I ought not to say anything, and won’t except to you. No foreign professor says much,—even after returning home. None have had just cause to complain of treatment received. Besides, if things were as they are in the West, I wouldn’t be allowed to teach (there would be a demand for a “Christian” and gentleman). I lecture on subjects which I do not understand; and yet without remorse, because I know just enough to steer those who know much less. After a year or two I shall probably be more fit for the position.
Studying in one class, for a university text, Tennyson’s “Princess” (my selection); in another, “Paradise Lost,”—the students wanted it, because they heard it was difficult. They are beginning to perceive that it is unspeakably difficult for them. (Remember, they know nothing of Christian mythology or history.) I lecture on the Victorian poets, etc., and on special themes,—depending a good deal on dictation.
Only two and one half miles from the university. Seas of mud between. One hour daily to go, and one to return by jinrikisha!—agony unspeakable. But I have one joy. No one ever dreams of coming to see me. To do so one should have webbed feet and be able to croak and to spawn,—or else one should become a bird. It has rained for three months almost steadily;—some of the city is under water: the rest is partly under mud. And to increase the amphibious joy, half the streets are torn open to put down Western water-mains. They will yawn thus, probably, for years to come.
The professors I have seen few of. I send you two books; notice the charming pictures to “Inoshima.” Florenz is a Magister Artium Liberalium of Heidelberg, I think,—fat and good-natured and a little—odd. There is a Russian professor of philosophy, Von Koeber,—a charming man and a divine pianist. There is a go-and-be-damned-to-you American professor of law.... There is a Jesuit priest, Emile Heck,—professor of French literature. There is a Buddhist priest, professor of Buddhism. There is an anti-Christian thinker and really great philosopher, Inoue Tetsujirō,—lectures against Western Christianity, and on Buddhism. There is an infidel,—a renegade,—a man lost to all sense of shame and decency, called Lafcadio Hearn, professing atheism and English Literature and various villainous notions of his own.
The Jesuit I did not want to know. I am afraid of Jesuits. Out of the corner of mine cyclops-eye I looked upon him. Elegantly dressed,—with a beard enormous, bushy, majestic, black as hell,—and a small keen bright black caressing demoniac eye. The Director, who knows not, introduced me!—oh! ah! Embarrassed at the thought of my own thoughts contrasted with the perfect courtesy of the man. Blundered;—spoke atrocious French; gave myself away; got questioned without receiving any idea in return except an idea of admiration for generous courtesy and very quick piercing keenness. Felt uncomfortable all day after—talked to myself as if I had still before me the half-shut Jesuit eye and the vast and voluminous beard. Et le fin au prochain numéro,—ou plus tard.
L. H.
Dear Page,—What a pleasure your letter was—in spite of the typewriting! How shall I answer it? From the end backwards,—as the last was the most pleasant.
Of course it was really long ago that we used to sit together—sometimes in your office, sometimes upon a doorstep, sometimes at a little marble-topped table somewhere over a glass of something,—and talk such talk as I never talked since. It is very nearly ten years ago. That is quite true. But you say that my flitting has been my gain, and that I have made myriads of friends by my books. That is not quite so true as you think. You think so only because you have still the heart of the old Southern gentleman,—the real aristo. and soldier,—the man who said exactly what he thought, and expected other people to do the same, and lived in a world where people did so. That is why also you remain for me quite distinct and different from other men: you have never lost your ideals—therefore you can remain ideal to others, as you will always do to me. But you are enormously mistaken in supposing that I have made myriads of friends, or gained anything—except what one gains by disillusion, and the change that comes with the care and love of others: this, of course, is gain. But book-success! No: it seems to me just the reverse. The slightest success has to be very dearly paid for. It brings no friends at all, but many enemies and ill-wishers. It brings letters from autograph-hunters, and letters enclosing malicious criticisms, and letters requesting subscriptions to all sorts of shams, and letters of invitation to join respectable-humbug societies, and requests to call on people who merely want to gratify the meanest sort of curiosity,—that which views a fellow creature only as a curiosity. Then, of course, there are uncounted little tricks and advertising dodges to be avoided like pitfalls,—and extravagant pretences of sympathy, often so clever as to seem really genuine, made for utilitarian purposes. Then there are all sorts of little snobberies and patronizings and disappointments. And after the work is done, it soon begins to get shabby and threadbare in memory; and I pick it up and wonder how I could have written it, and marvel how anybody could have bought it, and find that the criticisms which I didn’t like were nearly all true. Sometimes I feel good, and think I have really done well; but that very soon passes, and in a day or two I find I have been all wrong, and sure never to write anything quite right.
The fact seems to be that when ideals go away, writing becomes mere downright hard work; and the reward of the pleasure of finishing it is not for me, because I have nobody to talk to about it, and nobody to take it up, and read it infinitely better than I could do myself. The most delightful criticisms I ever had were your own readings aloud of my vagaries in the T.-D. office, after the proofs came down. How I should like to have that experience once more—just to hear you read something of mine quite fresh from the composition-room,—with the wet sharp inky smell still on the paper!
But I suppose I have gained otherwise. You also. For there is something in everybody—the best of him, too, isn’t it?—which only unfolds in him when he has to think about his double,—the other self to which he has given existence; and then he sees things differently. I suppose you do. I imagine you must now be ever so much more lovable than you used to be—but that you have less of yourself proportionately to give away. If I were in New Orleans I don’t think that I could coax you to talk after a fixed hour: you would say, “—! it’s after twelve o’clock: I must be off!”
What you write about little Miss Constance is very sweet. I hope soon to send her some Japanese fairy-tales written by your humble servant;—that is, I hope; for the Tōkyō publisher is awfully slow in getting them out. You have had anxiety, I find. But the delicacy that causes it means a highly complex nervous organization; and the anxieties will be well compensated, I fancy, later on. She will become, judging from the suggestion of that gold-head in the photograph, almost too beautiful: I hope to see another photograph later on. I shall send one of Kazuo in a few days. We were terribly frightened about him,—for he caught a serious cold on the lungs; but after a few weeks he picked up well. He gets taller, and every day surprises us with some new observation. He seems to get fairer always instead of darker—nobody now ever takes him to be a Japanese boy. He is very jealous of his mother,—won’t allow me to monopolize her for even five minutes; and I am no longer master in my own house. Servants and relatives and grandparents, they all obey him,—and pay no attention at all to my wishes unless they happen to be in harmony with his own. Certainly Japanese people are kinder to children than any other people in the world,—too good altogether. Still, they do not spoil children,—for as a general rule they manage to make them grow up strangely, incomprehensibly obedient. I don’t understand it,—except as heredity: indeed, I may as well frankly say that the longer I live in Japan, the less I know about the Japanese. “That is a sign,” says one Oriental friend, “that you are beginning to understand. It is only when a foreigner confesses he knows nothing about us that there is some reason to expect he will understand us later on.”
About the letters, I need only say, perhaps, that I shall give you the best of what I write this year (excepting, of course, essays on Buddhist philosophy, or stuff of that sort, which would be out of place, no doubt, in a newspaper). I may include a few little stories....
“Kokoro” ought to reach you next March. It is rather a crazy book; but I wish I could hear you read one or two pages in it....
Ever affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Ochiai,—I am delighted that you have taken up medicine, for two reasons. First, it will assure your independence—your ability to maintain yourself, and to help your people. Secondly, it will change all your ideas about the world we live in, and will make you large-minded in many ways, if you study well. For in these days, you cannot study medicine without studying many different branches of science—chemistry, which will oblige you to understand something of the nature of the great mystery of matter,—physiology, which will show you that the most ordinary human body is full of machinery more wonderful than any genius ever invented,—biology, which will give you perceptions of the eternal laws which shape all form and regulate all motion,—histology, which will show you that all life is shaped, after methods that no man can understand, out of one substance into millions of different forms,—embryology, which will teach you how the whole history of a species or a race is shown in the development of the individual, as organ after organ unfolds and develops in the wonderful process of growth. The study of medicine is, to a large extent, the study of the universe and of universal laws,—and makes a better man of any one who is intelligent enough to master its principles. Of course you must learn to love it,—because no man can do anything really great with a subject that he does not like. There are many very horrible things in it which you will have to face; but you must not be repelled by these, because the facts behind them are very beautiful and wonderful. There is so much in medicine—such a variety of subjects, that you will have a wide choice before you in case some particular branch should not be attractive to you.
Also do not forget that your knowledge of English will be of great use to you in medicine, and that, if you love literature, medicine will give you plenty of chance to indulge that love. (Some of our best foreign authors, you know, have been practising physicians.) In Kōbe I find that some of the best Japanese doctors find English very useful to them, not only in their practice, but also in their private studies. But you will also have to learn German; and that language will open to you a very wonderful literature, if you like literature—not to speak of the scientific advantages of German, which are unrivalled.
Well, I trust to hear good news from you later on. Take great care of your health, I beg of you, and believe me ever anxious for your success.
Very truly always,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Nishida,—I should have answered your kindest letter before now but for illness,—so I only sent a photo of Kazuo, as I had a cold in my eyes, nose, chest, back; a most atrocious and damnable cold, which rendered any work out of the question.
Mr. Katayama—dear Mr. Katayama—wrote a charming little poem. I am going to have a large copy made of it, and have it mounted as a little kakemono, for a souvenir. I love all these funny little things: they are the real Japan—the humour and the kindness and the grace of it. As for the so-called New Japan,—with its appearance of Occidentalism, and its utter loss of the old poetry and the old courtesy—well, however necessary it may be, it is certainly as much of a moral loss as it is a material advance. I wish I could live somewhere out of the sight and the sound of all that is new.
I had a letter from Ochiai, which I shall answer in a day or so;—for the moment I am behind with all my correspondence. What can be the matter with the lad? He did not tell me the nature of his sickness. I am really sorry for him. Strangely enough, on the very same day, I had a letter from one of the cleverest of the Kumamoto students, who seemed a tower of strength, but who has broken down after a year at the university. Some students I liked have gone mad; numbers have died; numbers have had to give up. The strain is too great because the hardship is too great,—the cold, the poor cheap food, the poor thin clothes. “Hardy” the lads claim to be. So naturally they are—much hardier than Europeans in certain respects. But some knowledge of physiology seems to be needed in Government schools. No man—however strong—can keep hardy while the heavy strain of study is unsupported by good living. I think most of the lads I know who died or went mad would never have even fallen sick if they had had only hard physical labour. Physical labour is not dangerous, but strengthening. And in the Government schools there is no feeling for the lads: everybody has to do the best he can for himself. Those who do get through the mill are not always the best—though they may be the strongest.
Ever, with best regards of all of us,
Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo).
Dear Page,—I have your exquisite photo of Constance—like a bit of marble it is.... And I have your letter—a very dear letter, though—excuse me—I cannot help hating the typewriter!
I have been very sick with inflammation of the lungs, and unable to move until recently. But I shall soon, I hope, be able to send you something....
About my name. Koizumi is a family name: I take my wife’s name as her husband by adoption— the only way in which I could become a Japanese citizen. Koizumi means “little spring” or “little source.” The other name means “many clouds,” and is an alternate poetical name for Izumo, the “Place of the Issuing of Clouds.” For I became a citizen of the province of Izumo, where I am officially registered. The word is also the first word of the most ancient poem in the Japanese language—referring to a legend of the sacred records. Please do not publish this! it is a little private matter, and the whole explanation, though read at a glance by a Japanese, would require many pages to make clear. As to your other question, I always wear the Japanese dress at home or in the interior. In Kōbe or the large cities I wear Western clothes when I go on the street; because it does not do there for a man with a long nose to be too “Japanesey”—there has been a surplus of “Japanesey” display on the part of foreigners of the jocose class. I am Japanese only among Japanese....
And you have been very sick too. Do you know that I am often worried by the fear that one of us might die before we meet again? I very often think about you. Please take every care of yourself,—all the outing you can. I think, though, you are a long-lived tough race—you Bakers; and that Page M. Baker will be writing some day an obituary of Lafcadio Hearn that was,—with many pleasant observations which the said Lafcadio never deserved and never will deserve.
You think I am misanthropic—no, not exactly; but I do feel an intense hatred for the business class of Northern mankind. You know I never could learn much about them till I was ass enough to go North.... And you will remember that settled dislikes or likes come to this creature at intervals—never thereafter to depart. My last horror—one that I can scarcely bear—is what is called “business correspondence.” That is why I say that I dislike the sight of typewriting—though I assure you, dear Page, I am glad to get a line from you written or printed in any way, shape, or form.
Ghosts! After getting your letter last night I dreamed. Do you remember that splendid Creole who used to be your city editor—whose voice seemed to come up from a well, a lover of music and poetry and everything nice? John——? Is it not a sin that I have forgotten his name? Next to yourself I see him, however, more distinctly than any other figure of the old days. He recited “The Portrait” of Owen Meredith in that caressing abysmal voice of his. Last night I was talking to him. He sat in a big chair in the old office, and told me wonderful things,—which I could not recall on waking; but I was vaguely annoyed by the fact that he “avoided the point.” So I interrupted, and said: “But you do not tell me—you are dead—is there ...” I only remember saying that. Then the light in his eyes went out, and there was nothing. I woke up in the dark and wondered.
For six years in Japan I have been walking up and down—over matted floors—by myself, just as I used to do in that room you wrote me from. Curiously, my little boy has the same habit. It is very difficult to make him keep still at meal-time. He likes to take a nibble or sup of something, then walk up and down, or run, then another nibble, etc.—I hope the gods will save him from adopting other former habits of mine, which are less innocent, when he grows up:—for example, if he should take a foolish fancy to every damozel in his path. However, I expect that his mother’s strong common-sense, which he seems to inherit, will counterbalance the fantasticalities bequeathed him by me.... It has only been since his entrance into this world that I fully realize what a “disgraceful person” I used to be.
I live pretty much alone—have no foreign friends and very few Japanese friends outside of my family, which numbers, however, a good many dear souls. How isolated I have managed to be you can imagine from the fact that sometimes for months no one sees me except home-folks. I work when I can; and when I cannot I bury myself in studies—philosophical studies: you can scarcely believe how they interest me now, and I find worlds of inspiration in them—new perceptions of commonplace fact. I try not to worry, and let things take their course. Probably next year I shall be leading a busier life; but I don’t know whether Japanese officialism can be endured for any great length of time. I had one dose of it too much already. The people are the best in the world; the military and naval men are men, and generally braves garçons....
The old men are divine: I do not know any other word to express what they are. When you meet a horrid Japanese, though, there is a distorted quality about him that makes him a unique monster—he is like an awry caricature of a Western mean fellow, without the vim and push—solid contemptibility in petto. You can scarcely imagine what he may be. Every transition period has its peculiar monsters.
I wonder, wonder, wonder whether I shall see you again,—and walk up and down on that cocoanut matting,—and make noises through the speaking-tube leading to the composing-room. Perhaps I could make some sketches of American life better now—after having looked back at it from this distance of eight thousand odd miles....
Lafcadio Hearn (Y. Koizumi).
Dear Nishida,—It made me happy to get your letter, and to hear from you that you think I am beginning to understand the Japanese a little better. My other books have had success in Europe as well as America;—the leading French review (Revue des Deux Mondes) had a long article about me; and the Spectator, the Athenæum, the Times and other English journals have been kind. Still, I am not foolish enough to take the praise for praise of fact,—feeling my own ignorance more and more every day, and being more pleased with the approval of a Japanese friend than with the verdict of a foreign reviewer, who, necessarily, knows nothing to speak of about Japan. But one thing is encouraging,—namely, that whatever I write about Japan hereafter will be widely read in Europe and elsewhere,—so that I may be able to do good. My first book is being translated into German.
I got a beautiful letter from Mr. Senke the other day, to which he has, I trust, by this time the answer,—in which I told him that I hope to see Matsue and Kizuki again in about another month. Setsu, mother, and the boy come with me. Kazuo is now much better—except morally;—he is more mischievous than ever. I want him to have as much of the sea this summer as he can bear. And I want to swim at Kizuki and Mionoseki, and to talk to you all I can—without tiring you.
I have been away. I have been at Ise, Futami, and nearly a week in Ōsaka. Ise disappointed me a little. The scenery is superb; but I like Kizuki better. At Ise there is so much money,—such enormous hotels,—such modernization: the place did not feel holy to me, as Kizuki did. Even the miko won’t show their faces for less than five yen. Besides, it was bitterly cold, and hurt my lungs. I came back sick. Ōsaka delighted me beyond words. Excepting Kyōto, it is certainly the most interesting city on this side of Japan. And I could never tell you how Tennōji delighted me—what a queer, dear old temple. I went to Sakai, of course,—and bought a sword, and saw the grave of the eleven samurai of Tosa who had to commit seppuku for killing some foreigners,—and told them I wished they could come back again to kill a few more who are writing extraordinary lies about Japan at this present moment. I would rather live a month in Ōsaka than ten years free of rent in Tōkyō.
Speaking of Tōkyō reminds me to tell you that my engagement with the university is not yet assured. Day before yesterday I had a letter from Professor Toyama that my becoming a Japanese citizen had raised a difficulty “which,” he wrote, “we must manage to get over somehow.” I wrote him that I was not worried about the matter, and had never allowed myself to consider it very seriously,—hinting also that I would not accept any low salary. What he will next write I don’t know, and don’t very much care. If Matsue were a little warmer in winter I should rather be teaching there. Indeed I think that even after a few years in Tōkyō, I should be asking to get back to Matsue; and in any event I hope to make a home there. If I can get such a yashiki as I had—I mean buy one for my own home—Matsue would be a very happy place to work and study in. Besides, if my health keeps fair, I can hope eventually to be able to travel in the coldest winter months, and then the Matsue climate would make no difference for me. In summer it is delicious. Even Setsu now thinks it better to live in the interior; and I shall be glad to escape from the open ports. I have seen enough of the foreigners here, and like them less than ever.
I should certainly like Mr. Asai very much, from your charming account of him; and, at any rate, I expect to see both you and him within forty days from this writing. If you think he would like a copy of “Kokoro” it will make me very happy to send him one. As he has studied philosophy, however, I don’t know what he will think of the chapters on the Idea of Preëxistence and the Worship of Ancestors. You know the school of thought that I follow is bitterly opposed; and I believe it is not honestly taught in any English establishment. In one or two American universities it is partly taught; but only the French have given it really fair attention abroad.
Lafcadio Hearn (Y. Koizumi).
P. S. It made me feel queer to be addressed by Prof. Toyama as “Mr. Yakumo Koizumi”!
Dear Hendrick,— ... Somebody (who, I do not know) has been sending me books. Did you send me a book by Richard LeGallienne? I thought Mrs. Rollins had sent it, and I wrote to her nice things about it, which vexed her into sending me a very sharp criticism of it (she is a critic), and proving me to have praised a worthless book out of liking for the sender! Where am I? I am certainly wrong. I did think the book nice because of my belief that she sent it; and I am now equally convinced that it is n’t nice at all, because she proved that it was not. I should certainly make a bad critic if I were acquainted with authors and their friends. One sees what does not exist wherever one loves or hates. As I am rather a creature of extremes, I should be an extremely crooked-visioned judge of work. I have not tried to answer Mrs. Rollins’s letter—fact is, I can’t.
No: the head on the title-page of “Kokoro” is not Kazuo, but the head of a little boy called Takaki. The photograph was soft and beautiful, and showed an uncommonly intellectual type of Japanese head. The woodcut is rather coarse and hard.—But I enclose a third edition of Kazuo: he is growing a little better-looking, but is not so strong as I could wish; and he is so sensitive that I am very much worried about his future. Physical pain he bears well enough; but a mere look, a careless word, a moment of unconscious indifference is fire to his little soul. I don’t know what to do with him. If he shows the artistic temperament I shall try to educate him in Italy or France. With an emotional nature one is happier among Latins. I confess that I can only bear the uncommon types of Englishmen, Germans, and Americans,—the conventional types simply drive me wild. On the other hand, I can feel at home with even a villain, if he be Spaniard, Italian, or French. According to evolutionary doctrine, however, it seems not unlikely that the Latin races will be squeezed out of existence in the future pressure of civilization. They cannot hold their own against the superior massiveness of the Northern races,—who, unfortunately, have no art-feeling at all. They will be absorbed, I suppose. In the industrial invasion of the barbarians, the men will be quietly starved to death, and the women taken by the conquerors. History will repeat itself without blood and shrieks.
What is the present matter with American civilization? Nearly all the clever American authors seem to be women, and most of them have to go “out of town” for their studies of life. American city-life seems to wither and burn up everything. There is something of the same sort noticeable in England—the authors have to go out of England. Of course, there are some great exceptions—like James and Mallock. But how many great writers deal with civilized life as it is? They go to the Highlands, like Black and Barrie,—or to Italy, like Crawford,—or to strange countries, like Kipling;—but who to-day would write “A London Romance”? This brings up another question. What is the meaning of English literary superiority? It is all very well to howl about the copyright question, and the shameful treatment of American authors; but what American authors have we to compare with the English? Excepting women like Mrs. Deland and Miss Jewett and Mrs. Phelps, etc.,—what American writers can touch English methods? James is certainly our best;—so London steals him; but he stands alone. America has no one like a dozen,—nay, a score of English writers that might be named. It certainly is not a question of remuneration; for real high ability is always sooner or later able to get all it asks for. It must be an effect of American city-life, and American training, and American environment;—perhaps over-education has something to do with it. Again—English work is so massive—even at its worst: the effort made is always so much larger. Perhaps we do things too fast. The English are slow and exact. I am told that the other Northern races are still somewhat behind—always excepting great Russia. But in the France of 1896, what is doing? The greatest writers of the age are dead or silent. Is not our horrible competitive civilization at last going to choke all aspirational life into silence? After the Du Maurier school, what will even England be able to do? Alfred Austin after Alfred Tennyson!
These are my thoughts sometimes;—then, again, I think of a possible new idealism,—a new prodigious burst of faith and passion and song greater than anything Victorian;—and I remember that all progress is rhythmical. But if this comes, it will be only, I fear, after we have been dust for a century.
I feel this is an awfully stupid letter. But I’ll write a better one soon. My best wishes for your big, big, big success. They will be realized, I think.
Ever affectionately,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,—I have just had a most delightful letter from you. Your letters are full of witty flashes and curious observation. As they contain personal portraits, I make it a duty to burn them; but I regret it—like a destruction of the artistic. The rapid sketches they give of the most extraordinary bits of character, in the midst of the most extraordinary and complicated life of the century, are such as only one having your own most peculiar opportunities could make.
Do you ever reflect how much more of life you are able to see in one month than the ordinary mortal in twenty-five years? You belong to a purely modern school of travelling observers. Fifty years ago such experiences were not possible—at least upon any scale to speak of.
But why is it that the most extraordinary experiences of business men are never written? Is it because, like the scholarly specialist who knows too much about literature to make any literature, they see too much of the wonderful to feel it? The astounding for others is for them the commonplace,—perhaps. Or perhaps they are not sympathetic like your friend Macy,—have no inclination to apply the philosophy of relations to what they see and study?
I have been sick—eyes and lungs;—and now I am in an Izumo fishing-village to recruit. I swim in the harbour every day for about five hours, and am burnt all over in all colours, and getting thinner and stronger. There are no tables here, and I have to write on the floor.
With best love and felicitations,
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Nishida,—We got back on the night of the twenty-third. We had to wait a couple of days at Sakai; and I had some more swimming. Dr. Takahashi was very much surprised at my condition. He said that my lungs had become perfectly well, and that the swimming had brought out all the chest-muscles again in an extraordinary way—considering the time in which it had happened. He tells me to go to the sea whenever I feel pulled down again.
Sakai is a queer place for swimming. The currents change three times every day, and twice at least become very strong. One who cannot swim far has to be careful. Straws in the water show the way of the current near shore; but in the middle there are cross-currents going the other way.
There were eight foreign officers on the Meiji Maru. They were very kind to us. The captain (his name is Poole) was decorated with the 3d Order of the Rising Sun (I think) and got a present of $2000 for services during the war,—the transport-service, of course. He told me some very interesting things about the behaviour of the soldiery,—very nice things.
I felt unhappy at the Ōhashi, because you waited so long, and I had no power to coax you to go home. I can still see you sitting there so kindly and patiently,—in the great heat of that afternoon. Write soon,—if only a line in Japanese,—to tell us how you are.
Kaji-chan remembers you, and sends his little greeting to Nishida-San no Oji-San. We all hope to have another summer with you next year.
Ever faithfully, with warmest regards of all,
Lafcadio Hearn.
I still see you sitting at the wharf to watch us go. I think I shall always see you there.
Dear Hendrick,—I am in immediate and awful need of books, and am going to ask you to put me into communication with a general book-dealer to whom I can send P. O. orders, and who will mail me books directly on receipt of cash. It is hopeless ordering through local book-dealers,—not simply because of charges and errors, but because of enormous delays. On a separate sheet I enclose some titles of what I badly want for the moment; and I am sending some cash. This said, I promise not to trouble you further except when I can’t help it. See what a nuisance I am!
You may well believe me in a hurry when I send a letter with such a beginning. Imagine my position:—a professor of literature without books, improvising lectures to students without books. I reached Tōkyō about seven days ago, and have not yet got a house,—but am living in a hotel. At present I can give you no valid impressions:—everything is a blur. But so far the position does not seem disagreeable—rather the reverse. In fact I am afraid to express my satisfaction,—remembering Polyxenes. The salary is 400 yen,—and in Japan, a yen is a dollar though it is only fifty-odd cents in America. Old pupils of Izumo and elsewhere gather round me, welcoming me, delighted—some needing help and winning it—some needing only sympathy. Professors far off, moving in separate and never-colliding orbits. I can teach for years—if I please—without ever seeing any of my colleagues. But Government favour, you know, is uncertain. The chances are that I shall hold on for three years at least.
When I heard last from you I was in Izumo. There I became very strong by constant swimming and starving,—Japanese diet takes all the loose flesh from a man in short order. My lungs got quite sound, and my miserable eye nearly well.
I suppose that I partly owe this place to my books, and partly to Professor Chamberlain’s kind recommendation. The Japanese seldom notice literary work,—but they have paid considerable attention to mine, considering that I am a foreigner. My ambition, though, is independence in my own home,—an old-fashioned yashiki, full of surprises of colour and beauty and quaintness and peace. And a few years abroad with my boy,—who is very mischievous now, and beats his father occasionally.—Curious, how much better the Japanese understand children than we do. You remember as a boy the obligatory morning dip in the sea, no doubt. This no Japanese parents would inflict on their child. I tried it with mine, but the folks said, “That is wrong: it will only make him afraid of the water.” Which proved true. Moreover, he would not allow me to come near him any more in the sea,—but used to order me to keep away. “Go away, and don’t come back any more.” Then the grandmother took him in charge; and in a week he was as fond of the water as I,—had overcome his fear of it. But it requires great patience to treat children Japanese-style,—by leaving them almost free to follow their natural impulses, and coaxing courage by little and little.
Awful weather,—floods, wreckings, ruinings, drownings. I think the deforestation of the country is probably the cause of these terrible visitations. In Kōbe just before I left, the river, usually a dry sandbed, burst its banks after rain, swept away whole streets, wrecked hundreds of houses, and drowned about a hundred people. Then you know the tidal wave in the north—it was only 200 miles long—destroyed some 30,000 lives. A considerable part of East Central Japan is still under water at this moment—river water. Lake Biwa rose and drowned the city of Ōtsu.
Isn’t it almost wicked of me to have fought for a foreign salary under such circumstances?—especially while students come to tell me: “My father and mother have educated me thus far by selling all their property,—piece by piece,—even mother’s dresses and our lacquer-ware had to be sold. And now we have nothing, and my education is unfinished—and unless it is finished I cannot even hope for a position. Teacher, I shall work six years to pay the money back, if you will help me.” Poor fellows!—their whole expense is only about $120 (Japanese) a year. But if I did not take the salary, another foreigner would ask even more; and I am working for a Japanese community of my own. Buying books is rather extravagant, but my literary work pays for that.
Well, here’s love to you. (If the book-business does not bother you too much, please tell the book-dealer to mail everything,—not to send by express.)
Ever faithfully,
Lafcadio Hearn.
(Y. Koizumi.)
Dear Hendrick,—I have two unanswered letters from you—delayed in reaching me because of my change of residence. One is only a glorious shout of joy and sympathy;—the other describes charmingly the incidents and sensations of your Nova Scotia days. It struck me while reading it that the great pleasure each of you had was in watching the display of the powers and the graces of the other, in the new field,—and from thinking about that I began to think of my own experiences. I believe that my happiest glows of sympathetic admiration have been felt under somewhat like circumstances. If one’s friend is a fine keen man, and one is proud of him, what greater enjoyment than to see him face the unfamiliar and watch him dealing with it en maître,—turning it this way and that with symmetrical ease,—and winning all he wants with a smile or a bright jest? The pleasure of watching a play is nothing to it. And again, what novel (it is always new, you know)—what novel delight that of seeing a soldier, a man of business, or even a “man of God,” turning into a boy under the mere joyous bath of air and sun and summer air out of town! It gives one a larger sense of humanity, and a sort of awe at the omnipotent magic of Nature.
Well, I have a house,—a large, but, I regret to say, not beautiful house in Tōkyō. There is no garden,—no surprises,—no delicacies,—no chromatic contrasts: a large bald utilitarian house, belonging to a man who owns eight hundred Japanese houses, and looks after them all at seventy-eight years of age. He was a sake-brewer: he is now good to the poor,—buries free of charge the head of any family unable to pay the expenses of a Buddhist funeral. He looked at my boy and played with him and said: “You are too pretty,—you ought to have been a girl. When you get a little older you will be studying things you ought not to study,—pulling girls about, and doing mischief.” (Because he used to be an old rascal himself.) But he set me thinking. I don’t think K. will be very handsome; but if he feels like his father about pretty girls,—what shall I do with him? Marry him at 17 or 19? Or send him to grim and ferocious Puritans that he may be taught the Way of the Lord? I am now beginning to think that really much of ecclesiastical education (bad and cruel as I used to imagine it) is founded upon the best experience of man under civilization; and I understand lots of things which I used to think superstitious bosh, and now think solid wisdom. Don’t have children (Punch’s advice is the same, you know) unless you want to discover new Americas....
In haste to give a lecture on ballad literature(!).
Affectionately,
Lafcadio.
Dear Hendrick,—I have had several delightful letters from you, some of which were not answered in detail, though deserving to be. Let me see about my deficiencies in acknowledging your letters during recent hurry and flurry:—That sermon, belonging to the 13th—or perhaps the 10th century—was really an amazement. Thanks for kindly note about Lowell’s words of praise....
As for the university. Because the shadow of the Jesuit, broadening back through the centuries, is very black, and because I saw stake-fires in it, I didn’t relish the idea of his acquaintance. But that had to come, you know. There was a weary matriculation ceremony at which all of us had to be present; and it was purely Japanese, so that we could not understand it. We had to sit for three hours and listen. So I and the Jesuit, for want of anything else to do, got into a religious discussion; and I found him charming. Of course, he said that every thought which I thought was heresy,—that all the philosophy of the 19th century was false,—that everything accomplished by free thought and Protestantism was folly leading to ruin. But we had sympathies in common,—the contempt of religion as convention, scorn of the missionaries, and just recognition of the sincerely and profoundly religious character of the Japanese,—denied, of course, by the ordinary class of missionary jackasses. Then we were both amused by the architecture of the university. It is ecclesiastical, of course,—and the pinnacles and angles are tipped with cruciform ornaments. “C’est tout-a-fait comme un monastère,” said my comrade of the beard;—“et ceçi,—on en fera une assez jolie église. Et pourtant ce n’est pas l’esprit Chrétien qui,” etc. His irony was delicious, and the laughter broke the ice.
Now comes a queer fact. The existing group of professors in the Library college who keep a little together are the Professor of Philosophy (Heidelberg), the Professor of Sanscrit and Philology (Leipsig), the Professor of French Literature (Lyons), and the Professor of English Literature—from the devil knows where. There is little affiliation outside. Now all this group is—including myself—Roman Catholic by training. Why it is, I can’t say, except the Jesuit, we are not believers,—but there is a human something separating us from the froid protestantisme, or the hard materialism of the other foreign professors,—something warmer and more natural. Is it not the Latin feeling surviving in Catholicism,—and humanizing paganly what it touches?—penetrating all of us—the Russian, the German, the Frenchman, and L. H., through early association? Really there is neither art nor warm feeling nor the spirit of human love in the stock Protestantism of to-day.—I regret to say, however, that I have no Spencerian sympathizer. In my beliefs and tendencies I stand alone; and the Jesuit marvels at the astounding insanity of my notions. He, like all of his tribe, does not quite know how to take the American. The American Professor of Law—enormously self-sufficient, and aggressive—rather embarrasses him. I saw him wilt a little before him; and I like him all the better for it,—as he is certainly very delicate, and his shrinking was largely due to this delicacy. But all these are only impressions of the moment.
As a member of the faculty, I have to sometimes attend faculty meetings, called for various purposes. One of the purposes was to decide the fate of a certain German Professor of History—not nominally for the purpose, but really. I could not help the professor, and I felt that he was really unnecessary—not to speak of $500 per mensem. I do not think his contract will be renewed. I did not like the man very much: he is a worshipper of Virchow and an enemy of English psychology, etc., ipso facto. We could have no sympathies. But I was startled by the fashion in which those who professed to be his friends suddenly went back upon him, when they saw the drift of things. The drift was given by the Japanese Professor of Philosophy (Buddhist and other),—a fine, lean, keen, soft-spoken, persistent champion of Japanese national conservatism, and a good honest hater of sham Christianity. I like him: his name is Inoue Tetsujirō. He very sensibly observed that he saw no reason why foreign professors should forever teach history in a Japanese university,—or why students should be obliged to listen to lectures not in their native tongue. I felt he was right; but it meant the doom of nearly all foreign teaching. (Perhaps I shall last for some years more, and the professors of foreign languages—but the rest will certainly go before long.)
I said to my little self: “Don’t expect any love from those quarters, old fellow: the Japanese themselves will treat you more frankly, even if they get to hate you.” I have no doubt whatever that there will be as much said against me as dare be said. Happily, however, my engagement is based on Japanese policy—kindly policy—with a strong man behind it; and mere tongue-thrusts will do me no harm at all in the present order of things.
“Sufficient for the day is,” etc.
Lafcadio Hearn.
Dear Hendrick,—I fear—I suspect that this position has been given unto me for a combination of reasons, among which the dominant is that I may write at ease many books about Japan. This has two unfortunate aspects. Firstly, the people who do not know what labour literary work is imagine that books can be written by the page as quickly as letters, and keep asking me why I don’t get out another book—that means the Influence of Hurry-Scurry. Secondly, I am plunged into a world of which the highest possible effort in poetry seems to be this:—