'Qui ne vous aime pas: oh du tout....'
Finishing the reading, the lady exclaimed, 'What a shame!' in which all
those listening joined.
Said I,--'The letter evidently refers to the question of indemnity. You
see, it is written on a telegraph-form, and the article and the song,
both equally disgusting, pasted purposely for me to read, are cuttings
from Russophile papers: you can pretty well surmise from what source it
came; the signature is also amusing!'
--'Shame!' they all exclaimed once more, but we all soon burst into
laughter. When the laughter, whereby the peace of my dreamland had been
a trifle disturbed, subsided, a lady present said:
--'You have a peculiar way of counting one's age, have you not? Has
that anything to do with the calendar? Don't you say, for instance, a
baby born the year before the last, three years old?'
--'Yes,' I answered, 'we still do so in ordinary conversation. But it
has nothing to do with the calendar; it is only a matter of usage. You
see the year in which one is born is counted as one year, and the year
in which one is counting is counted as another, and therefore, a child
born the year before last is reckoned as three years old. In the case of
a dead person, the year in which he died is counted as one year;
therefore, when you read of the age of our heroes or statesmen in
history, you have always to take that into account. In former days,
young ladies born late in the year used to complain to their mothers
that they had a disadvantage in point of age. Young ladies like to
minimise their age all over the world. Don't they?'
--'No joking, please.'
--'Very well! since the alteration of the calendar we have adopted your
mode of reckoning for legal purposes, and we say in that case, "full so
many years." It is therefore rather strange in actual society to hear
people often speaking of so many years of age according to the new
style, and so many years according to the old style.'
--'It must sound very odd. _Apropos_ of ladies, I adore Japanese
ladies,' said a lady.
--'Ah! that's too much: surely you do not think so,' I remarked.
The lady just referred to was an American by birth, who came to France
when a mere child, and having grown up in this country had married a
Frenchman. The couple were out in Japan for many years. They had several
children, the majority of whom were born there. She had resided in one
of the most populous towns, her husband having been attached to a
certain public function. She seemed not entirely to approve of the
social condition of France.
--'France will be ruined by her women. Look, for instance, at the
condition of Paris,' she said.
--'You jest. I imagine your ideal of women must be very different from
ours,' I said.
--'No! Not at all,' she answered.
--'And yet,' said I, 'the question of the status of women is becoming
more keen, far more keen in America than in this country. I have
observed it in many writings.'
--'That's true, I dare say,' she said.
--'A little time ago,' I continued, 'I read an article describing the
influence of American wives and daughters over their husbands and
parents. I remember one instance mentioned in that article. The daughter
of a well-to-do business man took a fancy to live in a town where she
had been on a visit for a little time. She prevailed on her father to
remove their home to that town. He did so, and the result was his total
ruin in consequence of losing old customers and not obtaining new. The
story may be a little exaggerated.'
--'No, it is quite possible,' she said. 'I like Japanese ladies and
their children. The Japanese ladies I met with were so sweet and gentle
and real models of women. I came to know them very intimately in this
way. You see, in the town where I lived there is an association for the
promotion of the mutual interests of France and Japan, the members being
mostly Frenchmen. No lady was admitted into membership at first. I
insisted on having it done. I was the first lady member. I induced many
Japanese ladies to become members. The views I held were that mutual
understanding could only be promoted by both sexes associating with each
other. We found the innovation work very satisfactory. I often invited
Japanese ladies to my home to spend an afternoon or evening. I usually
caused them to bring their children, and made them play with mine. I did
all this with as little ceremony as possible, because only by doing so
can real friendship be brought about. I, of course, returned the visits
and took my children with me. During that intercourse I naturally came
to know a great deal about the Japanese ladies, and for that reason I
think so much of them. They are real ideals of women. Perhaps a little
more freedom for them might be good, but on the whole nothing more could
be desired. Don't let them get spoilt by the evil influence of the
West.'
--'I think I must reserve my remarks, either pro or con,' I said, 'but
it is curious to notice what divergence of opinion there is relating to
the condition of Japanese women. Perusing casually a book by Lafcadio
Hearn a little time ago, I came across a passage where he speaks of
Japanese women as being the most artistic objects, as it were, of the
most artistic nation of the world, and laments that this perfection will
be deteriorated by the influence of time. There is a lady of good birth
in London whom I know very well, who admires Japanese ladies very much,
though I am not quite sure that she herself would like to live like a
Japanese lady. She told me that when the time came for her two boys to
marry she would send them to Japan in order to be married out there. Her
words may not have been mere passing compliments, for she has
contributed to a monthly an article under the title of the "True
Chrysanthemum," which pays a very high tribute to the Japanese women. On
the other hand, however, few Occidentals know what the Japanese women
are, and writers are not wanting who cast upon them sweeping
condemnation. They even say that Japanese women know not what is
chastity, and even that no such word exists in the Jananese language.'
--'What nonsense!'
--'Excuse me for pushing my remarks to such a point as this,' I
continued, 'but you see I am so blunt in expression, and I cannot make
my meaning plain unless I use such cut-and-dry phrases. In my own
opinion, without any partiality for my own country, I think I can
confidently say that chastity is far more practised in Japan than in any
other nation.'
--'Hearn's books, which you have just mentioned, are charming,' said
another lady. 'I have read some of them. They go, I think, a long way in
contradicting those unfair charges.'
--'Yes, I think so too,' said I. 'But, you know, one tongue is nothing
against a hundred, as we say. However that may be, he was a fine writer.
It is sad that he died last year. He made, as he said, the study of the
Japanese heart and thought his special subject. All his books,
therefore, are concerned with some sort of Japanese psychology. They are
generally so full of pathos and feeling that even Japanese readers are
often moved to tears.'
--'Then you have read all his books. I should like you to give me the
outline of them at your leisure,' she said.
--'I don't think that would be possible, because I don't know them all.'
--'But you have just now said "all his books," as though you knew all,'
she said.
--'No!' I answered, 'I have not read _all_. I have seen most of the
titles, and some pages here and there, and guessed all the rest. You
see, nowadays, printing is comparatively so cheap and people are so fond
of writing, and further, nine-tenths of the writers have their books
printed at their own expense, so that the publishers run no, risk. If,
therefore, one tries to read all books, one would become a mere bookworm
and a good-for-nothing fellow. Once a compatriot of mine, when in
Germany, was admitted into the study of a great professor. The four
walls were covered with nothing but shelves of books. The professor said
that all those books were sent to him by writers of all nations who were
engaged in the same pursuits as himself. As a matter of fact he was a
jurist, and all those books were on law. The visitor asked if he had
read all of them, to which the professor answered "Yes." Thereupon he
observed, "Impossible, you could not have had time to read them all."
The professor then explained that the essential points of any book were
all known to experts, so that a few pages on those points, which could
easily be found by index, were sufficient to know all that was contained
in a book. In that way, he said, "he read all the books which had come
to him."'
--'What a joke!' said the lady. 'But what kind of man was he? I mean Mr.
Hearn. His life seems to have been much in the clouds.'
--'So far as I am aware of,' said I, 'he was born in Lafcadi, one of the
Ionian Islands, when it was under English occupation, having an Irish
father, I believe, and a Greek mother. He passed his early years in
England until he became a youth, when he went to America, where he
remained until after the prime of life. He then went to Japan, and in
course of time married a Japanese lady and became a naturalised subject
there. So he was a regular cosmopolitan. He always occupied some
position as teacher, and was much liked by his numerous pupils. His
Japanese name was Koizumi Yakumo. Technically speaking, he caused
himself to be adopted by the family of his wife, and so took their
family name "Koizumi" for his surname, and Yakumo for his personal name,
or, as you call it, Christian name.'
--'What you have just said somewhat strikes me,' remarked the lady.
'You have put the Christian name after the surname.'
--'Ah!' said I, that's a reasonable question. Perhaps you don't know
that in Japan we put our family name first. That is to say Gambetta Léon
instead of Léon Gambetta, if he were a Japanese. It is so with the
Chinese; it is also so with the Hungarians. It is one of the proofs
which the Hungarians produce as being descendants of the same stock as
the Orientals. When, however, we are in Europe, or write with European
letters, we generally reverse the order and make it agree with the
European method. Well, unless we do that, we are liable to be called
wrongly by having our names reversed, in such a fashio as Monsieur Léon,
or Monsieur G. Léon, instead of Monsieur Gambetta, or Monsieur L.
Gambetta. Such absurdities often occur in reality, and it is very
inconvenient.
--'I see: that accounts for many discrepancies which exist in writing
som well-known Japanese names, as I occasionally notice in books or
papers written in a foreign language; but it is no use to refer to the
Japanese by name, their names are too difficult for us to remember--it
took me weeks to remember your name correctly.'
--'Just so,' I answered, 'It is equally difficult for us to remember
European names. It is the reason why I do not recollect many people to
whom I am continually introduced; to confess, I do not remember your
name correctly. Russian names are particularly difficult to remember,
not only to us Orientals, but to Anglo-Saxons, even to you, the French.
Do you know that in England Rodjestvensky, before he became famous and
well known, was called simply "Roj" very often, and aliens sometimes
called him "Rotten-cheese-sky." Poor admiral! Witte is simple enough to
remember. We Japanese remember and often write General Kuropatkin as
Kurobato, that is to say, "black pigeon."
Of course, association is the best means of remembrance. We remember
your words "Salle-à-manger" by _Sara-mongi_, that is, a "plate and
written characters," and the English word "Minister" as _me-no-shita_,
that is, "below the eyes." In fact, _me-no-shita_ is used very commonly
in corrupt English at the open ports of Japan. _Frans-Me-no-shita_ is
"French Minister," and _Igiris-Me-no-Shita_ is "English Minister." A
dozen years ago there was in Japan an enterprising man who advertised
that he had invented a good system of memory, and even opened a school.
It was no other than remembering things by association, and I think
there is a good deal in it. A little time ago, as you know, their
Highnesses Prince and Princess Arisugawa were on a visit to Europe. Lord
Lansdowne had great difficulty in remembering the name. Our
_Me-no-shita_ in London asked him if there were not a Princess Alice in
England, to which his Lordship replied "Yes." He then asked if there
were not a street called "Gower Street," to which his Lordship similarly
answered "Yes." Thereupon our minister said: "Very well, Princess Alice
and Gower Street, that makes Arisugawa." After that his lordship, the
Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, remembered the name of our Prince
and Princess very well.'
--'That's all very well,' said she: 'but you mix up _r_ and _l_
altogether.'
--'That's true,' I answered, 'it is the weakest point for us in
speaking European tongues. We cannot, or at least without the greatest
difficulty, make any difference in pronouncing _r_ and _l_. Thus "right"
and "light" become alike when we speak. It is very necessary to think of
that fact when you talk with a Japanese. All this arises from the fact
that in the Chinese and Japanese tongues there are not two different
sounds of _r_ and _l_; those sounds in Japanese are more like your _ra_,
_ri_, _ru_, _re_, _ro_, whilst they are _la_, _li_, _lu_, _le_, _lo_ in
Chinese.'
--'I have noticed it very often,' she said, 'even while you talk you do
the same. Your allusion to remembering things by association is very
true; we do the same very often. But it often produces curious errors.'
--'True,' I said, 'I know a few instances. In Japan there is a kind of
cloth, mostly used for négligées, called _Yukata_, a bath-cloth, so
called because it was originally used after the bath. We call the
"evening" _Yiukata_, the only difference being the "u" in one case being
pronounced longer than in the other. We call "shower" _Yiudachi_. A
European lady married to a Japanese appears to have tried to remember
the bath-cloth by association. She went to a draper's and asked for a
_Yiudachi_ (shower) in place of _Yiukata_ (evening). No one understood
it. She was speaking of "shower" instead of "evening," the result of
trying to speak by association. We have two ways of counting, and we
call the number "ten" either _jiu_ or _to_. We have a certain kind of
boxes which are made to fit one on top of the other, and only the
topmost box has a lid. They are called _jiu-bako_, which means piling
boxes. They are used in households very commonly. The same lady appears
to have remembered that name by _jiu_, that is, ten of the number
according to one of two ways, and _Hako_, a box. One day she called her
servant to bring _to-bako_ instead of _jiu-bako_. The servants, of,
course, did not understand her. The lady misused the association of
counting ten in one way instead of the other.'
--'You said you had no difference between _r_ and _l_, but I suppose you
have almost all sounds of our tongue.'
--'No,' I answered, 'we have not. We have, for instance, no sound of
_f_ or _v_. In some parts of the country people pronounce _ha_, _hi_,
_he_, _ho_ like _fa_, _fi_, _fe_, _fo_, but it is considered bad
dialect. The want of _v_ and _f_ in our letters is a point of great
difficulty in transcribing foreign words into our writing, but we employ
a new method for doing so. On the other hand, our _h_ is pronounced very
acutely. You say you have _h_ mute and _h_ aspirate, but in practice I
never see, or rather hear, any aspiration at all. Hence, Count
"Hisamatsu," our actual military attaché, is always called by the
French, as he complains, "Isamatsu," which is not his Japanese name at
all. This fact reminds me of a similar matter concerning our own Tokio.
The genuine Tokio people generally pronounce _Hi_ as _shi_. It is
curious, but it is a fact. This often causes comical mistakes to be made
by servant-girls who are told by their mistresses to pronounce it
correctly, for they often mix up and use _hi_ in place of _shi_ and
_vice versa_. Mind! Tokio is the capital of Japan, but its language is
not the purest of the Japanese language. The same holds good in London.
It is rather strange for us to notice that in London the _h_ is so
commonly misused. I once went to a master, or rather mistress, as she
was a woman, of elocution, or at least she advertised herself as such,
and she told me that one must be very careful not to be corrupted by the
London patois, and that one must not say "am and hegg" for "ham and
egg," but while she was telling me those things she herself was making
an awful mangling of the _h_. No wonder! She was a pure Londoner. I went
to her no more.'
--'That's too awful! She could not have been a well-educated woman, or
you are telling us an exaggerated story.'
--'Maybe she was not well educated,' said I, 'but my story is a plain,
naked fact. It is very difficult, I think, to get rid of colloquial
corruption when once thoroughly imbued with it, even with all the aids
of education. I can relate an incident bearing on the point. There is,
in Japan, far away from Tokio, a district where people in common
parlance can make no difference between _shi_ and _su_. Once I went to
that district and gave a lecture to a large gathering of students
belonging to the higher schools of the district. Seven or eight of the
most capable students took down my speech, and a complete draft of it
was made by them, the defective parts having been supplied by one from
the other. It was published in the local papers. It was most perfect, as
though taken by shorthand, except in one respect, and it was that _shi_
and _su_ had been intermingled, as though I had spoken in the local
dialect. It seems that not only are they unable to distinguish the
difference when they themselves speak, but also when they hear other
people speak. It is a great drawback to the development of the district.
The local authorities hire teachers from other districts and try to
correct this defect, but with little success. The function of our ears
is strange. Sounds which are quite distinct to some people are quite
indistinct to others. Our music has not so high a variation of tune as
the Western music, but it has sufficient variation to please our ears;
but the Occidentals compare our music to the beating of a drum by a
child--no tune and no variation, the reason being, I think, because our
tunes and variations are quite inaudible to the Western ear. From the
same point of view, crows or cows, and, indeed, all living animals have
their own language, only our ears cannot distinguish the difference of
their words one from another.'
--'Another pleasantry, I perceive,' remarked a lady. 'But tell me,
baron, how do you pronounce the name of your great statesman, "Ito"? Is
it pronounced like _a-i-t-o-_, that is to say, _i_ in the English way of
pronouncing Ireland?'
--'No,' I said, 'like _a-i-t-o-_ without _a_, that is to say, _i_ in
your own French way of pronouncing Ireland. I will once for all give you
a good clue how to pronounce Japanese names, which you must come across
very often nowadays in the newspapers. _I_ is pronounced always like _i_
in your _il_ or English _ill_. Our _E_ is always like _e_ in French
"état" or "été." _G_ is always hard gutteral, that is to say, _ga_ like
_g_ in "Gambetta," _ge_ like _ge_ in English "get," and _ge_ in German,
and your _gue_. _Gi_ like _gi_ in the English "gift," and your _gui_ in
"Guillaume," and, therefore, you must pronounce General "Nogi" like
General "Nogui" in the French way, and not like "Noji" or "Nozi" as you
generally do. Our _go_ is always _go_, in English "got," unless the _o_
is a long one as in Tôgô, and our _gu_ is always like a simple _g_ in
Gladstone and Grant.'
--'But how do you then account for _u_?' interposed she.
--'Our _u_ preceded by a consonant,' I answered, 'is generally sounded
very, very slightly--almost inaudibly, in fact--so much so that you need
take no notice of it. Therefore _ku_, _su_, _mu_, etc., are like simple
_k_, _s_, _m_, etc. There is another secret in pronouncing our names,
and it is this: when a consonant is followed by a vowel, pronounce it
always together with the vowel. Thus _yoritomo_ should be pronounced
_yo-ri-to-mo_, and not _yor-i-tom-o_, and pronounce it without putting
any accent: if you follow this rule, you will get nearer to the right
pronunciation.'
There was among those present the daughter of Prince Ichijo, naval
attaché to the Japanese Legation. She was addressed by a person present
as Miss Ichijo. This appears to have struck a lady present, who was at a
little distance from her. She said to me:
--'Is not that young lady of very high birth?'
--'Yes, she is. Her parentage is very high, though not of the Imperial
blood.'
--'Is she not a daughter of Prince Ichijo?'
--'Yes, she is the daughter by his first wife, who is no more; the
present princess is his second wife, also of high birth, being a
daughter of one of our former great feudal lords.'
--'How is it, then, that the young lady is addressed as "Miss." If she
were a European, she would certainly be addressed as princess, or by
some other title?'
--'You are right in thinking so,' I answered; 'but in Japan the titles
of nobility are only borne personally by the chief of the family and his
wife. All the other members of the family differ in no way from ordinary
people, except that they share the membership of the family. In this
respect our system totally differs from that of Continental Europe. The
English system is like ours as far as law goes, but there also the
younger members of noble families enjoy some distinction by courtesy.
This is the reason why one hears of a marquis, an earl, or a viscount
speaking in the House of Commons as an M.P.'
--'I suppose your system of nobility is pretty much the same as the
Western ones in other respects,' said she.
--'Yes, our titles of nobility are divided into five grades,
corresponding, for example, to the English duke, marquis, earl,
viscount, and baron. The first grade, which corresponds to the English
duke, is generally translated as prince; I don't know who began it but
it is so. In Germany the highest title of nobility is "Fürst," as you
know, and it is translated as "prince" in English or French. I believe
the analogy is taken from that fact. It must not, however, be confounded
with the princes of Imperial blood, for in Japanese the two titles in
question are absolutely distinct, though, translated into the European
languages, they sound very much alike.'
--'What books written in English on Japan would you recommend me to
read?' asked one lady.
--'I cannot say with much authority, because naturally I have not spent
much time over those books, but began it from what I have observed and
from what I have heard from other people Lafcadio Hearn's are the best
to study the Japanese character, but his books are generally collections
of different essays, so that they do not give a panoramic survey of
Japan. In that respect _Advance Japan_, by J. Morris, is said to be very
handy and good. Concerning that book, I may mention a rather commendable
incident which took place last year. A Russian lady, a lover of her own
country, I presume, lamented the great lack of knowledge of Japan among
her country people, which was, as she thought, the cause of the many
misfortunes to her country. She wrote to an English friend of hers
asking what book written in English on Japan she would recommend her to
translate into Russian. The English lady recommended the book just
mentioned, and it was translated and published in Russia. I have myself
seen the Russian edition of it, neatly printed and beautifully
illustrated. The Rev. William E. Griffis, of America, has written
several books on Japan. His _Mikado's Empire_ gives a most excellent
generalisation of Japanese history. A new book on Japan, entitled
_Imperial Japan_ by Knox, another American, is very good. I have read it
through. The only chapter in it which I think very unfair is one
relating to Japanese women. Of course, even in the best books there are
some points which are not quite exact, and they contain many amusing
mistakes when scrutinised from our point of view.'
--'What is then your opinion about Lafcadio Hearn's books, for
instance? I would like to know your opinion,' said another lady.
--'You make me traverse almost the same field over again,' I said.
--'Never mind! The points are different,' she said.
--'Well, I need not speak of his occasional mistranslations of
Japanese words or some small technical errors, but I can say that, in my
opinion, he sometimes goes a little too far in giving reasons to matters
concerning feeling and sentiment. For instance, he raises the question,
if a soul be something concrete and suppose it is gone somewhere--heaven
or Paradise, as one may term it--how would it be possible to be present
simultaneously at the place where it is enshrined, or where offerings
are made, and he tries to solve the difficulty philosophically and
logically. He seems to place too much stress on our notions of ancestral
worship. We practise it, we like it, and we think it fine and noble, and
yet we do so from a spirit of feeling and sentiment. Many things in
connection therewith are done by us, not always with conclusive, logical
reasoning. In this respect many Europeans often misjudge us, forgetting
that they themselves do the same at home. They canonise meritorious
persons, sometimes only legendary; they have their wayside shrines of
Madonna; they celebrate All Souls' Day, when the whole town or village
flocks to the cemetery; they set up statues of great men,--a statesman,
a warrior, a writer, a philanthropist, a musical composer, a sculptor, a
scientist, and what not. They construct a grand pantheon or cathedral
and consecrate the remains of their distinguished dead therein. They
even erect colossal figures of an ideal personification, such as
"Liberty" standing on high at the Place de la République, and other
figures representing great cities, as at the Place de la Concorde. They
sometimes decorate such figures on certain days with flowers, as is the
case with the statue of Beaconsfield, which is covered with primroses on
Primrose League Day, nay, sometimes a figure is decorated with wreaths
all the year round, like Strasbourg at the Place de la Concorde. Mind,
with regard to this last, I am not speaking of any political aspect of
the matter. All this to my mind is very fine in idea. All this, I think,
is not done for mere play, nor are those objects set up for mere
ornament. The notion contained therein is, I think, intended to
perpetuate and sanctify the memory of the person, or of an idea in the
minds of the people. If any stranger, for instance, approach any of
these objects and insult it in any gross manner, he would be sure to be
much hissed, or even punished. From this, it is certain that these
matters belong to the sphere of feeling and sentiment and are not
exactly within the limits of strict philosophical and logical reasoning.
Our ancestral worship and things connected with it are of the same kind.
And yet those Occidentals who have themselves very similar things look
upon such institutions in Japan with amazement or curiosity, or even
with contempt, or else like Lafcadio Hearn, try to reason out some
points which are not altogether soluable by ordinary reasoning. A
Confucian saying has this: "When you perform a commemoration in honour
of your dead parents, do it as though their spirit is present before
you." And I think it quite right; it is no honour to the dead if one
make an offering and reasons in his mind at the same time that the dead
is nothing more than dust, or that its spirit could not be in existence,
or at all events, far away from us in an unknown region. When a
foreigner sees the shrine erected in Tokio where men, generals and
soldiers alike, who died for their country, are consecrated as a sort of
deity, he is apt to think it a peculiar custom. But what difference is
there between our observance of the illustrious dead and that of burying
a distinguished statesman or soldier in the Pantheon or Westminster
Abbey? The only difference in all such matters seems to me to amount to
this: the feeling and sentiment of the preservation of the memory of the
deserving men is more intent and more general in one case than in the
other.'
--'I cannot agree with you altogether in your philosophy,' said a young
lady.
--'That may be,' said I. 'You shut your eyes to things near; we have a
saying, "A lighthouse does not see its own base." Oh! I beg your pardon.
I must not make such remarks; you see, too great a freedom of speech is
apt to produce an abuse; nay, that very freedom sometimes even wrecks a
grand army on an expedition.'
--'I see. That is the reason why you muzzled all the newspaper
correspondents who purposely went out to the Far East, and, by doing so,
you have nearly wrecked your own country.'
--'Yes, nearly,' I answered, 'but we happily managed to escape their
vindictiveness, and won our battles. No one in the world knew that Togo
was quietly waiting with his fleets for the ever-memorable Armada behind
the islands of Tsushima, almost on the same spot where the great
Mongolian Armada was annihilated some six hundred years ago.'
--'And yet you yourself are rather voluble. You are always talking about
something: you talk a good deal more than any ordinary person.'
--'Excuse me,' I retorted, 'I don't think I am voluble at all. By
nature I prefer listening to others than talking to them, for in
listening to others one can learn something, but nothing when talking to
them. I prefer still more to be alone, than either to be listening or
talking, for then the waste of time is still less. I only talk when it
is absolutely necessary. You know, of course, that from Pythagoras down
to Spencer and Huxley, extending, over some four or five thousand years,
thousands of philosophers have written books, millions of books,
spinning out their thoughts or rather conjectures, like spiders webs,
but the essence of it all is summed up in only these few words, "I don't
know."'
--'Ah! I see,' cried she, 'you talk nowadays so much, because you think
it necessary for the good of your country. Do you know you are generally
called the "Japanese Mentor," or the "Missionary of things Japanese.'"
--'I don't mind by what name they call me. Don't you remember: "That
which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet."'
--'And yet you must not monopolise the time; I must now have my turn of
freedom of speech.'
The lady thus claiming her turn of speech was a lively, vigorous,
energetic young lady, capable of talking and writing in several
languages, confident of herself and of her sex, as confident as though
she were carrying on her shoulders the responsibility of half mankind,
that is, the whole of womankind. She takes, of course, great interest in
women's education and the promotion of women's rights in all matters.
She began by saying, with her face turned towards me:
--'In the letter you have just read--'
--'I did not read it,' I interposed; 'it was that lady.'
--'Well, then,' she said, 'in the letter you have brought in your pocket
and have made one of the ladies read to us. In that letter mention is
made of Japanese ladies--'
--'Oh, no more of the ladies,' I interrupted; 'I have spoken so much of
them, that if I repeat too often, I shall weary my readers of _A Summer
Dream_.'
--'What!' she said, 'I do not mind if you read or copy the _Midsummer
Night's Dream_, or the _Winters Tale_, but I must have my turn of
speech. In that letter, the writer speaks of the Japanese killing their
mothers, wives, and sisters: by that the writer, no doubt, means the
affliction which is put upon them by the death of so many men on the
battlefields. But in my opinion, it is not only in Japan that women are
killed, but in all countries, in England, in France, in America and
everywhere else! Man everywhere despises women's education and deprives
women of their lives.'
--'Of course, you take great interest in women's education,' I
interposed.
--'Not only,' she continued, 'they despise women's education, but they
employ every machination to hinder women from developing brain power,
which is their only life.'
--'You are too harsh,' I remarked.
--'No, not at all,' she continued. 'People talk about American girls
getting the upper hand of their elders, as though they were not capable
of giving advice to their somewhat belated relatives. The younger we
are, the older and wiser we deem ourselves: such are the real facts of
the world, don't you think so, baron?'
--'Well, not exactly,' I replied.
--'I don't think you take much interest in women's education. You are
intelligent, but you are, all the same, a man. You men have all one
trait in common, and that is, a desire to exclude women from every
sphere of action politically and socially.'
--'No, far from it,' I answered. 'I am a great advocate of the mental
and physical development of women. My only desire as man is that the
time should soon arrive when we could elect women as deputies to the
Chamber; send them to the barracks and ships as soldiers and sailors,
and to the field of campaign in time of emergency; select the most
beautiful as our ambassadors and ministers to the courts of different
countries and win over the hearts of the nation to which they are sent,
while all this time we men might stay at home and calmly nurse the
babies or indulge in a quiet smoke, of which I am very fond.'
--'Let's have some more serious talk,' remarked another lady. 'You have
not yet told us of the foundation of Bushido and its ethics. Let us hear
something of that.'
--'It is rather complicated. It will take much time. It won't do for my
_Summer Dream_.'
--'What?' she asked.
--'Nothing. I mean it is too complicated and serious to tell you in this
place. On those points, I must refer you to my book entitled _The Risen
Sun_, published by Archibald Constable, the best publisher in London. It
is one of the most important books published in the twentieth century;
otherwise Archibald Constable would never have published it.'
--'I see a Japanese gentleman is sometimes capable of indulging in a
little bluff.'
--'But the twentieth century has only just begun: besides, this kind of
bluff is quite harmless. It is very different from that which some
people are fond of indulging in, and, above all, it cannot bring about a
national catastrophe.'
--'Enough, we all see what you mean. "Their rising senses," as the poet
says, will soon "begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle their
clearer reason." Let us go now,' said one of them, and they all
dispersed.
Thereupon I also having left the room, sprang into the air, and once
more floated away like a sprite, humming as I did so:--
'... I do fly
After summer, merrily:
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.'
[1] For these 'singing insects,' which are a distinctive feature in the
Far East, see Lafcadio Hearn on 'Insect-Musicians' in his _Exotics and
Retrospectives_ (1898), pp. 39-80. The practice of caging them dates at
least from 1095 A.D. Insects are now bred for this purpose in enormous
numbers.