MY DEAR CHAMBERLAIN,--Your paper on Luchu gave me more pleasure, I am
sure, than it even did to the president of the society before whom
it was read; and I was delighted with the nice things said of you.
Of course this paper--being a much more elaborate monograph than the
other--differs from its predecessor in the matter of suggestiveness.
To me it is like a graded anthropological map,--shading off the
direction of character-tendencies, language, customs, to the uttermost
limit of the subject. I had no idea how much you had been doing in
the Archipelago--your own field of research by unquestionable right.
If I ever go down there I shall certainly attempt nothing out of the
much humbler line which I can follow: there is really nothing left for
another man to do in the way of gathering general knowledge about an
unfamiliar region.
There is one expression of opinion in the monograph which I may venture
a remark about. The idea is growing upon me, more and more each day I
live, that the supposed indifferentism of the Japanese in religious
matters is affected indifferentism--that it is put on like _yofuku_,
only for foreigners. I see too much of the real life, even here in
Kōbe, to think the indifferentism real. And I believe the Jesuits,
who are better judges far than our comfortable modern proselytizers,
never accused the Japanese of indifference. However, this is but
suggestive: I think that should you ever find time to watch the
incidents of common life minutely, you will recognize the Jesuits as the
keenest observers. As for the educated classes, I have also reason to
know that in most cases the indifference is feigned. This will show you
how my own opinions have changed in five years' time.
Very truly yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.