HIS DEATH
"... Are not we ourselves as lanterns launched upon a deeper
and a dimmer sea, and ever separating farther and farther one
from another as we drift to the inevitable dissolution? Soon
the thought-light in each burns itself out: then the poor
frames, and all that is left of their once fair colours, must
melt forever into the colourless Void...."
Ten years after his arrival in Japan the lode-star of Lafcadio Hearn's
life and genius rose above the far eastern horizon, to cast her clear
and serene radiance on the shadowed path that henceforth was but a
descent towards the end. We conclude that "The Lady of a Myriad Souls"
had written an appreciative letter on the subject of his work, and his,
dated January, 1900, was in answer to hers.
The thread was taken up where it had been dropped, the old affection and
friendship reopened, unchanged, unimpaired.
Three subjects occupied Hearn's thoughts at this time to the exclusion
of all others: a longing to get back to the West amongst his own people,
his failing health, and anxiety for the future of his eldest boy--his
Benjamin--in case of his death. Except perhaps a hint to McDonald, it is
only to Mrs. Wetmore that he drew aside the veil, and showed how clearly
he realised that his span of life was now but a short one. "The sound of
the breakers ahead is in his ears," "the scythe is sharpening in sight."
"I have had one physical warning ... my body no longer belongs to me, as
the Japanese say." And again: "At my time of life, except in the case of
strong men, there is a great loss of energy, the breaking up begins."
With intense longing did his thoughts these days revert to the Western
lands from which he had voluntarily expatriated himself. "I have been so
isolated that I must acknowledge the weakness of wishing to be amongst
Englishmen again ... with all their prejudices and conventions."
The Race Problem! one of the most perplexing on earth. A man thinks he
has wholly and finally given up his country, sloughed off inherited
civilisation, discarded former habits and cast of thought; but--such a
stubborn thing is human nature--sooner or later, the oft-repeated cry of
the wanderer, surrounded by alien hearts and alien faces, arises to that
Power that made him what he is. "Give back the land where I was born,
let me fight for what my own people fight for, let me love as they love,
worship as they worship."
At the time of Kazuo's birth Hearn had expressed a hope "that he might
wear sandals and kimono, and become a good little Buddhist." This was
during the period of his enthusiasm for "things Japanese." When he came
to issue with the officials at Kumamoto, and later at Tokyo, a change
was effected in his view, and he longed earnestly to make him an
occidental--one of his own people.
All the expansion of communion and understanding denied him in the life
he had passed amongst those who viewed things from an entirely different
standpoint, seemed centred on the boy. He hoped to educate him abroad,
to make an Englishman of him, to put him into a profession, either in
the army or navy, so that he might serve the country his father had
forsworn. In this desire Hearn reckoned without his host. By his action
in nationalising himself a Japanese, when he married Setsu Koizumi, his
son is a Japanese, born in Japan under Japanese conditions, and unless
he throws off all family ties and responsibilities, which, being the
eldest son, are--according to communal law in Japan--considerable, he
must submit to this inexorable destiny. In his father's adopted country
the military or naval profession is closed to him, however, in
consequence of his defective eyesight, and both would have been closed
to him also in England.
Mrs. Atkinson, anxious to carry out the wishes her half-brother had
expressed in his letters, with regard to the future of his eldest son,
made inquiries on the subject of various people at Tokyo. The same
answer was given on every side. He is a Japanese, and must conform to
the dictates of the Japanese authorities. They might permit him to go
away for a year or so for study, but he must serve the country his
father had adopted, in some capacity, or renounce his nationality.
Meantime, the boy is receiving a first-class education at the Waseda
University; he is perfectly happy, and would be most reluctant to
separate from his relations. As to his mother, it would break her heart
if any idea of his leaving Tokyo was suggested.
In the spring of 1903 as Hearn had anticipated, he was forced out of the
Imperial University, on the pretext that as a Japanese citizen he was
not entitled to a foreign salary. The students, as we can see by Yone
Noguchi's last book, made a strong protest in his favour, and he was
offered a re-engagement, but at terms so devised that it was impossible
for him to re-engage. He was also refused the money allowed to
professors for a nine months' vacation after a service of six years; yet
he had served seven years. On this subject Hearn was very bitter. "The
long and the short of the matter is that after having worked during
thirteen years for Japan, and sacrificed everything for Japan, I have
been only driven out of the service and practically vanished from the
country. For while the politico-religious combination that has
engineered this matter remains in unbroken power, I could not hold any
position in any educational establishment here for even six months."
In judging the controversy between Hearn and the authorities at this
juncture, it is well to remember that Japan was struggling for
existence. She was heavily in debt, having been deprived by the allied
powers of her indemnity from China. She could not afford to be
soft-hearted, and her own people, students, professors, every one
official, were heroically at this time renouncing emolument of any kind
to help their country in her need. Hearn's health precluded the
possibility of his fulfilling the duties of his engagement, and the
means at the disposal of the government did not permit of their taking
into consideration the possible payment of a pension. It seems hard,
perhaps, but the Japanese are a hard race, made of steel and iron, or
they never could have accomplished the overwhelming task that has been
set them within the last ten years. At the time when the war with Russia
was raging, and Hearn got his discharge, her resources were strained to
the utmost, her own people were submitting to almost incredible
privations, officials who had been receiving pay that it seemed almost
impossible to live upon, accepting one-half the salary they had been
accustomed to, and college professors not only existing on starvation
rations, but managing to pay the expenses of junior students. It must
also be remembered that national sentiment had been awakened, that the
Japanese were reverting to the ancient authority, and belief and foreign
teaching was at a discount. All this, however, did not make it easier
for Hearn; in spite of his admiration for Japanese gallantry he railed
at Japanese officialism. To the listening soul of his friend beyond the
ocean, thousands of miles away, he poured forth all his
disillusionments, all his anxieties. To her he turned for advice and
guidance, for "did she not represent to his imagination all the Sibyls?
and was not her wisdom as the worth of things precious from the
uttermost coasts?" He felt he must leave the Far East for a couple of
years to school his little son in foreign languages. "Whether I take him
to England or America, I do not yet know; but America is not very far
from England. Two of the boys are all Japanese,--sturdy and not likely
to cause anxiety, but the eldest," he says, "is not very strong, and I
must devote the rest of my life to looking after him."
And she--his wise friend--knowing the limitations enforced by Hearn's
isolation and failing health, living as she did in the midst of that
awful American life of competition and struggle, enjoined prudent action
and patient waiting, for, after all, "no one can save him but himself."
"Very true," was Hearn's answer--and well did he know, for had not he,
the half-blind journalist, worked his way, unaided and alone, into the
position of being one of the signal lights in the literature of the day?
"No one can save him but himself.... I am, or have been, always afraid:
the Future-Possible of Nightmare immediately glooms up,--and I flee, and
bury myself in work. Absurd?... Kazuo is everything that a girl might
be, that a man should not be,--except as to bodily strength.... I taught
him to swim and make him practice gymnastics every day; but the spirit
of him is altogether too gentle, a being entirely innocent of evil--what
chance for him in such a world as Japan? Do you know that terribly
pathetic poem of Robert Bridges': 'Pater Filio'?"
The following are the lines to which Hearn refers:--
"Sense with keenest edge unused,
Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;
Lovely feet as yet unbruised,
On the ways of dark desire;
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling!
"Why such beauty, to be blighted,
By the swarm of foul destruction?
Why such innocence delighted,
When sin stalks to thy seduction?
All the litanies e'er chanted,
Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.
"I have pray'd the Sainted Morning
To unclasp her hands to hold thee;
From resignful Eve's adorning
Stol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee;
With all charms of man's contriving
Arm'd thee for thy lonely striving.
"Me too once unthinking Nature,
--Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,--
Fashion'd so divine a creature,
Yes, and like a beast forsook me.
I forgave, but tell the measure,
Of her crime in thee, my treasure."
It seems as if he were haunted by memories of his own thwarted childhood
and shipwrecked youth. If possible he wished to guard and protect his
Benjamin from the pitfalls that had beset his path, knowing that the
same dangers might prevail in Kazuo's case as in his own, and that there
might be no one to protect and guard him.
A charming piece of prose, from which I give a few extracts, was found
amongst Hearn's papers after his death. The manuscript, lent to me by
Mrs. Atkinson, lies by my hand as I write; it is entitled "Fear."
"An old, old sea-wall, stretching between two boundless levels, green
and blue. Everything is steeped in white sun; and I am standing on the
wall. Along its broad and grass-grown top a boy is running towards
me,--running in sandals of wood,--the sea-breeze blowing aside the long
sleeves of his robe as he runs.... With what sudden incommunicable pang
do I watch the gracious little figure leaping in the light.... A
delicate boy, with the blended charm of two races.... And how softly
vivid all things under this milky radiance,--the smiling child-face with
lips apart,--the twinkle of the light quick feet,--the shadows of
grasses and of little stones!...
"But quickly as he runs, the child will come no nearer to me,--the slim
brown hand will never cling to mine. For this light is the light of a
Japanese sun that set long years ago.... Never, dearest!--never shall we
meet,--not even when the stars are dead!"
By the exercise of a considerable amount of diplomacy Mrs. Wetmore
succeeded at this time in inducing Jacob Gould Schurmann, president of
Cornell University, to enter into an arrangement with Hearn for a series
of lectures on Japan.
As of old, she believed him capable of conquering Fate, in spite of the
despotism of fact as exemplified in the loss of eyesight and broken
health; she felt sure he could interest an American audience by the
material he had to offer, and the scholarly way in which he knew how to
utilise it.
His answer to the suggestion of the lectures is characteristic:--
"O fairy! what have you dared to say? I am quite sure that I do _not_
know anything about Japanese art, or literature, or ethnology, or
politics, or history. (You did not say 'politics' or 'history,' however,
and that seems to be what is wanted.) But perhaps you know _what_ I know
better than I myself know,--or perhaps you can give me to eat a Fairy
Apple of Knowledge. At present I have no acquaintance even with the
Japanese language: I cannot read a Japanese newspaper: and I have
learned only enough, even of the _kana_, to write a letter home. I
cannot lie--to my Fairy; therefore it is essential that I make the
following declaration:--"
Then he repeats the statement made in the preface of "Japan, an
Interpretation." For these lectures prepared with so much industry and
care were destined ultimately to go to the making of that beautiful and
lucid exposition of the history and thought of a great people.
The world has to be grateful to President Schurmann for withdrawing from
his contract, and cancelling the offer made to Hearn for the delivery of
lectures at the university.
The excuse that illness had broken out at Cornell was hardly a
sufficient one. There is little doubt that unfavourable reports of
Hearn's state of health, and doubts as to the possibility of his being
able to lecture in public, had drifted to Cornell, and the president,
acting for the best interests of his university, did not feel justified
in abiding by his proposals.
With that extraordinary mental elasticity that characterised him all his
life, Hearn made the best of the situation, and set to work, polishing
and repolishing his twenty-two lectures until they reached the high
level of style that distinguishes "Japan, an Interpretation." His
courage was the more extraordinary as, filled with the idea that he was
at last going to America, he had gone into every detail of meeting his
friend. "I would go straight to your Palace of Fairy before going
elsewhere," he writes to Mrs. Wetmore, "only to see you again--even for
a moment--and to hear you speak in some one of the myriad voices would
be such a memory for me, and you would let me 'walk about gently
touching things.'..." Then in another letter comes a sigh of regret,
and as it were farewell. "But your gifts, O Faery Queen have faded away,
even as in the Song ... and I am also fading away."
After the failure of his projected visit to America, a suggestion was
made by the University of London that he should give a series of
lectures there. But here was the "Ah-ness" of things. Had Hearn's health
permitted he would probably have been in England in 1905, where he would
have been received with honour. The Japanese had fought Russia and
beaten her. People became wildly enthusiastic about Japan: the libraries
were besieged with inquiries for Hearn's books,--just at the eleventh
hour, when he had become a name, he died!
All his life his dream had been to be independent, to be able to travel.
Referring to a gentleman who was in Japan, he once said, "I envy him his
independence. Think of being able to live where one pleases, nobody's
servant,--able to choose one's own studies and friends and books."
The offer of an easy post was made to Hearn about this time as professor
of English in the Waseda University founded by Count Okuma. He closed
with it at once, thus putting an end to all negotiations with the
University of London.
His youngest child, Setsu-ko, was born this year, and all idea of
leaving Japan was henceforth abandoned.
In his last letter to Mrs. Wetmore, dated September, 1904--the month in
which he died--he touches on the dedication he had made to her in his
book, "A Japanese Miscellany." To the last the same sympathy and
understanding reigned between them. Patiently she exhorted, comforted.
Her wise counsel and advice soothed his torn nerves and aching heart to
the end. So this affection, untouched by the moth and rust of worldly
intercourse, went down with him "into the dust of death."
Slowly but surely the years with their chequered story were drawing to
an end. The sum of endeavour was complete, the secrets Death had in its
keeping were there for the solving of this ardent, industrious spirit.
Many accounts have been published of Hearn's last hours, too many some
of his friends in Japan think. From all of them we glean the same
impression--a calm heroic bearing towards the final mystery, a fine
consideration for others, the thought of the future of his wife and
children, triumphing over suffering and death.
He always rose before six. "On the morning of the 26th of September, he
was smoking in his library," his wife tells us. "When I went in to say
my morning greeting, 'Ohayo gozaimasu,' he seemed to be fallen in deep
thought, then he said, 'It's verily strange.' I asked him what was
strange, and he said, 'I dreamed an extraordinary dream last night, I
made a long travel, but here I am now smoking in the library of our
house at Nishi Okubo. Life and the world are strange.'
"'Was it in the Western country?' I asked again. 'Oh, no, it was neither
in the Western country nor Japan, but the strangest land,' he said."
While writing, Hearn had a habit of breaking off suddenly and walking up
and down the library or along the verandah facing the garden. The day he
died he stopped and looked into his wife's room next the library. In her
_tokonoma_ she had just hung up a Japanese painting representing a
moonlight scene. "Oh, what a lovely picture," he exclaimed. "I wish I
could go in my dreams to such a country as that." Sad to think he had
passed into the country of dreams and moonlight before the next twelve
hours were over!
Two or three days before his death one of the girls called O Saki, the
daughter of Otokichi, of Yaidzu, found a cherry-blossom on a cherry-tree
in the garden,--not much to look at--but it was a blossom blooming out
of season, in the direction of his library; she told her fellow-servant
Hana, who in turn repeated it to Mrs. Koizumi.
"I could not help telling him; he came out of the library and gazed at
it for some moments, 'The flower must have been thinking that Spring is
here for the weather is so warm and lovely. It is strange and beautiful,
but will soon die under the approaching cold.'
"You may call it superstition if you will, but I cannot help thinking
that the _Kaerizaki_, or bloom, returned out of season, appeared to bid
farewell to Hearn as it was his beloved tree...."
In a letter written to Mrs. Atkinson, some months after Lafcadio's
death, Mrs. Koizumi, thus describes his last hours: "On the evening of
September 26th, after supper, he conversed with us pleasantly, and as he
was about going to his room, a sudden aching attacked his heart. The
pain lasted only some twenty minutes. After walking to and fro, he
wanted to lie down; with his hands on his breast he lay very calm in
bed, but in a few minutes after, as if feeling no pain at all, with a
little smile about his mouth, he ceased to be a man of this side of the
world. I could not believe that he died, so sudden was his fate."