Chapter IX: Part 9

=December 20.=--Writing all the early part of the day, but went along to tea with the D----’s and met Ambassador O----. We had a cosy time; in the course of conversation the Ambassador told me to listen,--and then said that it was not necessarily the _cleverest_ people who made the most mark in the world, but the people who wrote what they knew, who gave to the world of their knowledge, instead of letting it die with them, as so many of the truly great have done. The D----’s house is peculiarly charming--it is not, of course, a “salon” in any sense of the word, but more there than anywhere I know people really converse and sometimes say things that the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table might pop straight into his book. Though what they actually are I cannot record, the after effect is much the same as reading a chapter of a light, well-written book.

And the rooms too are so pretty, a charming mixture of Japanese and Western daintiness, like a black-eyed rosy-cheeked Eurasian, who sparkles with the beauty of both the parent countries.

=December 21.=--I worked hard all day. Professor _F----_ is back and we got quite a lot done. In the evening I went to some pretty tableau from _Pride and Prejudice_, arranged by a number of people I know, and at 10 went into the Opera House, where I met a party of friends. This Opera House merits a word of description. As in the newspaper it said--“For the first time we in Tokio can sit in a foreign theatre, listen to a foreign orchestra, and see a foreign play played by foreigners all at one time.” The theatre, or Opera House, built partly on the Vienna model, was opened only a few days ago, and is now playing _Dorothy_, by amateurs, but many of them have professional talent and training. The white-and-gilt interior, the brilliant lights without, and the real “home” effect of the piece were delightful after all these months without the possibility of anything of the sort. To permanent residents here it will be a very great boon, and is already patronised by all the Legations and many of the best Japanese. Outside were panting motors, and--I discovered that the smell of petrol is delightful in its reminder of home!

=December 23.=--I learn that last evening the D----’s house was burnt to the ground! That pretty house I liked so much! I am indeed grieved. The danger of the houses, which are all wood, is very great here. I have been in Japan about eighteen months, and in that time the Naval Attachés of both the British and American Embassies have been utterly burnt out. If a Japanese house goes, only one or two of the curios which are in use will be destroyed, the rest are safe in a “go-down,” but in a foreign house all the curios are about and in use, and a fire sweeps the whole away. How extravagant we foreigners are!

=December 24.=--I went up to the University intending to have a day’s quiet work--but at 9.30 Mrs. _M----_ (one of the family who gave the gas-engine) brought her sons to see the fossils being cut. Not much was done before lunch, when Dr. _Mk----_ was there. Soon after that the Dean came, and made a delightful stay, and we had just finished tea with him when the President, Baron _H----_, came and wanted to see some fossils, so we showed him some of the prettier ones under the microscope. I am glad he came and really saw the things. So that, after all, the Christmas eve I had expected to work through became a series of “parties” all the time, and I enjoyed it more than I had expected to, though I worked less.

=December 26.=--I got to the University at 9.30, though this same morn I crept into bed at 1 A.M. Work did not seem very exciting, but it was soon laid on one side, for the Dean came again. This time in an official capacity, bearing a huge box tied up nicely. This he solemnly opened up, and we found another box inside tied with broad green silk cord, which when opened revealed cotton-wool and yellow wrappings, which when removed gave place to squares of heavy rich white silk brocade, which were wrapped round the most wonderful blue-grey silver cloisonné vases--not the ordinary, but the special, new, rare and precious kind, made with very few silver wires, so that the colours melt into each other, and it looks like Markazu or Copenhagen porcelain. Far more than half are marred in the manufacture, so that a perfect pair are gems. These two of mine (for now I am the proud owner of them) are as beautiful as can be, on little carved ebony stands. Only far too beautiful for me. They are an official present from the University, in “recognition of the stimulus I have been to botany in Japan!”

I went round to call on Baron _H----_ (the President) on my way back home, to say my few halting words of thanks--but what can one say on such occasions, when, moreover, the present should come _from_ me, who have accepted their hospitality so long? But they, out of their goodness of heart or courtesy, reverse everything, and profess to be indebted to me! I cannot cope with it at all.

=December 27.=--Time is now so precious, and the College will be shut for the New Year very soon, so I went to the laboratory to-day and worked till nearly 4 o’clock. A miserable wet day, with the streets ankle deep in slush. The pines and bamboos of the New Year are beginning to appear before the doors, and at the corners are stalls which sell the knotted rope festoons which every house will have over its gate. But the weather has a depressing effect to-day, and lanterns and gay street stalls are few and far between.

=December 28.=--A bright sunny day, but the roads are just unspeakable. My bicycle got quite blocked up a dozen times, so that the space between the mud-guard and the tyre was filled tight from top to bottom.

Hard at work at the Institute all day, for this is the last day before we are locked out for the New Year’s holiday.

=December 29.=--The Institute was quite locked up to-day, not even the attendant coming, but as we are so hard pressed I got permission to go and the garden porter unlocked the door for me, and let me into the cold echoing building. I was dripping wet and very cross at coming in the rain, no one who could possibly arrange otherwise would ever go out in the rain in Tokio. The old man brought me a little fire of charcoal, which started the stove, and then left me all alone in the place, where the only sound was the rain dripping and the scratching of an occasional rat, which made me think robbers had come to the place when the whole responsibility lay on me. After an hour I heard soft stealthy footsteps, and stood prepared to pounce on the unlawful intruder--when there was a knock at the door and in walked the Dean. He came nominally about the farewell party the University Union is getting up for me, but I expect it was also semi-official, as to have the place open was rather an anxiety, I fear. His stealthiness was the result of the rain, for he came in rubbers!

Later on Professor _F----_ came, and we got on well with the work, because there were none of the usual disturbing demands of the other workers in the Institute. On the way home it was forced in upon me that life was not worth living in Tokio when it rained.

=December 30.=--At work again in the locked Institute, but the sun shone and we were consequently more cheerful.

=December 31.=--As it is the day before the New Year, Professor _F----_ is too busy to work, so I brought home my microscope and some fossils to do here, and had a nice quiet day at home. The days before the New Year are the busiest of the whole three hundred and sixty-five for every Japanese. In the evening Flora and I went down to the _Ginza_ to see the big _Matsuri_ and buy what took our fancy, provided our purses were large enough. This _Ginza Matsuri_ is one of the features of Tokio this time of the year, and is particularly attractive on the last night of the year. The pavements on both sides of the streets are thronged with people, and lined with mats on the kerb, covered with curios and oddments and modern articles of all kinds. The pavement spaces are marked off and numbered, and let out by the police long before. As every one _must_ pay all his debts by the end of the year, lots of curios go cheaper then than at any other time--though great bargains are not to be had in Tokio any more, too many foreigners have visited it. It was entertaining to watch the crowds, and lots of the curios were very nice. Gold screens I should love--but their size would make them terrible to pack for the journey. Fortunately the rain held off to-night, else many a poor person would suffer for his debts!

=January 1, 1909.=--A bright sunny day for the New Year. This year I did not enter at all into the national customs, but went for a walk with Flora to see her school, the Convent of which, I think, I have spoken before. The new grounds they now have are very extensive and beautiful--how delicious the reality of country one can get in Tokio! It is possible in their garden to feel miles from any habitation and in the midst of woodland. When we returned I found I had missed an event--a visit from the Dean in his Court uniform, cocked-feathered hat, gold lace, sword and all. He had much impressed my maid,--alas, that I should have missed the great sight of a University Professor in the panoply of state! All the higher Government officials must go to the palace (unless ill) and pay their respects to the Emperor on the morning of the New Year, after which they make a tour of calls on each other. In the evening I dined with the _F----s_; we were a merry party and danced till late.

=January 5.=--A national holiday, so work was once more impossible; instead, we went down to see the sea at Enoshima. I had great hopes that the cone of Fuji mountain would show above the coast over the water. It is one of the loveliest views of Fuji, and I have never yet seen it. The day was fine, but not clear enough for that, however. Enoshima island, reached by the long bridge from the sandy shore, has often been described, so there is no need to reiterate its beauties.

It was a solemnly lovely day--not a glowing one, and the line of black foreground on the opposite coast, overtopped by fainter and fainter jagged ridges of hills, had the beauty of an old Japanese master. Alas, that the jewel of it all, Mount Fuji, was not to be seen. In all the eighteen months here I have never yet seen the cone above the coast hills from the sea, which is the most lovely view of all, they say, and this is my last chance. After buying a few strings of shells from the countless stores on the little island, and watching a naked brown man dive into the deep waves and come up with a living fish in his hand, which he presented to me, and doing all the other things essential to be done in Enoshima, we returned to the mainland, and as we had half an hour to wait I insisted on going up an attractive-looking hill. It was a Temple hill, with beauty and solitude for its crown, and such a view as I shall never forget of rocky coast and grey villages, of the sea with its jewel islands, and of the wave-like crested hills, a grey and black and purple view, with a dull green foreground and an atmosphere of mystery. Tokio! most favoured city, to have such a coast so very near. What we miss in London!

=January 6–8.=--Working hard, morning, noon, and night, with packing of fossils and books, and household goods thrown in.

=January 9.=--At work all day at the Institute; in the late afternoon a call at the Embassy about the official thanks to the Japanese, then on to Miss C---- about the next Debate, and, finally, a scamper to dress for dinner at Mrs. W----’s. When dressed it was too late to do anything but cycle there, but half-way on my road it began to snow! We had a very jolly dinner, and I felt increasingly affectionate towards Tokio, the people were all so kind. The snow had stopped, so I cycled back, though it lay thick on the ground, and it came on again before I got home, but a chiffon scarf protects one wonderfully from snow, and it was so pretty riding through it, instead of being cooped up in a _kuruma_, with danger of the men falling and breaking one’s neck. _Kurumas_ aren’t at all safe in snowy weather, and are bitterly cold.

=January 10.=--The snow must have fallen nearly all the night, for it lay deep this morning. Soon after 10 it became bright and clear, and I set off to see the temples in Shiba Park. Very few people were about, and in the park just a stray poet or two and a photographer. I climbed one of the hills in it, and before me lay the sea, beneath the snow-clad trees and temple roofs. I turned, and scarlet through the festoons of gleaming white glowed the fretwork of a pagoda. Up and down little hills I wandered, the great trees standing free as in a forest, and the ground, as in a forest, trellised with big roots. The snow hid the low bamboos and gave the whole hilly landscape such a look that one needed no imagination to fancy oneself in a distant mountain forest, till the curved roof and crimson sides of a temple showed between the trees. In absolute solitude I walked, on untrodden snow, with no sight or sound of man--round me the musical clouds of snow that fell as the wind swayed the boughs of the tall cryptomerias above my head. And this is the heart of a capital city, Tokio, queen of cities. The long line of stone lanterns, the crimson bridge, the temples and trees, as well as the forest beauty, were rendered indescribably lovely by this snow. A friend was to have come with me to see the temples, and the snow prevented him--poor foolish man! But I am glad I was there alone.

=January 11.=--A brilliant, clear day. I was at work all the morning. In the afternoon was the party at the Nobles Club, given as a farewell for me by the London University Union. Quite a lot of people came, and I was transfixed in the middle of it all by a presentation from Baron _K----_, in the name of the Union, of three lovely gold lacquer boxes. Gold lacquer! A thing I have longed to possess, and a gift as well as a party from the dear Union, which I never dreamed would notice my departure.

It was not a little overwhelming, and I had to make a speech of thanks, and bungled it, of course.

Most of the fifty or so people who came to the party were my friends, guests of the Union, and one of them, as she said “Good-bye,” said to me also “Thank you.” I answered, of course, “Oh, you mustn’t thank _me_, I did not give the party.” “Well, then,” she said hurriedly, “thank you for going away.” My raised eyebrows and appealing eyes perhaps made her add, as she did going out of the door, “so that we can have a party.” She was not a humorist, but one of those dear, solemn people who take life seriously.

This party and the beautiful gift has touched me deeply; all the members of the Union contributed, English and Japanese alike.

=January 14.=--The last lunch at the Goten, I expect, for next week will certainly be busy. These Faculty lunches have certainly been very pleasant, and I am sorry they are coming to an end, like many another thing in this country for me. More P.P.C. calls in the afternoon. As I returned in the dark I met more than one man running with tinkling bell, clad in only a white cotton kimono. I have noticed several such quaint folk lately, and Professor _F----_ told me that in the coldest season a number of people will do this. It is a kind of remnant of the old “hardening” processes of Bushido, when children were sent barefoot and hungry across the snow, or sent supper-less to bed. None of those I saw running looked very robust, and I wondered whether such spasmodic hardening as a run on a cold winter’s night, practically naked, might not defeat its own ends. It looks on the face of it as though daily hardening might be more effective, in which case these same youths could discard the thick woollen mufflers they wear over mouths and ears and noses as they go out in the sunny streets.

=January 17.=--At 1 o’clock I sallied forth with a long calling list. Fortunately, one can call early on Japanese ladies. Baron and Baroness _H----_ were both in, and very gracious. It is difficult to say “good-bye.”

There were several other short calls, and then my last visit to the _S----s’_ pretty house, from which I saw the beautiful garden for the last time.

Afterwards I went to see the grey lady, Mrs. _N----_. Four-year-old Brownie remembered me and welcomed me in, doing the honours of the house and showing me all his toys. The grey lady is revealing herself a little--I am sorry I must go, and so will not see her again; people who really interest one are not too many on this earth. She started life as a scientist, but found chemistry so easy that it was no mental discipline, so she took to history, where dates have no reasons and are therefore hard to remember, but here, too, she came out top of the classes. She lies behind the poetry of that Japanese poet who wrote in English, and was so praised by Rossetti, the _N----_ of American fame, if I am not much mistaken, though she does not tell one so consciously.

=January 18.=--A long day at the Institute working and packing, and then to the _M----s’_ to dinner. The house is being re-done up, and some of the rooms are now very charming. Mr. _M----_, Mrs. _M----_, Mrs. _H----_, and several others were there, and the dinner was pleasant, but afterwards the treat came. When we went into the drawing-room I noticed a tray with lots and lots of white vases and cups and plates, and wondered what they were for. They told us almost at once. They had a great porcelain-maker there, and on the stone verandah were set up the furnaces and ovens and attendants, and we were to paint the porcelain, and it would be baked and glazed and finished before our eyes that evening! What it is to be a millionaire, and how much more to be one who could devise such charming pleasures. We all set to work gaily, the sons and little girl came in, and we had a very merry time. The quality of our painting doubtless left something to be desired, but we did not think of that till after, and really some of them were pretty, even the next day. The baking was the great excitement. The little furnaces were surrounded by glowing charcoal, fanned by the white-clad potters till a cloud of sparks rose over the fiery clay. We were half shut in in the verandah, but could see between the fires the snowy garden. The heat was so great that we rushed in and out of the drawing-room with no thought of cold, and multiplied our pots and vases rapidly. The time flew too swiftly, and I had to leave many still to be baked and to be seen to-morrow. This, too, was a farewell party for me, and the kindness and grace of my hostess made it a very pleasant one.

=January 19.=--Called at 9.30 at the _M----s’_, just to see the exhibition of our last night’s pottery-making, and found a big show, only one piece having been broken in the baking, which seems very good for furnaces erected in a private house. I had to hurry away to the Institute, for every moment is now urgently needed for my scientific work, and, fortunately, got on pretty well with it to-day.

=January 22.= A busy day--calls on the way home and a dinner at the P----s’, where I am now going to stop the two nights till I leave, as my house must get packed up and sold up. Professor _S----_ came to dinner, and the F----s. Professor P---- has only been back a few days from London by Siberia, and had home news. After the guests left at 11.30 I went over to my house, took off my evening frock, and prepared for a night’s work. There was no help for it--packing, letters, P.P.C. cards, and a hundred things had to be done, and still there was work at the Institute. The night flew by, with cocoa and cake at 3.30, and after breakfast I went to the Institute to finish up things there. A few calls had to be paid on the way back, so much kindness from so many friends necessitates calling. After dinner I was approaching insanity over the folly of the men who were padlocking my trunks.

=January 24.=--The P----s were very good, and let me wake them up at 6.30; then there were a few little things to do, a look round mine own little house, all empty and forlorn, and we set off for the station.

As I left at 8.20 on Sunday morning I never expected any one to see me off, except perhaps one or two special friends, but there was quite a big crowd of kindly folk, the _M----s_ with lovely flowers from their greenhouse, and all with good wishes. Why I didn’t break down and howl on the platform I don’t know. Professor _S----_, Professor _F----_, Dr. _M----_, Dr. _H----_, and my maid came to Yokohama to the boat with me, where they cheered me till it started by photographing the party in groups and writing picture post cards, and walking round the deck with me one at a time in friendly converse.

Then, just before we sailed, I saw a gleam of what looked like Fuji mountain. Was she going to forget her cruelty and coyness and show herself to me over the water at last, at the latest possible moment? But the clouds closed again, the tender took my last friends from me, the ladder was up, and we steamed away as the bell sounded for lunch. Then after it I went on deck, and before me lay a wonderful panorama, near rocky coast, pine-crested, then beyond a dark line of more distant woods and bays, and in the midst, perfect, peerless, cloudless, the cone of the snow-white Fuji mountain!

I gazed and gazed for an hour at the changing view of ever lovely coast and ever lovely mountain!

Round the mountain top light clouds collected and dispersed like flying veils; one rose from the crater and dissolved like a puff of smoke, some circled the base and shut off the crown from the black fringing trees below.

So, as I left Japan, her greatest beauty showed herself to me.

CONCLUSION

Innumerable times have I made believe to answer the question, “How do you like the Japanese?” or the even more impossible one, “What do you think of the Japanese?” Questions generally put by new acquaintances directly after introduction, in crowded drawing-rooms, where we were liable to be torn apart at any moment, and the qualifying clauses which would have followed a preliminary statement to be separated eternally from their principals, which cut but a poor figure without them. I soon found that in common justice I must avoid answering that query. Yet now, at the conclusion of this journal, when there is no escape, the question presents itself once more. A complete answer even here is impossible. Those who have read the foregoing pages will have already the key to much of the answer. But often they were smaller and more subtle things than could be recorded in this journal that built up the real impressions of the country.

Judging from the books on the subject, and the questions which I have been asked since my return, it seems fairly safe to say that nearly everything which is commonly held in England to be “Japanese,” and typical of that country, is not so. The number of horrible “export articles” which have been shown to me as “real Japanese,” or are said to have been brought back from Japan by some relative who had visited it, show that there is not a very wide knowledge of the true domestic culture of that country here. There is a phrase which seems to hover over every conversation on Japan, which should be included in the Book of Bromidioms. It is, “Of course everything in Japan is so artistic!” It sometimes appears in the alternative form, “The Japanese are a nation of artists!” As a result, everything which is guaranteed as coming from Japan is accepted as artistic by most people, and one finds otherwise cultured ladies serving their tea in the most unutterable crockery, which was made in Japan according to the Japanese merchant’s idea of what European (barbaric) taste must be, in defiance of every law of beauty both in Japan and here.

The Japanese are no longer a nation of artists. They cannot afford to be. In the security of their long peace, and when they were shut out from competition with the rest of the world, they evolved for every detail of daily life, and not only for their churches and palaces, formulae by which every workman could construct intrinsically beautiful things. These formulae, where they are undisturbed to-day, still make of the common workman an artist, in so far that he creates a beautiful thing, even if it be only a farthing piece of pottery. But alas, Western influence has in many places disturbed or broken these old traditions, and the craftsman is then like a mariner at sea without a compass. Apart from their own traditions, there is in the great majority of Japanese practically no artistic instinct. As a wise Japanese man once said to me, after deploring the lack of artistic feeling in his countrymen, perhaps it will reappear in another generation. The present one has had to use all its energies and thought for national defence. Commerce, Diplomacy, Education, Scientific Research, all, as well as war, he included in national defence. In these years of stress, Art, being of little account in the Western civilisation which they were trying to assimilate, had to stand aside. Where the progress in a new direction has not disturbed her courts, she is still served as she was served before the revolution, often best in the simple things of life, which in England have not yet been reached by an all-pervading genius, such as penetrated everywhere in the Japan of long ago.

Another of the myths common in this country about Japan is that her people are all brilliantly, almost diabolically, clever. This, I think, is very far from being even a semblance of the truth. With very few exceptions, individual men and women among the Japanese are capable of very much less mental activity in a day than a corresponding English man or woman. An educated Englishman has his hobby, often more or less intellectual, to come to when the day’s work is done. He reads, as a matter of course, a number of books and reviews on all sorts of subjects, and he spends a good many hours per week in social life of various kinds. Because he goes to the theatre one evening or takes his wife to a concert, it does not mean that he requires to come two hours late to work the following day, or that he thinks it an excuse for absenting himself all morning from business. A dinner with a dozen friends in the evening may often precede several hours’ writing late at night, in the life of an English Professor. But the average Japanese intellectual man could not do this at all, or could not do it often. An individual Japanese may make as good a show in his profession as the Englishman, but he is generally economising every possible expenditure of brain force outside this profession, and will enjoy less social life in a month than the average working (not social) Englishman indulges in in a week. It seemed to me to be characteristic of the average Japanese to be only able to hold the reins of one set of thoughts at once. I shall never forget the astonishment with which I listened to a Professor who explained that the reason that he came two hours after the time he should have given his University lecture was that his child had been naughty that morning and required correction, and that it took thought and time to accomplish it. It is difficult to give concrete examples, but on many occasions I have watched one thought ousting another in a Japanese mind which in an Englishman’s would have developed together. This gives an impression of what often appears very like stupidity in a Japanese, outside the range of the one thing that he has in hand, and sometimes even within it. But this does not affect the general position of the nation as a whole when it sets itself to any task, let us say the conquering of the Russians in a war. In Government Departments each man has his special duty, and can concentrate entirely on that. The man above him has to correlate that with the rest, and so on to the top of the service, where the places are generally filled (certainly in the University, a Government Department) by brilliant men, who have what I feel inclined to call the English capacity for controlling a number of things at once. Most of the men at the top have been in the West, and even without that additional training they form exceptions to the rule which the others seem to exemplify. The nation as a whole then, composed of individuals who are rather stupid, led by brilliant men, and worked with a splendid system of organisation, assisted by the old feudal spirit not yet dead, presents to the world as good or better a front than one in which the individuals are each more independently developed.

Even in merely manual labour, the Japanese in Japan do not seem to do so much as workmen do at home. A Japanese coal mine has in its pay nearly one-half as many workers again as an English mine with the same output. The climate has much to do with this, and the national customs. The climate, although beautiful and sunny nearly all the year round, has a subtle lethargic effect, so that even the Englishman in Japan does less than he could do in England. Generations of this insidious influence have undoubtedly affected the Japanese; the children playing so quietly with none of the obstreperousness of vigorous youth are an index of its power.

A question that few of my drawing-room acquaintances spare me is one on the religious condition of the Japanese. This is generally so worded that it is clear that the interrogator is already certain that they are devoid of religious feeling, but that he trusts the West is doing something for the stimulation of their souls. Again I must disagree with the popular impression in this country. There is no land in which I have been where there seemed to be a more universal religious feeling, none in which the religion formed more an integral part of daily life. The religious temperament is strongly developed in the majority of Japanese. But the religious temperament is not to be confounded with any particular religion. It is indeed often most strongly developed in those who appear to have no religion, perhaps because the very strength of their religious instincts debars them from being satisfied with the formulated religion of their time. In little-educated people too that instinct often finds expression in superstitions, or in the popular forms of religions which have a pantheon of gods or saints. Thus is it in Japan. Their feeling for religion is gratified constantly throughout every day, not kept apart for the Sabbath, as it is here. It is true that the religious ideas of the mass of the people are neither very clear nor very high, but they are a very real part of their daily life. In the country in England one may go many miles without seeing a church, and we do not have wayside shrines, but in Japan there is some shrine or temple at every turn, in nearly every house, even in most hotels. And these shrines are not deserted, they are tended daily by the passers-by as well as by the dwellers in the immediate neighbourhood. In the main streets of Tokio, the streets where the West has penetrated, even there I have seen little shrines, perhaps like dolls’ houses, only a couple of feet high, reverently tended by passing labourers, or coolies who set down a long pole with its swinging burdens to present some little offering to the spirit of the shrine. It may be that all they have to offer are the worn sandals which they take off their feet, or a wisp of straw.

It is curious to notice how largely straw enters into the place of religious offerings. Straw ropes hang before the temple gates, or single straws depending from a line make a decorative fringe; old straw sandals, or new and monstrous sandals specially made for the purpose, are offered in piles to a small shrine. This offering of straw is symbolic in a land where so many things are made of it. The matting and nearly all the comforts of the house are made of straw, the sandals and rain coats, the labourer’s hats,--in the very poor places even the walls as well as the thatch of his house are all made of straw. Those who are too poor to give the ears of the rice except on special occasions, can yet afford a wisp of rice-straw for many a shrine, and rice is naturally symbolic of all their material welfare. It is not only in the peasant that this close daily touch of religion may be found. Driven back to the secret places of the house, and not spoken of to foreigners, is yet the shrine, kept with its daily ministration, in homes where one would least expect to find it. I asked an “atheist” scientific professor once what he would do if the woman whom he loved should die. He told me that he would engrave her name on the tablet in his shrine, before which was a prayer made every day. The religious instinct is a far greater thing than any formulated religion, and though missionaries may continue to tell the world that the Japanese are naturally irreligious, that will not prevent the Japanese from being deeply religious--until they have assimilated the Western attitude to religion, as they are doing toward other things. Perhaps one reason that the missionary finds the Japanese irreligious is that they take religion so happily, and make of it so much a part of their daily life, laughing in the temples, playing round the temple grounds, lighting the light of their little shrines in their homes when their household lamps are lit. One of the commonest sights in Japan is a band of peasant pilgrims on their way to some shrine, and it is the ambition of innumerable poor folk, who could never afford ordinary travel and holidays, to visit every temple of importance in the country. How many English common folk since the days of the Canterbury Pilgrims would travel on foot for a hundred miles to lay a wisp of straw on a shrine? Because the Japanese are not (and I think never will be in our sense of the word) Christians there is no excuse for our concluding that they are not religious.

Only of one thing more will I now speak. Sometimes carelessly, sometimes sadly, it has often been said that there can be no true understanding, no deep friendship between the East and the West. Even Lafcadio Hearn is quoted as an instance of the disappointment that must await the foreigner who tries to get to the heart of a Japanese. And Lafcadio Hearn, as is now being recognised, has shown us more truly and more beautifully than any other writer the inner life of Japan. He tells us, it is true, that in the end he found that it was only with the children that we could reach a real and close understanding and love, that as they grew up to men and women they receded farther and farther from one, till a great wall was built between them, and the lovable and loving child had become a friend who had lost the key of sympathy. This is perhaps true in most cases, but we must not forget that with his genius for suggestive and true description, and for poetical rendering of the things around him, Hearn seems to have had also a perfect genius for destroying individual friendships. Evidence of this is found cropping up in many places in Japan, where he shattered his friendships with English and Japanese alike; and it is already made clear in his Letters. One of the tests of friendship is time, and only at the end of a lifetime can one say just which men and women had been one’s real friends, but circumstance is almost as good a test as time, and that may give its stamp to a relationship very swiftly. Some Japanese--perhaps, nay certainly, they are exceptional natures--have a genius for friendship. There is in them a sweetness and delicacy, a sensitive comprehension of moods, a depth of feeling and a beauty of feeling which only the exceptional Westerner could match. The almost inhuman coldness which is so often attributed to the Japanese is not at all truly characteristic of them. Their reserve appears to us to be reserve only because we do not know how to read the signs of their expression, and because many careless Europeans before us may have trampled on holy ground. The apparently immobile face is immobile only because we ourselves are not alive to its subtle changes. When you know a Japanese face it is as eloquent as that of a sensitive English girl. And the moods and feelings it mirrors are not alien to ours. Some of the thoughts and some of the conclusions from the same premises may be different from ours, but they are not the essentials in friendship. The coldness and the insincerity of the Japanese are qualities which we have largely invented for them to save us the trouble of learning their truths, and of cultivating the power to read their subtle expressions. Nor are they always difficult to read if we have the privilege of friendship. In the “changeless eyes” of the Japanese I have seen fire and mist, radiance and storm. I have seen men’s tears welling up from the sweetness beneath to veil the eyes that looked on sorrowful things, or things so beautiful as to be a pain--as is Mount Fuji in an opal morning. In the hearts of some Japanese I have found friendship, tested by circumstance, true, and generous, and sweet. Those from the West who cannot find it also need not lay all the blame on the Japanese.

INDEX

Admiralty gardens, 147

Agricultural University at Sapporo, 25;
at Tokio, 174

Aino, village at Shiroi, 25;
in the forest, 27;
language, 27

Akabane, country round, 102

Alpine garden, at Nikko, 62

Amakusa, island of, 50;
arrival at, 53;
mines at, 54;
difficulties of transit in, 56

American Fleet, in Japan, 226, 227

Anthropological Department of University, 242

Ants, discovery of curious habits of, 213

Aomori, 11, 28

Art in modern Japan, 266

Azaleas, at Okabu, 149

Balsam, troubles through, 93;
bubbles in, 210

Bamboo, beauty of, 10;
loved by Hearn, 249

_Basha_ (native carriage), delights of, 125, 126

Bell insect, 184

Bethell trial, 181

Boshu, walking tour in, 122 _et seq._

Botanical festival at the shrine of Inari, 114

Botanical Gardens in Tokio, first impression of, 3;
tea-parties in, 5, 120;
branch of, at Nikko, 62

Botanical Institute in Tokio, first impression of, 3;
work in laboratory, 31 (and constant references after)

Botanical Institute of Agricultural University, 174

Camping in the virgin forests, 16, 17

Capacity of the Japanese, 267

Cherry flowers, blooming through the snow, 134;
beauty of, in Tokio, 139;
double blooms, 142

Cherry garden party at the palace, 144

Chikura, 123

Children’s stalls at holiday fair, 186

Chinese writing, value of, 59

Chōnan, 131

Chrysanthemums, popular exhibits of, 66;
Imperial exhibition of, 68

Chuzenji, autumn colouring at, 62

Coal mines at Ōyubari, 15, 17;
Ikushimbets, 20;
Jito, 42;
Omine, 47;
Habu, 47;
Nariwa, 48;
Namazuta, 49;
Miike, 50;
Amakusa, 50, 54;
Takashima, 57

Costumes, old Japanese style, 117

Crowds, smells of, 194

_Cryptomeria_, splendid avenues of, 61, 195;
cones of, 210;
seedlings of, 224

Cutting-machine, for fossils, 63, 82, 91, 102;
testing disks for, 89

Cycads, expeditions to collect, 168, 205;
ancient and branched specimens of, 170;
at Yokohama, 191

Cycling, in Tokio, 153, 165, 225;
in country, 201, 206;
through floods, 206

Dancing, street, 180

Debating Society, started in Tokio, 158, 175, 228

Debts, all to be paid by New Year, 255

Dinners, advantage of uniform menus for, 88

Disease in Tokio, 98

Dolls’ Festival, preparation for, 106;
food for, 110;
arrangements for, 110, 111

Dwarf as luggage carrier, 195, 196

Earthquake, the first experience of, 33;
small shocks of, 79

Emperor, garden-parties given by, 68, 144;
present to all officials from, 229

English language used by Japanese professors to lecture to other
Asiatics, 175

Enoshima, 8, 256

European artists, Japanese views on, 91

European entertainments given by Japanese, elaboration of, 120

_Feruské_, Japanese wrapping, value of, in removals, 136;
use when carrying plants, 150

Fishing, use of dynamite for, 17

Floods, in Tokio, 187, 221;
in the country, 206

Foreign influence in Yokohama, 192

Fossil plants, 16 _et seq._;
insects, 201

Fox, apparition of? 217

Friendship with Japanese, 273

Frog, changing colour of, 185

Fruit, only obtainable in season, 97

Fuji mountain, 7 (and constant reference all through);
last view of, 264

Fukuoka, 50

Furnishing in Japanese house, 118, 137

Furs worn by Japanese men, 104

Garden, watering stones in, 64;
beauty of, in November, 67;
Imperial palace, 68, 145;
arrangements for winter in, 83;
old garden of the Admiralty, 147;
Japanese party in, 232.
_See also_ Botanical Gardens

_Ginkgo_, swimming out of spermatozoids of, 31, 218;
exhibited to Dr. Koch, 176

_Ginkgo_ seeds cooked, 93

_Ginkgo_ tree, golden colour of, in autumn, 66, 68

Gold-fish with double tails, 143

Greek church in Tokio, Easter service at, 151

Habu, small coal mine at, 47

Hail, exceptional size of hailstones, 173

Hakone, 195

“Hardening” process, 260

Hayama, 213

Hearn, Lafcadio, debate on, 159, 175;
eldest son of, 241, 249;
visit to house of, 247

Hearn, Mrs., 247

Hockey, attempts to play without grass, 94, 105

Hojo, 122

Hokkaido, arrival in, 11

Holidays, sight-seeing at temples on, 34

Horonai, 18

House cleaning, instituted by Government, 162

House hiring, difficulties of, 133

_Human Bullets_, by Lieut. Sakurai, 113

Ice pillars, curious effect of, 78

Ikushimbets, mine at, 20

Imperial crest, reverence towards, 67

Inari, festival for, 114

Inland Sea, beauty of, 1, 46

Insects, noise of, 160;
song of, 184;
fossil specimens of, 201

Interpreter, loss of, 18

Japanese houses, simplicity of, 118

Japanese language, difficulties of, 74;
sound effect of, 77

Jehinomiya, 130

Jito, village of, 42

Kamakura, 86;
Dai Butsu at, 86

Kanbara, bathing at, 172

_Kankobas_, delightful bazaars, 81, 231

Kasamori, Buddhist temple at, very ancient, 132

Katsuura, 124

Kitchen in Japanese house, 138

Kiushiu, 49, 56

Kominato, 123

Koraku-en gardens at Okayama, 38

Korean affairs, 181

_Kuruma_, country travel in, 40, 44, 72

Lafcadio Hearn, debate on, 159, 175;
eldest son of, 241, 249;
visit to house of, 247

Lectures in Government House, Sapporo, 23;
at the Imperial University, 224;
by Sven Hedin, 236

Lepers, 98, 209;
contact with, 142;
marrying of, 209

Lies told by tradespeople, 165

London University Union in Japan, 111, 245, 259

Lotus, fritters made of, 146;
flowers of, at Oyeno, 212

Maple Club, dinner at, 233

Matsushima, beauty of, 28

Mera, 122

Misumi, arrival at, 50;
delayed start from, 51

Mobara, 130, 131

“Morning glories,” 189

Mororan, 28

Museum, Imperial, 246

Nagasaki, 56

Namazuta, coal mine at, 49

Naval Briquette Factory, 47

Naval officers on duty in coal mine, 47

Neolithic implements, 243

New Year, gifts and debts of, 81;
special food for, 84;
streets during, 86

Nikko, excursion to, 61;
avenue leading to, 61;
Alpine garden at, 62

_Nō_, performance of, 64

Noboribetsu, 26;
crater at, 26

Nodules containing fossils, collecting of, 16 _et seq._

Ōhara, 125

Okabu, azaleas at, 149

Okayama, visit to, 38

Okuma, Count, 70;
garden of, 71

Omine, mine at, 47

Omori, plum blossom at, 115;
temple near, 223

Opera House, foreign style, in Tokio, 251

Ōyubari, recently opened mine in, 15, 17;
scenery of neighbourhood, 15

Paeonies, show of, 155

Pictures, special exhibition of, excellent arrangement in, 60

Poet, American wife of Japanese, 240, 246, 261

Police, as escort, 18;
regulation of house cleaning by, 162

Porcelain, makers of, brought to private house, 262

Poronai, 18

Rackham’s illustrations, 119

Railway train returns to deliver forgotten parcel, 105

Railway trains, life in, 9, 12, 58;
snowed up in April, 136

Religion in Japan, 270

Rivers, work in, while collecting, 20, 21

Roads, effect of rain on, 31;
beauty of, in Tokio, 32

Robbers, frequent attempts of, 75

Roses, fading of scent of, in Japan, 67

Saké put to scientific use, 215

Sapporo, capital of Hokkaido, 11, 12;
Government of, 12;
scenery of, 13;
return to, 23;
University at, 25

Sendai, “fossil wood” at, 31

Sendocre, 129

Sheep, flock of, 73;
scarcity of, in Japan, 179

Shimonoseki, 48

Shiobara, 201

Shiogama, 29, 30;
women’s dress in neighbourhood of, 30

Shizuoka, 206

Shop signs, humorous, 182

Silk-worms, useful for scientific breeding, 175

Smells, of a Japanese crowd, 194

Snow, exceptional fall in April, 134;
beauty of, at Shiba, 258

Stuffiness, endured by Japanese in Western-style vehicles or
houses, 211, 212

Sven Hedin lecturing in Tokio, 236

Takahashi, beautiful river of, 40

Takashima, coal mine at, 57

Teachers, special dress for women, 161

Telegraph wire, dragon flies perched on, 45

Temples, two contrasting, 34, 35;
a country temple, 36;
at Nikko, 61;
at Kasamori, 132;
stay at country, 168;
service in, 199;
near Omori, 223;
at Shiba, in the snow, 258

Tertiary coal, 49

Thunder, god of, 173;
continuous peals of, 208

Tin box, difficulty in obtaining, 214

Togo, Admiral, 70, 226

Tokio, likeness to Venice, 1;
getting about, 4;
beauty of streets in, 82;
streets at New Year, 86;
floods in, 187, 221

Tokkaido, old road, 195

Tokuyama, 46

Traffic, lack of regulation of, 164

Triassic coal, 41, 42;
difficulty in finding, 41

University, Agricultural, 174;
Imperial, 6, 7, 60;
farewell party from, 233;
Anthropological Department of, 242;
present from, 253

University for women, 164, 165

Wada, 123

Walking tour in Boshu, 122 _et seq._

Wind storm, 94

Wistaria, enormous flowering plan of, 155

Women’s University, 164, 165

Yejiri, 168, 205

Yubari, 13

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Illustrations have been moved next to the text which they illustrate, and may not match the locations in the List of Illustrations. A duplicate "INDEX" heading has been removed from the text.

The following apparent typographical errors have been corrected:

p. 88 "princesess" changed to "princesses"

p. 119 "intosuch" changed to "into such"

p. 127 "solid rock." changed to "solid rock,"

p. 136 "_feruske_" changed to "_feruské_"

p. 177 "(who leave on Friday" changed to "(who leave on Friday)"

p. 236 "Baron K----" changed to "Baron _K----_"

p. 279 "159, 175," changed to "159, 175;"

The following possible errors have been left as printed:

p. 86 went picnics

p. 166 Kyshyu

p. 187 When I get

p. 244 beach! but I

p. 263 the F----s

The following are inconsistently used in the text:

foothold and foot-hold

footpath and foot-path

Fujii and Fuji

Fujisan and Fuji-san

midday and mid-day

seaweed and sea-weed

tradespeople and trades-people

workshop and work-shop