SCENE III.--Enter coolies, approaching temple through forest at night.

Coolies afraid. Drop box and run. Exeunt coolies. Box alone in the dark.

Enter veiled figure, all white. Figure moans unpleasantly; utters horrid

cries. Box remains impassive. Figure removes veil, showing Its face--a

skull with phosphoric eyes. [Audience unanimously utter the sound

'Aaaaaa!'] Figure displays Its hands--monstrous and apish, with claws.

[Audience utter a second 'Aaaaaa!'] Figure approaches the box, touches

the box, opens the box! Up leaps noble samurai. A wrestle; drums sound

the roll of battle. Noble samurai practises successfully noble art of

ju-jutsu. Casts demon down, tramples upon him triumphantly, cuts off his

head. Head suddenly enlarges, grows to the size of a house, tries to

bite off head of samurai. Samurai slashes it with his sword. Head rolls

backward, spitting fire, and vanishes. Finis. Exeunt omnes.

Sec. 6

The vision of the samurai and the goblin reminded Kinjuro of a queer

tale, which he began to tell me as soon as the shadow-play was over.

Ghastly stories are apt to fall flat after such an exhibition; but

Kinjuro's stories are always peculiar enough to justify the telling

under almost any circumstances. Wherefore I listened eagerly, in spite

of the cold:

'A long time ago, in the days when Fox-women and goblins haunted this

land, there came to the capital with her parents a samurai girl, so

beautiful that all men who saw her fell enamoured of her. And hundreds

of young samurai desired and hoped to marry her, and made their desire

known to her parents. For it has ever been the custom in Japan that

marriages should be arranged by parents. But there are exceptions to all

customs, and the case of this maiden was such an exception. Her parents

declared that they intended to allow their daughter to choose her own

husband, and that all who wished to win her would be free to woo her.

'Many men of high rank and of great wealth were admitted to the house as

suitors; and each one courted her as he best knew how--with gifts, and

with fair words, and with poems written in her honour, and with promises

of eternal love. And to each one she spoke sweetly and hopefully; but

she made strange conditions. For every suitor she obliged to bind

himself by his word of honour as a samurai to submit to a test of his

love for her, and never to divulge to living person what that test might

be. And to this all agreed.

'But even the most confident suitors suddenly ceased their importunities

after having been put to the test; and all of them appeared to have been

greatly terrified by something. Indeed, not a few even fled away from

the city, and could not be persuaded by their friends to return. But no

one ever so much as hinted why. Therefore it was whispered by those who

knew nothing of the mystery, that the beautiful girl must be either a

Fox-woman or a goblin.

'Now, when all the wooers of high rank had abandoned their suit, there

came a samurai who had no wealth but his sword. He was a good man and

true, and of pleasing presence; and the girl seemed to like him. But she

made him take the same pledge which the others had taken; and after he

had taken it, she told him to return upon a certain evening.

'When that evening came, he was received at the house by none but the

girl herself. With her own hands she set before him the repast of

hospitality, and waited upon him, after which she told him that she

wished him to go out with her at a late hour. To this he consented

gladly, and inquired to what place she desired to go. But she replied

nothing to his question, and all at once became very silent, and strange

in her manner. And after a while she retired from the apartment, leaving

him alone.

'Only long after midnight she returned, robed all in white--like a Soul

--and, without uttering a word, signed to him to follow her. Out of the

house they hastened while all the city slept. It was what is called an

oborozuki-yo--'moon-clouded night.' Always upon such a night, 'tis said,

do ghosts wander. She swiftly led the way; and the dogs howled as she

flitted by; and she passed beyond the confines of the city to a place of

knolls shadowed by enormous trees, where an ancient cemetery was. Into

it she glided--a white shadow into blackness. He followed, wondering,

his hand upon his sword. Then his eyes became accustomed to the gloom;

and he saw.

'By a new-made grave she paused and signed to him to wait. The tools of

the grave-maker were still lying there. Seizing one, she began to dig

furiously, with strange haste and strength. At last her spade smote a

coffin-lid and made it boom: another moment and the fresh white wood of

the kwan was bare. She tore off the lid, revealing a corpse within--the

corpse of a child. With goblin gestures she wrung an arm from the body,

wrenched it in twain, and, squatting down, began to devour the upper

half. Then, flinging to her lover the other half, she cried to him,

"Eat, if thou lovest mel this is what I eat!" 'Not even for a single

instant did he hesitate. He squatted down upon the other side of the

grave, and ate the half of the arm, and said, "Kekko degozarimasu! mo

sukoshi chodai." [3] For that arm was made of the best kwashi [4] that

Saikyo could produce.

'Then the girl sprang to her feet with a burst of laughter, and cried:

"You only, of all my brave suitors, did not run away! And I wanted a

husband: who could not fear. I will marry you; I can love you: you are a

man!"'

Sec. 7

'O Kinjuro,' I said, as we took our way home, 'I have heard and I have

read many Japanese stories of the returning of the dead. Likewise you

yourself have told me it is still believed the dead return, and why. But

according both to that which I have read and that which you have told

me, the coming back of the dead is never a thing to be desired. They

return because of hate, or because of envy, or because they cannot rest

for sorrow. But of any who return for that which is not evil--where is

it written? Surely the common history of them is like that which we have

this night seen: much that is horrible and much that is wicked and

nothing of that which is beautiful or true.'

Now this I said that I might tempt him. And he made even the answer I

desired, by uttering the story which is hereafter set down:

'Long ago, in the days of a daimyo whose name has been forgotten, there

lived in this old city a young man and a maid who loved each other very

much. Their names are not remembered, but their story remains. From

infancy they had been betrothed; and as children they played together,

for their parents were neighbours. And as they grew up, they became

always fonder of each other.

'Before the youth had become a man, his parents died. But he was able to

enter the service of a rich samurai, an officer of high rank, who had

been a friend of his people. And his protector soon took him into great

favour, seeing him to be courteous, intelligent, and apt at arms. So the

young man hoped to find himself shortly in a position that would make it

possible for him to marry his betrothed. But war broke out in the north

and east; and he was summoned suddenly to follow his master to the

field. Before departing, however, he was able to see the girl; and they

exchanged pledges in the presence of her parents; and he promised,

should he remain alive, to return within a year from that day to marry

his betrothed.

'After his going much time passed without news of him, for there was no

post in that time as now; and the girl grieved so much for thinking of

the chances of war that she became all white and thin and weak. Then at

last she heard of him through a messenger sent from the army to bear

news to the daimyo and once again a letter was brought to her by another

messenger. And thereafter there came no word. Long is a year to one who

waits. And the year passed, and he did not return.

'Other seasons passed, and still he did not come; and she thought him

dead; and she sickened and lay down, and died, and was buried. Then her

old parents, who had no other child, grieved unspeakably, and came to

hate their home for the lonesomeness of it. After a time they resolved

to sell all they had, and to set out upon a sengaji--the great

pilgrimage to the Thousand Temples of the Nichiren-Shu, which requires

many years to perform. So they sold their small house with all that it

contained, excepting the ancestral tablets, and the holy things which

must never be sold, and the ihai of their buried daughter, which were

placed, according to the custom of those about to leave their native

place, in the family temple. Now the family was of the Nichiren-Shu; and

their temple was Myokoji.

'They had been gone only four days when the young man who had been

betrothed to their daughter returned to the city. He had attempted, with

the permission of his master, to fulfil his promise. But the provinces

upon his way were full of war, and the roads and passes were guarded by

troops, and he had been long delayed by many difficulties. And when he

heard of his misfortune he sickened for grief, and many days remained

without knowledge of anything, like one about to die.

'But when he began to recover his strength, all the pain of memory came

back again; and he regretted that he had not died. Then he resolved to

kill himself upon the grave of his betrothed; and, as soon as he was

able to go out unobserved, he took his sword and went to the cemetery

where the girl was buried: it is a lonesome place--the cemetery of

Myokoji. There he found her tomb, and knelt before it, and prayed and

wept, and whispered to her that which he was about to do. And suddenly

he heard her voice cry to him: "Anata!" and felt her hand upon his hand;

and he turned, and saw her kneeling beside him, smiling, and beautiful

as he remembered her, only a little pale. Then his heart leaped so that

he could not speak for the wonder and the doubt and the joy of that

moment. But she said: "Do not doubt: it is really I. I am not dead. It

was all a mistake. I was buried, because my people thought me dead--

buried too soon. And my own parents thought me dead, and went upon a

pilgrimage. Yet you see, I am not dead--not a ghost. It is I: do not

doubt it! And I have seen your heart, and that was worth all the

waiting, and the pain.. . But now let us go away at once to another

city, so that people may not know this thing and trouble us; for all

still believe me dead."

'And they went away, no one observing them. And they went even to the

village of Minobu, which is in the province of Kai. For there is a

famous temple of the Nichiren-Shu in that place; and the girl had said:

"I know that in the course of their pilgrimage my parents will surely

visit Minobu: so that if we dwell there, they will find us, and we shall

be all again together." And when they came to Minobu, she said: "Let us

open a little shop." And they opened a little food-shop, on the wide way

leading to the holy place; and there they sold cakes for children, and

toys, and food for pilgrims. For two years they so lived and prospered;

and there was a son born to them.

'Now when the child was a year and two months old, the parents of the

wife came in the course of their pilgrimage to Minobu; and they stopped

at the little shop to buy food. And seeing their daughter's betrothed,

they cried out and wept and asked questions. Then he made them enter,

and bowed down before them, and astonished them, saying: "Truly as I

speak it, your daughter is not dead; and she is my wife; and we have a

son. And she is even now within the farther room, lying down with the

child. I pray you go in at once and gladden her, for her heart longs for

the moment of seeing you again."

'So while he busied himself in making all things ready for their

comfort, they entered the inner, room very softly--the mother first.

'They found the child asleep; but the mother they did not find. She

seemed to have gone out for a little while only: her pillow was still

warm. They waited long for her: then they began to seek her. But never

was she seen again.

'And they understood only when they found beneath the coverings which

had covered the mother and child, something which they remembered having

left years before in the temple of Myokoji--a little mortuary tablet,

the ihai of their buried daughter.'

I suppose I must have looked thoughtful after this tale; for the old man

said:

'Perhaps the Master honourably thinks concerning the story that it is

foolish?'

'Nay, Kinjuro, the story is in my heart.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN The Japanese Smile

Sec. 1

THOSE whose ideas of the world and its wonders have been formed chiefly

by novels and romance still indulge a vague belief that the East is more

serious than the West. Those who judge things from a higher standpoint

argue, on the contrary, that, under present conditions, the West must be

more serious than the East; and also that gravity, or even something

resembling its converse, may exist only as a fashion. But the fact is

that in this, as in all other questions, no rule susceptible of

application to either half of humanity can be accurately framed.

Scientifically, we can do no more just now than study certain contrasts

in a general way, without hoping to explain satisfactorily the highly

complex causes which produced them. One such contrast, of particular

interest, is that afforded by the English and the Japanese.

It is a commonplace to say that the English are a serious people--not

superficially serious, but serious all the way down to the bed-rock of

the race character. It is almost equally safe to say that the Japanese

are not very serious, either above or below the surface, even as

compared with races much less serious than our own. And in the same

proportion, at least, that they are less serious, they are more happy:

they still, perhaps, remain the happiest people in the civilised world.

We serious folk of the West cannot call ourselves very happy. Indeed, we

do not yet fully know how serious we are; and it would probably frighten

us to learn how much more serious we are likely to become under the

ever-swelling pressure of industrial life. It is, possibly, by long

sojourn among a people less gravely disposed that we can best learn our

own temperament. This conviction came to me very strongly when, after

having lived for nearly three years in the interior of Japan, I returned

to English life for a few days at the open port of Kobe. To hear English

once more spoken by Englishmen touched me more than I could have

believed possible; but this feeling lasted only for a moment. My object

was to make some necessary purchases. Accompanying me was a Japanese

friend, to whom all that foreign life was utterly new and wonderful, and

who asked me this curious question: 'Why is it that the foreigners never

smile? You smile and bow when you speak to them; but they never smile.

Why?'

The fact was, I had fallen altogether into Japanese habits and ways, and

had got out of touch with Western life; and my companion's question

first made me aware that I had been acting somewhat curiously. It also

seemed to me a fair illustration of the difficulty of mutual

comprehension between the two races--each quite naturally, though quite

erroneously, estimating the manners and motives of the other by its own.

If the Japanese are puzzled by English gravity, the English are, to say

the least, equally puzzled by Japanese levity. The Japanese speak of the

'angry faces' of the foreigners. The foreigners speak with strong

contempt of the Japanese smile: they suspect it to signify insincerity;

indeed, some declare it cannot possibly signify anything else. Only a

few of the more observant have recognised it as an enigma worth

studying. One of my Yokohama friends--a thoroughly lovable man, who had

passed more than half his life in the open ports of the East--said to

me, just before my departure for the interior: 'Since you are going to

study Japanese life, perhaps you will be able to find out something for

me. I can't understand the Japanese smile. Let me tell you one

experience out of many. One day, as I was driving down from the Bluff, I

saw an empty kuruma coming up on the wrong side of the curve. I could

not have pulled up in time if I had tried; but I didn't try, because I

didn't think there was any particular danger. I only yelled to the man

in Japanese to get to the other side of the road; instead of which he

simply backed his kuruma against a wall on the lower side of the curve,

with the shafts outwards. At the rate I was going, there wasn't room

even to swerve; and the next minute one of the shafts of that kuruma was

in my horse's shoulder. The man wasn't hurt at all. When I saw the way

my horse was bleeding, I quite lost my temper, and struck the man over

the head with the butt of my whip. He looked right into my face and

smiled, and then bowed. I can see that smile now. I felt as if I had

been knocked down. The smile utterly nonplussed me--killed all my anger

instantly. Mind you, it was a polite smile. But what did it mean? Why

the devil did the man smile? I can't understand it.'

Neither, at that time, could I; but the meaning of much more mysterious

smiles has since been revealed to me. A Japanese can smile in the teeth

of death, and usually does. But he then smiles for the same reason that

he smiles at other times. There is neither defiance nor hypocrisy in the

smile; nor is it to be confounded with that smile of sickly resignation

which we are apt to associate with weakness of character. It is an

elaborate and long-cultivated etiquette. It is also a silent language.

But any effort to interpret it according to Western notions of

physiognomical expression would be just about as successful as an

attempt to interpret Chinese ideographs by their real or fancied

resemblance to shapes of familiar things.

First impressions, being largely instinctive, are scientifically

recognised as partly trustworthy; and the very first impression produced

by the Japanese smile is not far from the truth The stranger cannot fail

to notice the generally happy and smiling character of the native faces;

and this first impression is, in most cases, wonderfully pleasant. The

Japanese smile at first charms. It is only at a later day, when one has

observed the same smile under extraordinary circumstances--in moments of

pain, shame, disappointment--that one becomes suspicious of it. Its

apparent inopportuneness may even, on certain occasions, cause violent

anger. Indeed, many of the difficulties between foreign residents and

their native servants have been due to the smile. Any man who believes

in the British tradition that a good servant must be solemn is not

likely to endure with patience the smile of his 'boy.' At present,

however, this particular phase of Western eccentricity is becoming more

fully recognised by the Japanese; they are beginning to learn that the

average English-speaking foreigner hates smiling, and is apt to consider

it insulting; wherefore Japanese employees at the open ports have

generally ceased to smile, and have assumed an air of sullenness.

At this moment there comes to me the recollection of a queer story told

by a lady of Yokohama about one of her Japanese servants. 'My Japanese

nurse came to me the other day, smiling as if something very pleasant

had happened, and said that her husband was dead, and that she wanted

permission to attend his funeral. I told her she could go. It seems they

burned the man's body. Well, in the evening she returned, and showed me

a vase containing some ashes of bones (I saw a tooth among them); and

she said: "That is my husband." And she actually laughed as she said it!

Did you ever hear of such disgusting creatures?'

It would have been quite impossible to convince the narrator of this

incident that the demeanour of her servant, instead of being heartless,

might have been heroic, and capable of a very touching interpretation.

Even one not a Philistine might be deceived in such a case by

appearances. But quite a number of the foreign residents of the open

ports are pure Philistines, and never try to look below the surface of

the life around them, except as hostile critics. My Yokohama friend who

told me the story about the kurumaya was quite differently disposed: he

recognised the error of judging by appearances.

Sec. 2

Miscomprehension of the Japanese smile has more than once led to

extremely unpleasant results, as happened in the case of T--a Yokohama

merchant of former days. T--had employed in some capacity (I think

partly as a teacher of Japanese) a nice old samurai, who wore, according

to the fashion of the era, a queue and two swords. The English and the

Japanese do not understand each other very well now; but at the period

in question they understood each other much less. The Japanese servants

at first acted in foreign employ precisely as they would have acted in

the service of distinguished Japanese; [1] and this innocent mistake

provoked a good deal of abuse and cruelty. Finally the discovery was

made that to treat Japanese like West Indian negroes might be very

dangerous.

A certain number of foreigners were killed, with good moral

consequences.

But I am digressing. T--was rather pleased with his old samurai, though

quite unable to understand his Oriental politeness, his prostrations or

the meaning of the small gifts which he presented occasionally, with an

exquisite courtesy entirely wasted upon T--. One day he came to ask a

favour. (I think it was the eve of the Japanese New Year, when everybody

needs money, for reasons not here to be dwelt upon.) The favour was that

T--would lend him a little money upon one of his swords, the long one.

It was a very beautiful weapon, and the merchant saw that it was also

very valuable, and lent the money without hesitation. Some weeks later

the old man was able to redeem his sword.

What caused the beginning of the subsequent unpleasantness nobody now

remembers Perhaps T--'s nerves got out of order. At all events, one day

he became very angry with the old man, who submitted to the expression

of his wrath with bows and smiles. This made him still more angry, and

he used some extremely bad language; but the old man still bowed and

smiled; wherefore he was ordered to leave the house. But the old man

continued to smile, at which T--losing all self-control struck him. And

then T--suddenly became afraid, for the long sword instantly leaped from

its sheath, and swirled above him; and the old man ceased to seem old.

Now, in the grasp of anyone who knows how to use it, the razor-edged

blade of a Japanese sword wielded with both hands can take a head off

with extreme facility. But, to T--'s astonishment, the old samurai,

almost in the same moment, returned the blade to its sheath with the

skill of a practised swordsman, turned upon his heel, and withdrew.

Then T-- wondered and sat down to think. He began to remember some nice

things about the old man--the many kindnesses unasked and unpaid, the

curious little gifts, the impeccable honesty. T-- began to feel ashamed.

He tried to console himself with the thought: 'Well, it was his own

fault; he had no right to laugh at me when he knew I was angry.' Indeed,

T-- even resolved to make amends when an opportunity should offer.

But no opportunity ever came, because on the same evening the old man

performed hara-kiri, after the manner of a samurai. He left a very

beautifully written letter explaining his reasons. For a samurai to

receive an unjust blow without avenging it was a shame not to be borne,

He had received such a blow. Under any other circumstances he might have

avenged it. But the circumstances were, in this instance, of a very

peculiar kind, His code of honour forbade him to use his sword upon the

man to whom he had pledged it once for money, in an hour of need. And

being thus unable to use his sword, there remained for him only the

alternative of an honourable suicide.

In order to render this story less disagreeable, the reader may suppose

that T--was really very sorry, and behaved generously to the family of

the old man. What he must not suppose is that T--was ever able to

imagine why the old man had smiled the smile which led to the outrage

and the tragedy.

Sec. 3

To comprehend the Japanese smile, one must be able to enter a little

into the ancient, natural, and popular life of Japan. From the

modernised upper classes nothing is to be learned. The deeper

signification of race differences is being daily more and more

illustrated in the effects of the higher education. Instead of creating

any community of feeling, it appears only to widen the distance between

the Occidental and the Oriental. Some foreign observers have declared

that it does this by enormously developing certain latent peculiarities

--among others an inherent materialism little perceptible among fife

common people. This explanation is one I cannot quite agree with; but it

is at least undeniable that, the more highly he is cultivated, according

to Western methods, the farther is the Japanese psychologically removed

from us. Under the new education, his character seems to crystallise

into something of singular hardness, and to Western observation, at

least, of singular opacity. Emotionally, the Japanese child appears

incomparably closer to us than the Japanese mathematician, the peasant

than the statesman. Between the most elevated class of thoroughly

modernised Japanese and the Western thinker anything akin to

intellectual sympathy is non-existent: it is replaced on the native side

by a cold and faultless politeness. Those influences which in other

lands appear most potent to develop the higher emotions seem here to

have the extraordinary effect of suppressing them. We are accustomed

abroad to associate emotional sensibility with intellectual expansion:

it would be a grievous error to apply this rule in Japan. Even the

foreign teacher in an ordinary school can feel, year by year, his pupils

drifting farther away from him, as they pass from class to class; in

various higher educational institutions, the separation widens yet more

rapidly, so that, prior to graduation, students may become to their

professor little more than casual acquaintances. The enigma is perhaps,

to some extent, a physiological one, requiring scientific explanation;

but its solution must first be sought in ancestral habits of life and of

imagination. It can be fully discussed only when its natural causes are

understood; and these, we may be sure, are not simple. By some observers

it is asserted that because the higher education in Japan has not yet

had the effect of stimulating the higher emotions to the Occidental

pitch, its developing power cannot have been exerted uniformly and

wisely, but in special directions only, at the cost of character. Yet

this theory involves the unwarrantable assumption that character can be

created by education; and it ignores the fact that the best results are

obtained by affording opportunity for the exercise of pre-existing

inclination rather than by any system of teaching.

The causes of the phenomenon must be looked for in the race character;

and whatever the higher education may accomplish in the remote future,

it can scarcely be expected to transform nature. But does it at present

atrophy certain finer tendencies? I think that it unavoidably does, for

the simple reason that, under existing conditions, the moral and mental

powers are overtasked by its requirements. All that wonderful national

spirit of duty, of patience, of self-sacrifice, anciently directed to

social, moral, or religious idealism, must, under the discipline of the

higher training, be concentrated upon an end which not only demands, but

exhausts its fullest exercise. For that end, to be accomplished at all,

must be accomplished in the face of difficulties that the Western

student rarely encounters, and could scarcely be made even to

understand. All those moral qualities which made the old Japanese

character admirable are certainly the same which make the modern

Japanese student the most indefatigable, the most docile, the most

ambitious in the world. But they are also qualities which urge him to

efforts in excess of his natural powers, with the frequent result of

mental and moral enervation. The nation has entered upon a period of

intellectual overstrain. Consciously or unconsciously, in obedience to

sudden necessity, Japan has undertaken nothing less than the tremendous

task of forcing mental expansion up to the highest existing standard;

and this means forcing the development of the nervous system. For the

desired intellectual change, to be accomplished within a few

generations, must involve a physiological change never to be effected

without terrible cost. In other words, Japan has attempted too much; yet

under the circumstances she could not have attempted less. Happily, even

among the poorest of her poor the educational policy of the Government

is seconded with an astonishing zeal; the entire nation has plunged into

study with a fervour of which it is utterly impossible to convey any

adequate conception in this little essay. Yet I may cite a touching

example. Immediately after the frightful earthquake of 1891, the

children of the ruined cities of Gifu and Aichi, crouching among the

ashes of their homes, cold and hungry and shelterless, surrounded by

horror and misery unspeakable, still continued their small studies,

using tiles of their own burnt dwellings in lieu of slates, and bits of

lime for chalk, even while the earth still trembled beneath them. [2]

What future miracles may justly be expected from the amazing power of

purpose such a fact reveals!

But it is true that as yet the results of the higher training have not

been altogether happy. Among the Japanese of the old regime one

encounters a courtesy, an unselfishness, a grace of pure goodness,

impossible to overpraise. Among the modernised of the new generation

these have almost disappeared. One meets a class of young men who

ridicule the old times and the old ways without having been able to

elevate themselves above the vulgarism of imitation and the commonplaces

of shallow scepticism. What has become of the noble and charming

qualities they must have inherited from their fathers? Is it not

possible that the best of those qualities have been transmuted into mere

effort,--an effort so excessive as to have exhausted character, leaving

it without weight or balance?

It is to the still fluid, mobile, natural existence of the common people

that one must look for the meaning of some apparent differences in the

race feeling and emotional expression of the West and the Far East. With

those gentle, kindly, sweet-hearted folk, who smile at life, love, and

death alike, it is possible to enjoy community of feeling in simple,

natural things; and by familiarity and sympathy we can learn why they

smile.

The Japanese child is born with this happy tendency, which is fostered

through all the period of home education. But it is cultivated with the

same exquisiteness that is shown in the cultivation of the natural

tendencies of a garden plant. The smile is taught like the bow; like the

prostration; like that little sibilant sucking-in of the breath which

follows, as a token of pleasure, the salutation to a superior; like all

the elaborate and beautiful etiquette of the old courtesy. Laughter is

not encouraged, for obvious reasons. But the smile is to be used upon

all pleasant occasions, when speaking to a superior or to an equal, and

even upon occasions which are not pleasant; it is a part of deportment.

The most agreeable face is the smiling face; and to present always the

most agreeable face possible to parents, relatives, teachers, friends,

well-wishers, is a rule of life. And furthermore, it is a rule of life

to turn constantly to the outer world a mien of happiness, to convey to

others as far as possible a pleasant impression. Even though the heart

is breaking, it is a social duty to smile bravely. On the other hand, to

look serious or unhappy is rude, because this may cause anxiety or pain

to those who love us; it is likewise foolish, since it may excite

unkindly curiosity on the part of those who love us not. Cultivated from

childhood as a duty, the smile soon becomes instinctive. In the mind of

the poorest peasant lives the conviction that to exhibit the expression

of one's personal sorrow or pain or anger is rarely useful, and always

unkind. Hence, although natural grief must have, in Japan as elsewhere,

its natural issue, an uncontrollable burst of tears in the presence of

superiors or guests is an impoliteness; and the first words of even the

most unlettered countrywoman, after the nerves give way in such a

circumstance, are invariably: 'Pardon my selfishness in that I have been

so rude!' The reasons for the smile, be it also observed, are not only

moral; they are to some extent aesthetic they partly represent the same

idea which regulated the expression of suffering in Greek art. But they

are much more moral than aesthetic, as we shall presently observe.

From this primary etiquette of the smile there has been developed a

secondary etiquette, the observance of which has frequently impelled

foreigners to form the most cruel misjudgements as to Japanese

sensibility. It is the native custom that whenever a painful or shocking

fact must be told, the announcement should be made, by the sufferer,

with a smile. [3] The graver the subject, the more accentuated the

smile; and when the matter is very unpleasant to the person speaking of

it, the smile often changes to a low, soft laugh. However bitterly the

mother who has lost her first-born may have wept at the funeral, it is

probable that, if in your service, she will tell of her bereavement with

a smile: like the Preacher, she holds that there is a time to weep and a

time to laugh. It was long before I myself could understand how it was

possible for those whom I believed to have loved a person recently dead

to announce to me that death with a laugh. Yet the laugh was politeness

carried to the utmost point of self-abnegation. It signified: 'This you

might honourably think to be an unhappy event; pray do not suffer Your

Superiority to feel concern about so inferior a matter, and pardon the

necessity which causes us to outrage politeness by speaking about such

an affair at all.'. The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable

smiles is Japanese politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a

fault prostrates himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That smile

indicates the very reverse of callousness or insolence: 'Be assured that

I am satisfied with the great justice of your honourable sentence, and

that I am now aware of the gravity of my fault. Yet my sorrow and my

necessity have caused me to indulge the unreasonable hope that I may be

forgiven for my great rudeness in asking pardon.' The youth or girl

beyond the age of childish tears, when punished for some error, receives

the punishment with a smile which means: 'No evil feeling arises in my

heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved.' And the kurumaya cut

by the whip of my Yokohama friend smiled for a similar reason, as my

friend must have intuitively felt, since the smile at once disarmed him:

'I was very wrong, and you are right to be angry: I deserve to be

struck, and therefore feel no resentment.'

But it should be understood that the poorest and humblest Japanese is

rarely submissive under injustice. His apparent docility is due chiefly

to his moral sense. The foreigner who strikes a native for sport may

have reason to find that he has made a serious mistake. The Japanese are

not to be trifled with; and brutal attempts to trifle with them have

cost several worthless lives.

Even after the foregoing explanations, the incident of the Japanese

nurse may still seem incomprehensible; but this, I feel quite sure, is

because the narrator either suppressed or overlooked certain facts in

the case. In the first half of the story, all is perfectly clear. When

announcing her husband's death, the young servant smiled, in accordance

with the native formality already referred to. What is quite incredible

is that, of her own accord, she should have invited the attention of her

mistress to the contents of the vase, or funeral urn. If she knew enough

of Japanese politeness to smile in announcing her husband's death, she

must certainly have known enough to prevent her from perpetrating such

an error. She could have shown the vase and its contents only in

obedience to some real or fancied command; and when so doing, it is more

than possible she may have uttered the low, soft laugh which accompanies

either the unavoidable performance of a painful duty, or the enforced

utterance of a painful statement. My own opinion is that she was obliged

to gratify a wanton curiosity. Her smile or laugh would then have

signified: 'Do not suffer your honourable feelings to be shocked upon my

unworthy account; it is indeed very rude of me, even at your honourable

request, to mention so contemptible a thing as my sorrow.'

Sec. 4

But the Japanese smile must not be imagined as a kind of sourire figé,

worn perpetually as a soul-mask. Like other matters of deportment, it is

regulated by an etiquette which varies in different classes of society.

As a rule, the old samurai were not given to smiling upon all occasions;

they reserved their amiability for superiors and intimates, and would

seem to have maintained toward inferiors an austere reserve. The dignity

of the Shinto priesthood has become proverbial; and for centuries the

gravity of the Confucian code was mirrored in the decorum of magistrates

and officials. From ancient times the nobility affected a still loftier

reserve; and the solemnity of rank deepened through all the hierarchies

up to that awful state surrounding the Tenshi-Sama, upon whose face no

living man might look. But in private life the demeanour of the highest

had its amiable relaxation; and even to-day, with some hopelessly

modernised exceptions, the noble, the judge, the high priest, the august

minister, the military officer, will resume at home, in the intervals of

duty, the charming habits of the antique courtesy.

The smile which illuminates conversation is in itself but a small detail

of that courtesy; but the sentiment which it symbolises certainly

comprises the larger part. If you happen to have a cultivated Japanese

friend who has remained in all things truly Japanese, whose character

has remained untouched by the new egotism and by foreign influences, you

will probably be able to study in him the particular social traits of

the whole people--traits in his case exquisitely accentuated and

polished. You will observe that, as a rule, he never speaks of himself,

and that, in reply to searching personal questions, he will answer as

vaguely and briefly as possible, with a polite bow of thanks. But, on

the other hand, he will ask many questions about yourself: your

opinions, your ideas, even trifling details of your daily life, appear

to have deep interest for him; and you will probably have occasion to

note that he never forgets anything which he has learned concerning you.

Yet there are certain rigid limits to his kindly curiosity, and perhaps

even to his observation: he will never refer to any disagreeable or

painful matter, and he will seem to remain blind to eccentricities or

small weaknesses, if you have any. To your face he will never praise

you; but he will never laugh at you nor criticise you. Indeed, you will

find that he never criticises persons, but only actions in their

results. As a private adviser, he will not even directly criticise a

plan of which he disapproves, but is apt to suggest a new one in some

such guarded language as: 'Perhaps it might be more to your immediate

interest to do thus and so.' When obliged to speak of others, he will

refer to them in a curious indirect fashion, by citing and combining a

number of incidents sufficiently characteristic to form a picture. But

in that event the incidents narrated will almost certainly be of a

nature to awaken interest, and to create a favourable impression. This

indirect way of conveying information is essentially Confucian. 'Even

when you have no doubts,' says the Li-Ki, 'do not let what you say

appear as your own view.' And it is quite probable that you will notice

many other traits in your friend requiring some knowledge of the Chinese

classics to understand. But no such knowledge necessary to convince you

of his exquisite consideration for others, and his studied suppression

of self. Among no other civilised people is the secret of happy living

so thoroughly comprehended as among the Japanese; by no other race is

the truth so widely understood that our pleasure in life must depend

upon the happiness of those about us, and consequently upon the

cultivation in ourselves of unselfishness and of patience. For which

reason, in Japanese society, sarcasm irony, cruel wit, are not indulged.

I might almost say that they have no existence in refined life. A

personal failing is not made the subject of ridicule or reproach; an

eccentricity is not commented upon; an involuntary mistake excites no

laughter.

Stiffened somewhat by the Chinese conservatism of the old conditions, it

is true that this ethical system was maintained the extreme of giving

fixity to ideas, and at the cost of individuality. And yet, if regulated

by a broader comprehension social requirements, if expanded by

scientific understanding of the freedom essential to intellectual

evolution, the very same moral policy is that through which the highest

and happiest results may be obtained. But as actually practised it was

not favourable to originality; it rather tended to enforce the amiable

mediocrity of opinion and imagination which still prevails. Wherefore a

foreign dweller in the interior cannot but long sometimes for the sharp,

erratic inequalities Western life, with its larger joys and pains and

its more comprehensive sympathies. But sometimes only, for the

intellectual loss is really more than compensated by the social charm;

and there can remain no doubt in the mind of one who even partly

understands the Japanese, that they are still the best people in the

world to live among.

Sec. 5

As I pen these lines, there returns to me the vision of a Kyoto night.

While passing through some wonderfully thronged and illuminated street,

of which I cannot remember the name, I had turned aside to look at a

statue of Jizo, before the entrance of a very small temple. The figure

was that of a kozo, an acolyte--a beautiful boy; and its smile was a bit

of divine realism. As I stood gazing, a young lad, perhaps ten years

old, ran up beside me, joined his little hands before the image, bowed

his head and prayed for a moment in silence. He had but just left some

comrades, and the joy and glow of play were still upon his face; and his

unconscious smile was so strangely like the smile of the child of stone

that the boy seemed the twin brother of the god. And then I thought:

'The smile of bronze or stone is not a copy only; but that which the

Buddhist sculptor symbolises thereby must be the explanation of the

smile of the race.'

That was long ago; but the idea which then suggested itself still seems

to me true. However foreign to Japanese soil the origin of Buddhist art,

yet the smile of the people signifies the same conception as the smile

of the Bosatsu--the happiness that is born of self-control and self-

suppression. 'If a man conquer in battle a thousand times a thousand and

another conquer himself, he who conquers himself is the greatest of

conquerors.' 'Not even a god can change into defeat the victory of the

man who has vanquished himself.' [4] Such Buddhist texts as these--and

they are many--assuredly express, though they cannot be assumed to have

created, those moral tendencies which form the highest charm of the

Japanese character. And the whole moral idealism of the race seems to me

to have been imaged in that marvellous Buddha of Kamakura, whose

countenance, 'calm like a deep, still water' [5] expresses, as perhaps

no other work of human hands can have expressed, the eternal truth:

'There is no higher happiness than rest.' [6] It is toward that

infinite calm that the aspirations of the Orient have been turned; and

the ideal of the Supreme Self-Conquest it has made its own. Even now,

though agitated at its surface by those new influences which must sooner

or later move it even to its uttermost depths, the Japanese mind

retains, as compared with the thought of the West, a wonderful

placidity. It dwells but little, if at all, upon those ultimate abstract

questions about which we most concern ourselves. Neither does it

comprehend our interest in them as we desire to be comprehended. 'That

you should not be indifferent to religious speculations,' a Japanese

scholar once observed to me, 'is quite natural; but it is equally

natural that we should never trouble ourselves about them. The

philosophy of Buddhism has a profundity far exceeding that of your

Western theology, and we have studied it. We have sounded the depths of

speculation only to fluid that there are depths unfathomable below those

depths; we have voyaged to the farthest limit that thought may sail,

only to find that the horizon for ever recedes. And you, you have

remained for many thousand years as children playing in a stream but

ignorant of the sea. Only now you have reached its shore by another path

than ours, and the vastness is for you a new wonder; and you would sail

to Nowhere because you have seen the infinite over the sands of life.'

Will Japan be able to assimilate Western civilisation, as she did

Chinese more than ten centuries ago, and nevertheless preserve her own

peculiar modes of thought and feeling? One striking fact is hopeful:

that the Japanese admiration for Western material superiority is by no

means extended to Western morals. Oriental thinkers do not commit the

serious blunder of confounding mechanical with ethical progress, nor

have any failed to perceive the moral weaknesses of our boasted

civilisation. One Japanese writer has expressed his judgment of things

Occidental after a fashion that deserves to be noticed by a larger

circle of readers than that for which it was originally written:

'Order or disorder in a nation does not depend upon some-thing that

falls from the sky or rises from the earth. It is determined by the

disposition of the people. The pivot on which the public disposition

turns towards order or disorder is the point where public and private

motives separate. If the people be influenced chiefly by public

considerations, order is assured; if by private, disorder is inevitable.

Public considerations are those that prompt the proper observance of

duties; their prevalence signifies peace and prosperity in the case

alike of families, communities, and nations. Private considerations are

those suggested by selfish motives: when they prevail, disturbance and

disorder are unavoidable. As members of a family, our duty is to look

after the welfare of that family; as units of a nation, our duty is to

work for the good of the nation. To regard our family affairs with all

the interest due to our family and our national affairs with all the

interest due to our nation--this is to fitly discharge our duty, and to

be guided by public considerations. On the other hand, to regard the

affairs of the nation as if they were our own family affairs--this is to

be influenced by private motives and to stray from the path of duty. ...

'Selfishness is born in every man; to indulge it freely is to become a

beast. Therefore it is that sages preach the principles of duty and

propriety, justice and morality, providing restraints for private aims

and encouragements for public spirit.. . . . What we know of Western

civilisation is that it struggled on through long centuries in a

confused condition and finally attained a state of some order; but that

even this order, not being based upon such principles as those of the

natural and immutable distinctions between sovereign and subject, parent

and child, with all their corresponding rights and duties, is liable to

constant change according to the growth of human ambitions and human

aims. Admirably suited to persons whose actions are controlled by

selfish ambition, the adoption of this system in Japan is naturally

sought by a certain class of politicians. From a superficial point of

view, the Occidental form of society is very attractive, inasmuch as,

being the outcome of a free development of human desires from ancient

times, it represents the very extreme of luxury and extravagance.

Briefly speaking, the state of things obtaining in the West is based

upon the free play of human selfishness, and can only be reached by

giving full sway to that quality. Social disturbances are little heeded

in the Occident; yet they are at once the evidences and the factors of

the present evil state of affairs. . . . Do Japanese enamoured of

Western ways propose to have their nation's history written in similar

terms? Do they seriously contemplate turning their country into a new

field for experiments in Western civilisation? . . .

'In the Orient, from ancient times, national government has been based

on benevolence, and directed to securing the welfare and happiness of

the people. No political creed has ever held that intellectual strength

should be cultivated for the purpose of exploiting inferiority and

ignorance. . . . The inhabitants of this empire live, for the most part,

by manual labour. Let them be never so industrious, they hardly earn

enough to supply their daily wants. They earn on the average about

twenty sen daily. There is no question with them of aspiring to wear

fine clothes or to inhabit handsome houses. Neither can they hope to

reach positions of fame and honour. What offence have these poor people

committed that they, too, should not share the benefits of Western

civilisation? . . . By some, indeed, their condition is explained on the

hypothesis that their desires do not prompt them to better themselves.

There is no truth in such a supposition. They have desires, but nature

has limited their capacity to satisfy them; their duty as men limits it,

and the amount of labour physically possible to a human being limits it.

They achieve as much as their opportunities permit. The best and finest

products of their labour they reserve for the wealthy; the worst and

roughest they keep for their own use. Yet there is nothing in human

society that does not owe its existence to labour. Now, to satisfy the

desires of one luxurious man, the toil of a thousand is needed. Surely

it is monstrous that those who owe to labour the pleasures suggested by

their civilisation should forget what they owe to the labourer, and

treat him as if he were not a fellow-being. But civilisation, according

to the interpretation of the Occident, serves only to satisfy men of

large desires. It is of no benefit to the masses, but is simply a system

under which ambitions compete to accomplish their aims. . . . That the

Occidental system is gravely disturbing to. the order and peace of a

country is seen by men who have eyes, and heard by men who have ears.

The future of Japan under such a system fills us with anxiety. A system

based on the principle that ethics and religion are made to serve human

ambition naturally accords with the wishes of selfish individuals; and

such theories as those embodied in the modem formula of liberty and

equality annihilate the established relations of society, and outrage

decorum and propriety. . . .

Absolute equality and absolute liberty being unattainable, the limits

prescribed by right and duty are supposed to be set. But as each person

seeks to have as much right and to be burdened with as little duty as

possible, the results are endless disputes and legal contentions. The

principles of liberty and equality may succeed in changing the

organisation of nations, in overthrowing the lawful distinctions of

social rank, in reducing all men to one nominal level; but they can

never accomplish the equal distribution of wealth and property. Consider

America. . . . It is plain that if the mutual rights of men and their

status are made to depend on degrees of wealth, the majority of the

people, being without wealth, must fail to establish their rights;

whereas the minority who are wealthy will assert their rights, and,

under society's sanction, will exact oppressive duties from the poor,

neglecting the dictates of humanity and benevolence. The adoption of

these principles of liberty and equality in Japan would vitiate the good

and peaceful customs of our country, render the general disposition of

the people harsh and unfeeling, and prove finally a source of calamity

to the masses. . .

'Though at first sight Occidental civilisation presents an attractive

appearance, adapted as it is to the gratification of selfish desires,

yet, since its basis is the hypothesis that men' 's wishes constitute

natural laws, it must ultimately end in disappointment and

demoralisation. . . . Occidental nations have become what they are after

passing through conflicts and vicissitudes of the most serious kind; and

it is their fate to continue the struggle. Just now their motive

elements are in partial equilibrium, and their social condition' is more

or less ordered. But if this slight equilibrium happens to be disturbed,

they will be thrown once more into confusion and change, until, after a

period of renewed struggle and suffering, temporary stability is once

more attained. The poor and powerless of the present may become the

wealthy and strong of the future, and vice versa. Perpetual disturbance

is their doom. Peaceful equality can never be attained until built up

among the ruins of annihilated Western' states and the ashes of extinct

Western peoples.'

Surely, with perceptions like these, Japan may hope to avert some of the

social perils which menace her. Yet it appears inevitable that her

approaching transformation must be coincident with a moral decline.

Forced into the vast industrial competition of nation's whose

civilisations were never based on altruism, she must eventually develop

those qualities of which the comparative absence made all the wonderful

charm of her life. The national character must continue to harden, as it

has begun to harden already. But it should never be forgotten that Old

Japan was quite as much in advance of the nineteenth century morally as

she was behind it materially. She had made morality instinctive, after

having made it rational. She had realised, though within restricted

limits, several among those social conditions which our ablest thinkers

regard as the happiest and the highest. Throughout all the grades of her

complex society she had cultivated both the comprehension and the

practice of public and private duties after a manner for which it were

vain to seek any Western parallel. Even her moral weakness was the

result of an excess of that which all civilised religions have united in

proclaiming virtue--the self-sacrifice of the individual for the sake of

the family, of the community, and of the nation. It was the weakness

indicated by Percival Lowell in his Soul of the Far East, a book of

which the consummate genius cannot be justly estimated without some

personal knowledge of the Far East. [8]

The progress made by Japan in social morality, although greater than our

own, was chiefly in the direction of mutual dependence. And it will be

her coming duty to keep in view the teaching of that mighty thinker

whose philosophy she has wisely accepted [9]--the teaching that 'the

highest individuation must be joined with the greatest mutual

dependence,' and that, however seemingly paradoxical the statement, 'the

law of progress is at once toward complete separateness and complete

union.

Yet to that past which her younger generation now affect to despise

Japan will certainly one day look back, even as we ourselves look back

to the old Greek civilisation. She will learn to regret the forgotten

capacity for simple pleasures, the lost sense of the pure joy of life,

the old loving divine intimacy with nature, the marvellous dead art

which reflected it. She will remember how much more luminous and

beautiful the world then seemed. She will mourn for many things--the

old-fashioned patience and self-sacrifice, the ancient courtesy, the

deep human poetry of the ancient faith. She will wonder at many things;

but she will regret. Perhaps she will wonder most of all at the faces of

the ancient gods, because their smile was once the likeness of her own.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sayonara!

Sec. 1

I am going away--very far away. I have already resigned my post as

teacher, and am waiting only for my passport.

So many familiar faces have vanished that I feel now less regret at

leaving than I should have felt six months ago. And nevertheless, the

quaint old city has become so endeared to me by habit and association

that the thought of never seeing it again is one I do not venture to

dwell upon. I have been trying to persuade myself that some day I may

return to this charming old house, in shadowy Kitaborimachi, though all

the while painfully aware that in past experience such imaginations

invariably preceded perpetual separation.

The facts are that all things are impermanent in the Province of the

Gods; that the winters are very severe; and that I have received a call

from the great Government college in Kyushu far south, where snow rarely

falls. Also I have been very sick; and the prospect of a milder climate

had much influence in shaping my decision.

But these few days of farewells have been full of charming surprises. To

have the revelation of gratitude where you had no right to expect more

than plain satisfaction with your performance of duty; to find affection

where you supposed only good-will to exist: these are assuredly

delicious experiences. The teachers of both schools have sent me a

farewell gift--a superb pair of vases nearly three feet high, covered

with designs representing birds, and flowering-trees overhanging a slope

of beach where funny pink crabs are running about--vases made in the old

feudal days at Rakuzan--rare souvenirs of Izumo. With the wonderful

vases came a scroll bearing in Chinese text the names of the thirty-two

donors; and three of these are names of ladies--the three lady-teachers

of the Normal School.

The students of the Jinjo-Chugakko have also sent me a present--the last

contribution of two hundred and fifty-one pupils to my happiest memories

of Matsue: a Japanese sword of the time of the daimyo. Silver karashishi

with eyes of gold--in Izumo, the Lions of Shinto--swarm over the crimson

lacquer of the sheath, and sprawl about the exquisite hilt. And the

committee who brought the beautiful thing to my house requested me to

accompany them forthwith to the college assembly-room, where the

students were all waiting to bid me good-bye, after the old-time custom.

So I went there. And the things which we said to each other are

hereafter set down.

Sec. 2

DEAR TEACHER:--You have been one of the best and most benevolent

teachers we ever had. We thank you with all our heart for the knowledge

we obtained through your kindest instruction. Every student in our

school hoped you would stay with us at least three years. When we

learned you had resolved to go to Kyushu, we all felt our hearts sink

with sorrow. We entreated our Director to find some way to keep you, but

we discovered that could not be done. We have no words to express our

feeling at this moment of farewell. We sent you a Japanese sword as a

memory of us. It was only a poor ugly thing; we merely thought you would

care for it as a mark of our gratitude. We will never forget your

kindest instruction; and we all wish that you may ever be healthy and

happy.

MASANABU OTANI, Representing all the Students of the Middle School of

Shimane-Ken.

MY DEAR BOYS:--I cannot tell you with what feelings I received your

present; that beautiful sword with the silver karashishi ramping upon

its sheath, or crawling through the silken cording of its wonderful

hilt. At least I cannot tell you all. But there flashed to me, as I

looked at your gift, the remembrance of your ancient proverb: 'The Sword

is the Soul of the Samurai.' And then it seemed to me that in the very

choice of that exquisite souvenir you had symbolised something of your

own souls. For we English also have some famous sayings and proverbs

about swords. Our poets call a good blade 'trusty' and 'true'; and of

our best friend we say, 'He is true as steel'--signifying in the ancient

sense the steel of a perfect sword--the steel to whose temper a warrior

could trust his honour and his life. And so in your rare gift, which I

shall keep and prize while I live, I find an emblem of your

true-heartedness and affection. May you always keep fresh within your

hearts those impulses of generosity and kindliness and loyalty which I have

learned to know so well, and of which your gift will ever remain for me

the graceful symbol!

And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students to

teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty you expressed, when

so many of you wrote down for me, as your dearest wish, the desire to

die for His Imperial Majesty, your Emperor. That wish is holy: it means

perhaps even more than you know, or can know, until you shall have

become much older and wiser. This is an era of great and rapid change;

and it is probable that many of you, as you grow up, will not be able to

believe everything that your fathers believed before you--though I

sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the faith,

even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors. But however

much the life of New Japan may change about you, however much your own

thoughts may change with the times, never suffer that noble wish you

expressed to me to pass away from your souls. Keep it burning there,

clear and pure as the flame of the little lamp that glows before your

household shrine.

Perhaps some of you may have that wish. Many of you must become

soldiers. Some will become officers. Some will enter the Naval Academy

to prepare for the grand service of protecting the empire by sea; and

your Emperor and your country may even require your blood. But the

greater number among you are destined to other careers, and may have no

such chances of bodily self-sacrifice--except perhaps in the hour of some

great national danger, which I trust Japan will never know. And there is

another desire, not less noble, which may be your compass in civil life:

to live for your country though you cannot die for it. Like the kindest

and wisest of fathers, your Government has provided for you these

splendid schools, with all opportunities for the best instruction this

scientific century can give, at a far less cost than any other civilised

country can offer the same advantages. And all this in order that each

of you may help to make your country wiser and richer and stronger than

it has ever been in the past. And whoever does his best, in any calling

or profession, to ennoble and develop that calling or profession, gives

his life to his emperor and to his country no less truly than the

soldier or the seaman who dies for duty.

I am not less sorry to leave you, I think, than you are to see me go.

The more I have learned to know the hearts of Japanese students, the

more I have learned to love their country. I think, however, that I

shall see many of you again, though I never return to Matsue: some I am

almost sure I shall meet elsewhere in future summers; some I may even

hope to teach once more, in the Government college to which I am going.

But whether we meet again or not, be sure that my life has been made

happier by knowing you, and that I shall always love you. And, now, with

renewed thanks for your beautiful gift, good-bye!

Sec. 3

The students of the Normal School gave me a farewell banquet in their

hall. I had been with them so little during the year--less even than the

stipulated six hours a week--that I could not have supposed they would

feel much attachment for their foreign teacher. But I have still much to

learn about my Japanese students. The banquet was delightful. The

captain of each class in turn read in English a brief farewell address

which he had prepared; and more than one of those charming compositions,

made beautiful with similes and sentiments drawn from the old Chinese

and Japanese poets, will always remain in my memory. Then the students

sang their college songs for me, and chanted the Japanese version of

'Auld Lang Syne' at the close of the banquet. And then all, in military

procession, escorted me home, and cheered me farewell at my gate, with

shouts of 'Manzai!' 'Good-bye!' 'We will march with you to the steamer

when you go.'

Sec. 4

But I shall not have the pleasure of seeing them again. They are all

gone far away--some to another world. Yet it is only four days since I

attended that farewell banquet at the Normal School! A cruel visitation

has closed its gates and scattered its students through the province.

Two nights ago, the Asiatic cholera, supposed to have been brought to

Japan by Chinese vessels, broke out in different parts of the city, and,

among other places, in the Normal School. Several students and teachers

expired within a short while after having been attacked; others are even

now lingering between life and death. The rest marched to the little

healthy village of Tamatsukuri, famed for its hot springs. But there the

cholera again broke out among them, and it was decided to dismiss the

survivors at once to their several homes. There was no panic. The

military discipline remained unbroken. Students and teachers fell at

their posts. The great college building was taken charge of by the

medical authorities, and the work of disinfection and sanitation is

still going on. Only the convalescents and the fearless samurai

president, Saito Kumataro, remain in it. Like the captain who scorns to

leave his sinking ship till all souls are safe, the president stays in

the centre of danger, nursing the sick boys, overlooking the work of

sanitation, transacting all the business usually intrusted to several

subordinates, whom he promptly sent away in the first hour of peril. He

has had the joy of seeing two of his boys saved.

Of another, who was buried last night, I hear this: Only a little while

before his death, and in spite of kindliest protest, he found strength,

on seeing his president approaching his bedside, to rise on his elbow

and give the military salute. And with that brave greeting to a brave

man, he passed into the Great Silence.

Sec. 5

At last my passport has come. I must go.

The Middle School and the adjacent elementary schools have been closed

on account of the appearance of cholera, and I protested against any

gathering of the pupils to bid me good-bye, fearing for them the risk of

exposure to the chilly morning air by the shore of the infected river.

But my protest was received only with a merry laugh. Last night the

Director sent word to all the captains of classes. Wherefore, an hour

after sunrise, some two hundred students, with their teachers, assemble

before my gate to escort me to the wharf, near the long white bridge,

where the little steamer is waiting. And we go.

Other students are already assembled at the wharf. And with them wait a

multitude of people known to me: friends or friendly acquaintances,

parents and relatives of students, every one to whom I can remember

having ever done the slightest favour, and many more from whom I have

received favours which I never had the chance to return--persons who

worked for me, merchants from whom I purchased little things, a host of

kind faces, smiling salutation. The Governor sends his secretary with a

courteous message; the President of the Normal School hurries down for a

moment to shake hands. The Normal students have been sent to their

homes, but not a few of their teachers are present. I most miss friend

Nishida. He has been very sick for two long months, bleeding at the

lungs but his father brings me the gentlest of farewell letters from

him, penned in bed, and some pretty souvenirs.

And now, as I look at all these pleasant faces about me, I cannot but

ask myself the question: 'Could I have lived in the exercise of the same

profession for the same length of time in any other country, and have

enjoyed a similar unbroken experience of human goodness?' From each and

all of these I have received only kindness and courtesy. Not one has

ever, even through inadvertence, addressed to me a single ungenerous

word. As a teacher of more than five hundred boys and men, I have never

even had my patience tried. I wonder if such an experience is possible

only in Japan.

But the little steamer shrieks for her passengers. I shake many hands--

most heartily, perhaps, that of the brave, kind President of the Normal

School--and climb on board. The Director of the Jinjo-Chugakko a few

teachers of both schools, and one of my favourite pupils, follow; they

are going to accompany me as far as the next port, whence my way will be

over the mountains to Hiroshima.

It is a lovely vapoury morning, sharp with the first chill of winter.

From the tiny deck I take my last look at the quaint vista of the

Ohashigawa, with its long white bridge--at the peaked host of queer dear

old houses, crowding close to dip their feet in its glassy flood--at the

sails of the junks, gold-coloured by the early sun--at the beautiful

fantastic shapes of the ancient hills.

Magical indeed the charm of this land, as of a land veritably haunted by

gods: so lovely the spectral delicacy of its colours--so lovely the

forms of its hills blending with the forms of its clouds--so lovely,

above all, those long trailings and bandings of mists which make its

altitudes appear to hang in air. A land where sky and earth so strangely

intermingle that what is reality may not be distinguished from what is

illusion--that all seems a mirage, about to vanish. For me, alas! it is

about to vanish for ever.

The little steamer shrieks again, puffs, backs into midstream, turns

from the long white bridge. And as the grey wharves recede, a long

Aaaaaaaaaa rises from the uniformed ranks, and all the caps wave,

flashing their Chinese ideographs of brass. I clamber to the roof of the

tiny deck cabin, wave my hat, and shout in English: 'Good-bye, good-

bye!' And there floats back to me the cry: 'Manzai, manzai!' [Ten

thousand years to you! ten thousand years!] But already it comes faintly

from far away. The packet glides out of the river-mouth, shoots into the

blue lake, turns a pine-shadowed point, and the faces, and the voices,

and the wharves, and the long white bridge have become memories.

Still for a little while looking back, as we pass into the silence of

the great water, I can see, receding on the left, the crest of the

ancient castle, over grand shaggy altitudes of pine--and the place of my

home, with its delicious garden--and the long blue roofs of the schools.

These, too, swiftly pass out of vision. Then only faint blue water,

faint blue mists, faint blues and greens and greys of peaks looming

through varying distance, and beyond all, towering ghost-white into the

east, the glorious spectre of Daisen.

And my heart sinks a moment under the rush of those vivid memories which

always crowd upon one the instant after parting--memories of all that

make attachment to places and to things. Remembered smiles; the morning

gathering at the threshold of the old yashiki to wish the departing

teacher a happy day; the evening gathering to welcome his return; the

dog waiting by the gate at the accustomed hour; the garden with its

lotus-flowers and its cooing of doves; the musical boom of the temple

bell from the cedar groves; songs of children at play; afternoon shadows

upon many-tinted streets; the long lines of lantern-fires upon festal

nights; the dancing of the moon upon the lake; the clapping of hands by

the river shore in salutation to the Izumo sun; the endless merry

pattering of geta over the windy bridge: all these and a hundred other

happy memories revive for me with almost painful vividness--while the

far peaks, whose names are holy, slowly turn away their blue shoulders,

and the little steamer bears me, more and more swiftly, ever farther and

farther from the Province of the Gods.

NOTES for Chapter One

1 Such as the garden attached to the abbots palace at Tokuwamonji,

cited by Mr. Conder, which was made to commemorate the legend of stones

which bowed themselves in assent to the doctrine of Buddha. At Togo-ike,

in Tottori-ken, I saw a very large garden consisting almost entirely of

stones and sand. The impression which the designer had intended to

convey was that of approaching the sea over a verge of dunes, and the

illusion was beautiful.

2 The Kojiki, translated by Professor B. H. Chamberlain, p. 254.

3 Since this paper was written, Mr. Conder has published a beautiful

illustrated volume,-Landscape Gardening in Japan. By Josiah Conder,

F.R.I.B.A. Tokyo 1893. A photographic supplement to the work gives views

of the most famous gardens in the capital and elsewhere.

4 The observations of Dr. Rein on Japanese gardens are not to be

recommended, in respect either to accuracy or to comprehension of the

subject. Rein spent only two years in Japan, the larger part of which

time he devoted to the study of the lacquer industry, the manufacture

of silk and paper and other practical matters. On these subjects his

work is justly valued. But his chapters on Japanese manners and

customs, art, religion, and literature show extremely little

acquaintance with those topics.

5 This attitude of the shachihoko is somewhat de rigueur, whence the

common expression shachihoko dai, signifying to stand on ones head.

6 The magnificent perch called tai (Serranus marginalis), which is very

common along the Izumo coast, is not only justly prized as the most

delicate of Japanese fish, but is also held to be an emblem of good

fortune. It is a ceremonial gift at weddings and on congratu-latory

occasions. The Japanese call it also the king of fishes.

7 Nandina domestica.

8 The most lucky of all dreams, they say in Izumo, is a dream of Fuji,

the Sacred Mountain. Next in order of good omen is dreaming of a falcon

(taka). The third best subject for a dream is the eggplant (nasubi). To

dream of the sun or of the moon is very lucky; but it is still more so

to dream of stars. For a young wife it is most for tunate to dream of

swallowing a star: this signifies that she will become the mother of a

beautiful child. To dream of a cow is a good omen; to dream of a horse

is lucky, but it signifies travelling. To dream of rain or fire is good.

Some dreams are held in Japan, as in the West, to go by contraries.

Therefore to dream of having ones house burned up, or of funerals, or

of being dead, or of talking to the ghost of a dead person, is good.

Some dreams which are good for women mean the reverse when dreamed by

men; for example, it is good for a woman to dream that her nose bleeds,

but for a man this is very bad. To dream of much money is a sign of loss

to come. To dream of the koi, or of any freshwater fish, is the most

unlucky of all. This is curious, for in other parts of Japan the koi is

a symbol of good fortune.

9 Tebushukan: Citrus sarkodactilis.

10 Yuzuru signifies to resign in favour of another; ha signifies a leaf.

The botanical name, as given in Hepburns dictionary, is Daphniphillum

macropodum.

11 Cerasus pseudo-cerasus (Lindley).

12 About this mountain cherry there is a humorous saying which

illustrates the Japanese love of puns. In order fully to appreciate it,

the reader should know that Japanese nouns have no distinction of

singular and plural. The word ha, as pronounced, may signify either

leaves or teeth; and the word hana, either flowers or nose. The

yamazakura puts forth its ha (leaves) before his hana (flowers).

Wherefore a man whose ha (teeth) project in advance of his hana (nose)

is called a yamazakura. Prognathism is not uncommon in Japan,

especially among the lower classes.

13 If one should ask you concerning the heart of a true Japanese, point

to the wild cherry flower glowing in the sun.

14 There are three noteworthy varieties: one bearing red, one pink and

white, and one pure white flowers.

15 The expression yanagi-goshi, a willow-waist, is one of several in

common use comparing slender beauty to the willow-tree.

16 Peonia albiflora, The name signifies the delicacy of beauty. The

simile of the botan (the tree peony) can be fully appreciated only by

one who is acquainted with the Japanese flower.

17 Some say kesbiyuri (poppy) instead of himeyuri. The latter is a

graceful species of lily, Lilium callosum.

18 Standing, she is a shakuyaku; seated, she is a botan; and the charm

of her figure in walking is the charm of a himeyuri.

19 In the higher classes of Japanese society to-day, the honorific O is

not, as a rule, used before the names of girls, and showy appellations

are not given to daughters. Even among the poor respectable classes,

names resembling those of geisha, etc., are in disfavour. But those

above cited are good, honest, everyday names.

20 Mr. Satow has found in Hirata a belief to which this seems to some

extent akin--the curious Shinto doctrine according to which a divine

being throws off portions of itself by a process of fissure, thus

producing what are called waki-mi-tama--parted spirits, with separate

functions. The great god of Izumo, Oho-kuni-nushi-no-Kami, is said by

Hirata to have three such parted spirits: his rough spirit (ara-mi-

tama) that punishes, his gentle spirit (nigi-mi-tama) that pardons, and

his benedictory or beneficent spirit (saki-mi-tama) that blesses, There

is a Shinto story that the rough spirit of this god once met the gentle

spirit without recognising it,

21 Perhaps the most impressive of all the Buddhist temples in Kyoto. It

is dedicated to Kwannon of the Thousand Hands, and is said to contain

33,333 of her images.

22 Daidaimushi in Izunio. The dictionary word is dedemushi. The snail is

supposed to be very fond of wet weather; and one who goes out much in

the rain is compared to a snail,--dedemushi no yona.

23 Snail, snail, put out your horns a little it rains and the wind is

blowing, so put out your horns, just for a little while.

24 A Buddhist divinity, but within recent times identified by Shinto

with the god Kotohira.

25 See Professor Chamberlains version of it in The Japanese Fairy Tale

Series, with charming illustrations by a native artist.

26 Butterfly, little butterfly, light upon the na leaf. But if thou

dost not like the na leaf, light, I pray thee, upon my hand.

27 Boshi means a hat; tsukeru, to put on. But this etymology is more

than doubtful.

28 Some say Chokko-chokko-uisu. Uisu would be pronounced in English

very much like weece, the final u being silent. Uiosu would be

something like ' we-oce.

29 Pronounced almost as geece.

30 Contraction of kore noru.

31 A kindred legend attaches to the shiwan, a little yellow insect which

preys upon cucumbers. The shiwan is said to have been once a physician,

who, being detected in an amorous intrigue, had to fly for his life; but

as he went his foot caught in a cucumber vine, so that he fell and was

overtaken and killed, and his ghost became an insect, the destroyer of

cucumber vines. In the zoological mythology and plant mythology of Japan

there exist many legends offering a curious resemblance to the old Greek

tales of metamorphoses. Some of the most remarkable bits of such folk-

lore have originated, however, in comparatively modern time. The legend

of the crab called heikegani, found at Nagato, is an example. The souls

of the Taira warriors who perished in the great naval battle of Dan-no-

ura (now Seto-Nakai), 1185, are supposed to have been transformed into

heikegani. The shell of the heikegani is certainly surprising. It is

wrinkled into the likeness of a grim face, or rather into exact

semblance of one of those black iron visors, or masks, which feudal

warriors wore in battle, and which were shaped like frowning visages.

32 Come, firefly, I will give you water to drink. The water of that.

place is bitter; the water here is sweet.

33 By honzon is here meant the sacred kakemono, or picture, exposed to

public view in the temples only upon the birthday of the Buddha, which

is the eighth day of the old fourth month. Honzon also signifies the

principal image in a Buddhist temple.

34 A solitary voice! Did the Moon cry? Twas but the hototogisu.

35 When I gaze towards the place where I heard the hototogisu cry, lol

there is naught save the wan morning moon.

36 Save only the morning moon, none heard the hearts-blood cry of the

hototogisu.

37 A sort of doughnut made of bean flour, or tofu.

38 Kite, kite, let me see you dance, and to-morrow evening, when the

crows do not know, I will give you a rat.

39 O tardy crow, hasten forward! Your house is all on fire. Hurry to

throw Water upon it. If there be no water, I will give you. If you have

too much, give it to your child. If you have no child, then give it back

to me.

40 The words papa and mamma exist in Japanese baby language, but their

meaning is not at all what might be supposed. Mamma, or, with the usual

honorific, O-mamma, means boiled rice. Papa means tobacco.

Notes for Chapter Two

1 This was written early in 1892

2 Quoted from Mr. Satow's masterly essay, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto,'

published in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan. By 'gods'

are not necessarily meant beneficent Kami. Shinto has no devils; but it

has its 'bad gods' as well as good deities.

3 Satow, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto.'

4 Ibid.

5 In the sense of Moral Path,--i.e. an ethical system.

6 Satow, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto.' The whole force of Motowori's

words will not be fully understood unless the reader knows that the

term 'Shinto' is of comparatively modern origin in Japan,--having been

borrowed from the Chinese to distinguish the ancient faith from

Buddhism; and that the old name for the primitive religion is Kami-no-

michi, 'the Way of the Gods.'

7 Satow, 'The Revival of Pure Shinto.'

8 From Kami, 'the [Powers] Above,' or the Gods, and tana, 'a shelf.'

The initial 't' of the latter word changes into 'd' in the compound,--

just as that of tokkuri, 'a jar' or 'bottle,' becomes dokkuri in the

cornpound o-mi kidokkuri.

9 The mirror, as an emblem of female divinities, is kept in the secret

innermost shrine of various Shinto temples. But the mirror of metal

commonly placed before the public gaze in a Shinto shrine is not really

of Shinto origin, but was introduced into Japan as a Buddhist symbol of

the Shingon sect. As the mirror is the symbol in Shinto of female

divinities, the sword is the emblem of male deities. The real symbols of

the god or goddess are not, however, exposed to human gaze under any

circumstances.

10 Anciently the two great Shinto festivals on which the miya were thus

carried in procession were the Yoshigami-no-matsuri, or festival of the

God of the New Year, and the anniversary of Jimmu Tenno to the throne.

The second of these is still observed. The celebration of the Emperor's

birthday is the only other occasion when the miya are paraded. On both

days the streets are beautifully decorated with lanterns and shimenawa,

the fringed ropes of rice straw which are the emblems of Shinto. Nobody

now knows exactly what the words chanted on these days (chosaya!

chosaya!) mean. One theory is that they are a corruption of Sagicho, the

name of a great samurai military festival, which was celebrated nearly

at the same time as the Yashigami-no-matsuri,--both holidays now being

obsolete.

11 Thuya obtusa.

12 Such at least is the mourning period under such circumstances in

certain samurai families. Others say twenty days is sufficient. The

Buddhist code of mourning is extremely varied and complicated, and would

require much space to dilate upon.

13 In spite of the supposed rigidity of the Nichiren sect in such

matters, most followers of its doctrine in Izumo are equally fervent

Shintoists. I have not been able to observe whether the same is true of

Izumo Shin-shu families as a rule; but I know that some Shin-shu

believers in Matsue worship at Shinto shrines. Adoring only that form of

Buddha called Amida, the Shin sect might be termed a Buddhist

'Unitarianism.' It seems never to have been able to secure a strong

footing in Izumo on account of its doctrinal hostility to Shinto.

Elsewhere throughout Japan it is the most vigorous and prosperous of all

Buddhist sects.

14 Mr. Morse, in his Japanese Homes, published on hearsay a very

strange error when he stated: 'The Buddhist household shrines rest on

the floor--at least so I was informed.' They never rest on the floor

under any circumstances. In the better class of houses special

architectural arrangements are made for the butsudan; an alcove, recess,

or other contrivance, often so arranged as to be concealed from view by

a sliding panel or a little door In smaller dwellings it may be put on a

shelf, for want of a better place, and in the homes of the poor, on the

top of the tansu, or clothes-chest. It is never placed so high as the

kamidana, but seldom at a less height than three feet above the floor.

In Mr. Morse's own illustration of a Buddhist household shrine (p. 226)

it does not rest on the floor at all, but on the upper shelf of a

cupboard, which must not be confounded with the butsudan--a very small

one. The sketch in question seems to have been made during the Festival

of the Dead, for the offerings in the picture are those of the

Bommatauri. At that time the household butsudan is always exposed to

view, and often moved from its usual place in order to obtain room for

the offerings to be set before it. To place any holy object on the floor

is considered by the Japanese very disrespectful. As for Shinto objects,

to place even a mamori on the floor is deemed a sin.

15 Two ihai are always made for each Buddhist dead. One usually larger

than that placed in the family shrine, is kept in the temple of which

the deceased was a parishioner, together with a cup in which tea or

water is daily poured out as an offering. In almost any large temple,

thousands of such ihai may be seen, arranged in rows, tier above tier--

each with its cup before it--for even the souls of the dead are supposed

to drink tea. Sometimes, I fear, the offering is forgotten, for I have

seen rows of cups containing only dust, the fault, perhaps, of some lazy

acolyte.

16 This is a fine example of a samurai kaimyo The kaimyo of kwazoku or

samurai are different from those of humbler dead; and a Japanese, by a

single glance at an ihai, can tell at once to what class of society the

deceased belonged, by the Buddhist words used.

17 'Presenting the honourable tea to the august Buddhas'--for by

Buddhist faith it is hoped, if not believed, that the dead become

Buddhas and escape the sorrows of further transmigration. Thus the

expression 'is dead' is often rendered in Japanese by the phrase 'is

become a Buddha.'

18 The idea underlying this offering of food and drink to the dead or

to the gods, is not so irrational as unthinking Critics have declared it

to be. The dead are not supposed to consume any of the visible substance

of the food set before them, for they are thought to be in an ethereal

state requiring only the most vapoury kind of nutrition. The idea is

that they absorb only the invisible essence of the food. And as fruits

and other such offerings lose something of their flavour after having

been exposed to the air for several hours, this slight change would have

been taken in other days as evidence that the spirits had feasted upon

them. Scientific education necessarily dissipates these consoling

illusions, and with them a host of tender and beautiful fancies as to

the relation between the living and the dead.

19 I find that the number of clappings differs in different provinces

somewhat. In Kyushu the clapping is very long, especially before the

prayer to the Rising Sun.

20 Another name for Kyoto, the Sacred City of Japanese Buddhism.

Notes for Chapter Three

1 Formerly both sexes used the same pillow for the same reason. The long

hair of a samurai youth, tied up in an elaborate knot, required much

time to arrange. Since it has become the almost universal custom to wear

the hair short, the men have adopted a pillow shaped like a small

bolster.

2 It is an error to suppose that all Japanese have blue-black hair.

There are two distinct racial types. In one the hair is a deep brown

instead of a pure black, and is also softer and finer. Rarely, but very

rarely, one may see a Japanese chevelure having a natural tendency to

ripple. For curious reasons, which cannot be stated here, an Izumo woman

is very much ashamed of having wavy hair--more ashamed than she would be

of a natural deformity.

3 Even in the time of the writing of the Kojiki the art of arranging t

hair must have been somewhat developed. See Professor Chainberlai 's

introduction to translation, p. xxxi.; also vol. i. section ix.; vol.

vii. section xii.; vol. ix. section xviii., et passim.

4 An art expert can decide the age of an unsigned kakemono or other work

of art in which human figures appear, by the style of the coiffure of

the female personages.

5 The principal and indispensable hair-pin (kanzashi), usually about

seven inches long, is split, and its well-tempered double shaft can be

used like a small pair of chopsticks for picking up small things. The

head is terminated by a tiny spoon-shaped projection, which has a

special purpose in the Japanese toilette.

6 The shinjocho is also called Ichogaeshi by old people, although the

original Ichogaeshi was somewhat different. The samurai girls used to

wear their hair in the true Ichogaeshi manner the name is derived from

the icho-tree (Salisburia andiantifolia), whose leaves have a queer

shape, almost like that of a duck's foot. Certain bands of the hair in

this coiffure bore a resemblance in form to icho-leaves.

7 The old Japanese mirrors were made of metal, and were extremely

beautiful. Kagamiga kumoru to tamashii ga kumoru ('When the Mirror is

dim, the Soul is unclean') is another curious proverb relating to

mirrors. Perhaps the most beautiful and touching story of a mirror, in

any language is that called Matsuyama-no-kagami, which has been

translated by Mrs. James.

Notes for Chapter Four

1 There is a legend that the Sun-Goddess invented the first hakama by

tying together the skirts of her robe.

2 'Let us play the game called kango-kango. Plenteously the water of

Jizo-San quickly draw--and pour on the pine-leaves--and turn back

again.' Many of the games of Japanese children, like many of their toys,

have a Buddhist origin, or at least a Buddhist significance.

3 I take the above translation from a Tokyo educational journal,

entitled The Museum. The original document, however, was impressive to a

degree that perhaps no translation could give. The Chinese words by

which the Emperor refers to himself and his will are far more impressive

than our Western 'We' or 'Our;' and the words relating to duties,

virtues, wisdom, and other matters are words that evoke in a Japanese

mind ideas which only those who know Japanese life perfectly can

appreciate, and which, though variant from our own, are neither less

beautiful nor less sacred.

4 Kimi ga yo wa chiyo ni yachiyo ni sazare ishi no iwa o to narite oke

no musu made. Freely translated: 'May Our Gracious Sovereign reign a

thousand years--reign ten thousand thousand years--reign till the little

stone grow into a mighty rock, thick-velveted with ancient moss!'

5 Stoves, however, are being introduced. In the higher Government

schools, and in the Normal Schools, the students who are boarders obtain

a better diet than most poor boys can get at home. Their rooms are also

well warmed.

6 Hachi yuki ya Neko no ashi ato Ume no hana.

7 Ni no ji fumi dasu Bokkuri kana.

8 This little poem signifies that whoever in this world thinks much,

must have care, and that not to think about things is to pass one's life

in untroubled felicity.

9 Having asked in various classes for written answers to the question,

'What is your dearest wish?' I found about twenty per cent, of the

replies expressed, with little variation of words, the simple desire to

die 'for His Sacred Majesty, Our Beloved Emperor.' But a considerable

proportion of the remainder contained the same aspiration less directly

stated in the wish to emulate the glory of Nelson, or to make Japan

first among nations by heroism and sacrifice. While this splendid spirit

lives in the hearts of her youth, Japan should have little to fear for

the future.

10 Beautiful generosities of this kind are not uncommon in Japan.

11 The college porter

12 Except in those comparatively rare instances where the family is

exclusively Shinto in its faith, or, although belonging to both faiths,

prefers to bury its dead according to Shinto rites. In Matsue, as a

rule, high officials only have Shinto funeral.

13 Unless the dead be buried according to the Shinto rite. In Matsue

the mourning period is usually fifty days. On the fifty-first day after

the decease, all members of the family go to Enjoji-nada (the lake-shore

at the foot of the hill on which the great temple of Enjoji stands) to

perform the ceremony of purification. At Enjoji-nada, on the beach,

stands a lofty stone statue of Jizo. Before it the mourners pray; then

wash their mouths and hands with the water of the lake. Afterwards they

go to a friend's house for breakfast, the purification being always

performed at daybreak, if possible. During the mourning period, no

member of the family can eat at a friend's house. But if the burial has

been according to the Shinto rite, all these ceremonial observances may

be dispensed with.

14 But at samurai funerals in the olden time the women were robed in

black.

Notes for Chapter Five

1 As it has become, among a certain sect of Western Philistines and

self-constituted art critics, the fashion to sneer at any writer who

becomes enthusiastic about the truth to nature of Japanese art, I may

cite here the words of England's most celebrated living naturalist on

this very subject. Mr. Wallace's authority will scarcely, I presume, be

questioned, even by the Philistines referred to:

'Dr. Mohnike possesses a large collection of coloured sketches of the

plants of Japan made by a Japanese lady, which are the most masterly

things I have ever seen. Every stem, twig, and leaf is produced by

single touches of the brush, the character and perspective of very

complicated plants being admirably given, and the articulations of stem

and leaves shown in a most scientific manner.' (Malay Archipelago, chap.

xx.)

Now this was written in 1857, before European methods of drawing had

been introduced. The same art of painting leaves, etc., with single

strokes of the brush is still common in Japan--even among the poorest

class of decorators.

2 There is a Buddhist saying about the kadomatsu:

Kadomatsu Meido no tabi no Ichi-ri-zuka.

The meaning is that each kadomatsu is a milestone on the journey to the

Meido; or, in other words, that each New Year's festival signal only

the completion of another stage of the ceaseless journey to death.

3 The difference between the shimenawa and shimekazari is that the

latter is a strictly decorative straw rope, to which many curious

emblems are attached.

4 It belongs to the sargassum family, and is full of air sacs. Various

kinds of edible seaweed form a considerable proportion of Japanese diet.

5 'This is a curiously shaped staff with which the divinity Jizo is

commonly represented. It is still carried by Buddhist mendicants, and

there are several sizes of it. That carried by the Yaku-otoshj is

usually very short. There is a tradition that the shakujo was first

invented as a means of giving warning to insects or other little

creatures in the path of the Buddhist pilgrim, so that they might not be

trodden upon unawares.

6 I may make mention here of another matter, in no way relating to the

Setsubun.

There lingers in Izumo a wholesome--and I doubt not formerly a most

valuable--superstition about the sacredness of writing. Paper upon which

anything has been written, or even printed, must not be crumpled up, or

trodden upon, or dirtied, or put to any base use. If it be necessary to

destroy a document, the paper should be burned. I have been gently

reproached in a little hotel at which I stopped for tearing up and

crumpling some paper covered with my own writing.

NOtes for Chapter Six

1 'A bucket honourably condescend [to give].

2 The Kappa is not properly a sea goblin, but a river goblin, and

haunts the sea only in the neighbourhood of river mouths. About a mile

and a half from Matsue, at the little village of Kawachi-mura, on the

river called Kawachi, stands a little temple called Kawako-no-miya, or

the Miya of the Kappa. (In Izumo, among the common people, the word

'Kappa' is not used, but the term Kawako, or 'The Child of the River.')

In this little shrine is preserved a document said to have been signed

by a Kappa. The story goes that in ancient times the Kappa dwelling in

the Kawachi used to seize and destroy many of the inhabitanta of the

village and many domestic animals. One day, however, while trying to

seize a horse that had entered the river to drink, the Kappa got its

head twisted in some way under the belly-band of the horse, and the

terrified animal, rushing out of the water, dragged the Kappa into a

field. There the owner of the horse and a number of peasants seized and

bound the Kappa. All the villagers gathered to see the monster, which

bowed its head to the ground, and audibly begged for mercy. The peasants

desired to kill the goblin at once; but the owner of the horse, who

happened to be the head-man of the mura, said: 'It is better to make it

swear never again to touch any person or animal belonging to Kawachi-

mura. A written form of oath was prepared and read to the Kappa. It said

that It could not write, but that It would sign the paper by dipping Its

hand in ink, and pressing the imprint thereof at the bottom of the

document. This having been agreed to and done, the Kappa was set free.

From that time forward no inhabitant or animal of Kawachi-mura was ever

assaulted by the goblin.

3 The Buddhist symbol. [The small illustration cannot be presented

here. The arms are bent in the opposite direction to the Nazi swastika.

Preparator's note]

4 'Help! help!'

5 Furuteya, the estab!ishment of a dea!er in second-hand wares--furute.

6 Andon, a paper lantern of peculiar construction, used as a night

light. Some forms of the andon are remarkably beautiful.

7 'Ototsan! washi wo shimai ni shitesashita toki mo, chodo kon ya no

yona tsuki yo data-ne?'--Izumo dialect.

Notes for Chapter Seven

1 The Kyoto word is maiko.

2 Guitars of three strings.

3 It is sometimes customary for guests to exchange cups, after duly

rinsing them. It is always a compliment to ask for your friend's cup.

4 Once more to rest beside her, or keep five thousand koku? What care I

for koku? Let me be with her!'

There lived in ancient times a haramoto called Fuji-eda Geki, a vassal

of the Shogun. He had an income of five thousand koku of rice--a great

income in those days. But he fell in love with an inmate of the

Yoshiwara, named Ayaginu, and wished to marry her. When his master bade

the vassal choose between his fortune and his passion, the lovers fled

secretly to a farmer's house, and there committed suicide together. And

the above song was made about them. It is still sung.

5 'Dear, shouldst thou die, grave shall hold thee never! I thy body's

ashes, mixed with wine, wit! drink.'

6 Maneki-Neko

7 Buddhist food, containing no animal substance. Some kinds of shojin-

ryori are quite appetising.

8 The terms oshiire and zendana might be partly rendered by 'wardrobe'

and 'cupboard.' The fusuma are sliding screens serving as doors.

9 Tennin, a 'Sky-Maiden,' a Buddhist angel.

10 Her shrine is at Nara--not far from the temple of the giant Buddha.

Notes for Chapter Eight

1 The names Dozen or Tozen, and Dogo or Toga, signify 'the Before-

Islands' and 'the Behind-Islands.'

2 'Dokoe, dokoel' 'This is only a woman's baby' (a very small

package). 'Dokoe, dokoel' 'This is the daddy, this is the daddy' (a big

package). 'Dokoe, dokoel' ''Tis very small, very small!' 'Dokoe, dokoel'

'This is for Matsue, this is for Matsue!' 'Dokoe, dokoel' 'This is for

Koetsumo of Yonago,' etc.

3 These words seem to have no more meaning than our 'yo-heaveho.' Yan-

yui is a cry used by all Izumo and Hoki sailors.

4 This curious meaning is not given in Japanese-English dictionaries,

where the idiom is translated merely by the phrase 'as aforesaid.'

5 The floor of a Japanese dwelling might be compared to an immense but

very shallow wooden tray, divided into compartments corresponding to the

various rooms. These divisions are formed by grooved and polished

woodwork, several inches above the level, and made for the accommodation

of the fusurna, or sliding screens, separating room from room. The

compartments are filled up level with the partitions with tatami, or

mats about the thickness of light mattresses, covered with beautifully

woven rice-straw. The squared edges of the mats fit exactly together,

and as the mats are not made for the house, but the house for the mats,

all tatami are exactly the same size. The fully finished floor of each

roam is thus like a great soft bed. No shoes, of course, can be worn in

a Japanese house. As soon as the mats become in the least soiled they

are replaced by new ones.

6 See article on Art in his Things Japanese.

7 It seems to be a black, obsidian.

8 There are several other versions of this legend. In one, it is the

mare, and not the foal, which was drowned.

9 There are two ponds not far from each other. The one I visited was

called 0-ike, or 'The Male Pond,' and the other, Me-ike, or 'The Female

Pond.'

10 Speaking of the supposed power of certain trees to cure toothache,

I may mention a curious superstition about the yanagi, or willow-tree.

Sufferers from toothache sometimes stick needles into the tree,

believing that the pain caused to the tree-spirit will force it to

exercise its power to cure. I could not, however, find any record of

this practice in Oki.

11 Moxa, a corruption of the native name of the mugwort plant: moe-

kusa, or mogusa, 'the burning weed.' Small cones of its fibre are used

for cauterising, according to the old Chinese system of medicine--the

little cones being placed upon the patient's skin, lighted, and left to

smoulder until wholly consumed. The result is a profound scar. The moxa

is not only used therapeutically, but also as a punishment for very

naughty children. See the interesting note on this subject in Professor

Chamberlain's Things Japanese.

12 Nure botoke, 'a wet god.' This term is applied to the statue of a

deity left exposed to the open air.

13 According to popular legend, in each eye of the child of a god or a

dragon two Buddhas are visible. The statement in some of the Japanese

ballads, that the hero sung of had four Buddhas in his eyes, is

equivalent to the declaration that each of his eyes had a double-pupil.

14 The idea of the Atman will perhaps occur to many readers.

15 In 1892 a Japanese newspaper, published in Tokyo stated upon the

authority of a physician who had visited Shimane, that the people of Oki

believe in ghostly dogs instead of ghostly foxes. This is a mistake

caused by the literal rendering of a term often used in Shi-mane,

especially in Iwami, namely, inu-gami-mochi. It is only a euphemism for

kitsune-mochi; the inu-gami is only the hito-kitsune, which is supposed

to make itself visible in various animal forms.

16 Which words signify something like this:

'Sleep, baby, sleep! Why are the honourable ears of the Child of the

Hare of the honourable mountain so long? 'Tis because when he dwelt

within her honoured womb, his mamma ate the leaves of the loquat, the

leaves of the bamboo-grass, That is why his honourable ears are so

long.'

17 The Japanese police are nearly all of the samurai class, now called

shizoku. I think this force may be considered the most perfect police in

the world; but whether it will retain those magnificent qualities which

at present distinguish it, after the lapse of another generation, is

doubtful. It is now the samurai blood that tells.

Notes for Chapter Nine

1 Afterwards I found that the old man had expressed to me only one

popular form of a belief which would require a large book to fully

explain--a belief founded upon Chinese astrology, but possibly modified

by Buddhist and by Shinto ideas. This notion of compound Souls cannot be

explained at all without a prior knowledge of the astrological relation

between the Chinese Zodiacal Signs and the Ten Celestial Stems. Some

understanding of these may be obtained from the curious article 'Time,'

in Professor Chamberlain's admirable little book, Things Japanese. The

relation having been perceived, it is further necessary to know that

under the Chinese astrological system each year is under the influence

of one or other of the 'Five Elements'--Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water;

and according to the day and year of one's birth, one's temperament is

celestially decided. A Japanese mnemonic verse tells us the number of

souls or natures corresponding to each of the Five Elemental Influences

--namely, nine souls for Wood, three for Fire, one for Earth, seven for

Metal, five for Water:

Kiku karani

Himitsu no yama ni

Tsuchi hitotsu

Nanatsu kane to zo

Go suiryo are.

Multiplied into ten by being each one divided into 'Elder' and

'Younger,' the Five Elements become the Ten Celestial Stems; and their

influences are commingled with those of the Rat, Bull, Tiger, Hare,

Dragon, Serpent, Horse, Goat, Ape, Cock, Dog, and Boar (the twelve

Zodiacal Signs)--all of which have relations to time, place, life, luck,

misfortune, etc. But even these hints give no idea whatever how

enormously complicated the subject really is.

The book the old gardener referred to--once as widely known in Japan as

every fortune-telling book in any European country--was the San-re-so,

copies of which may still be picked up. Contrary to Kinjuro's opinion,

however, it is held, by those learned in such Chinese matters, just as

bad to have too many souls as to have too few. To have nine souls is to

be too 'many-minded'--without fixed purpose; to have only one soul is to

lack quick intelligence. According to the Chinese astrological ideas,

the word 'natures' or 'characters' would perhaps be more accurate than

the word 'souls' in this case. There is a world of curious fancies, born

out of these beliefs. For one example of hundreds, a person having a

Fire-nature must not marry one having a Water-nature. Hence the

proverbial saying about two who cannot agree--'They are like Fire and

Water.'

2 Usually an Inari temple. Such things are never done at the great

Shinto shrines.

Notes for Chapter Ten

1 In other parts of Japan I have heard the Yuki-Onna described as a very

beautiful phantom who lures young men to lonesome places for the purpose

of sucking their blood.

2 In Izumo the Dai-Kan, or Period of Greatest Cold, falls in February.

3 'It is excellent: I pray you give me a little more.'

4 Kwashi: Japanese confectionery

Notes for Chapter Eleven

1 The reader will find it well worth his while to consult the chapter

entitled 'Domestic Service,' in Miss Bacon's Japanese Girls and Women,

for an interesting and just presentation of the practical side of the

subject, as relating to servants of both sexes. The poetical side,

however, is not treated of--perhaps because intimately connected with

religious beliefs which one writing from the Christian standpoint could

not be expected to consider sympathetically. Domestic service in ancient

Japan was both transfigured and regulated by religion; and the force of

the religious sentiment concerning it may be divined from the Buddhist

saying, still current:

Oya-ko wa is-se, Fufu wa ni-se, Shuju wa san-se.

The relation of parent and child endures for the space of one life only;

that of husband and wife for the space of two lives; but the relation

between msater and servant continues for the period of three existences.

2 The shocks continued, though with lessening frequency and violence,

for more than six months after the cataclysm.

3 Of course the converse is the rule in condoling with the sufferer.

4 Dhammapada.

5 Dammikkasutta.

6 Dhammapada.

7 These extracts from a translation in the Japan Daily Mail, November

19, 20, 1890, of Viscount Torio's famous conservative essay do not give

a fair idea of the force and logic of the whole. The essay is too long

to quote entire; and any extracts from the Mail's admirable translation

suffer by their isolation from the singular chains of ethical,

religious, and philosophical reasoning which bind the Various parts of

the composition together. The essay was furthermore remarkable as the

production of a native scholar totally uninfluenced by Western thought.

He correctly predicted those social and political disturbances which

have occurred in Japan since the opening of the new parliament. Viscount

Torio is also well known as a master of Buddhist philosophy. He holds a

high rank in the Japanese army.

8 In expressing my earnest admiration of this wonderful book, I must,

however, declare that several of its conclusions, and especially the

final ones, represent the extreme reverse of my own beliefs on the

subject. I do not think the Japanese without individuality; but their

individuality is less superficially apparent, and reveals itself much

less quickly, than that of Western people. I am also convinced that much

of what we call 'personality' and 'force of character' in the West

represents only the survival and recognition of primitive aggressive

tendencies, more or less disguised by culture. What Mr. Spencer calls

the highest individuation surely does not include extraordinary

development of powers adapted to merely aggressive ends; and yet it is

rather through these than through any others that Western individuality

most commonly and readily manifests itself. Now there is, as yet, a

remarkable scarcity in Japan, of domineering, brutal, aggressive, or

morbid individuality. What does impress one as an apparent weakness in

Japanese intellectual circles is the comparative absence of spontaneity,

creative thought, original perceptivity of the highest order. Perhaps

this seeming deficiency is racial: the peoples of the Far East seem to

have been throughout their history receptive rather than creative. At

all events I cannot believe Buddhism--originally the faith of an Aryan

race--can be proven responsible. The total exclusion of Buddhist

influence from public education would not seem to have been stimulating;

for the masters of the old Buddhist philosophy still show a far higher

capacity for thinking in relations than that of the average graduate of

the Imperial University. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that an

intellectual revival of Buddhism--a harmonising of its loftier truths

with the best and broadest teachings of modern science--would have the

most important results for Japan.

9 Herbert Spencer. A native scholar, Mr. Inouye Enryo, has actually

founded at Tokyo with this noble object in view, a college of philosophy

which seems likely, at the present writing, to become an influential

institution.

End of Project Gutenberg's Glimpses of an Unfamilar Japan, by Lafcadio Hearn