KUMAMOTO, December, 1891.
DEAR FRIEND NISHIDA,--Your letter has just reached me. I am more
sorry than I can express to hear of the death of Yokogi. Nature seems
strangely cruel in making such a life, and destroying it before the
time of ripeness. And the good hearts and the fine brains pass to dust,
while the coarse and the cunning survive all dangers....
The name of the delightful old Samurai who teaches Chinese here, I think
you know,--Akizuki. He was at Aizu, and made a great soldier's name;
and he is just as gentle and quiet as Mr. Katayama,--and still more
paternally charming in his manner. He is sixty-three years old....
I have made no friends among the teachers yet. I attended my first
Japanese dinner with them the night before last; and, because _you_ were
not there, I think I made some queer mistakes about the dishes--when
to use chopsticks, etc. There were no _geishas_: the former director
had forbidden their employment at teachers' dinners; and I don't think
that Mr. Kano is going to revoke the order. The reason for it was not
prudery; but the opposition paper used to take advantage of the presence
of _geishas_ at the teachers' banquets to print nasty things against
the school. So it was determined not to give the paper a chance to say
anything more....
I have been very cautious in writing you about the climate, because I
wanted to be very sure that, in case you should come here, it would be
for the best. So far the climate is like this: every morning and night
cold, with white frost; afternoons so warm that one can go out without
an overcoat. Very little rain. No snow yet; but I am told that it will
come.
As for me, I have become stronger than I have been for years. All my
clothes, even my Japanese _kimono_, have become too small!! But I
cannot say whether this be the climate or the diet or what. Setsu says
it is because I have a good wife;--but she might be prejudiced, you
know! My lungs are sound as a bell; I never cough at all. This is all
that I can tell you at present.
No: O-Yone came with us. She took O-Yoshi's place, when O-Yoshi went
back to live with her mother. I am sorry to say I had to send the
_kurumaya_ away. He abandoned his wife in Matsue, and she went to the
house of the Inagaki, crying and telling a very pitiful story. When
I heard this, I told the man he must go back. But on the same days
later, I found he had been doing very wrong things,--trying to make
trouble among the other servants, and playing tricks upon us by making
secret arrangements with the shopkeepers. I had bought him clothes,
and given him altogether 14 yen and 50 sen, besides his board and
lodging--including 5 yen to go back with. But he had squandered his
little money and how he managed afterward I don't know. I could not
help him any more; for his cunningness and foolishness together made it
impossible to keep him a day longer in the house. The cook is from the
_Nisho-tei_,--to which you first introduced me. The _kurumaya's_ place
would have been a nice place for a good man. I shall be very careful
about employing another _kurumaya_ by the month.
Now about the question you asked me. The words you underlined are
from the Jewish Bible. The ideas of VALUE and of WEIGHT were closely
connected in the minds of the old Semites, as they are still, to some
extent, in our own. Everything was sold by WEIGHT, and according to the
WEIGHT was the VALUE. The weighing was done with the SCALES or BALANCE,
of which there were several kinds. The balancing was done by suspending
a weight at one end of the "balance," or scales, as in Japan, and the
article to be sold in the other. If too light, the article was "found
wanting"--(i. e.: in weight). So in such English expressions as "to make
LIGHT of" (to ridicule, to belittle, to speak contemptuously of)--the
idea of WEIGHT thus estimated survives. Now, in the mythology of the
Jews God is represented as one who WEIGHS, in a scale or balance, the
good that is in a man--(his MORAL WEIGHT or VALUE)--and sends him to
hell if he proves too light. Public opinion is now the God with the
scales. If I am an author, for example, I (that is, my work) will be
WEIGHED in the BALANCE (of public or of literary opinion) and found
perhaps WANTING. Poor Ito was weighed many, many times, and found
wanting--before being expelled. I am afraid he will be found wanting
also by the world into which he must enter.
As for the phrase, "not a hair of their _head_," the singular is often
used for the plural in the old English of the Bible, and other books.
(To-day, we should use only the plural,--as a general rule.)
_Examples from the Bible:_
1. "The fire had no power upon their bodies, nor
singular
was the hair of _their_ HEAD singed."
--_Daniel, 3d Chap. 27th verse._
plural singular
2. "But the very hairs of your HEAD are all numbered."
--_Luke_ 12. 7.
singular
3. "And he bowed the HEART of _all the men of Judah_"
--_II Samuel_ 19. 14.
Poets to-day, or writers of poetical prose, may take similar liberties
with grammar as that in No. 3.
There are very many quotations in the Bible about the words "weighed in
the balance;" the most famous being that in the story of Belshazzar, in
the book of Daniel. The first poetical use of the phrase is in the book
of Job--supposed, you know, to have been written by an Arab, not a Jew.
Now I hope and pray that you will take good care of yourself, and not
allow your Samurai-spirit of self-denial to urge you into taking any
risks on bitterly cold days. Many, many happy new years to you and yours.