-tendencies, language, customs, to the uttermost limit of the subject. I had no idea how much you had been doing in the Archipelago—your own field of research by unquestionable right. If I ever go down there I shall certainly attempt nothing out of the much humbler line which I can follow: there is really nothing left for another man to do in the way of gathering general knowledge about an unfamiliar region.
There is one expression of opinion in the monograph which I may venture a remark about. The idea is growing upon me, more and more each day I live, that the supposed indifferentism of the Japanese in religious matters is affected indifferentism—that it is put on like yofuku, only for foreigners. I see too much of the real life, even here in Kōbe, to think the indifferentism real. And I believe the Jesuits, who are better judges far than our comfortable modern proselytizers, never accused the Japanese of indifference. However, this is but suggestive: I think that should you ever find time to watch the incidents of common life minutely, you will recognize the Jesuits as the keenest observers. As for the educated classes, I have also reason to know that in most cases the indifference is feigned. This will show you how my own opinions have changed in five years’ time.
Very truly yours,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Nishida,—Kazuo knows your picture, always hanging on the wall by my desk, and your name—so that if you see him soon, he will not think you a stranger. He talks well now, but is getting naughty, like his father used to be—very naughty. I see my own childish naughtiness all over again. I think he will be cleverer than his father. If he shows real talent, I shall try to take him to France or to Italy, later on in life. English schools I don’t like: they are too rough. New England schools are better; especially for the earlier teaching. The systems of Spencer and others have been much better followed out in Eastern Massachusetts than in England, where religious conservatism persists in loading the minds with perfectly useless acquirements. The future demands scientific education—not ornamented; and the thoroughly trained man never needs help. I remember a friend in the United States Army,—engineer and graduate of West Point (a splendid institution): he was coaxed out of the army by an electrical company because of his knowledge of applied mathematics. What wonderful men one meets among the scientifically educated to-day one must go abroad to know. Such men, unfortunately, do not come to Japan. If they had been chosen for teachers, I fancy that education would have felt their influence. It does not feel the influence of common foreign teachers. But, a student said to me, “We must cultivate our own powers through our own language hereafter,”—and I think he expressed the sensible general feeling of the day.
Ever with kindest hopes and wishes for you,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Chamberlain,—Your more than gracious flying visit, having set in motion the machinery of converse, left me long continuing a phantom talk with a phantom professor across a real table,—which I touched to make sure.
Then my wife’s delight with her Miyako-miyage, and the boy’s with the pictures, you can imagine,—though not perhaps my own feeling of mingled pleasure and sorrow. Whatever you do is done so delicately and finely that I fear I could show no appreciation of it in writing.
It was lucky that we had returned from Kyōto just so as to be here for your visit. What pleased me most of all, perhaps, was your seeing my boy. I have often thought if I can realize my dream of taking him to Europe, which now seems quite possible, I might some day have the pleasure of presenting him as a man.
You wanted a thinking book; and I must confess that is now my own want: I care only for a novel when it illustrates some new philosophical idea, or when it possesses such art that it can be studied for the art alone. Perhaps Lombroso would interest (and revolt) you at the same time: Nordau is only a new edition of Lombroso, I think—a journalistic one. I detest his generalizations, so far as I know them through extracts: all being false that I have seen. Progress depends on variation; and the morale of Nordau would lead to, or accentuate, already existing Chinese notions in the conventional world, that all departures from formality and humbug are to be explained by degeneration. Without having read it, I should judge the book a shallow one,—much at variance with Spencer’s views on eccentricity and its values. Of the Italian school, Mantegazza most appeals to me, and would, I think to you—though he is sentimental as Michelet in “L’Amour.” ...
You think me too dissatisfied, don’t you? It is true I am not satisfied, and already unable to look at my former work. But the moment a man can feel satisfied with himself, progress stops. He can only move along a level afterwards; and I hope the level is still some years off. (I see a possibility to strive for; but I am afraid even to speak of it—so well out of reach it now is.) But what you will be glad to hear is that my publishers are treating me well enough. I have up to September made about 2000 yen (Japanese money), and prospects of making about 4000 in 1896. It is now largely a question of eyes.
I visited the grave of Yuko Hatakeyama last week at Kyōto,—and saw all the touching relics of her, and of her suicide: also secured copies of her letters, etc. A nice monument has been erected over her resting-place by public subscription; and there was a little cup of tea before the sekito when I arrived.
Needless to say that I am asked to send messages which could only be spoiled by putting them into English, and my wife is ashamed, or at least shy, of writing what she would like to write if possessing more self-confidence in matters epistolary. But you will understand without more words.
Most gratefully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Nishida,—I suppose we have both been very busy—you with the winter school-term, and I with my new book. I trust you got my last letter, and that you know how grateful we feel to you for the advice and help given to Mr. Takaki, and for smoothing matters. We are also anxious to hear that you are well, and are hoping to see you this coming summer.
As for the naturalization business, it seems to hang fire.[2] A couple of months ago, there came to the house an official, who asked us many questions. What he asked me was not important or interesting; but his questions to Setsu were amusing. He enquired how long we had been together—whether I had always been kind—whether she thought I would always be good to her—whether she would be content always to have such a husband—whether she was in earnest—whether she had made the application of her own free will, or under pressure from relations—whether I had not forced her to make such an application—whether she held any property in my name. Afterwards she had to go to some office where she was asked the same questions over again. Since that time we have heard nothing. I am wondering if my request (or her request, I should say) will be refused. I suppose it could be; and I have not been over-prudent, for I did not reply respectfully to the offer of a place of some sort in the university—what kind of place I don’t know—made through Kano,—and I think Saionji has charge of the foreign business just now. Perhaps it is all right;—the delay, however, has its legal vexations:—money-orders having been made out, for example, in a Japanese name,—a little too soon. What a funny thing it all is.
I made the acquaintance some ten days ago of Wadamori Kikujirō,—the memory-man. He is a native of Shimane. I did all I could to please him, and hope to do more. He gave me an exhibition of his wonderful power,—and another exhibition to a small circle of foreigners to whom I was able to introduce him. They were very much pleased.
I think I told you that “Kokoro” is printed,—that is, in type. I am waiting only for the proofs. I think you will get a copy in March or April. Half of another Japanese book has been written, and part of another book (not on Japanese subjects)—so you will see how hard I have been working. Also my eyes are very much better. It seems to have been a case of blood to the eyes; and a doctor told me that if I took violent exercise I should get well. I did so,—and got quite well. I have only now to be careful.
Exercise was difficult at first; but now I am used to it. By exercising every day, I have kept quite well.
Kazuo, except for a cold, is all a father can imagine. He talks very well now, and tries to draw a little. I must get rich for his sake if I have any brains to make money. My friends in America and England predict good fortune for me. I am not too hopeful; but I think it is much better that I hereafter devote all my efforts to writing—until I find whether I can do well by it. Should I succeed I can travel everywhere, and Kazuo’s education abroad would not be a cause of anxiety.
Ever with warmest regards,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,—Eyes a little better, and courage reviving. Moreover I enclose letter showing prospects in a better light. The book is to be out in spring.
My boy is beginning to talk, and to look better. He walks now. He has much changed,—always growing fairer. I shall send a photo of him as soon as I think the difference from his first chubby aspect becomes apparent enough to interest you....
What succeeds like force?—eh? See what Japan has now become in the eyes of the world! Yet that war was unjust, unnecessary. It was forced upon Japan. She knew her strength. Her people wished to turn that strength against European powers. Her rulers, more wisely, turned the storm against China,—just to show the West what she could do, if necessary. Thus she has secured her autonomy. But let no man believe Japan hates China. China is her teacher and her Palestine. I anticipate a reaction against Occidental influence after this war, of a very serious kind. Japan has always hated the West—Western ideas, Western religion. She has always loved China. Free of European pressure, she will assert her old Oriental soul again. There will be no conversion to Christianity. No! not till the sun rises in the West. And I hope to see a United Orient yet bound into one strong alliance against our cruel Western civilization. If I have been able to do nothing else in my life, I have been able at least to help a little—as a teacher and as a writer, and as an editor—in opposing the growth of what is called society and what is called civilization. It is very little, of course,—but the gods ought to love me for it. They ought to make me rich enough to go every year for six months to uncivilized lands—such as Java, Borneo, etc. If I have good luck with my books, I’ll make a tropical trip next spring.
Love to you,
Lafcadio.
Dear Hendrick,—It is really queer, you know—this university. It is imposing to look at,—with its relics of feudalism, to suggest the picturesque past, surrounding a structure that might be in the city of Boston, or in Philadelphia, or in London, without appearing at all out of place. There is even a large, deserted, wood-shadowed Buddhist temple in the grounds!
The students have uniforms and peculiar caps with Chinese letters on them; but only a small percentage regularly wear the uniform. The old discipline has been relaxed; and there is a general return to sandals and robes and hakama,—the cap alone marking the university man.
About seventy-five per cent of the students ought not to be allowed in the university at all for certain branches. Some who know no European language but French attend German lectures on philosophy; some who know nothing of any European language attend lectures on philology. What is the university, then?—is it only a mask to impose upon the intellectual West? No: it is the best Japan can do, but it has the fault of being a gate to public office. Get through the university, and you have a post—a start in life. Fancy the outside Oriental pressure to force lads through—the influences intercrossing and fulminating! Accordingly, the power within is little more than nominal. Who rules in fact? Nobody exactly. Certainly the Directing President does not,—nor do the heads of colleges, except in minor matters of discipline. All, or nearly all, are graduates of German, English, or French or American universities;—they know what ought to be—but they do only what they can. Something nameless and invisible, much stronger than they,—political perhaps, certainly social,—overawes the whole business.