KUMAMOTO, November, 1893.
DEAR NISHIDA,--Everybody is well up to date: the little boy looks
prettier every day, and gives very little trouble. He scarcely cries at
all. Many people come to look at him, and express surprise that he looks
so much like a Japanese. But he is going to have a nose something like
mine, certainly, when he grows up.
Setsu advises me to write you about another matter. I wanted, and tried
several times since coming to Kumamoto, to have Setsu registered as my
lawfully married wife, but the answer was always the same--that it was
a difficult matter, and would have to be arranged in Tōkyō, if at
all. The day before yesterday, I made another attempt when registering
the birth of the boy. The registry people said that as the parties came
from Matsue, Izumo, they would only make the statement of the marriage
by Matsue authority,--and that I had better write to Matsue. But at the
same time, they said words to this effect: "The law is difficult for
you. If you wish the boy to remain a Japanese citizen, you must register
him in the mother's name only. If you register him in the father's name,
he becomes a foreigner."
Of course we all want the child to be a Japanese citizen, as he will
be the heir and stay of the old folks after I am dead--whether he goes
abroad for a few years' study or no. Prudence seems to dictate the
latter course. Yet the whole thing is a puzzle. By becoming myself a
Japanese citizen, everything would be settled. Even that, however,
is more difficult than it at first seemed. Again, I believe that I
could become a Japanese citizen by making direct application to the
Government;--but at the present time the result might not be for the
best. An Englishman in Yokohama, who became a Japanese citizen, had his
salary immediately reduced to a very small figure, with the observation:
"Having become a Japanese citizen, you must now be content to live like
one." I don't quite see the morality of the reduction; for services
should be paid according to the market-value at least;--but there is no
doubt it would be made. As for America, and my relatives in England, I
am married: that has been duly announced. Perhaps I had better wait a
few years, and then become a citizen. Being a Japanese citizen would, of
course, make no difference whatever as to my relations in any civilized
countries abroad. It would only make some difference in an uncivilized
country,--such as revolutionary South America, where English or French
or American protection is a good thing to have. But the long and the
short of the matter is that I am anxious only about Setsu's and the
boy's interests; my own being concerned only at that point where their
injury would be Setsu's injury. I suppose I must trust to fate and the
gods. If you can suggest anything good to do, however, I will be very
grateful.
Every day, it strikes me more and more how little I shall ever know
of the Japanese. I have been working hard at a new book, which is now
half-finished, and consists of philosophical sketches chiefly: It will
be a very different book from the "Glimpses," and will show you how
much the Japanese world has changed for me. I imagine that sympathy and
friendship are almost impossible for any foreigner to obtain,--because
of the amazing difference in the psychology of the two races. We only
guess at each other without understanding; and it is only a very keen
guesser, indeed, of large experience, who can ever guess correctly. I
have met no one else like you. Nothing is so curious as to sit down and
talk for hours with a Japanese of the ordinary Tōkyō modernized
class. You understand all he says, and he understands all you say,--but
neither understands more than the words. The ideas behind the words are
so different, that the more we talk the less we know each other. In the
case of the students, I found myself obliged to invent a new method of
teaching. I now teach my higher classes psychologically. I give them
lectures and dictations on various difficulties of the preposition, for
example, starting out with the announcement that they must not allow
themselves to think of the Japanese preposition at all....
I have followed this plan with great success in teaching the articles,
the value of English idioms, etc., and the comparative force of verbs.
But it shows how hopeless for a stranger to see deeply into the Japanese
mind. I am taking almost exactly the opposite ground to that of Lowell.
Faithfully ever,
LAFCADIO HEARN.