Whether gaki do or do not exist, there is at least some shadowing of
truth in the Eastern belief that the dead become insects. Undoubtedly
our human dust must help, over and over again for millions of ages,
to build up numberless weird shapes of life. But as to that question
of my revery under the pine trees,--whether present acts and thoughts
can have anything to do with the future distribution and requickening
of that dust,--whether human conduct can of itself predetermine the
shapes into which human atoms will be recast,--no reply is possible. I
doubt--but I do not know. Neither does anybody else.
*
Supposing, however, that the order of the universe were really as
Buddhists believe, and that I knew myself foredoomed, by reason of
stupidities in this existence, to live hereafter the life of an insect,
I am not sure that the prospect would frighten me. There are insects
of which it is difficult to think with equanimity; but the state of an
independent, highly organized, respectable insect could not be so very
bad. I should even look forward, with some pleasurable curiosity, to
any chance of viewing the world through the marvellous compound eyes
of a beetle, an ephemera, or a dragon-fly. As an ephemera, indeed, I
might enjoy the possession of three different kinds of eyes, and the
power to see colours now totally unimaginable. Estimated in degrees of
human time, my life would be short,--a single summer day would include
the best part of it; but to ephemeral consciousness a few minutes would
appear a season; and my one day of winged existence--barring possible
mishaps--would be one unwearied joy of dancing in golden air. And I
could feel in my winged state neither hunger nor thirst,--having no
real mouth or stomach: I should be, in very truth, a Wind-eater. ...
Nor should I fear to enter upon the much less ethereal condition of a
dragon-fly. I should then have to bear carnivorous hunger, and to hunt
a great deal; but even dragon-flies, after the fierce joy of the chase,
can indulge themselves in solitary meditation. Besides, what wings
would then be mine!--and what eyes!... I could pleasurably anticipate
even the certainty of becoming an _Amembō_,[4] and so being able to run
and to slide upon water--though children might catch me, and bite off
my long fine legs. But I think that I should better enjoy the existence
of a sémi,--a large and lazy cicada, basking on wind-rocked trees,
sipping only dew, and singing from dawn till dusk.
Of course there would be perils to encounter,--danger from hawks and
crows and sparrows,--danger from insects of prey--danger from bamboos
tipped with birdlime by naughty little boys. But in every condition of
life there must be risks; and in spite of the risks, I imagine that
Anacreon uttered little more than the truth, in his praise of the
cicada: "_O thou earth-horn,--song-loving,--free from pain>--having
flesh without blood,--thou art nearly equal to the Gods!_"... In fact I
have not been able to convince myself that it is really an inestimable
privilege to be reborn a human being. And if the thinking of this
thought, and the act of writing it down, must inevitably affect my
next rebirth, then let me hope that the state to which I am destined
will not be worse than that of a cicada or of a dragon-fly;--climbing
the cryptomerias to clash my tiny cymbals in the sun,--or haunting,
with soundless flicker of amethyst and gold, some holy silence of
lotos-pools.
[Footnote 4: A water-insect, much resembling what we call a "skater."
In some parts of the country it is said that the boy who wants to
become a good swimmer must eat the legs of an _Amembō._]