company. He speaks perfect English, having studied in England for many
years; and, even more, he married an English lady whose house has become
the meeting-place of all Western and local celebrities.
It is a charming villa, looking very much like an English cottage, and
overlooking one of the prettiest corners of the Bay of Tokio; full of
English books and Japanese art treasures--English comfort and Japanese
taste--it is one of those homes that one remembers with pleasure, and
looks forward to seeing again.
The Baron is certainly a most accomplished Master of Ceremonies; he has
all the gentleness of old Japanese manners, and all the culture of
Japanese civility, and performs his somewhat tedious duties as if they
gave him a personal pleasure.
There are several other gentlemen in attendance--the Lord Chamberlain,
also a few A.D.C.'s and chamberlains-in-waiting. They are all wearing
Court dresses of dark blue, or of red with gold lace.
His Majesty receives me in his private apartment, whither I am escorted
through endless passages. The nearer we get, the colder is the
temperature. All the reception-rooms are heated with water-pipes to suit
Western taste, but in the Imperial rooms there are only old-fashioned
braziers. The reception-room is small, typically Japanese, has no
windows, but only sliding screens, and is denuded of all furniture. The
Mikado is standing in the centre, and for the occasion is wearing the
uniform of a general of his army, consisting of a dark blue tunic, and
even darker red trousers; and as a kind attention he wears the
diamond-set star of St. Stephen, first King of Hungary. He is surrounded
by his staff and several A.D.C.'s, and throughout, the formalities are
carried out with perfect Court ceremonial.
His Majesty shakes hands in a military fashion and at once puts me at my
ease by asking questions. First, he wants to hear about my country and
our venerable monarch.
"When did you leave home?" "How is His Majesty, your benevolent
sovereign?" "By what route did you come out?" "Did you find the Siberian
line comfortable?" "Prince Katsura came from King Edward's Coronation by
the same line, and enjoyed his journey very much. Your journey through
this region which is so little known must have interested you." "How
long did the last part of your journey through Manchuria take, and what
were your experiences like in Korea?" "It must be most interesting
coming from Europe to see such entirely different countries and
people." "I hope your experiences have been satisfactory." "I wish you
to see as much in Japan as you think would be of interest to you. As you
may observe, we are working very hard, and we try to adopt in many
respects the main features of Western civilization and ideas. I am glad
to hear you are interested in education. I dare say you liked our
University library and the new printing establishments; you ought to see
some of the provincial towns, too, and the commercial activity carried
on in some of them. Don't omit to see Osaka; I am going myself next
month, so I hope I may meet you there again."
Commercial and economic questions evidently interested His Majesty, who
was taking a very active part in the arrangements for the Exhibition at
Osaka, which was about to be opened. And he spoke about many other
questions regarding the country and its development.
The Emperor detained me for an unusual length of time, and seemed to be
interested in all the different matters that formed the subject of our
conversation. It must be rather difficult for a sovereign who is brought
up from birth within these palace walls to realize the outer world, and
it must be even more so to get an insight into human nature, meeting it
only at official receptions.
Before I left a message came from Her Majesty the Empress, expressing a
wish to receive me too. Her apartments are in an adjoining wing. Her
boudoir is ornamented in the French style, and her windows overlook a
small Japanese garden. Her dress was of Western fashion too, rather
elaborate for that early hour of the day, but in good taste. Her two
ladies-in-waiting were clad in the same fashion.
At the first glance I understood the Empress's great popularity. Her
gentleness and kind heart are visible in her glance in an exceptional
way. There is something very small and fragile about her. She looks
rather delicate, and her pale features wear an expression of sadness
which cannot fail to impress. She seems, besides being kindly disposed
and benevolent by nature, to have had sorrows like most other human
beings, and this feature, shared in common by owners of palaces and of
hovels, makes her very human, and very sympathetic. She has led, in her
vast palace and high position, a rather solitary life, and solitude
gives time for thought, and to ponder deeply on the problems of our
destinies. Nobody could better understand this spirit of abnegation for
the sake of a higher ideal than Her Majesty. Indeed woman's devotion of
herself to the good of her family has always been as much praised in
Japan as man's loyalty to his country. The paramount qualities of the
female side of this nation are not yet known by the world at large, and
are very often misjudged by those who have passed through Nippon's
island. But all those who have stayed for some length of time,
especially the members of the Missions, speak with great respect of
their qualities and virtues, and particularly of the marvellous sense of
duty and spirit of self-sacrifice of the daughters for their parents, of
the wives for their husbands, and of the mothers for their sons.
Our conversation was mainly about abstract questions, family life,
education, charitable works, hospitals, orphanages, and homes. She is
patroness of the Red Cross Society of Japan, and listened with great
interest to my account of the work carried on by the Sisters of Charity,
and in the different institutions under the Archbishop's care. Her
sympathy can do a great deal, and I hope she will use it in favour of
this great work, carried out with such apostolic zeal for the benefit of
the sick and forlorn orphans, to save the children's lives, and to nurse
the lepers and the incurables, whatever the cost and sacrifice.
She went into all kinds of details, and asked hundreds of questions
about these poor little mites, and exhibited that interest which only a
woman can when she is talking about children. It seemed to appeal to her
heart, and she repeatedly expressed her gladness at having had the
opportunity of hearing about the good work carried on by our church.
I left the room full of the hope that her noble kindness might prove to
be a support to this little fraction of her needful subjects.
As a special favour, I was shown over all the different apartments. We
went through the state rooms and inner apartments, walked through
endless corridors, and viewed the numerous art treasures. There is an
extraordinary mixture in taste of West and East, but there is no doubt
that the supremacy belongs to the latter, for what is Japanese is really
fine.
All the long dadoes are carved elaborately and of exquisite workmanship,
and the fretted ceilings are charming in design and colouring. They are
as a rule of dark beams, framing gilt grounds; the carving and bronze
casts are finely executed.
We finished our wanderings in a delightful little garden, which is
Japanese indeed in the highest degree. There is a tiny pond, no larger
than a good-sized basin, surrounded by a rockery imitating Fuji; and
across an almost imaginary stream a few inches wide is thrown a wooden
bridge. Everything is minute: even the little rustic summer-house is no
larger than that of a doll. It is a Lilliputian world of its own. Even
the trees are dwarfs; but the Japanese imagination makes everything
large.
If any one is interested in the Japanese mind and its imaginative
qualities, the best fields of study are some of these famous gardens
laid out by the great aesthetes of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; men of undoubted refinement and culture, some being statesmen
retired from the excitement of political life, and many Mikados seeking
rest in solitude, after the glitter and pomp of the Court.
Their gardens simply consisted of a few square yards of ground,
surrounded by a plain bamboo hedge, a log house built of a few planks,
and consisting of two rooms, with gravel scattered before the doorways,
and a few tiny bushes growing round. Small and simple, I dare say
primitive to European eyes, but to a Japanese mind these shrubs
represent a virgin forest, the log house is a palace, the gravel court
unlimited sea, and the stepping-stones so many islands.
With their love of artistic refinement and elaborate civilization, they
look through the shades of broken prisms, and scent perfumes of
different compositions, and build up a whole imaginary world of dainty
colours and exquisite odours. But who, coming from the West, would ever
understand any of these details of an historical past and ancient
customs and strange manifestations of national culture?
And who, returning from one of these gardens, so full of reminiscences
of old Japan, to the modern streets, would understand how the new towns
are being built up of brick and steel, and how the whole nation is
changed by hard work and boundless energy?
And above all, who can at this moment explain or understand all the
progress of modern Japan and fully realize all its future importance?
[Illustration: A TYPICAL NIPPON BUILDING Small and simple, I dare say
primitive to European eyes, but to a Japanese mind the log house
represents a palace" To face page 312]
XIII
JAPAN AND CHINA ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
I
JAPAN
The question of the Yellow Peril has once again come to the front
through the recent East-Asiatic war. The unprecedented success of Japan,
both by land and sea, has roused universal surprise. When the first news
of victories gained by the small insular power reached Western Europe,
they were received with genuine joy; but as the Japanese advanced on the
mainland of Asia, symptoms of anxiety began to manifest themselves.
What would happen if they conquered all Eastern Asia, and perhaps
Siberia also? Above all, what would happen if Japan, united with China,
were to overrun the Russian dominions, and one day threaten Central
Europe? Already here and there the sad recollection of the old Tartar
campaigns was being revived; and indeed, why should not a modern,
ambitious commander follow in the wake of his famous predecessor,
Genghis Khan? A modern military genius, a Yellow Napoleon, enjoying
equal popularity and possessing the same magic power, with millions of
money and countless troops at his disposal, might surely become a very
serious and formidable antagonist. But would it be to the interest of
the yellow race to overrun Europe? This problem is yet awaiting its
solution.
I venture to think that under the present conditions the majority of the
Eastern people have no intention or desire to enlarge their territory
beyond its original borders. If they can only get back what is nominally
theirs--what, not more than half a century ago, was possessed by
them--they will be satisfied. Japan, which is decidedly overpopulated,
and cannot adequately provide for its nearly fifty millions of
inhabitants, dispersed over the various islands, may possibly have an
eye on some of the neighbouring Asiatic coastlands, but for colonizing
purposes is more likely to turn its attention towards the South Sea. And
since the ambition of Japan has been awakened, and its adaptabilities to
modern culture, its unflagging energy, and its admirable military skill,
been developed, there is more possibility that in a remote future Nippon
might make Australasia the Utopia of its colonizing efforts.
Certain it is that a brilliant future awaits Japan. The land is rich,
and its position, between Eastern Asia and Western America, most
advantageous, both from an economic and from a strategic point of view.
The people are healthy, strong, industrious, and possess in an
extraordinary degree the faculty of assimilation. In this respect,
indeed, Japan is unrivalled by any other race.
The primary cause of their present marvellous success must
unquestionably be sought in this faculty of assimilation and in the
power of discipline--in the wonderful ease wherewith they appropriate
all the acquisitions of the West--the way in which they carry them out.
The second cause of their success is their old military system of
government, which has produced the present-day soldiers. But in order to
grasp thoroughly the situation it is necessary to cast a cursory glance
on the past history of Japan. In doing so we should remember in the
first place that ancient Nippon was built upon the system of vassalage.
The land was divided into principalities of various sizes, at the head
of each of which was a _Daimio_, or vassal chieftain, just as the
empires of the West were formerly protected and ruled over by baronial
chiefs. Feudalism in Europe led to perpetual frontier quarrels and wars,
and this was the case also in Japan. The Daimios were always at enmity
with one another, and their government was a period of petty warfare.
The military element, therefore, naturally occupied a prominent
position, and just as in Europe the knight became the founder of
_Chivalry_, so in Japan the _Samurais_ established the _Bushido_. And as
the German knight of Chivalry created a legal system called _Club-law_,
for the protection of his own interests, so the soldiers of Japan had
their own military code. The military thus became the privileged class
of society. This caste, with its rigorous rules and external
organization, had a perfectly developed existence, a special moral
standard, and to a certain extent a religion of its own. As the age of
Chivalry was created by the knights of old, so "Bushido," the ethics of
the Samurais, originated in the Land of the Rising Sun.
To give an exact definition of the word "Bushido" is impossible, because
the conception of it is unknown to us. There are no analogous
circumstances necessitating its existence with us. The idea of chivalry
is the nearest approach to an interpretation of the word, although
literally "Bushido" means "Military manner"--the manner and the way in
which it is the duty of the armed nobility to fight, to live, and to
die. We notice that according to this definition the word includes more
than a mere title; it expresses a whole social system, and regulates
the views and appreciations of life of all its members.
The description given by Dr. Nitobe enables us to form some idea of
Bushido from a Japanese standpoint. "Bushido is the code of moral
principles which the knights were required or instructed to observe. It
is not a written code; at best it consists of a few maxims handed down
by oral tradition or coming from the pen of some well-known warrior or
savant. More frequently it is a code unuttered and unwritten, but
impressed on the fleshy tablets of the heart. It was founded, not on the
creation of one brain, however able, or on the life of a single
personage, however renowned. It was an organic growth of decades and
centuries of military career. It perhaps fills the same position in the
history of ethics that the English Constitution does in political
history; yet it has nothing to compare with the Magna Carta or the
Habeas Corpus Act. It is true that early in the seventeenth century
Military Statutes (Buke Hatto) were promulgated, but their thirteen
short articles were taken up mostly with marriages, castles, leagues,
etc., and didactic regulations were but meagrely touched upon. We
cannot, therefore, point out any definite time and place, and say, Here
is its fountain-head. It is not till the feudal age that it attains
consciousness. Its origin, in respect to time, may be identified with
feudalism. But feudalism itself is woven of many threads, and Bushido
shares its intricate nature. As in England the political institution of
feudalism may be said to date from the Norman Conquest, so we may say
that in Japan its rise was simultaneous with the ascendancy of Toritomo
late in the twelfth century. As, however, in England we find the social
elements of feudalism far back in the period previous to William the
Conqueror, so, too, the germs of feudalism in Japan have been long
existent before.
"Again, in Japan as in Europe, when feudalism was formally inaugurated,
the professional class of warriors naturally came into prominence. These
were known as samurai, meaning literally, like the old English cniht
(knecht, knight), guards or attendants, resembling in character the
soldurii, whom Caesar mentioned as existing in Aquitania. A
Sinico-Japanese class, named Bu-Ke or Bu-Shi (fighting knights), was
also adopted in common use. They were a privileged class, and must
originally have been a rough breed who made fighting their vocation.
Coming to profess great honour and great privileges, and correspondingly
great responsibilities, they soon felt the need of a common standard of
behaviour, especially as they were always on a belligerent footing and
belonged to different clans.
"'Fair play in fight!' What fertile germs of morality lie in this
primitive sense of savagery and childhood! Is it not the root of
military and civic virtues? We smile (as if we had outgrown it!) at the
boyish desire of the small Britisher, Tom Brown, 'to leave behind him
the name of a fellow who never bullied a little boy or turned his back
on a big one.' And yet, who does not know that this desire is the
cornerstone on which moral structures of mighty dimensions can be
reared? May I not go even so far as to say that the gentlest and most
peace-loving of religions endorses this aspiration? This desire of Tom's
is the basis on which the greatness of England is largely built, and it
will not take us long to discover that Bushido does not stand on a lower
pedestal. If fighting in itself, be it offensive or defensive, is, as
Quakers rightly testify, brutal and wrong, we can still say with
Lessing, 'We know from what failings our virtue springs.' Sneaks and
cowards are epithets of the worst opprobrium to healthy, simple natures.
Childhood begins life with those notions, as does also knighthood; but
as life grows larger and its relations become many-sided, the early
faith seeks sanction from higher authority and more rational sources for
its own justification, satisfaction, and development. If military
systems had operated alone, without higher moral support, how far short
of chivalry would the moral ideal have fallen! In Europe Christianity,
interpreted with concessions convenient to chivalry, infused it
nevertheless with a spiritual ideal. 'Religion, war, and glory were the
three rules of a perfect Christian knight,' says Lamartine."
Bushido has no written laws; it has been handed down as a tradition from
father to son. Its originator was not a sage like Confucius, not an
ascetic like Buddha; it was the people itself. It is the immediate
expression of past ages, and, as far as man's memory reaches, the
interpreter of the sentiments of victorious warriors.
With the increasing power of the Samurais grew also the necessity, as
was the case with knighthood, to purify the atmosphere of their
fortresses by self-prescribed rules. And it lies in the natural order of
things, embracing all national codes, that those points should be most
carefully guarded on which the people felt themselves to be weakest.
The first principle, then, was, Justice to all. The Samurais despise
above all things trickery and deceit, all unfairness. "Adhere inflexibly
to thy principle,"--thus writes a Bushi--"and be ready to die for the
sake of duty; but also be ready to strike and to kill if honour demand
it of thee." And the more the general situation became degenerated, the
more prominent became the letter of this law in the clash of swords.
The second principle was courage. From his earliest childhood the
Japanese boy was brought up to be a soldier, and in his education many
points remind us of the old Spartan rigour. Often the mother would
admonish a crying child with such words as: "Shame not the honour of thy
family; men of this house have never been known to cry." Or again, she
might stimulate her son's courage by saying: "What wilt thou say when in
battle thou losest arm or leg?" or, "How wilt thou control thy face if
the Emperor should bid thee to cut off thine ears or to perform the
hara-kiri?" To be brave was the aim of every boy, and frequently was he
called upon to prove his courage. He was made to go hungry, to walk
great distances, and in many cases this system of hardening verged on
cruelty.
On the other hand, the benevolence of the Samurai often degenerated into
sentimentality, and the Bushida-nashake--the warm soldier's heart--has
become proverbial. To render assistance to the weak and helpless was one
of the soldier's paramount duties, and, like the Italian Condottieri and
the knights of the Middle Ages who, although they tyrannized over the
people, were yet anxious to appear civilized and cultured, and were not
blind to their own faults and cruelties, so the Samurais laid special
stress upon the observance of social forms, and taught their boys,
besides the military arts, such accomplishments as poetry, music, and
other fine arts.
Courteousness became a second nature, and to this day, although it
sometimes may lack sincerity and has in many cases become an empty form,
Japanese politeness always excites the astonishment and admiration of
the foreigner on his first arrival in the land. Nippon society manners
are the most complicated and tedious imaginable. The smallest affairs of
everyday life are circumscribed with the most childish and elaborate
rules. The way to enter a friend's house, how to address him, what to
talk about, everything is carefully prescribed, even the slight
attention of offering the guest a cup of tea amounts to a ceremony,
regulated in its minutest details. The Cha-no-yu (tea-drinking), in
truth, is more than a ceremony, it is a precious tradition, a rite,
illustrating the refinement of taste and the imagination of the people.
[Illustration: _Copyright, Nops Ltd._ MARSHALL OYAMA To face page 322]
The third fundamental principle of Bushido is honour; more particularly
expressed in Guai-bun and Men-moku, which form the basis of the
conception of the Samurai. But even the valour of the most heroic
Samurai is as nothing compared to his pride and vanity, and to a certain
extent these two qualities are still striking characteristics of the
nation. Extreme sensitiveness and readiness to take offence are the
unavoidable consequences of such highly developed self-constrictions.
The "affaires d'honneur" of the Latin races, and the often mistaken
chivalry of the German "Junker" are but weak parallels to the
sensitiveness of the Bushi. The hot-blooded Samurai was offended on
every possible occasion, and many an innocent life has been sacrificed
to this intensely developed military pride.
Whole volumes have been written upon the manner in which these
"questions of honour" should be dealt with, and more than one tragic
page had its comical features also. Thus, for instance, the story is
told of a Busiaki, who killed a peasant for drawing his attention to the
fact that there was an insect on his coat. For, argued the Busiaki,
vermin feed on beasts, and therefore his remark amounts to an insult.
And as the simple peasant was not entitled to give satisfaction for the
supposed offence in any other manner, he had to pay for it with his
life, in order that the honour of the Busiaki might be cleared. This
condition of things might lead also to vengeance and suicide, and the
favourite form of the latter was "hara-kiri," which has attained
world-wide fame. It is suicide by cutting open the abdomen, and this
custom was one of the institutions by which distant Japan has been so
often misjudged. To the European the idea is revolting and sinful, but
the pride and imagination of that far-away people magnified it into a
sublime action.