MATSUE, May, 1891.
DEAR PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN,--I have just returned from a pilgrimage to
the famous Kwannon temple of Kiyomizu--about 18 miles from Matsue--where
it is said that the sacred fire has never been extinguished for a
thousand years, to find your postal card. I do not wait to receive the
delightful gift in order to thank you for it; as I hope to have the
pleasure of writing you a letter on my impression of it after reading
it. You could have imagined nothing to send me more welcome. Mr. Lowell
has, I think, no warmer admirer in the world than myself, though I do
not agree with his theory in the "Soul of the Far East," and think he
has ignored the most essential and astonishing quality of the race: its
genius of eclecticism. The future holds many problems we cannot presume
to guess, in regard to the fate of races. But there is not wanting
foundation for the belief that the Orient may yet dominate the Occident
and absorb it utterly. China seems to many a far greater question than
Russia.
About your kind question regarding books. I think I shall be able to
get all the books on Japan--in English--that I need; and your "Things
Japanese" is a mine of good advice on what to buy. But if I need counsel
which I cannot find in your book, then I will write and ask.
I venture to say that I think you have underrated the importance of my
suggestion about the Sacred Snake,--of which I have not been able to
find the scientific name. If they have such a snake at Ise then I am
wrong. But, if not, I think the little snake would be worth having.
It does not--like the fire-drill of Kizuki--possess special interest
for the anthropologist; but it certainly should have interest for the
folk-lorist, as a chapter in one of the most ancient and widely spread
(if not universal) religious practices,--the worship of the Serpent. If
you ever want an enshrined snake, let me know. It is dried and put into
a little _miya_ for the _kamidana_.
Speaking of folk-lore, I have been interesting myself in the
fox-superstition in Izumo. Here, and in Iwami, the superstition has
local peculiarities. It is so powerful as to affect the value of real
estate to the amount of hundreds of thousands of yen, and keen men have
become rich by speculating upon the strength of it. If you want any
facts about it, please tell me.
The scenery at Kiyomizu is superb. But there is no clear water except
the view of Nanji-umi from the pagoda and the hills. The _mamori_, I
regret to say, are uninteresting. There is, however, a curious Inari
shrine. Beside it is a sort of huge trough filled with little foxes of
all shapes, designs, and material. If you want anything, you pray, and
put a fox in your pocket, and take it home. As soon as the prayer is
granted you must take the fox back again and put it just where it was
before. I should like to have taken one home; but my servants hate foxes
and Inari and _tofu_ and _azuki-meshi_ and _abura-gi_ and everything
related to foxes. So I left it alone.
You will not be sorry to hear that I am to have the same publishers
as Mr. Lowell,--at least according to present indications. I am not
vain enough to think I can ever write anything so beautiful as his
"Chosōn" or "Soul of the Far East," and will certainly make a poor
showing beside his precise, fine, perfectly worded work. But I am not
going to try to do anything in his line. My work will deal wholly with
exceptional things (chiefly popular) in an untilled field of another
kind.
I gave 72 boys, as subject for composition the other day, the question:
"What would you most like in this world?" Nine of the compositions
contained in substance this answer: "To die for our Sacred Emperor."
That is Shintō. Isn't it grand and beautiful? and do you wonder that
I love it after that?
Most grateful regards from yours most sincerely,