[Illustration: FULHAM ROAD.]
A JAPANESE ARTIST
IN LONDON
WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY
YOSHIO MARKINO
[Illustration: colophon]
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & CO.
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
CHATTO AND WINDUS
_Published July, 1910_
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed in U. S. A.
_To
Mr. and Mrs. M. H. Spielmann_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
AN APPRECIATION ix
AUTHOR’S PREFACE xv
I. MY ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND 1
II. MY LIFE IN GREENWICH 14
III. MY LIFE IN NEW CROSS 22
IV. MY LIFE IN KENSAL RISE 40
V. AT THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER’S IN NORWOOD 53
VI. MY LIFE IN BRIXTON 64
VII. I DECIDE TO COMMIT SUICIDE 79
VIII. THE LOOSENING OF THE ROPE 86
IX. “THE DARLING OF THE GODS” 108
X. A CHELSEA CONSERVATIVE 114
XI. SOME JAPANESE IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND 130
XII. MY JAPANESE FRIENDS 151
XIII. “THE COLOR OF LONDON” 162
XIV. IN THE WEST LONDON HOSPITAL--BEFORE
THE OPERATION 167
XV. IN THE WEST LONDON HOSPITAL--AFTER
THE OPERATION 179
XVI. MY HOLIDAYS IN LONDON 197
XVII. CONCLUDING CHAPTER 208
ILLUSTRATIONS
IN COLOR
FULHAM ROAD Frontispiece
CHELSEA EMBANKMENT Facing page 10
OUTSIDE ST. GEORGE’S HOSPITAL ” ” 58
HYDE PARK CORNER ” ” 76
OUTSIDE SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ” ” 92
CHELSEA CHURCH ” ” 124
THE THAMES AT RANELAGH ” ” 158
EARL’S COURT STATION ” ” 216
IN MONOCHROME
PEN AND INK STUDIES FROM MEMORY Facing page 30
PENCIL STUDIES ” ” 36
OPENING DAY AT EARL’S COURT ” ” 42
EMPIRE BALLET ” ” 204
AN APPRECIATION
This seems to me to be a book of unique interest. The irresistible humor
and the force of Yoshio Markino’s writing is well known to critics, for
in reviewing his three large color books, “The Color of London,” “The
Color of Paris,” and “The Color of Rome,” most of them have given as
much space to the single chapter contributed by the artist as they have
to the entire letterpress of the book.
Nor is this surprising, for Mr. Markino in his quaint English has
sometimes an arrestiveness almost equal to Thomas Carlyle’s. There is
real style in it. He has evolved a grammar of his own which is
strikingly effective.
In his new volume, “A Japanese Artist in London,” he has a subject
eminently suited to exhibit the humor and pathos and forcefulness of his
style. For in it he relates his stern battles with starvation, and the
strange experiences into which he was plunged by the extraordinary
succession of trades to which his poverty condemned him. When he first
came over he was working in the Japanese Legation and Art Schools. Then
he tried starvation for a time. He became a model in one of the Art
Schools where he had been a student; then a tombstone-maker at Norwood.
Then he starved again until he met his good fairy, Mr. M. H. Spielmann,
who got him various commissions. He helped to stage “The Darling of the
Gods”; illustrated magazines and newspapers, not at all in his own line;
and finally obtained a commission to illustrate “The Color of London,”
and arranged an exhibition where he sold the originals.
In San Francisco he cleaned windows and scrubbed floors to get the money
for his art-school fees, and lived on the bread given to the students to
rub out the charcoal; then he made teeth for a dentist; at odd times he
has been even a naval architect.
He belongs to a very old Samurai family in Japan, and always kept his
starvation and hardships concealed from them with true Japanese Bushido.
But now the world is to have the full and unvarnished account of them
told in Mr. Markino’s inimitable Japanese English--and the result is a
book of pathos and humor which comes half-way between Michael Fairless’s
“Roadmender” and Mr. Dooley’s “Impressions.”
It is a book which will live, for it tells with absolute candor and
fidelity of life right down to the bed-rock of starvation, and it adds a
new variety of humor to British literature.
The book was not easily written. It perhaps never would have been
written if so much of it had not been comprised in his correspondence
with Miss Olave Potter, who wrote the letterpress of “The Color of
Rome.” Some of the matter which is here made public he wrote to her in
private, other parts of it were written on her suggestions arising from
their correspondence. Sometimes Mr. Markino was at a loss for the
English word. He replaced it with a picture, going back to the Japanese
habit of ideograms, and so ingeniously that Miss Potter was never at a
loss to translate it into words. She arranged the manuscript and
corrected the proofs. How wisely she refrained from tampering with his
English, the reader will see. Its very crudeness has its force, its
humor, and not infrequently its pathos, while its artless confessions
show that Mr. Markino has as white a soul as ever entered a human body.
He is absolutely candid and entirely without false shame; he records
poverty so dire that his work was paralyzed by hunger. He often had to
get into bed in the middle of the day to get warm enough to hold his
brushes, and at one time walked every day from Kensal Rise to Norwood,
except a pennyworth of tram from Westminster to Brixton, and from
Norwood back the whole way to Kensal Rise, which he reached at midnight.
There are no pages which make pleasanter reading than those which record
the goodness of the poor landladies to this Japanese castaway; when he
could not afford to buy food they shared their own with him; when he had
no money at all they let his bill for lodgings run into pounds. Some
went further and lent him the money out of their savings-boxes. When
prosperity shone again a little they were always faithfully repaid. He
writes of them now in the same terms of equality and friendship as he
uses when he is talking about his Cabinet Minister friend. He is as
incapable of thinking himself better than the humble as he is of
considering himself inferior to the great. At the present moment he
shares his heart between the Cabinet Minister and a shoemaker.
Yoshio Markino is more like a spirit than most of the spirits clothed in
flesh which we call human beings. At houses where he opens his heart to
their inmates and feels intimate, he flutters in bubbling over with news
and excitement--he always has news even if he had met you an hour
ago--he counts his friends, as it were, to see if they are all there,
gathers each to himself with some little private personal touch, and
then sits down on the floor as he was taught to sit when he was a tiny
mite in Dai Nippon. His unselfishness, his chivalry, his warmth of
heart, recall all one has read of the Bushido of the Samurai class, to
which he belongs, in the “Tales of Old Japan.” And every reader of these
pages will see much of the magical personality of which I speak,
reflected in them. These lines, written by I don’t know whom, might have
been written of him--
“He was the proper, friend-making, everywhere friend-finding soul,
Fit for the sunshine, so it followed him,
A happy-tempered bringer of the best out of the worst.”
DOUGLAS SLADEN.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
Just the moment I was going to start writing this book, one of my
intimate Japanese friends--Wakamiya--has sent me the first number of his
new periodical. There was one page entitled “Human Voices and Devil
Voices.” I saw these words on the page: “All humans are born in this
world with crying voice: the beginning of human life is Trouble. All
humans go into coffins with the voice of praying: the end of human life
is Repentance.... It is not hard to make the whole world an enemy, but
it is hard indeed to make the bakers good friends.... Poverty is the
most final weakness.”
My friend has conquered me. What single word could I add to this? It is
only for a few weeks that baby birds enjoy their comfortable life while
they are sleeping under their mother’s warm breast in the nest. At this
time they may desire not to meet rains, snows, and frosts all through
their life. But is there any single bird in this world which escapes
the storms? So with our life. Go to the peers and ask them their life;
they will tell you their sad life-story, which may easily make you shed
your tears. Go to cabmen, ask their life-story, you may still more
easily be moved to tears with their pathetic stories.
I myself have had some experiences in the last thirteen years in London.
And now I have to write this out. But the readers please kindly remember
I do not mean to be so conceited to be proud of my little experiences;
neither do I grumble, especially before such a wonderful nation like the
Britons, whose perseverance in hardship is simply marvelous. Indeed,
they were my leaders all through my hard life, and I am much indebted to
their encouragement.
My life is as simple and unworthy as my pictures. The matter of fact is,
my publishers demanded me to write down all my experiences, so if only
the readers don’t yawn on my writing, my publishers and I shall be very
grateful.
It was rather a difficult task for me to go on for whole book with my
terribly deformed English, but my English friend has so kindly dragged
me all round to reach the finishing point. If it were a Marathon race I
should not be entitled the prize like Dorando.
I think there are two kinds of life in this world--Safety in Danger, and
Danger in Safety. For instance, a baby in his mother’s arms is
frightened by dogs on the ground. That is danger in safety. A swindler
on a soft and comfortable sofa is safety in danger. My life belonged to
the former.
Analysis of my life.
Discouraged? Very often.
Disappointed? Always.
Spoilt? Very much by John Bulls and John Bullesses.
In short, I have always been mentally pleasant and financially
unpleasant. But I am told by my elder English friends that my financial
unpleasantness was all through my own fault.
When I was a boy at home I was rather spoilt, because my father was very
generous to the villagers. I was called the Hon. little Master of
Markino. Here, in London, I have no reason whatever to be spoilt. Why
are all my English friends so good to me? I must put all this down as
the great generosity of the good Britons.
A Japanese Artist in London
CHAPTER I
MY ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND
It was December 8, 1897, when I arrived here from America, where I had
been some four and a half years. I was quite young, but I was far more
boyish than my own age. First of all I went to Paris, where I wanted to
study Art. But I had neither money nor any knowledge of the French
language. I had only one recommendation letter to some one.
Unfortunately this gentleman had left Paris previously, so I decided to
come to London to see some of my Japanese friends. I took the night
train through Dieppe and New Heaven (Haven). From the very first it
seemed to me to be a New Heaven; I had such a good impression with
England. Those English officers on board the Channel boats had such
gentle faces; they talked to me so kindly. It was a great comfort after
the desperate struggle in Paris, where I was practically dumb and deaf.
When I arrived at New Heaven I had only forty francs in my pocket, and
one small bag which contained three collars, one white shirt, one
necktie, two pairs of socks, a German Bible and Keigan (a Buddhist
Philosophy by Colonel Torio). The custom-house officer was so surprised
when I told him that it was all my possessions.
It was four or five in the morning. I went into a coffee-stall and had a
cup. The man Said it was “thruppence.” I could not understand it. I gave
him ten franc piece, and he gave me the change. I could not, of course,
count it, but after arriving in London my Japanese friend saw the change
and he said it was quite right. The English money is so difficult for
foreigners to calculate. For about half-year or so I always used to give
bigger coin than the price of the things I purchased, and take the
change without examining it. I was never deceived. Only I had to have so
many coppers in my pocket--sometimes over three shillings in coppers!
Now, coming back to my journey. I arrived at London Bridge at seven, and
took another train to Greenwich, where my Japanese artist friend was
staying. I had another recommendation letter to the Japanese Naval
Attaché in London. I saw him immediately. He was only too glad to keep
me as his private secretary, for at the time Japan had ordered from
English shipbuilders warships and some twenty or thirty torpedo boats,
and he was extraordinarily busy. The naval inspector’s office was in
Gloucester Terrace, so I settled myself down at 4 Milner Street in
Chelsea. From ten to six I had to work at the office, then I attended at
South Kensington College of Science and Art at night. My wages at the
office were £5 a month; later on £8, then £9. I learnt afterwards that
all this was from the naval attaché’s own pocket, just to “keep me on
for the sake of art study.” I was quite alone in some boudoir-like room
to work for the attaché. My surprise there on the first day was that the
landlady brought me tea and bread and butter at 4.30. I said to myself,
what a kind lady she is! The next day she brought in the tea again. So
the third day I asked her if that tea was from the attaché or from her,
and why? She said it was the English custom to have afternoon tea. Oh,
what a beautiful custom! It was really a great refreshing for me. I
said, “I quite love England, only for afternoon tea alone.”
At this time I began to stroll on Sunday afternoons. At first I was so
frightened with London fogs. I thought, if I live in such dreadful fog I
will soon become consumptive. So I bought a respirator at a drug store,
and used to wear it whenever I went out. When I visited peoples they
laughed at me because I got a round black mark round my mouth.
Nevertheless I kept it on until some doctor told me the fog was not so
injurious as I thought. (Who knows? This “dreadful fog” has become my
greatest fascination, only a few years later!)
As I had been in America previously for four years, naturally I used to
compare everything here with that of America; and what great contrast
between the two countries--especially to a Japanese! And here I feel I
need to talk about my life in America, just roughly.
I ran away from home to San Francisco on July 1893, with a hope to
become a poet or a writer in English. All my friends there advised me to
become an artist instead, because one cannot master a foreign language.
So I entered into Hopkins’ Art College. Of course I was penniless. I
had to make livelihood by washing windows and dishes, or a little better
thing, making sets of false teeth for some dentists. It was awfully
difficult for me to pay my school tuition, seven dollars a month. I
stayed there for four years, but practically I have not attended the
school more than twelve months altogether. The school used to supply
French breads to the students for the purpose of charcoal drawing. But I
used to live on this bread. I made it as my luncheon every day. (This is
the very first time that I confess the truth. Thank Heaven that the
curator did not find out!)
I was rather amused with my poor life, but by no means did I feel
pleasant with the way those Californians treated me. It is the
world-known fact that they hate Japanese. While I have been there four
years I never went out to the parks, for I was so frightened of those
savage people, who threw stones and bricks at me. Even when I was
walking on the street the showers of pebbles used to fall upon me often.
And I was spat on more occasionally. Of course they were very low-class
peoples, but even better-class peoples had not a very nice manner to
the Japanese. If I got into a tram-car and sat down on an empty seat
beside some ladies, they used to glare at me with such disgusting
expression, and would get up and go away to find out a seat far away
from me.
Once I went into a cable car in Sutter Street. I saw my classmate young
lady opposite me. I took my hat off and greeted her. She turned her face
away. I could not understand why, as she used to be so intimate to me in
the class-room. The next day I went to the school. As soon as she saw me
she began to apologize me, saying it was not her idea at all to insult
me, but she was so frightened that those other occupants of the car
might be indignant with her speaking to a Japanese. Another time I
experienced far worse thing. I went out with my paint-box and canvas to
the beach near Cliff House. No sooner than I started to paint, several
boys came to me. They were all older than myself. They broke my
paint-box. They threw away all colors and brushes into the sea and tore
my canvas. Then they fled away. I was such a helpless boy I could do
nothing but weep on the spot for hours. I was so sad, because it took
me three or four months working very hard to buy those materials.
Such was my life in America. But I had not so bad a feeling then as I
should surely have if it happened now! Because America was the first
foreign country I ever visited in my life, so I thought, if we Japanese
go out anywhere we shall be treated like that, as an inferior race.
After such experiences I was naturally surprised with the cosmopolitan
ideas of the Londoners.
I started my first sightseeing from Hyde Park and the Green Park and St.
James’s Park. I could not understand all those iron railings. I thought
they were to divide private grounds from the public ones. But I saw many
people on both sides. I so timidly walked inside the rail. Nobody
shouted me. Then I went near the crowds of people with still more fear.
Being quite ignorant of the English civilization I anticipated some
pebble-showers every minute. I waited and waited with beating heart, but
nothing happened to me at all. I walked into the crowds who were feeding
birds in the lake of St. James’s Park. Nobody spat on me! I ventured
myself into the thickest crowds, and I was squeezed between the peoples.
Nobody took any notice of me. “Hallo, hallo, what’s matter?” I said in
my heart. “Perhaps they don’t know I am a Japanese.” I took off my hat
on purpose to show my black hair. Finally one man pushed me quite
accidentally, and he touched his hand to his hat and apologized me very
politely. I realized at last that I was in the country where I could
enjoy my liberty quite freely. Fancy polite apology instead of swearing
and spitting! I felt as if I had come to a paradise in this world, and I
was quite melted with comfort.
Perhaps nobody could ever imagine my most grateful feeling at this
moment, except those of my fellow-country friends who were in California
once. Even now, after some thirteen years’ stay in London, I often have
nightmares of California, and wake up in midnight and wonder where I
really am. When I realize that I am in London I feel so happy.
In the streets first thing I noticed was so many silk hats. Then those
peoples who were walking seemed to me so gentle, and with very dignified
manners. Indeed, in California you cannot walk one block without
hearing swearings. Here you hear apologizing words instead.
On the bus I often sat down by the side of English lady. When other
peoples got off there were many empty seats, but she would not bother
herself to remove. In fact, it would give me more comfortable seat to be
alone, but the idea of English ladies not bothering to move was far
greater comfort for me.
At this time I went to a little newspaper shop to buy a box of
cigarettes. The shopkeeper treated me quite same way with his
countrymen. I asked him if he has seen Japanese before. He said “No.”
Then I asked him again if he was not curious of me? He said, “No, sir.
You see, sir, we ’ave our colonies all _hover_ the world, sir--white
men, yellow men, brown men and black men are forming parts of the
British nations, so I am not curious of a Japanese gentleman at all.”
What a broad mind he had! He was only a little shopkeeper, but he was
worthy of being called one of the most civilized of the nations. I made
a friendship with him at once, and I told him how I was treated in
California. He said, “Thut ain’t fair, sir! Indeed, thut ain’t fair!”
How sweet this word was to me! I carried this sweet “thut ain’t fair” in
my head, and slept with it all night so comfortably.
As I lived in Chelsea I used to have walk on the Chelsea Embankment. It
was my favorite place; so it is now too. One afternoon I made a longer
promenade along the embankment to Westminster. On the way, I saw a large
stone building in a peculiar shape, the Britannia on the top of the
roof. It had no window. It stood dead silent like a ghost in the evening
mist. I thought it must be a mausoleum of some ancient kings. But my
landlady told me that it must be the Tate Gallery. “You ought to go in
there one day, there are beautiful pictures; it is just the place you
ought to go to.”
Westminster Abbey was a great revelation to me. While I was a schoolboy
in Japan, I learnt all the history of the Abbey; then Washington Irving
described it so vividly in his “Sketch Book,” which was my most favorite
book. Generally travelers are disappointed with sightseeing if they
trust books
[Illustration: CHELSEA EMBANKMENT.]
too much. But Westminster to me was the reverse. I not only realized
every word that Irving said, but I found the Abbey more solemn, more
dignified, and more sacred than I was imagining. Those numerous white
marble statues of the great statesmen are in just the right place. They
seem to tell me all that they have done. I feel myself so small and so
humble before them. And those chapels and chantries of Henry VII. are
something like a dream of the past history. Even now if I go there I
forget all my worldly care.
To my Japanese eyes the building looks far older than its history tells.
In Japan stones almost two thousand years old are not worn out like
this. Perhaps it is through the English climate. But surely everything
English doesn’t always look older? For instance, look at the English
women. First of all, Her Majesty the Queen looks so young. I cannot
believe her age. Some Japanese naval officer attended a levée. He told
me he had the honor to speak to Her Majesty while she was Princess of
Wales. He was quite near to her, and he had the same idea with me--it
was impossible to believe her age. I know several English ladies who
look like their daughter’s sisters. It is true what I heard in Japan.
“English women are flowers all their life.” I wonder is that through the
climate too? My logic seems rather poor in this instance.
I have quite forgotten to tell my most important thing--my art-study at
South Kensington. There I studied casts with charcoal until March of the
next year, 1898, and during this time I used to go to Greenwich every
Sunday to see my Japanese friend. He was studying the designs at
Goldsmith Institute in New Cross. I envied him so much. He had plenty of
friends at the Institute, and such a homely life at his diggings. He
told me English peoples never become friends without introduction. If I
only decided to attend the night class of Goldsmith Institute he would
introduce me to all his English friends. Then his landlady, too,
persuaded me to come to live with them. I was only too delighted. I came
back to my place in Milner Street and told the landlady I was going to
remove on the same day. She was so astonished, and explained me it was
the English custom to give one week’s notice. Here I learnt another
lesson of English life. I felt myself a savage, and was ashamed so much.
But I could not control myself for a long week to wait, so I gave a full
week payment to her and said, “All the same, I shall go.” She would not
accept that. She said, “Give me only half of that, as you did not know
our custom”; and she told me with moisted eyes that she would miss me
very much. In fact, I had quite comfortable life there. She had taken
care of me very kindly. It was my pleasure every night when I came back
from the school to see my window lit up with the firelight inside, and
to find a hot bottle in my bed. I was quite sad when I shook her hand
for good-bye.
But when I arrived at Mazehill Station I forgot everything, and was so
excited about my new home. Everybody was surprised when I arrived at the
house. They never thought I would come so soon. My bed was not even
ready yet. When I told them what I had done they were all very angry
with my rashness, especially because I was so poor--£5 a month!