_To the Editor of the_ OUTLOOK
SIR,--I have received during the last few weeks letters bearing such
eloquent testimony to the nobility of Japanese character that I am
sending you some extracts in the hope of your publishing them. The
letters are from a friend of mine, who with her husband has lived in
Yokohama for many years, and can therefore speak with considerable
authority. The first extract is about the soldiers themselves--
Mine you know is a busy life, and I found work among the military
hospitals and also among the brave wives of the soldiers so
fascinating that from the New Year till early June I let all social
duties slip, so much so that I had a nervous breakdown in June, and
since then have had to go very slow.
We had a splendid time at our seaside cottage at Negishi this
afternoon, any amount of our dear brown soldiers round us. There
are five hundred quartered in that fishing village just now; they
were resting, bathing, boating, washing their clothes or cooking
their chow, but never a rude word or an uncouth action; no
rowdyism, but all as civil, quiet, good-tempered, and alert as
possible; they are a marvel; and my children go in and out among
them and love them, like I do! I could _kill_ white idiots when I
hear them speak of those fine fellows as 'an inferior race.' Ye
gods! 'inferior' with never a camp follower to their name, and
rapine unknown even after the fiercest fight! What European race
can show a record like that? I wish I could be home for six months
and tell what the soldiers and their wives are--what miracles of
cheerful patience and manly dignity the wounded men are as they lie
hacked and maimed, sometimes till almost all semblance of manhood
is gone, yet never a murmur does any one hear from their lips--no,
not if they are armless, legless, and even _blind_. And you would
not dare condole with them! They say and believe they 'are greatly
honoured.' When they embrace Christianity, they shame the brightest
Christian among us, and I come away from visiting the hospitals
feeling so small, so humble, yet at peace with all the world. We
have very, very much to learn from this great people.
This second extract, about a soldier's wife, may come home to your
readers even more:--
I allow two families a small sum of money every week. One case is
that of a young woman, under twenty years of age, who has a child
and an aged parent to keep, and her husband went to the war a few
weeks ago, leaving her penniless and on the verge of having another
baby. A few days ago, when I went to take her weekly money, she
refused to take it, saying she had got a little work to do and
could now manage without any help, as there were so many in much
greater need of help than herself; and she would not take the
money, though she was earning even less than I was allowing her.
_That_ is what I call a real heroine.
How many at work amongst our poor last winter could give such
evidence to character as that?--I am, sir, yours, etc.