TŌKYŌ, May, 1897.
DEAR E. H.,--I have been reading your last over and over again--because
it is very pretty indeed, one of the very prettiest letters I ever read.
There is altogether something so deliriously _assured_ about it--so full
of happy confidence, that I feel quite comfortable and jolly about you
... notwithstanding the fact that I am tolerably sure you will be taken
utterly away from me in the end. For this shall a man leave not only his
friend, but his father and his mother,--saith the Sacred Book. You know
that particular passage makes the Japanese mad,--but not quite so mad as
the observation: "Unless a man shall hate his father and his mother,"
etc., which has knocked the wind out of much missionary enterprise.
I can't write much more about yourself, because I don't know anything
yet. So I shall talk about Tōkyō.
As you know, I have been somewhat idle--for a month at least. And the
loneliness thickens. And certain gentlemen make it a rule to spit upon
the ground with a loud noise when I pass by. I believe the trick is not
confined to the Occident, having found Japanese skilful at it; but these
be nevertheless manners of Heidelberg doctors! Nevertheless, it won't
work.
But really the conditions are very queer. I felt instinctively before
going to Tōkyō, that I was going into a world of intrigue; but
what a world I had no conception. The foreign element appears to live
in a condition of perpetual panic. Everybody is infinitely afraid of
everybody else, afraid to speak not only their minds, but to speak
about anything except irrelevant matters, and then only in a certain
formal tone sanctioned by custom. They huddle together sometimes at
parties, and talk all together loudly about nothing,--like people in
the expectation of a possible catastrophe, or like folks making a noise
to drive away ghosts, or fear of ghosts. Somebody, quite accidentally,
observes--or rather drops an observation about facts. Instantly there is
a scattering away from that man as from dynamite. He is isolated for
several weeks by common consent. Then he goes to work to reform a group
of his own. Gradually he collects one--and rival groups are formed. But
presently some one in another party or chat talks about something as it
ought to be. Bang-fizz--chaos and confusion. Then all the groups unite
to isolate that wicked tongue. The man is dangerous--an intriguer--ha!
And so on--_ad lib_.
This is panic, pure and simple, and the selfishness of panic. But
there is some reason for it--considering the class of minds. We are
all in Japan living over earthquakes. Nothing is stable. All Japanese
officialdom is perpetually in flux,--nothing but the throne is even
temporarily fixed; and the direction of the currents depends much upon
force of intrigue. They shift, like currents in the sea, off a coast of
tides. But the side currents penetrate everywhere, and _clapotent_ all
comers, and swirl round the writing-stool of the smallest clerk,--whose
pen trembles with continual fear for his wife's and babies' rice.
Being good or clever or generous or popular or the best man for the
place counts for very little. Intrigue has nothing at all to do with
qualities. Popularity in the biggest sense has, of course, some value,
but only the value depending upon certain alternations of the rhythm of
outs-and-ins. That's all.
In the Orient intrigue has been cultivated as an art for ages, and it
has been cultivated as an art in every country, no doubt. But the result
of the adoption of constitutional government by a race accustomed to
autocracy and caste, enabled intrigue to spread like a ferment, in
new forms, through every condition of society,--and almost into every
household. It has become an infinite net--unbreakable, because elastic
as air, though strong enough to upset ministers as readily as to oust
clerks.
Future prospects--? _Dégringolade_.
I feel sorry to say that I think I have been wrong about a good many
of my sincere hopes and glowing predictions. Tōkyō takes out
of me all power to hope for a great Japanese future. You know how
easily a society in such a state can be manipulated by shrewd foreign
influence. The race must give evidence of some tremendous self-purifying
and self-solidifying power, before my hopes can be restored to their
former rainbow hues. At present I think it can truthfully be said that
every official branch of service shows the rapidly growing weakness
that means demoralization. The causes are numerous--too numerous to
mention,--inadequate pay being a large one, as the best men will not
take positions at $15 or $20 a month. But the great cause is utter
instability and discouragement. The P. O., the telegraph-service, the
railroads, etc., all are in a queer state.
And I--am as a flea in a wash-bowl. My best chance is to lie quiet and
wait the coming of events. I hope to see Europe, with my boy, some day.
Well, this is only private history to amuse E. H., to make Western by
contrast to Eastern life seem more beautiful to him. Affectionately,