Chapter V: Part 5

All of which means that the primal sources of life are becoming forgotten. Love, honour, idealism, etc., these can no longer be supreme or absorbing motives. They interfere with more serious necessities, and with pleasure. We have first to learn how to live inside the eight-day clock of modern life without getting caught in the cogs. This learned,--and it is no easy lesson,--we may venture to indulge in some falsifications of emotion, some shot-silk colours of love. Such seems to me the drift. The most serious necessity of life is not to take the moral side of it seriously. We must play with it, as with an _hetaira_.

The genuine is only good for the agricultural districts.

And is this progress in a durable sense, or morbidness in evolution? Really I am not sure.

Ever affectionately,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA

KUMAMOTO, August, 1893.

DEAR NISHIDA,--I have missed you very much this long vacation; but, as I anticipated, it could not be helped. Another bundle of proofs has been keeping me at work; and I find the book promises to be bigger than I told you in my last letter. They are using type that will spread it out to probably 750 pp. I send you one specimen proof--just to show you the size of the type.

The man who has been sent for to fill the place in Kyōto, will not, I imagine, be able to keep it. He is a rabid proselytizer; in Kumamoto, years ago, he formed a society of Christians, called the Christian Band (I forget the Japanese name): that is why the Kyūshū folk nearly killed him. Privately--between you and me--I think there will be great changes in the Kyōto middle school next year; _and I think that I shall get there_. But there is nothing sure. I will not go to Tōkyō as long as I can help it.

Many thanks for your splendid letter about the legends of the ballads. I have put it away carefully to use in a future essay.--You say, if you were to tell me about the noble things the common people do, you would never get done. Indeed, _one_ strong fact would give me work for two or three months. The publishers wrote me to say they want stories of the life of the common people _to-day_,--showing the influence of moral teaching on _conduct_: that is, Buddhist, Shintō, and ancestor-teaching. I have been trying to get the facts about the poor girl who killed herself in Kyōto because the Emperor "augustly mourned" after the crazy action of Tsuda Sanzo; but I have not yet succeeded. By the way, I think Tsuda Sanzo will be more kindly judged by a future generation. His crime was only "loyalty-run-mad." He was insane for the moment with an insanity which would have been of the highest value in a good cause and time. He saw before him the living representative of the awful Power which makes even England tremble;--the power against which Western Europe has mustered an army of more than 15,000,000 of men. He saw, or thought he saw (perhaps he really _did_ see: time only can show) the Enemy of Japan. Then he struck--out of his heart, without consulting his head. He did very wrong;--he made a sad mistake; but I think that man's heart was noble and true, in spite of all his foolishness. He would have been a hero under happier circumstances....

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I have just heard that the name of one kind of those horrid beetles in Kumamoto is _gane-bun-bun_, and the _hyakushō_ call them _gane-bu_; and people throw them out of the window, saying, "Come back the day-before-yesterday." Then they never come back at all.

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I have made a mistake again. The _gane-bun-bun_ is not the greatest plague I was complaining of,--but the _fu-mushi_. There is yet another small one, I have not found out the name of. They make a whole room smell horribly. Some, however, call both the big _fu-mushi_ and the small creature by the same name--distinguishing them only as the green and the black. By the way, I will put a _fu-mushi_ in this letter, because they keep coming on the table so that I think it may be well to send one to Izumo, in the hopes of inducing the rest to emigrate.

All send kindest regards to you, and pray you to take good care of your health.

With every best wish, believe me ever,

Most faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA

KUMAMOTO, 1893.

DEAR NISHIDA,--It gave me much pleasure to get your last kind letter. There was much depth in your statement of the present instability being consequent upon the stagnation of three hundred years. As to the consequence, however, only two theories are possible. The instability means--however it end--disintegration. Is the disintegration to be permanent?--or is there to be a re-integration? That is what nobody can say. There is this, however. Usually a movement of disintegration represents something like this line,--the undulations signifying waves of reaction. This movement is downward, and ends in ruin. However, so far, the undulations in Japan have been, I think, of a very different character,--something like this:--which would mean restoration of national solidity upon a much higher plane than before. The doubt is whether a much larger movement of disintegration is not going on,--whose undulations are too large to be seen in a space of thirty years.

You have noticed that under all the surface waves of a sea, far vaster waves move--too large to be seen. They are only _felt_--upon _long_ voyages.

Mr. Senke has sent me a letter which I think is the most wonderfully kind and gracious letter anybody ever received in this whole world, and how to answer it at all, I don't know. He has also promised to send some souvenir; I am not quite sure what it is: I must _try_ to write him a nice letter when it comes. But Mr. Senke writes as an Emperor would write--with a grace for which there is no equivalent in Western speech at all; and whatever I try to do, it must seem vulgar and common beside the splendid courtesy of Mr. Senke's style.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO OCHIAI

KUMAMOTO, November, 1893.

DEAR OCHIAI,--I was very glad indeed to get your letter. It came while the school was closed--all the students having gone upon an excursion to Ōita, so that I did not receive it until to-day (the 11th), when I went to the school to see if there were any letters for me.

Don't think any more about any mistakes you may have made;--everybody will forget them quickly: only think about what makes you happy. But as for Christianity, of course that is a matter for your own conscience; and I would not advise you at all unless you are in doubt. I can only tell you this,--that there are a great many different forms of what is called the Christian religion--a very great many. But what is called the "higher Christianity" is a pure code of ethics; and that code of ethics recognizes that in all civilized religions,--whether of Japan, India, China, Persia, or Arabia,--there is _some_ eternal truth; because all religions agree in the deepest teaching about duty and conduct to one's fellow men; and therefore all are entitled to the respect of good men. But in all religions also there are some things which even very good men cannot approve: that is not the fault of the true part of religion, but only the fault of social conditions--that is, the state of society. No state of society is yet perfect; and there can be no perfect religious system until all men become perfectly good. How to become good is, nevertheless, taught by all civilized religions. Nearly everything which is eternally true is taught by one as well as by the other; and therefore a society cannot throw away its religion on account of some errors in it. And each religion represents the experience of a nation with right and wrong--its knowledge of morality. But as society is constructed quite differently in different countries, the religion of one country may not be suited to another. That is why the introduction of a foreign religion may often be opposed by a whole people. For some things which are right in one country may not be right in another. It is not right in China or in Japan to leave one's parents, and to neglect them when they are old. But in England and America and other countries, sons and daughters go away from their parents, and do not think it a duty to support them;--and there is no family relation in those countries such as there is in the Orient. And therefore many things in Western religion are not suited to the kinder and more benevolent life of Japan. Also, some religions teach loyalty, and some do not. For Japan to become strong, and to remain independent, it is very necessary that her people should remain very loyal. Her ancient religion teaches loyalty;--therefore it is still very useful to her. And that is why there is anger shown against some Christians who show no respect to that religion. They are not blamed for not believing in dogmas, but only for what seems to be not loyal.

Perhaps it is better that you should not think a great deal about religious questions until you become old enough to study scientific philosophy--because these questions ought to be studied in relation to society, in relation to history, in relation to law, in relation to national character, and in relation to science. Therefore they are very difficult. But if you should like to read the highest thoughts of Western people about _modern_ religious ideas, I can send you some little books which will show you that the highest religion agrees with the highest science. What I mean by the highest religion is the belief in eternal laws of right conduct. However, as I said, to think about these questions at all requires great study and much knowledge. I think the best advice I can give you in a general way is this,--Do not believe a new thing told you because it is told you; but think for yourself, and follow your own heart when you are in doubt. But remember that the _old_ things taught you have been valuable to society--and have been useful for thousands of years--so that we cannot despise them.

I send you a book of old Greek stories to read. Perhaps it will interest you. You will see from the stories how different the old Greek life was from modern life in many things. You must tell me, too, what books you like to read--novels, history, etc.; perhaps I shall be able to send you some from time to time.

Study well, and never be discouraged;--think only how to make yourself a noble and perfect man. And remember the best men in public life have generally been those who made plenty of mistakes and got into plenty of trouble when they were boys.

And never, _never_ be afraid--except of your own heart.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

KUMAMOTO, November, 1893.

DEAR HENDRICK,--I have been waiting several weeks to tell you of an event which occurred later than I expected. Last night my child was born,--a very strong boy, with large black eyes; he looks more like a Japanese, however, than like a foreign boy. He has my nose, but his mother's features in some other respects, curiously blended with mine. There is no fault with him; and the physicians say, from the form of his little bones, that he promises to become very tall. A cross between European and Japanese is nearly always an improvement when both parents are in good condition; and happily the old military caste to which my wife belongs is a strong one. She is quite well.--Still, I had my anxiety, and the new experience brought to me for a moment, with extraordinary force, the knowledge of how sacred and terrible a thing maternity is, and how even religion cannot hedge it about sufficiently with protection. Then I thought with astonishment of the possibility that men could be cruel to women who bore their children; and the world seemed very dark for a moment. When it was all over, I confess I felt very humble and grateful to the Unknowable Power which had treated us so kindly,--and I said a little prayer of thanks, feeling quite sure it was not foolish to do so.

If ever you become a father, I think the strangest and strongest sensation of your life will be hearing for the first time the thin cry of your own child. For a moment you have the strange feeling of being double; but there is something more, quite impossible to analyze--perhaps the echo in a man's heart of all the sensations felt by all the fathers and mothers of his race at a similar instant in the past. It is a very tender, but also a very ghostly feeling.

Now the kind dull veil that Nature keeps during most of a life stretched between it and such extraordinary glimpses of the Unknown, is drawn again. The world is the same nearly as before; and I can plan. The little man will wear sandals and dress like a Japanese, and become a good little Buddhist if he lives long enough. He will not have to go to church, and listen to stupid sermons, and be perpetually tormented by absurd conventions. He will have what I never had as a child,--natural physical freedom.

Your two late letters were full of interest and beauty, and you are getting most surprising glimpses of life. I have long had in my mind the idea of a chapter on "Morbid Individuality"--taking issue with Lowell's position in "The Soul of the Far East." Instances like those you have cited are very telling as proofs. The story of the father also is wonderful--absolutely wonderful,--a beautiful surprise of human nature.

What also much impressed me in your letter was the feeling of sadness the spectacle of the great Exposition gave you. But I scarcely think it was due to any reminiscences of boyhood--not simply because of its being certainly a feeling infinitely too complex to have sprung out of a single relative experience in the past (your confession of inability to analyze it, and the statement of others who had the same feeling, would show that),--but also because, if you reflect on other experiences of a totally different kind, you will find they give the same sensation. The first sight of a colossal range of mountains; the awful beauty of a peak like Chimborazo or Fuji; the majesty of an enormous river; the vision of the sea in speaking motion; and, among human spectacles, a military sight, such as the passing-by of a corps of fifty thousand men, will give also a feeling of sadness. You will feel something like it standing in the choir of the Cathedral of Cologne; and you will feel something like it while watching in the night, from some mighty railroad centre, the rushing of glimmering trains,--bearing away human lives to unknown destinies beyond the darkness.

Probably, as Schopenhauer said, the vision of mountains has the effect of producing sadness, because the sense of their antiquity awakens sudden recognition of the shortness of human life. But I do not think it is a mere individual feeling. It is a feeling we share with countless dead who live in us, and who saw the same mountains,--perhaps felt the same way. Besides, there should be a religious ancestral feeling there--since mountains have ever been the abode of gods, and the earliest places of worship and of burial. And I think there is. You do not laugh when you look at mountains--nor when you look at the sea.

What effect does the sudden sight of an extraordinarily beautiful person have upon you? I mean the very _first_. Is it not an effect of sadness? Analyze it; and perhaps you will find yourself involuntarily thinking of _death_.

What has the effect of any great beauty--of art, or poetry or utterance--no matter what the subject? Is it cheerful? No, it is very sad. But why? Perhaps partly because of the consciousness of the _exceptional_ character of that beauty,--therefore the sudden contrast between the tender dream-world of art and goodness, and the hideous goblin realities of the world we know. At all events the sadness is certainly the ancient sadness,--the sadness of life, which must, for reasons we cannot learn, begin and end with an agony.

Now at the Exposition you had all the elements for what Clifford would call a "cosmic emotion" of sadness. Vastness, which forced the knowledge of individual weakness; beauty, compelling the memory of impermanency; force, suggesting weakness also; and prodigious effort,--calling for the largest possible exertion of human sympathy, and love, and pity, and sorrow. That you should feel like crying then, does you honour: that is the tribute of all that is noblest in you to the eternal Religion of Human Suffering.

Dear H., I have not slept last night: I am going to rest a little;--good-bye for a short time, with love to you.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA

KUMAMOTO, November, 1893.

DEAR NISHIDA,--A few days ago there came from Kizuki a little box addressed to me,--from Mr. Senke; and opening it, I found therein the robe of a _Kokuzō_--all black silk with the sacred _mon_ of the temple worked into the silk. Accompanying the robe were two poems, very beautifully written upon vari-coloured paper. The robe was very curious in itself, and of course most precious as a souvenir. I hesitated to write at once; for I could not answer Mr. Senke's magnificent letter in a worthy way at all. It was a very long letter, written on fine paper and in large handsome characters. I have now tried to reply, but my answer reads very shabbily compared with Mr. Senke's gracious style.

I found I had forgotten, in writing you the other day, to speak about Kompira, as you asked me. What a pity I had not known about the real temple of Kompira, which I did not see at all. Yes, I did find the place interesting and very beautiful. But it was interesting because of the quaint shops and streets and customs; and it was beautiful _because the day happened to be very beautiful_. The vast blue light coloured everything,--walls, timbers, awnings, draperies, dresses of pilgrims; and the cherry-trees were one blaze of snowy blossoms; and the horizon was clear as crystal. In the distance towered Sanuki-Fuji,--a cone of amethyst in the light. I wished I could teach in some school at Kompira _uchimachi_, and stay there always.

I like little towns. To live at Tadotsu, or at Hishi-ura in Oki, or at Yunotsu in Iwami, or at Daikon-shimain Naka-umi, would fill my soul with joy. I cannot like the new Japan. I dislike the officials, the imitation of foreign ways, the airs, the conceits, the contempt for Tempō, etc. Now to my poor mind, all that was good and noble and true was Old Japan: I wish I could fly out of Meiji forever, back against the stream of Time, into Tempō, or into the age of the Mikado Yūriaku,--fourteen hundred years ago. The life of the old fans, the old _byōbu_, the tiny villages--that is the _real_ Japan I love. Somehow or other, Kumamoto doesn't seem to me Japan at all. I hate it.

Ever with best regards,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA

KUMAMOTO, November, 1893.

DEAR NISHIDA,--Both of your letters were as interesting as they were kind. They revealed to me much more than I had been able to learn from the newspapers. I am more than sorry for that terrible destruction and suffering in the _Ken_; but when I think of Okayama, again, I cannot help thinking that the good fortune, which seems especially to belong to Matsue, has not yet deserted her. And the Governor seems to be a first-class man. I like that story of his action with the rice-dealers. But really, the people are very patient. In some Western countries, notably in parts of America, it would have been more than dangerous for men to have acted so selfishly; and they would be in any case afterwards "boycotted," and obliged perhaps to leave the city. It is a great pity they were not made to suffer for such atrocious meanness. When I think of the chrysanthemums in your garden, and read your extraordinary story about catching fish in it, I can realize what a tremendous loss there must have been through all the rice-country. Certainly Matsue is fortunate to have escaped as she did.

Almost at the same time there came to me news from the Gulf of Mexico. Perhaps you will remember that I wrote a novel about some islands there. I used to pass my summers in those islands. They were about sixty miles from the city of New Orleans. Well, on October 4th, a storm burst over that coast, killing more than 2000 people. The island of Grand Isle was covered by the sea in the night; and everything--houses, trees, and people--carried away. Hundreds I used to know are dead. It is a year of storms and calamities, surely, in all parts of the world.

I will write a better letter later: I am writing now to answer your questions about those sentences:--

(i) "Choppy"--"chopped" or "chapped" by cold: "chapped hands"--hands of which the skin is _cracked_ by frost. "His hands are all chapped"--that is, all _roughened_ by frost. "Choppy" is not so often used as "chapped:" it is a poetical use of the word.

(ii) "He had torn the cataracts from the hills." You must remember here Winter is personified as a monstrous giant. "Cataracts" is used in the sense of "waterfalls." The waterfalls are frozen into solid masses of ice. Winter, the giant, breaks them off, and hangs them round his waist.

(iii) "And they clanked at his girdle like _manacles_" (from Latin _manus_, "hand") (you spelled the word wrong: it is "manacles"). "Manacles," iron fetters for the hands;--handcuffs. They are made in pairs, fastened together by a chain, and closed by a key. They _clank_ when they strike together,--(i. e.) make a ringing metallic noise--because they are of fine steel usually. The sound made by iron is "clank"--"_to_ clank" (verb), "_a_ clank" (noun). Why does Shelley use such a simile? Because Winter is like a jailer, like the keeper of a prison. He fastens up, or imprisons, the rivers, lakes, and ponds with ice. So he is described as a keeper of prisoners,--with manacles or handcuffs hanging to his waist, ready for use. Ice striking against ice makes a ringing noise, very much like iron--sometimes. The comparison is very strong.

And why does he put his chapped finger to his lip? To put the first finger on the lips is a sign for "Be silent!" "Do not speak!" In winter the world becomes silent. The birds are gone; the insects are dead.

P. S.

DEAR NISHIDA,--I waited over last night to hunt up the quotation for you; and during the night my child was born. A very strong boy,--dark eyes and hair; he has some of my features, some of Setsu's. Setsu is well enough to send kind words, and to tell you what I was intending to tell you myself,--how delighted we have all been to hear of your good health this year.

I intended to write more, but I am too tired for the moment,--as I have not been in bed for more than 24 hours. So for a little, good-bye,--best regards to you and yours always from

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA

KUMAMOTO, November, 1893.

DEAR NISHIDA,--Everybody is well up to date: the little boy looks prettier every day, and gives very little trouble. He scarcely cries at all. Many people come to look at him, and express surprise that he looks so much like a Japanese. But he is going to have a nose something like mine, certainly, when he grows up.

Setsu advises me to write you about another matter. I wanted, and tried several times since coming to Kumamoto, to have Setsu registered as my lawfully married wife, but the answer was always the same--that it was a difficult matter, and would have to be arranged in Tōkyō, if at all. The day before yesterday, I made another attempt when registering the birth of the boy. The registry people said that as the parties came from Matsue, Izumo, they would only make the statement of the marriage by Matsue authority,--and that I had better write to Matsue. But at the same time, they said words to this effect: "The law is difficult for you. If you wish the boy to remain a Japanese citizen, you must register him in the mother's name only. If you register him in the father's name, he becomes a foreigner."

Of course we all want the child to be a Japanese citizen, as he will be the heir and stay of the old folks after I am dead--whether he goes abroad for a few years' study or no. Prudence seems to dictate the latter course. Yet the whole thing is a puzzle. By becoming myself a Japanese citizen, everything would be settled. Even that, however, is more difficult than it at first seemed. Again, I believe that I could become a Japanese citizen by making direct application to the Government;--but at the present time the result might not be for the best. An Englishman in Yokohama, who became a Japanese citizen, had his salary immediately reduced to a very small figure, with the observation: "Having become a Japanese citizen, you must now be content to live like one." I don't quite see the morality of the reduction; for services should be paid according to the market-value at least;--but there is no doubt it would be made. As for America, and my relatives in England, I am married: that has been duly announced. Perhaps I had better wait a few years, and then become a citizen. Being a Japanese citizen would, of course, make no difference whatever as to my relations in any civilized countries abroad. It would only make some difference in an uncivilized country,--such as revolutionary South America, where English or French or American protection is a good thing to have. But the long and the short of the matter is that I am anxious only about Setsu's and the boy's interests; my own being concerned only at that point where their injury would be Setsu's injury. I suppose I must trust to fate and the gods. If you can suggest anything good to do, however, I will be very grateful.

Every day, it strikes me more and more how little I shall ever know of the Japanese. I have been working hard at a new book, which is now half-finished, and consists of philosophical sketches chiefly: It will be a very different book from the "Glimpses," and will show you how much the Japanese world has changed for me. I imagine that sympathy and friendship are almost impossible for any foreigner to obtain,--because of the amazing difference in the psychology of the two races. We only guess at each other without understanding; and it is only a very keen guesser, indeed, of large experience, who can ever guess correctly. I have met no one else like you. Nothing is so curious as to sit down and talk for hours with a Japanese of the ordinary Tōkyō modernized class. You understand all he says, and he understands all you say,--but neither understands more than the words. The ideas behind the words are so different, that the more we talk the less we know each other. In the case of the students, I found myself obliged to invent a new method of teaching. I now teach my higher classes psychologically. I give them lectures and dictations on various difficulties of the preposition, for example, starting out with the announcement that they must not allow themselves to think of the Japanese preposition at all....

I have followed this plan with great success in teaching the articles, the value of English idioms, etc., and the comparative force of verbs. But it shows how hopeless for a stranger to see deeply into the Japanese mind. I am taking almost exactly the opposite ground to that of Lowell.

Faithfully ever,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO OCHIAI

KUMAMOTO, January, 1894.

DEAR OCHIAI,--Many thanks for your kind letter, with its kind wishes,--and many happy New Years to you.

I have been very glad to hear of your success at school, and all the news about your reading. I think Mr. Nishida's plan is very wise and good. It is true that the lives of such men as Clive and Hastings--and above all Napoleon--are full of interest and romance, because they show the wonderful things that can be achieved by force of character united with great intellect,--Clive being the best man, morally, of the three. But, on the other hand, it is sadly true that the genius and the courage of those three wonderful men were not employed in the noblest way, but most often in a bad cause. Strong characters are very attractive, because those who read about them take pleasure in imagining what they would do if they had the same power and opportunity. But strong characters are only really admirable when they are employed in a good, just, noble cause. And of such characters, the number in Western history is few. Pericles, Miltiades, Epaminondas, were nobler than Alexander; yet people like to read about Alexander, who was not a good man. Marcus Aurelius was nobler than Cæsar; but people like to read more about Cæsar, because he was a great conqueror. And so on through all Western history. There is splendour and honour in brave fighting for what is right; but I do not think we ought to allow ourselves to praise brave fighting for what is wrong. Bravery is noble only when the object is noble. As a quality, it is not peculiar to man at all;--a wild bull is braver than any general. It is very noble to sacrifice one's life for a good cause--for love of parents, country, duty; but we ought not to admire the throwing away of life for an unjust cause. The real rule by which to measure what is admirable and what is despicable is the rule of Duty.

That is why I admire very, very much, all that was noble in the old Japanese life,--its moral code, its household religion, and its unselfishness. Everything is now passing away. By the time you are as old as I now am, all Japan will have been changed; and I think you will remember with regret the kindness and the simplicity of heart and the pleasant manners of the Old Japan, that used to be all about you. The New Japan will be richer and stronger and in many things wiser; but it will neither be so happy nor so kindly as the old.

Well, I trust you will have all possible success,--not only in your school-life, but in all your life to come. I have hopes you will do great and good things, and that I will hear of them.

Ever affectionately yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO MASANOBU ŌTANI

KUMAMOTO, March, 1894.

MY DEAR ŌTANI,--To study philology, with the idea of becoming a philologist, scarcely seems to me a hopeful undertaking for you. Philology means a great deal, including the comparative study of languages; and it requires a very special natural gift in acquiring languages, to be of any very practical value to you. It would also require, I think, years of study in foreign universities. I am not quite sure what you mean by philology, and what your purpose in following that course would be. You might, of course, do as many do--take the literary and philological course at the university. But the question, to my mind, seems to be this: "What would be the practical value of such studies afterwards?" Do you wish to become a Professor of Philology? Do you wish to give your life to the scientific study of languages? If you do, are you quite sure you have the particular kind of talent required (for, remember, everybody cannot become a philologist any more than everybody can become a mathematician)?

1 Mr. Hearn 2 Mr. Nishida 3 The old teacher of Chinese
Classics]

The truth is, I do not know enough about your circumstances and intentions and abilities to advise you well. I can only tell you _in a general way_ what I think.

I think you ought not to study what would not be of _practical_ use to you in after-life. I am always glad to hear of a student studying engineering, architecture, medicine (if he has the particular moral character which medicine requires), or any branch of applied science. I do not like to see all the fine boys turning to the study of law, instead of to the study of science or technology. Of course much depends upon the mathematical faculty. If you have that faculty, I would strongly advise you to direct all your studies toward a scientific profession--something really practical,--engineering, architecture, electricity, chemistry, etc. If you should ask which, I could not tell you, because I do not know your own highest capacities in such directions. I would only say,--"Whatever you are most sure of loving as a practical profession."

Japan wants no more lawyers now; and I think the professions of literature and of teaching give small promise. What Japan needs are scientific men; and she will need more and more of them every year. To-day you are fortunate; but nothing in this world is sure. Suppose you were obliged suddenly to depend entirely on your own unassisted power to make money,--would it not then be necessary to do something practical? Certainly it would. And _according to the rarity of your abilities_ would be your remuneration,--your money-making power. Even the Queen of England obliged her children to learn professions.

Now scientific men are still comparatively rare in Japan. The science-classes in the colleges are small. Many students begin the study,--but they find it hard for them, and give it up. Nevertheless, it is _just because it is hard_ that it is so important and of such high value to the person who masters it. If you were my son, or brother, I would say to you, "Study science,--applied science; study for a practical profession." As for languages and other subjects, you can study them whenever you please. The practical knowledge is the only important knowledge now,--and your whole life will depend upon your present studies.

You asked whether philology was difficult. Science _is_ difficult,--really difficult; but everything worth having in this world is difficult to get, exactly in proportion to its value. The only question, I think, should be, "What study will be most useful to me all through life?" But not whether it is difficult. What is important to know is always difficult to learn. Philology is difficult; practical science is difficult;--both are very difficult. But philology would never be of much use to you, unless you have a natural genius for language-study. And science would be of immense value to you, whether you have any genius or not. You will need, however, as I said before, mathematical study to fit you for that. And I would also remind you of this:--

Hundreds of students leave the university without any real profession, and without any practical ability to make themselves useful. All cannot become teachers, or lawyers, or clerks. They become _soshi_, or they become officials, or they do nothing of any consequence. Their whole education has been of no real use to them, because it has not been _practical_. Men can succeed in life only by their ability to _do_ something, and three fourths of the university students can _do_ nothing. Their education has been only _ornamental_.

Faithfully yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA

KUMAMOTO, April, 1894.

DEAR NISHIDA,--You are becoming a very _indifferent_ correspondent, if one should judge by scarcity of letters,--so I suppose I am not to hear from you again until something extraordinary happens. So runs the world away from a man. But never shall I be able to understand the people of "the most Eastern East."

Well, I have been to Kompira,--in a _fune-fune_ to Tadotsu, thence by rail to the wonderful, quaint old town. We took Kaji along. He never cries now, and behaved so well that on all the railroads and steamers people fell in love with him and played with him. He made the acquaintance of many politicians, of surveyors, of some silk merchants, of two captains, of a naval surgeon, of many gentle women, of the _miko_ at Kompira, and--I am sorry to say--of some geisha. However, that was because he was very young, and did not know. I hope when he gets bigger he will be more reserved with his smiles. One thing showed his good taste: he was especially attracted by the two young _miko_, who were really very sweet and pretty,--the prettiest I ever saw, and he made one of them smile even during her dance. I have sent a better picture of him.

I should much rather be in a country-school again. However, so far as I can see, the same trouble is going to find its way into all the public schools, and stay there, until some means be devised of removing schools altogether from the domain of politics by something like the American system. The American system is imperfect; but it has at least this merit,--that the leading citizens and merchants of a place can act as boards of directors, and that the temporary officials proper cannot meddle directly in school matters at all. Thus the school interests are taken care of by those most directly concerned in their welfare, and not by strangers. Each community supports its own school by a general tax. Of course in so corrupt a country as America the pecuniary side of the question is attended with some ugly stealing; but that is done before the money is placed in the hands of the directors, and is done at a serious risk. In some American States, too, the text-books are meddled with by politicians. But I think it might be quite possible in Japan to adopt a system of school-support, which, while removing the schools from the power of the Kenchō to meddle with them, would also establish something like permanency in their management and method. At present everything is so unpermanent and unsteady that one feels the tendency is to dissolution rather than integration.

Ever very truly yours,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

P. S. I forgot your question about the summer vacation. I have not yet been able to decide exactly what to do, but it is at least certain that I go to Tōkyō, and that I hope to meet you there. Should anything prevent you from going, I may try to meet you elsewhere. I should like to see you, and hear some more of the same wonderful things you used to tell me,--which you will read in that much-delayed book. By the way, I did not tell you that the publishers concluded to delay it again, on account of what they call the trade-season. I suppose they are right, but it is very provoking. Including the index the book makes about 700 pages, in two volumes. Meantime I have half written a philosophical book about Japanese life.

Ever faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

KUMAMOTO, Spring, 1894.

DEAR HENDRICK,-- ... Are you reading the _Atlantic_ at all? There is a wonderful story by Mrs. Deland, "Philip and his Wife." Philip's wife makes me think always of E. B.

The problem of merely being able to live. What a plague it is! And the pain of life isn't hunger, isn't want, isn't cold, isn't sickness, isn't physical misery of any kind: it is simply moral pain caused by the damnable meanness of those who try to injure others for their own personal benefit or interest. That is really all the pain of the struggle of life.

Ever faithfully,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

KUMAMOTO, May, 1894.

DEAR HENDRICK,-- ... I think there was one mistake in the story of OEdipus and the Sphinx. It was the sweeping statement about the Sphinx's alternative. It isn't true that she devoured every one who couldn't answer her riddles. Everybody meets the Sphinx in life;--so I can speak from authority. She doesn't kill people like me,--she only bites and scratches them; and I've got the marks of her teeth in a number of places on my soul. She meets me every few years and asks the same tiresome question,--and I have latterly contented myself with simply telling her, "I don't know."

It now seems to me that I was partly wrong in a former letter to you about business morality: I took much too narrow a view of the case, perhaps. The comparison between the Western and Oriental brain--which everybody is forced to make after a few years' sojourn here--now appears to me appalling in its results. The Western business man is really a very terrible and wonderful person. He is the outcome, perhaps, of a mediæval wish. For types are created by men's wishes--just as men themselves are created. The greatest teaching of science is that no Body made us,--but we made ourselves under the smart stimulus of pain. Well, as I was saying, the business man is an answer to a wish. (You know about the frogs who asked Jupiter for a King.) In the age of robber-barons, racks, swordmills, and _droit de cuissage_,--men prayed Jupiter for Law, Order, System. Jupiter (in the shape of a very, very earnest desire) produced the Business man. He represents insatiate thirst of dominion, supreme intellectual aggressive capacity, faultless practical perceptivity, and the art of handling men exactly like pawns. But he represents also Order, System, Law. He is Organization, and is King of the Earth. The pawns cry out, "We are not pawns." But he always politely answers, "I am sorry to disagree with you, but I find it expedient for our mutual interest to consider you pawns; besides, I have no time to argue the matter. If you think you are not pawns, you must show the faculty of Organization."

The tyranny of the future must be that of Organization: the monopoly, the trust, the combination, the associated company--representing supremely perfect mathematical unification of Law, Order, and System. Much more powerful than the robber-baron, or Charlemagne, or Barbarossa, these are infinitely less human,--having no souls, etc. (What would be the use of souls!--souls only waste time.) Business is exact and dangerous and powerful like a colossal dynamo: it is the extreme of everything men used to pray for,--and it is _not_ what they did _not_ pray for. Perhaps they would like the robber-baron better.

We little petty outsiders--the gnats hovering about life--feel the world is changing too quickly: all becoming methodical as an abacus. There isn't any more room for us. Competition is of no use. Law, Order, and System fill the places without consulting us,--the editorial desks, the clerkships, the Government posts, the publishers' offices, the pulpits, the professorships, the sinecures as well as the tough jobs. Where a worker is unnecessary, a pawn is preferred. (Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness!--provided with a good table and a regular supply of reading from Murray's circulating library!) One thing is dead sure: in another generation there can be no living by dreaming and scheming of art: only those having wealth can indulge in the luxury of writing books for their own pleasure....

Faithfully ever,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

KUMAMOTO, May, 1894.

DEAR HENDRICK,--So far from your letters not being interesting, they are always full of interest--first, simply because they are _your_ letters; secondly, because they tell the evolution of you--showing how, after all, we are made by the eternal forces. That you become a business man, in every sense of the word, is inevitable. It would be wrong if you did not. It would be wrong not to love your profession. The evil of becoming a business man exists only for small men--dries small men up. Surely you are not small! There is nothing to regret--except perhaps a temporary darkness which may yield to enormous light later on. Some would say to you, "Always keep one little place in your heart from hardening." I would say nothing of the kind now: I think you are too large to be talked to in that way.

Suppose I try to illustrate by reference to the scope of human thinking in general. Ethical theology might be represented then as an inverted pyramid,--thus ; hard, skeptical science by a larger figure, pressing it down; the highest philosophy by a circle,--something like this figure. The largest thought accepts all, surrounds all, absorbs all,--like light itself. The ugly and the beautiful, the ignorant and the wise, the virtuous and the vile,--all come within its recognition; nature and sins as well as societies and clubs,--prisons and churches, brothels and houses. The very duties of observation forced upon you compel two things: the study of all moral and material details; the study of all combinations and wholes. And the larger the grasp of the whole the larger must become your power and value; for you will have to see eternal laws working down out of the unknown and thereafter ramifying and inter-ramifying into innumerable actions, reactions, disintegrations, and crystallizations. The horrible thing about business, men say, is that it considers men as pawns. But if your sight becomes large enough,--if your thought widens enough,--you _must_ look upon men as pawns. To be a brother to all you cannot. To be a friend to many you cannot. You become the agent--not of the Commercial Union Assurance Co. only,--but the special agent of infinite laws; and if you act efficiently in that capacity, you cannot do very wrong. The Cosmos will be responsible for you.

The business man to-day is the king of the earth; merchants and bankers are the rulers, and will for all time be, while industrialism continues necessary. They seek and win power, and all the good things of life; they also prevent others from getting either. They may not be poets, philosophers, didactic teachers, artists; but their mental organization is undoubtedly the highest,--because its achievements represent the mastery of the highest difficulties, the deepest problems, the most intricate riddles. Certainly this higher organization is obtained at a heavy cost in the majority of cases. The emotions dry up in the evolution of it, and the moral sense weakens. But because this must happen in the majority of cases when any _new_ faculty is being developed, it is far from happening in all. The man whose vision is vast enough can scarcely do more evil than a god. He cannot injure his world voluntarily without suffering from his own action. He must study his world as a naturalist his ant-hill. And even as a God he must feel the ultimate evil and good is not of him; but is being forever viewlessly woven in Shadow by the Fates of the Infinite,--whose distaff twists the thread of his own life, and whose will guides his own courses.

The great desire would be for the combination of emotion with knowledge, of philosophy with mathematics, of Plato with a Napoleon, or Spinoza with a Gould. This will come. Now it is very rare....

You might reply, "In the present order of things the combination would ruin the working-power of the man. The Gould could not act the Gould if combined with the Spinoza,--nor could the Napoleon _se foule de la vie d'un million d'hommes_ if crossed with a Plato."

I would answer, "Not in the elder generation, but why not to-day? If the moral laws that in a Spinoza would have checked a Gould, or in a Plato checked a Napoleon, were essentially limited in other years, are they so to-day? If the two philosophers had had larger horizons of thinking, would they have recognized a tether,--or would they not rather have viewed themselves as mere force-atoms in an infinite electric stream? Are there not now recognitions of laws transcending all human ethics?--laws of which Goethe threw out such weird suggestions?--and must not business, from its very nature, drift into the knowledge of these laws?"

To-day, it is true, the highest possible type of business man would have to follow the small policy of the majority. But certainly he can be like one of those compound double-engines,--whereof the best half is kept idle in reserve,--always oiled and speckless and ready for rare emergencies or opportunities. If something within you regrets something else that is passing away, that need not be any alarming sign. The mere fact that the regret exists, indicates higher possibilities. Don't you remember Emerson's extraordinary lines,--

"Though thou love her as thyself--
As a self of purer clay,--
Though her parting dim the day
Stealing grace from all alive,--
_Heartily know,
When half-gods go
The Gods arrive!_"

The dear little psyche is going? Well, let her go! Regret her a little--that is sweet and good. Feel lonesome for her awhile. Wait. Then make yourself a new soul, large enough to wrap round the whole world, like the Æther.

Faithfully ever,
LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO PAGE M. BAKER

KUMAMOTO, 1894.

DEAR PAGE,--Though I never hear from you directly, the _T.-D._ brings me occasionally very emphatic proof that I am not forgotten, and am perhaps forgiven. So I venture a line or two, hoping you will not show the letter to anybody.

I told you some years ago I was married; but I did not tell you I had a son,--who is, of course, dearer than my own life to me. Curiously, he is neither like his mother nor like me: he takes after some English ancestor,--for he is grey-eyed, fair-haired (curly chestnut), and wonderfully strong: he is going, if he lives, to be a remarkably powerful man; and, I hope, a more sensible man than his foolish dad.

Well, now two perils menace me. First, the immense reaction of Japan,--reasserting her individuality against all foreign influence, which has resulted in the discharge of most of the high-paid foreign employees; secondly, the war with China. The Japanese--essentially a fighting race, as Bantams are--will probably win the battles every time; but if China be in dead, bitter earnest, _she_ will win the war. (Probably her chances will be snatched from her by foreign intervention.) But whatever be the end of this enormous complication, Japan is going to empty her treasury. The chances for Government employees are dwindling: my contract runs only till March, and the chances are 0.

Of course, I can peg along somehow,--getting odd jobs from newspapers, etc., doing a little teaching of English, French, or Spanish. I can't help thinking I would do better to go abroad--especially at a time when every American 100 cents is worth nearly 200 Japanese cents.

Here goes. Could you get me anything to do if I started in the spring for America? I mean something good enough to save money at. I am past all nonsense now, and for myself only would need very little. But it would not be for myself that I should go. I should want to be sure of being able to send money to Japan, by confining my own wants to good living and an occasional book or two. If you could get me something anywhere south of Mason and Dixon's line, I should try to be practically grateful in some way. I am not in the least desirous of seeing Boston or New York or Philadelphia--or being obliged to exist by machinery. I would rather infinitely be in Memphis or Charleston or Mobile or--glorious Florida.

Or can you get me anything educational in Spanish-America? I could scarcely take my people to the U.S.,--but to South America I might try later on. I am now 44, and all grey as a badger. Unless I can make enough to educate my boy well, I don't know what I am worth,--but I feel that I shall have precious little time to do it in. Add 20 to 44,--and how much is left of a man?

Perhaps you will think--if I am worth thinking about at all: "Well, why were you such a d----d fool as to go and have a son?" Ask the gods! Really _I_ don't know.

Ever faithfully--or, as the Japanese would say, _un_faithfully,--yours,

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

KUMAMOTO, June, 1894.

DEAR HENDRICK,-- ... We were chatting last time about the morality of business. Now let me tell you how the question strikes an intelligent Japanese student.

"Sir, what was your opinion when you first came to our country about the old-fashioned Japanese? Please be frank with me."

"You mean the old men, who still preserve the old customs and courtesy,--men like Mr. Akizuki, the Chinese teacher?"

"Yes."

"I think they were much better men than the Japanese of to-day. They seemed to me like the ideals of their own gods realized. They seemed to me all that was good and noble."

"And do you still think as well of them?"

"I think better of them, if anything. The more I see the Japanese of the new generation, the more I admire the men of the old."

"But you must have, as a foreigner, also observed their defects."

"What defects?"