CHAPTER XIX
KUMAMOTO
"Of course Urashima was bewildered by the gods. But who is not bewildered by the gods? What is Life itself but a bewilderment? And Urashima in his bewilderment doubted the purpose of the gods, and opened the box. Then he died without any trouble, and the people built a shrine to him as Urashima Mio-jin....
"These are quite differently managed in the West. After disobeying Western gods, we have still to remain alive and to learn the height and the breadth and the depth of superlative sorrow. We are not allowed to die quite comfortably just at the best possible time: much less are we suffered to become after death small gods in our own right. How can we pity the folly of Urashima after he had lived so long alone with visible gods?
"Perhaps the fact that we do may answer the riddle. This pity must be self-pity; wherefore the legend may be the legend of a myriad souls. The thought of it comes just at a particular time of blue light and soft wind,--and always like an old reproach. It has too intimate relation to a season and the feeling of a season not to be also related to something real in one's life, or in the lives of one's ancestors."
Only for a year did Hearn's sojourn in Fairyland last. The winter following his arrival was a very severe one. The northern coast of Japan lies open to the Arctic winds blowing over the snow-covered plains of Siberia. Heavy falls of snow left drifts five feet high round the _Yashiki_ on the hill. The large rooms, so delightful in the summer with their verandah opening on the garden, were cold as "cattle barns" in winter, with nothing but charcoal braziers to heat them. He dare not face another such experience, and asked, if possible, to be transferred to warmer quarters. Aided again by his friend, Professor Chamberlain, the authorities at Tokyo were induced to give him the professorship of English at the Imperial University at Kumamoto.
Kumamoto is situated in Kyushu, facing Formosa and the Chinese coast; the climate, therefore, is much milder than that of Matsue. Here, however, began Hearn's first disillusionment; like Urashima Taro, having dwelt within the precincts of Fairyland he felt the shock of returning to Earth again. The city struck him as being ugly and commonplace, a half-Europeanised garrison town, resounding to the sounds of bugles and the drilling of soldiers, instead of pilgrim songs and temple bells. "But Lord! I must try to make money; for nothing is sure in Japan and I am now so tied down to the country that I can't quit it, except for a trip, whether the Government employs me or not."
He began to look back with regret to the days passed at Matsue. "You must travel out of Izumo," he said, "after a long residence, and find out how unutterably different it is from other places,--for instance, this country ... the charming simplicity of the Izumo folk does not here exist."
All his Izumo servants had accompanied him to his new quarters, and apparently all his wife's family, for he mentions the fact that he has nine lives dependent upon him: wife, wife's mother, wife's father, wife's adopted mother, wife's father's father, then servants, and a Buddhist student.
This wouldn't do in America, he says to Ellwood Hendrik, but it is nothing in Japan. The moral burden, however, was heavy enough; he indulged in the luxury of filial piety, and it was impossible to let a little world grow up round him, to depend on him, and then break it all up--the good and evil results of "filial piety" are only known to orientals, and an oriental he had now become. His people felt like fish out of water, everything surrounding them was so different from their primitive home in Izumo. A goat in the next yard, "_mezurashii kedamono_," filled his little wife with an amused wonder. Some geese and a pig also filled her with surprise, such animals did not exist in the highlands of Japan.
The Kumamoto Government College was one of the largest in Japan,--came next, indeed, to the Imperial University in Tokyo in importance. It was run on the most approved occidental lines. A few of the boys still adhered to their Japanese dress, but most of them adopted the military uniform now, as a rule, worn in Japanese colleges. There were three classes, corresponding with three higher classes of the _Jinjo Chugakko_--and two higher classes. He did not now teach on Saturdays. There were no stoves--only _hibachi_. The library was small, and the English books were not good. There was a building in which Jiu-jitsu was taught; and separate buildings for sleeping, eating, and bathing. The bath-room was a surprise. Thirty or forty students could bathe at the same time; and four hundred could sit down to meals in the great dining-hall. There was a separate building, also, for the teaching of chemistry, natural history, etc.; and a small museum.
Hearn apparently foregathered with none of the masters of the college, except the old teacher of Chinese. The others he simply saluted morning and evening, and in the intervals between classes sat in a corner to himself smoking his pipe.
"You talk of being without intellectual companionship!" he writes to Hendrik. "OH YE EIGHT HUNDRED MYRIADS OF GODS! What would you do if you were me? Lo! The illusion is gone! Japan in Kyushu is like Europe--except I have no friend. The differences in ways of thinking, and the difficulties of language, render it impossible for an _educated_ Japanese to find pleasure in the society of a European. My scholars in this great Government school are not boys, but men. They speak to me only in class. The teachers never speak to me at all. I go to the college and return after class,--always alone, no mental company but books. But at home everything is sweet."
In consequence of this isolation, or because of the softening influence of matrimony, here at Kumamoto he seemed for the first time to awake to the fact of having relations in that distant western land he had left so many years before. "Our soul, or souls, ever wanders back to its own kindred," he says to his sister.
His father, Charles Bush Hearn, had left three children by his second wife (daughters), all born in India. Invalided home, Charles Hearn had died, in the Red Sea, of Indian fever; the three orphan children and his widow continued their journey to Ireland.
At their mother's death, which occurred a few years later, the girls were placed under the guardianship of various members of the family; two of them ultimately married; one of them a Mr. Brown, the other a Mr. Buckley Atkinson. The unmarried one, Miss Lillah Hearn, went out to Michigan in America, to stop with Lafcadio's brother, and her own half-brother, Daniel James Hearn, or Jim, as he was usually called.
Public interest was gradually awakening with regard to Japanese affairs. Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain's and Satow's books were looked upon as standard works to refer to for information concerning the political and social affairs of the extraordinary little people who were working their way to the van in the Far East. But, above all, Lafcadio Hearn's articles contributed to the _Atlantic Monthly_, afterwards published under the title of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," had claimed public attention.
Miss Lillah Hearn was the first member of the family to write to this half-brother, who was becoming so famous, but received no answer. Then Mrs. Brown, the other sister, approached him, silence greeted her efforts as well. On hearing of his marriage to a Japanese lady, Mrs. Atkinson, the youngest sister, wrote. Whether it was that she softened the exile's heart in his expatriation by that sympathy and innate tact which are two of her distinguished qualities, it is impossible to say, but her letter was answered.
This strange relative of theirs who had gone to Japan, adopted Japanese dress and habits, and married a Japanese lady, had become somewhat of a legendary character to his quiet-going Irish kindred. The arrival of the first letter, therefore, was looked upon as quite an event and was passed from house to house, and hand to hand, becoming considerably mutilated in its journeyings to and fro. The first page is entirely gone, and the second page so erased and torn that it is only decipherable here and there. We are enabled to put an approximate date to it by his reference to Miss Bisland's marriage, of which he had heard towards the end of his stay at Matsue.
"I have written other things, but am rather ashamed of them," he adds. "So Miss Bisland has married and become Mrs. Wetmore. She is as rich at least as she could wish to be, but I have not heard from her for more than a year. I suppose friendship ends with marriage. If my sister was not married, I think--I only think--I would feel more brotherly.
"Well, I will say _au revoir_. Many thanks for the letter you wrote me. I would like Please give me you can. Don't think busy to write--much I teach for a week--English and Elementary Latin: the time I study and write for pleasure, not for profit. There isn't much profit in literature unless, as a novelist, one happens to please a popular taste,--which isn't good taste. Some exceptions there are, like Rudyard Kipling; but your brother has not his inborn genius for knowing, seizing and painting human nature. Love to you and yours--from
"LAFCADIO HEARN.
"_Tetorihomnatu_ 34, "_Kumamoto, Kyushu, "Japan._"
Mrs. Atkinson replied immediately, thus beginning a series of delightful letters, which alas! relate, so many of them, to intimate family affairs that it is impossible to publish them in their original form.
"My sweet little sister," he wrote in answer, "your letter was more than personally grateful: it had also an unexpected curious interest for me, as a revelation of things I did not know. I don't know anything of my relations--their names, places, occupations, or even number: therefore your letter interested me in a peculiar way, apart from its amiable charm. Before I talk any more, I thank you for the photographs. They have made me prouder than I ought to be. I did not know that I had such nice kindred and such a fairy niece. My wife stole your picture from me almost as soon as I had received it, to caress it, and pray to Buddha and all the ancient gods to love the original: she has framed it in a funny little Japanese frame, and suspended it in that sacred part of the house, called the Toko, a sort of alcove, in which only beautiful things are displayed. Formerly the gods were placed there (many hundred years ago); but now the gods have a separate shrine in the household, and the Toko is only the second Holy place...."
The next letter is dated June 27th, '92, 25th year of Meiji.
"Dear sister, I love you a little bit more on hearing that you are little. The smaller you are the more I will be fond of you. As for marriage being a damper upon affection between kindred, it is true only of Occidental marriages. The Japanese wife is only the shadow of her husband, infinitely unselfish and naive in all things....
"If you want me to see you soon, you must pray to the Occidental gods to make me suddenly rich. However, I doubt if they have half as much influence as the gods of Japan,--who are helping me to make a bank account as fast as honest work can produce such a result. I have no babies; and don't expect to have, and may be able to cross the seas one of these days to linger in your country a while. But really I don't know. I drift with the current of events.
"As for my book on Japan,--my first book,--there is much to do yet,--it ought to be out in the Fall. It will be called "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan," and will treat of strange things.
"I would like to see you very much; for you are too tantalizing in your letters, and tell me nothing about your inner self. I want to find out what the angel shut up in your heart is like. No doubt very sweet, but I would like to pull it out, and stroke its wings, and make it chipper a little. As for the little ones, make them love me; for if they see me without previous discipline, they will be afraid of my ugly face when I come--I send you a photo of one-half of it, the other is not pleasant, I assure you: like the moon, I show only one side of myself. In Spanish countries they call me Leucadio--much easier for little folk to pronounce. By the way, you never gave me your address,--sign of impulsive haste, like my own.
"With best love, "LAFCADIO HEARN."
Then in January, 1903, he writes again, "Your kind sweet letter reached me at Christmas time, where there is no Christmas. Don't you know that you are very happy to be able to live in England? I am afraid you do not. Perhaps you could not know without having lived much elsewhere.... Your photo has come. The same eyes, the same chin, brow, nose: we are strangely alike--excepting that you are very comely, and I very much the reverse--partly by exaggeration of the traits which make your face beautiful, and partly because I am disfigured by the loss of an eye--punched out at school.... Won't you please give my kindest thanks to your husband for the pains he has taken to please me! I hope to meet him some day, and thank him in person, if I don't leave my bones in some quaint and curious Buddhist cemetery out here...."
The wonderful series of letters to Professor Hall Chamberlain, recently published by Miss Bisland, are also written from Kumamoto and Kobe, and to a great extent run simultaneously with those to his sister. He had a habit of repeating himself; the same expressions, the same quotations, appear in both series, and sometimes are again repeated in his published essays. When struck by an idea or incident, it seems as if he must impart it as something noteworthy to every one with whom he was holding communion. He gives, for instance, the same account to his sister of the routine of his Japanese day as related to Professor Hall Chamberlain and Ellwood Hendrik.
We can imagine his rigidly Protestant Irish relations amidst the conventional surroundings of an Irish country house, following minutely the services of the established church as preached to them by their local clergyman, utterly bewildered in reading the description of the outlandish cult to which he, their relation, subscribed in Japan. The awakening to the rising of the sun with the clapping of hands of servants in the garden, the prayers at the _Butsudan_, the putting out the food for the dead, all the strange, quaint customs that mark the passing of the day in the ancient Empire of Nippon. Not by thousands of miles only was he separated from his occidental relations, but by immemorial centuries of thought.
On May 21st, 1893, there is another letter to his sister, Mrs. Atkinson, in which he first announces his expectation of becoming a father. It is so characteristic of Lafcadio to take it for granted that the child would be a boy, and already to make plans for his education abroad.
"_Tsuboi, Nichihorabata_ 35, _Kumamoto, "Kyushu, Japan. May_ 21_st_, '93.
"MY DEAR MINNIE:
"(I think 'sister' is too formal, I shall call you by your pet name hereafter.) First let me thank you very, very much for the photographs. I was extremely pleased with that of your husband;--and thought at once, 'Ah! the lucky girl!' For your husband, my dear Sis, is no ordinary man. There are faces that seen for the first time leave an impression which gives the whole of the man, _ineffaceably_. And they are rare. I think I know your husband already, admire him and love him,--not simply for your sake, but for his own. He [is] all man,--and strong,--a good oak for your ivy. I don't mean physical strength, though he seems (from the photograph) to have an uncommon amount of it, but strength of character. You can feel pretty easy about the future of your little ones with such a father. (Don't read all this to him, though,--or he will think I am trying to flatter either him or you,--though, of course, you can tell him something of the impression his photo gives me, in a milder form.) And you don't know what the real impression is,--nor how it is enhanced by the fact that I have been for three years isolated from all English or European intercourse,--never see an English face, except that of some travelling missionary, which is apt to be ignoble. The Oriental face is somewhat inscrutable,--like the faces of the Buddhist gods. In youth it has quite a queer charm,--the charm of mysterious placidity, of smiling calm. (But among the modernised, college-bred Japanese this is lost.) What one never--or hardly ever--sees among these Orientals is a face showing strong character. The race is strangely impersonal. The women are divinely sweet in temper; the men are mysteries, and not altogether pleasant. I feel myself in exile; and your letters and photographs only make me homesick for English life,--just one plunge into it again.
"--Will I ever see you? Really I don't know. Some day I should like to visit England,--provided I could assure myself of sufficient literary work there to justify a stay of at least half-a-year, and the expense of the voyage. Eventually that might be possible. I would never go as a mere guest--not even a sister's; but I should like to be able to chat with the sister occasionally on leisure-evenings. I am quite a savage on the subject of independence, let me tell you; and would accept no kindnesses except those of your company at intervals. But all this is not of to-day. I cannot take my wife to Europe, it would be impossible to accustom her to Western life,--indeed it would be cruel even to try. But I may have to educate my child abroad,--which would be an all-powerful reason for the voyage. However, I would prefer an Italian, French, or Spanish school-life to an English one.
"--Oh yes, about the book--'Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan' is now in press. It will appear in two volumes, without illustrations. The publishers are Houghton, Mifflin & Co., of Boston,--the best in America. Whether you like the book or no, I can't tell. I have an idea you do not care much about literary matters;--that you are too much wife and mother for that;--that your romances and poetry are in your own home. And such romance and poetry is the best of all. However, if you take some interest in trying to look at ME between the lines, you may have patience to read the work. Don't try to read it, if you don't like.
"--But here is something you might do for me, as I am not asking for certain friendly offices. When the book is criticised, you might kindly send me a few of the best reviews. Miss Bisland, while in London, wrote me the reviews of some of my other books had been very kindly; but she never dreamed of supplementing this pleasant information by cutting out a few specimens for me.--By the way, she has married well, you know,--has become awfully rich and fashionable, and would not even condescend to look at me if she passed me in Broadway--I _suppose_. But she well deserved her good fortune; for she was certainly one of the most gifted girls I ever knew, and has succeeded in everything--against immense obstacles--with no help except that of her own will and genius.
"--And now I must give you a lecture. I don't want more than one sister,--haven't room in my heart for more. All appear to be as charming as they are sweet looking. I am interested to hear how they succeed, etc., etc. But don't ask me to write to everybody, and don't show everybody my letters. I can't diffuse myself very far. You said you would be 'my favourite.' A nice way you go about it! Suppose I tell you that I am a very jealous, nasty brother; and that if I can't have one sister by herself I don't want any sister at all! Would that be very, very naughty? But it is true. And now you can be shocked just as much as you please.
"--Yes, I have lost an eye, and look horrible. The operation in Dublin did not cause the disfigurement, but a blow, or rather the indirect results of a blow, received from a play-fellow.
"--You ask me if I should like a photograph of father. I certainly should, if you can procure me one without trouble. I hope--much more than to see England,--to visit India, and try to find some tradition of him. I did not know positively, until last year, that father had been in the West Indies. When I went there, I had the queerest, ghostliest sensation of having seen it all before. I think I should experience even stranger sensations in India! The climate would be agreeable for me. Remember, I passed fourteen years of my life south of winter. The first snow I saw from 1876 to 1890 was on my way through Canada to Japan. Indeed, if ever I become quite independent, I want to return to the tropics.
"Enough to tire your eyes,--isn't it?--for this time.
"Ever affectionately, "LAFCADIO HEARN.
"In the names of the eight hundred myriads of Gods,--do give me your address. The only way I have been able to write you is by finding the word _Portadown_ in _Whittaker's Almanac_. You are a careless, naughty 'Sis.'
"I enclose my name and address in Japanese.
"YAKUMO KOIZUMI, "_Tsuboi, "Nichihorabata 35, "Kumamoto, Kyushu_."
All the women are making funny little Japanese baby-clothes, and all the Buddhist Divinities, who watch over little children, are being prayed to.... "Letters of congratulation," he said, "were coming from all directions, for the expectation of a child is always a subject of great gladness in Japan.... Behind all this there is a universe of new sensations, revelations of things in Buddhist faith which are very beautiful and touching. About the world an atmosphere of delicious, sacred naivete,--difficult to describe because resembling nothing in the Western world...."
Hearn's account of his home before the birth of his son throws most interesting lights on Japanese methods of thought and daily life. He refers to the pretty custom of a woman borrowing a baby when she is about to become a mother. It is thought an honour to lend it. And it is extraordinarily petted in its new home. The one his wife borrowed was only six months old, but expressed in a supreme degree all the Japanese virtues; docile to the degree of going to sleep when bidden, and of laughing when it awakened. The eerie wisdom of its face seemed to suggest a memory of all its former lives. The incident he relates also of a little Samurai boy whom he and his wife had adopted is interesting as showing the Spartan discipline exercised over Japanese children from earliest youth, enabling them in later life to display that iron self-control that has astonished the world; interesting, also, as showing how nothing escaped Hearn's quick observation and assiduous intellect. Hearn, at first, wanted to fondle the child, and make much of him, but he soon found that it was not in accordance with custom. He therefore ceased to take notice of him; and left him under the control of the women of the house. Their treatment of him Hearn thought peculiar; the little fellow was never praised and rarely scolded. One day he let a little cup fall and broke it. No notice was taken of the accident for fear of giving him pain. Suddenly, though the face remained quite smilingly placid as usual, he could not control his tears. As soon as they saw him cry, everybody laughed and said kind things to him, till he began to laugh, too. But what followed was more surprising. Apparently he had been distantly treated. One day he did not return from school until three hours after the usual time; suddenly the women began to cry--they were, indeed, more deeply affected than their treatment of the boy would have justified. The servants ran hither and thither in their anxiety to find him. It turned out that he had only been taken to a teacher's house for something relating to school matters. As soon as his voice was heard at the door, every one was quiet, cold, and distantly polite again.
On September 17th he writes again to his sister, thanking her for a copy she had sent him of the _Saturday Review_. "You could send me nothing more pleasing, or more useful in a literary way. It is all the more welcome as I am really living in a hideous isolation, far away from books, and book-shops, and Europeans. When I can get--which I hope is the next year--into a more pleasant locality, I shall try to pick out some pretty Oriental tales to send to the little ones." He was not able, he goes on, to go far from Kumamoto, not liking to leave his little wife too long alone; so his vacation was rather monotonous. He travelled only as far as Nagasaki. It was quaint and pretty, but hotter than any West Indian port in the hot season. He was economising, he said, and had saved nearly three thousand five hundred dollars. Once he had provided for his wife, he hoped to be able to make a few long voyages to places east of Japan. "You are much to be envied," he goes on to his sister, "for your chances of travel. What a pity you are not able to devote yourself to writing and painting in a place like Algiers--full of romance and picturesqueness. If you go there, don't fail to see the old Arab part of the city--the Kasbah, I think they call it. How about the Continent? Have you tried Southern Italy? And don't you think that one gets all the benefit of travel only by keeping away from fashion-resorts and places consecrated by conventionalism? Nothing to me is more frightful than a fashionable seaside resort--such as those of the Atlantic Coast. My happiest sojourns of this sort have been in little fishing villages, and little queer old unknown towns, where there are no big vulgar hotels, and where one can dress and do exactly as one pleases.
"What will you do with your little man when he grows up? Army, or Civil Service? Whatever you do, never let him go to America, and lose all his traditions. Australia would be far better. I expect he will be gloriously well able to take care of himself anywhere,--judging by his father, but I have come to the belief that one cannot too soon begin the cultivation of a single aim and single talent in life. This is the age of specialism. No man can any longer be successful in many things. Even the 'general practitioner' in medicine has almost become obsolete.
"Nothing seems to me more important now for a little boy than the training of his linguistic faculties,--giving him every encouragement in learning languages by ear--(the only natural way); and your travelling sometimes with him will help you to notice how his faculties are in that direction. But perhaps it will be possible for him to pass all his life in England. (For me, England, Ireland and Scotland mean the same thing.) That would be pleasant indeed.... When I think of your little man with the black eyes, I hope that his life will always be in the circle of English traditions, wherever the English Flag flies, there remain.
"I suppose you know that in this Orient the construction of the family is totally different to what it is in Europe.... We are too conceitedly apt to think that what is good for Englishmen is good for all nations,--our ethics, our religion, our costumes, etc. The plain facts of the case are that all Eastern races lose, instead of gaining, by contact with us. They imitate our vices instead of our virtues, and learn all our weaknesses without getting any of our strength. Already statistics show an enormous increase of crime in Japan as the result of 'Christian civilisation'; and the open ports show a demoralisation utterly unknown in the interior of the country, and unimaginable in the old feudal days before 1840 or 1850...."
In the next letter he gives his sister a minute account of his Japanese manner of life on the floor without chairs or tables. It has been described so often by visitors to Japan, and by Hearn himself, that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. He ends his letter:--
"I am now so used to the Japanese way of living, that when I have to remain all day in Western clothes, I feel very unhappy; and I think I should not find European life pleasant in summer time. Some day, I will send you a photograph of my house.
"I wish you much happiness and good health and pleasant days of travel, and thank you much for the paper.
"This letter is rather rambling, but perhaps you will find something interesting in it.
"Ever affectionately, "LAFCADIO."
In September comes another letter to Mrs. Atkinson:
"You actually talk about writing too often,--which is strange! There is only this difficulty about writing,--that we both know so little of each other that topics interesting to both can be only guessed at. That should be only a temporary drawback.
"The more I see your face in photos, the more I feel drawn toward you. Lillah and the other sister represent different moods and tenses pictorially. You seem most near to me,--as I felt on first reading your letter. You have strength, too, where I have not. You are certainly very sensitive, but also self-repressed. I think you are not inclined to make mistakes. I think you can be quickly offended, and quick to forgive--if you understand the offence to be only a mistake. You would not forgive at all should you discern behind the fault a something much worse than mistake,--and in this you would be right. You are inclined to reserve, and not to bursts of joy;--you have escaped my extremes of depression and extremes of exultation. You see very quickly beyond the present relations of a fact--I think all this. But of course you have been shaped in certain things by social influences I have never had,--so that you must have perfect poise where I would flounder and stumble.
"But imagining won't do always. I should like to know more of you than a photograph or a rare letter can tell. I don't know, remember, anything _at all_ about you. I do not know where you were born, where you were educated,--anything of your life; or what is much more, infinitely more important, I don't know your emotions and thoughts and feelings and experiences in the past. What you are now, I can guess. But what _were_ you,--long ago? What memories most haunt you of places and people you liked? If you could tell me some of these, how pleasantly we might compare notes. Mere facts tell little: the interest of personality lies most in the infinitely special way that facts affect the person. I am very curious about you,--but, don't take this too seriously; because though my wishes are strong, my disinclination to cause you pain is stronger; and you have told me that writing is sometimes fatiguing to you. It were so much better could we pass a day or two together.
"You must not underrate yourself as you did in your last. Your few lines about the scenery,--short as they were,--convinced me that you could do something literary of a very nice sort had you the time and chance to give yourself to any such work. But I do not wish that you would--except to read the result; for literary labour is extremely severe work, even after the secret of method is reached. I am only beginning to learn; and to produce five pages means to write at least twenty-five. Enthusiasms and inspirations have least to do with the matter. The real work is condensing, compressing, choosing, changing, shifting words and phrases,--studying values of colour and sound and form in words; and when all is done, the result satisfies only for a time. What I wrote six years ago, I cannot bear the sight of to-day. If I had been a genius, I wonder whether I would feel the same.
"Romances are not in novels, but in lives. Can you not tell me some of yours when you are feeling very, very well, and don't know what to do? What surprised me was your observation about 'sentimental' in your last letter,--and that upon such a worthy topic! What can you think of me? And here in this Orient, where the spirit of more ancient faiths enters into one's blood with the sense of the doctrine of filial piety, and the meaning of ancestor worship,--how very, very strange and cruel it seems to me that my little sister should be afraid of being thought _sentimental_ about the photograph of her father! What self-repression does all this mean, and what iron influences in Western life--English life that I have almost forgotten! However, character loses nothing: under the exterior ice, the Western could only gain warmth and depth if it be of the right sort. I hope, nevertheless, my little sister will be just as 'sentimental' as she possibly can when she writes to Japan,--and feel sure of more than sympathy and gratitude. Unless she means by 'sentimental' only something in regard to style of writing--in which case I assure her that she cannot err. If she is afraid of being thought really sentimental, I should be much more afraid of meeting her,--for I should wish to say sweet things and to hear them, too, should I deserve.
"At all events remember that you have given me something very precious,--not only in itself,--but precious because precious to you. And it shall never be lost,--in spite of earthquakes and possible fires."
(The something he alludes to as "very precious" was a photograph of their father, Charles Hearn, that Mrs. Atkinson had sent him.)
"--I wish I could talk to you more about Father and India. I wish to ask a hundred thousand questions. But on paper it is difficult to express all one wishes to say. And letters of mere questions carry no joy with them, and no sympathy. So I shall not ask _now_ any more. And you must not tire your dear little aching head to write when you do not feel well. I shall write again soon. For a little while good-bye, with love and all sweet hope to you ever,
"LAFCADIO HEARN.
"_Kumamoto, "Kyushu, Japan. "Jan_. 30, '94."
On November 17th, 1893, at one o'clock in the morning, Hearn's eldest son, Leopold Kazuo Koizumi, was born.
He declared that the strangest and strongest sensation of his life was hearing for the first time the cry of his own child. There was a strange feeling of being double; something more, also, impossible to analyse--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.
A few weeks later he writes to his sister, giving her news about his son. "The physician says that from the character of his bones he ought to become very tall. He is very dark. He has my nose and promises to have the Hearn eyebrows; but he has the Oriental eye. Whether he will be handsome or ugly, I can't tell: his little face changes every day;--he has already looked like five different people. When first born, I thought him the prettiest creature I ever saw. But that did not last. I am so inexperienced in the matter of children that I cannot trust myself to make any predictions. Of course I find the whole world changed about me....
"My wife," he goes on, "is quite well. Happily the old military caste to which she belongs is a strong one, but how sacred and terrible a thing is maternity. When it was all over I felt very humble and grateful to the Unknowable Power which had treated us so kindly. The possibility of men being cruel to the women who bear their children seemed at the moment to darken existence.
"I have received your last beautiful photograph--or I should say two:--the vignette is, of course, the most lovable, but both are very, very nice. I gave the full-figure one to Setsu. She would like to have her boy grow up looking either like you or like Posey--but most like you. (Thanks also for the pretty photo of yourself and Posey: Posey is decidedly handsome.) But I fear my son can never be like either of you. He is altogether Oriental so far,--looks at me with the still calm Buddhist eyes of the Far East, and the soul of another race. Even his nose will never declare his Western blood; for the finest class of the Japanese offer many strongly aquiline faces. Setsu is a Samurai, and though her own features are the reverse of aquiline, there are aquiline faces among the kindred.
"I am awfully anxious that the boy should get to be like you. I have had your most beautiful photograph copied by a clever photographer here and have sent the copies to friends, saying, 'this is my sister; and this is the boy. I want him to look like her.' You see I am proud of you,--not only as to the ghostly, but also as to the material part of you. Physiologically I am all Latin and Pagan,--even though my little boy's eyes are bright blue.
"... It is really nonsense, sending such a thing as his photo at fifty-five days old, because the child changes so much every week. But you are my little sister. I have called him Leopold Kazuo Hearn--for European use and custom. Kazuo, in Japanese, signifies 'First of the Excellent.' I have not registered him under that name, however; because by the law, if I registered my wife or son in the Consulate, both become English citizens, and lose the right to hold any property, or do any business in Japan, or even to live in the interior without a passport. I have, therefore, stopped at the Japanese marriage ceremony, and a publication of the fact abroad. In the present order I dare not deprive my folks of their nationality."
Then some time later he writes:--
"You ask for all kinds of news about Kajiwo. Well, he is now able to stand well, and is tremendously strong to all appearance. He tries to speak. 'Aba' is the first _word_ spoken by Japanese babes: it means 'good-bye.' Here is a curious example of the contrast between West and East,--the child comes into the world saying farewell. But this would be in accordance with Buddhist philosophy,--saying farewell to the previous life.
"You are right about supposing that the birth of a son in Japan is an occasion of special rejoicing. All the baby clothes are ready long before birth--(except the ornamental ones)--as the _Kimono_ or little robe is the same shape for either sex (_of children_). But, when the child is born, if it be a girl, very beautiful clothes of bright colours, covered with wonderful pictures, are made for it. If it be a boy the colours are darker, and the designs different. My little fellow's silken Kimono is covered with pictures of tortoises, storks, pine, and other objects typical of long life, prosperity, steadfastness, etc. This subject is enormously elaborate and complicated,--so that I cannot tell you all about it in a letter.
"After the child is born, all friends and relatives bring presents,--and everybody comes to see and congratulate the mother. You would think this were a trial. I was afraid it would tire Setsu. But she was walking about again on the seventh day after birth. The strength of the boy is hers,--not mine.
"I was also worried about the physician. I wanted the chief surgeon of the garrison,--because I was afraid. He was a friend, and laughed at me. He said: 'If anything terrible should happen, call me, but otherwise don't worry about a doctor. The Japanese have managed these things in their own way for thousands of years without doctors: a woman or two will do.' So two women came, and all was well. I hated the old women first, but after their success, I became very fond of them, and hugged them in English style, which they could not understand."
The kind dull veil that nature keeps stretched between mankind and the Unknown was drawn again. The world became to Hearn nearly the same as it had been before the birth of his child, and he could plan, he said, for the boy's future. He was afraid he might be near-sighted, and wondered if he would be intellectual. "He was so proud of him," his wife says, "that whenever a guest, a student, or a fellow-professor called, he would begin talking about him and his perfections without allowing his friend to get a word in. He perfectly frightened me with a hundred toys he brought home when he returned."
After his son's birth, Hearn naturally became still more anxious to have Setsu registered legally as his wife, but he was always met by official excuses and delays. He was told that if he wished the boy to remain a Japanese citizen he must register him in the mother's name only. If he registered him in his own name his son became a foreigner. On the other hand, Hearn knew that if he nationalised himself his salary would be reduced to a Japanese level.
"I don't quite see the morality of the reduction," he says, "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 civilised countries abroad. It would only make some difference in an uncivilised 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 about Setsu's and the boy's interests: my own being concerned only at that point where their injury would be Setsu's injury."
The only way out of the difficulty, he concluded, was to abandon his English nationality and adopt his wife's family name, Koizumi. As a prefix for his own personal use he selected the appellation of the Province of Izumo "Yakumo" ("Eight clouds," or the "Place of the Issuing of Clouds," the first word of the ancient, Japanese song "Ya-he-gaki").
On one of his letters he shows his sister how his name is written in Japanese.
Mrs. Atkinson's youngest child, Dorothy, was born in March, 1894. There is an interval of exactly four months between her and her cousin Kazuo. It is in reference to this event that the following letter was written:--
"How sweet of you to get Mrs. or Miss Weatherall to write me the dear news! You will be well by the time this reaches you, so that I may venture to write more than congratulations.
"I was quite anxious about you,--feeling as if you were the only real _fellow-soul_ in my world but one:--and birth is a thing so much more terrible than all else in the universe--more so than death itself--that the black border round the envelope made my heart cold for a moment. I had forgotten the why. Now I hope you will not have any more sons or daughters; you have three,--and I trust you will have no more pain or trouble. As for me, I am very resolved not to become a father again.
"You will laugh at me, and perhaps think it very strange that when only thirty-five I began to feel a kind of envy of friends with children. I knew their troubles, anxieties, struggles; but I saw their sons grow up, beautiful and gifted men, and I used to whisper to myself,--'But I never shall have a child.' Then it used to seem to me that no man died so utterly as the man without children: for him I fancied (like some folk still really think in other lands) that death would be utter eternal blackness. When I did, however, hear the first cry of my boy--_my_ boy, dreamed about in forgotten years--I had for that instant the ghostly sensation of being _double_. Just then, and only then, I did not think,--but _felt_, 'I am TWO.' It was weird but gave me thoughts that changed all pre-existing thoughts. My boy's gaze still seems to me a queerly beautiful thing: I still feel I am looking at myself when he looks at me. Only the thought has become infinitely more complicated. For I think about all the dead who live in the little heart of him--races and memories diverse as East and West. But who made his eyes blue and his hair brown? And will he be like you? And will he ever see the little cousin who has just entered the world? The other day, for one moment, he looked just like your boy in the picture."
Mrs. Atkinson about this time went through private trials upon which it is unnecessary to touch here. The following letter of consolation and encouragement was written to her by her half-brother:--
"Well, you too have had your revelations,--which means deep pains. One must pay a terrible price to see and to know. Still, the purchase is worth making. You know the Emerson lines:--
"Though thou love her as thyself, As a self of purer clay; Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know When half-Gods go, The Gods arrive!...
"Reverse the condition: the moral is the same,--and it is eternal. By light alone one cannot see; there must be shadows in multitude to help. What we love is good, and exists, but often exists only in _us_,--then we become angry at others, not knowing the illusion was the work of the Gods. The Gods are always right. They make us sometimes imagine that something we love ever so much is in others, while it is only in our own hearts. The reason they do this to some, like you and me, is to teach us what terrible long, long mistakes we might have made without their help. Sometimes they really cause a great deal of more serious trouble, and we can't tell why. We must wait and believe and be quite sure the Gods are good.
"What is not always good is the tender teaching we get at home. We are told of things so beautiful that we believe everybody must believe them,--truth, and love, and duty, and honour of soul, etc. We are even taught the enormous lie that the world is entirely regulated by these beliefs. I wonder if it would not be much better to teach children the adult truth:--'The world is thus and so:--those beliefs are ideal only which do not influence the intellectual life, nor the industrial life, nor the social life. The world is a carnival-ball; and you must wear a mask thereat,--and never, _never_ doff it;--except to the woman or the man you must love always. Learn to wear your mask with grace--only keep your heart fresh in spite of all bitter knowledge.' Wouldn't this be the best advice? As a mere commonplace fact,--the whole battle of life is fought in disguise by those who win. No man knows the heart of another man. No woman knows the heart of another woman. Only the woman can learn the man, and the man the woman;--and this only after years! What a great problem it is; and how utterly it is neglected in teaching the little human flowers that we set out in the world's cold without a thought!
"You are more and more like me in every letter; but you are better far. I have not learned reserve with friends yet: I supply the lack by a retreating disposition,--a disinclination to make acquaintances. I love very quickly and strongly; but just as quickly dislike what I loved--if deceived, and the dislike does not die. My general experience has been that the loveable souls are but rarely lodged in the forms which most attract us: there _are_ such exceptions on the woman's side as my dear little Sis,--and there are exceptions on the male side of a particular order, and rare. But the rule remains. I wonder if all these jokes are not played on us by the Gods, who think,--'No!--you want the infinite! That can be reached later only,--after innumerable births. First learn, for a million years or so, just to love only _souls_. You _must_! for you will be punished if you try to obtain all perfections in one.' I think the Gods talk to us about that way; and when we leave the Spring season of life behind, we find the Gods were right after all.
"--Still, the great puzzle is in all these things there are no general rules solid enough to trust in. I fancy the best teaching for a heart would be,--'Always caution,--but--believe the tendency of the world is to good.' And _largeness_ seems to be necessary,--never to suffer oneself to see only one charm; but to train oneself to study combinations and understand them. Any modern human nature is too complex to be otherwise judged.
"Music,--yes! If I were near you I would be always teasing you to play:--and would bring you all kinds of queer exotic melodies to make variations on: strange melodies from Spanish America and the Creole Islands, and Japan, and China, and all sorts of strange places. We should try to do very curious things in the way of ballads and songs, and you would teach me all sorts of musical things I don't know. By the way, you will be shocked to learn, perhaps, that I have never been able to appreciate the superiority of the new German music: The Italian still seems to me the divine: but that may be because I have never had time to train myself to appreciate.
"--You do not know how much I sympathise with all your anxieties and troubles, and how much I wish for your strength and happiness. Would I not like to be travelling with you to countries where you would find all the rest and light and warmth you could enjoy! Perhaps, some day that may be. Pray to the Gods for my good fortune; and we shall share the pleasure together if They listen. If They do not, we must wait as the Buddhists say until the future birth. Then I want to be a very rich man, or woman, and you a very dear little sister or brother;--and I want to have a steam yacht of 30,000 horse-power.
"--Your sweetest little daughter, may you live to see her happiness in all things! I am glad I have no daughter. A boy can fight--must fight his way; but a daughter is the luxury of a rich man. Had I a daughter, she would be too dear; and I should feel inclined to say if dying:--'My child, I am unable to guard you longer, and the world is difficult: you would do better to come to Shadowland with me.' But your Marjory will be well guarded and petted, and have the world made sweet for her; and you will have no more grief. You have had all your disappointments and troubles in girlhood--childhood;--the future must be kind to you. As for me, I really think the Gods owe me some favours; they have ignored me so long that I am now all expectation."
Then again:--
"MY VERY SWEET LITTLE SISTER,
"Your dear letter came yesterday, and filled us all with gladness. You see I say US;--for my folks prayed very hard for you to the ancient Gods and to the Buddhas,--that I might not lose that little sister of mine.--And now to answer questions.
"Indeed, Setsu got the photos, and wondered at them, for she had never seen a carriage before of that kind, or a room like your room; and very childishly asked me to make her a room like yours. To which I said:--'The cost of such a room would buy for you a whole street in your native city of Matsue; and besides, you would be very unhappy and uncomfortable in such a room.' And when I explained, she wondered still more. (A very large Japanese house could be bought with the grounds for about L30--I mean a big, big merchant's house--in Izumo.) Another wonder was the donkey in the other photo, for none had ever seen such an animal.
"--As for your ever coming to Japan, my dear, if you do, you shall have a chair. But I fear--indeed I am almost certain--that the day is not very far away when I must leave Setsu and Kajiwo to the care of the ancient Gods, and go away and work bravely for them elsewhere, till Kajiwo is old enough to go abroad. The days of foreign influence and of foreign teaching in Japan are rapidly drawing to a close. Japan is learning to do well without us; and we have not been kind enough to her to win her love. We have persecuted her with hordes of fanatical missionaries, robbed her by unjust treaties, forced her to pay monstrous indemnities for trifling wrongs;--we have forced her to become strong, and she is going to do without us presently, the future is dark. Happily my folks will be provided for; and I expect to be able, if I must go, to return in a few years. It is barely possible that I might get into journalism in Japan,--but not at all sure. I suppose you know that is my living profession: I understand all kinds of newspaper work. But as I am no believer in conventions, I am not likely to get any of the big sinecures. To do that one must be a ladies' man, a member of some church, a social figure. I am no ladies' man: I am known to the world as an 'infidel,' and I hate society unutterably. Were I rich enough to live where I please, I should certainly (if unable to live in Japan) return to the tropics. Indeed, I have a faint hope of passing at least the winters of my old age near the Equator. Where the means are to come from I don't know; but I have a kind of faith in Goethe's saying, that whatever a man most desires in youth, he will have an excess of in his old age. Leisure to write books in a warm climate is all I ask. Pray to the Gods, if you believe in any Gods, to help the dream to be realised.
"Kajiwo is my nightmare. I am tortured all day and all night by the problem of how to set him going in life before I become dust. Sometimes I think how bad it was of me to have had a child at all. Yet before that, I did not really know what life was; and I would not lose the knowledge for any terms of gifts of years. Besides, I am beginning to think I am really a tolerably good sort of fellow,--for if I had been really such a monster of depravity as the religious fanatics declared, how could I have got such a fine boy. There must be some good in me anyhow. Nobody shall make a 'Christian' of Kajiwo if I can help it--by 'Christian' I mean a believer in absurd and cruel dogmas. The world talks much about Christianity, but no one teaches it.
"--So glad to hear you are able to go out a little again. Perhaps a long period of strong solid calm health is preparing for you. After the trials and worries of maternity such happy conditions often come as a reward. I hope to chat with you by a fire when we are both old, and Kaji has shot up into a man,--looking like his aunt a little--with a delicate aquiline face. But only the Eternities know what his face will be like. It is changeable as water now. I won't send another photo of him till he looks pretty again.
"With best love, "LAFCADIO HEARN. "_June_ 24, '94.
"I must go off travelling in a couple of weeks. Perhaps there will be a little delay before my next letter reaches you."
In the next letter he touches upon these travels undertaken with his wife, mother-in-law, and Kaji (an abbreviation of Kazuo, or Kajiwo, as Hearn was in the habit of calling him at first).
"How sweet of you," he says, "to send that charming photo of the children. It delighted us all. Setsu never saw a donkey--there are none in Japan; and all wondered at the strange animal. What I wondered at was to see what a perfect pretty little woman the charming Marjory is. As for the boy, he is certainly what every parent wants a boy to be as to good looks; but I also think he must have a very sweet temper. I trust that you won't allow the world to spoil it for him. They do spoil tempers at some of the great public schools. I cannot believe it is necessary to let young lads be subjected to the brutality of places like Eton and Harrow. It hardens them too much. The answer is that the great school turns out the conquerors of the world,--the subalterns of Kipling,--the Clives,--the daring admirals and great captains, etc. Perhaps in this militant age it is necessary. But I notice the great thinkers generally come from other places. However, this is the _practical_ age,--there is nothing for philosophers, poets, or painters to succeed in, unless they are independently situated. I shall try to make a good doctor out of Kaji, if I can. I could never afford to do more for him. And if possible I shall take him to Europe, and stay there with him for a couple of years. But that is a far-away matter."
Characteristically with that apprehensive mind of his, his son's future, as Hearn himself confesses, became a perfect nightmare.
"I must make an Englishman of him, I fear. His hair has turned bright brown. He is so strong that I expect him to become a very powerful man: he is very deep-chested and thick-built and so heavy now, that people think I am not telling the truth about his age.
"Kajiwo's soul seems to be so English that I fancy his memory of former births would scarcely refer much to Japan. How about the real compound race-soul, though? One would have to recollect having been two at the same time. This seems to me a defect in the popular theory--still the Japanese hold, or used to hold, that the soul is itself a multiple--that each person has a _number of souls_. That would give an explanation. Scientifically it is true. We are all compounds of innumerable lives--each a sum in an infinite addition--the dead are not dead--they live in all of us and move us,--and stir faintly in every heart-beat. And there are ghostly interlinkings. Something of _you_ must be in _me_, and of both of us in Kajiwo.
"--I wonder if this also be true of little Dorothy. It is a curious thing that you tell me about the change in colour of the eyes. I only saw that happen in hot climates. Creole children are not uncommonly born with gold hair and bright blue eyes. A few years later the skin, eyes, hair seem to have entirely changed,--the first to brown, the two last to coal-black.
"--I am writing all this dreamy stuff just to amuse my sweet little sister,--because I can't be near to pet her and make her feel very happy. Well, a little Oriental theory may have some caressing charm for you. It is a very gentle faith--though also very deep; and you will find in my book how much it interests me.
"Take very, very, _very_ good care of your precious little self,--and do not try to write till you feel immensely strong. Setsu sends sweet words and wishes. And I----!
"With love, "LAFCADIO HEARN.
"_Kumamoto, June_ 2, '94."