KUMAMOTO, August, 1893.
DEAR NISHIDA,--I got your kind letter,--and the money,--and the
ballads; for all of which a thousand thanks. I feel you have been very,
very kind in all this, even while you were sick: so that my poor thanks
signify little of what I really feel towards you. It has given me much
pleasure to hear of your being better; but I am disappointed at your
being unable to travel,--very much disappointed, as I fear I will not be
able to leave Kumamoto again this vacation....
I see that, as regards Kyūshū compared with Tōkyō, you take
the moral aspect of the question, while I have possibly been ruled too
much by the artistic side. I cannot fully understand the moral side,
of course: I can only perceive that the Kyūshū students are
allowed to dress as simply as possible,--are encouraged to be frugal
and frank, and rough in their sports,--and are generally said to be
extremely independent and what you call _katai_, isn't it? But whether
they are really any better than Matsue students, I don't know. Certainly
they have no pleasures to soften their minds. There is nothing to see,
and nowhere to go. And Kyōto is the most delightful city in the whole
of Japan. However, I suppose it has also temptations for students of a
dangerous sort....
I had no luck with Kumagae Masayoshi, and was obliged to send the boy
back to Oki, after he had worried and made unhappy everybody in the
house. He was an extraordinarily clever boy,--both at school, and at
everything he undertook,--extremely skilful with his hands, and almost
diabolically intelligent. But he had no affection at all, and seemed
to be naturally very cruel and cunning. He was strictly honest, and
trustworthy,--for all that. But his character was supremely selfish and
malignant. He made nasty songs about people, and sang them, and gave us
the impression of being a small devil.
I am trying to do some literary work. Your ballad of Shuntoku-maru
proved quite useful to me in the course of an essay I wrote on the
difficulty experienced by Japanese in understanding a certain class
of English poetry and fiction. It revealed a popular conception of
things,--that ballad, which I took for an illustration, in showing the
total unlikeness of Western to Oriental society--especially in the
family relation; the absence of flirting and kissing and woman-worship
which we have in the West. Indeed I think the great difficulty of
mutual comprehension between the Japanese and the English is chiefly due
to the predominance of _a feminine idea_ in our language, our art, and
our whole conception of Nature. Therefore the Oriental can see aspects
of Nature to which we remain blind....