Chapter 7

[28]Copyright, 1890, by Harper and Brothers.

It gave me no small pleasure to find that you like "Youma": you will not like it less knowing that the story is substantially true. You can see the ruins of the old house in the Quartier du Fort if you ever visit Saint-Pierre, and perhaps meet my old friend Arnoux, a survivor of the time. The girl really died under the heroic conditions described—refusing the help of the blacks and the ladder. Of course I may have idealized her, but not her act. The incident of the serpent occurred also; but the heroine was a different person,—a plantation girl, celebrated by the historian Rufz de Lavison. I wrote the story under wretched circumstances in Martinique, near the scenes described, and under the cross with the black Christ.

An English notice says:—

"It is an admirable little tale, full of local characteristics with curious fragments of Creole French from Martinique, and abundance of wide human sympathy. It deserves reprinting for English readers more than three-fourths of the fiction which is wont to cross the Atlantic under similar circumstances." (294.)

"Youma" is the tale of the exquisite devotion and loyalty of ada. (Adais the foster-mother and nurse ofa Creole child.) At the death of Aimée, Youma's playmate and rich foster-sister, little Mayotte, her child, becomes Youma's charge. An intimate description is given us of the Creole life of Mayotte and Youma. The love of thisdais very beautiful. Once with an extraordinary heroism Youma saves Mayotte from a serpent which has slipped into their room. With a still greater heroism she refuses to run away with Gabriel, who has opened the world to her,—Gabriel who has brought her love, and whom she can marry in no other way. No, above the pleadings of her lover, comes the voice of her dying mistress, begging, with such trust,—

"Youma, O Youma! you will love my child?—Youma, you will never leave her, whatever happens, while she is little? promise, dear Youma!"And she had—promised....

"Youma, O Youma! you will love my child?—Youma, you will never leave her, whatever happens, while she is little? promise, dear Youma!"

And she had—promised....

Then comes the final test of Youma's strength of devotion. There is an outbreak among the blacks, who have become inflamed by the dreams of coming freedom. The Desrivières with many other families are forced to flee for refuge in safer quarters. Under one roof all these people gather. Youma is urged to leave and save herself. But she will not forsake Mayotte or her master. The infuriated blacks surround the house, and horror follows. Presently the house is set on fire. Youma, with Mayotte in her arms, appears at an upper window. Gabriel, "daring the hell about him for her sake," puts up a ladder. Youma hands him Mayotte. "Can you save her?" she asks.

"Gabriel could only shake his head;—the street sent up so frightful a cry...."Non!—non!—non!—pa lè yche-béké—janmain yche-béké!""Then you cannot save me!" cried Youma, clasping the child to her bosom,—"janmain! janmain, mon ami.""Youma, in the name of God....""In the name of God, you ask me to be a coward!... Are youvile, Gabriel?—are you base?... Save myself and leave the child to burn?... Go!""Leave thebéké's yche!—leave it!—leave it, girl!" shouted a hundred voices."Moin!" cried Youma, retreating beyond the reach of Gabriel's hand,—"moin!... Never shall I leave it, never! I shall go to God with it.""Burn with it, then!" howled the negroes ... "down with that ladder! down with it, down with it!"

"Gabriel could only shake his head;—the street sent up so frightful a cry....

"Non!—non!—non!—pa lè yche-béké—janmain yche-béké!"

"Then you cannot save me!" cried Youma, clasping the child to her bosom,—"janmain! janmain, mon ami."

"Youma, in the name of God...."

"In the name of God, you ask me to be a coward!... Are youvile, Gabriel?—are you base?... Save myself and leave the child to burn?... Go!"

"Leave thebéké's yche!—leave it!—leave it, girl!" shouted a hundred voices.

"Moin!" cried Youma, retreating beyond the reach of Gabriel's hand,—"moin!... Never shall I leave it, never! I shall go to God with it."

"Burn with it, then!" howled the negroes ... "down with that ladder! down with it, down with it!"

The ladder catches fire and burns. The walls quiver, and there are shrieks from the back of the house. Unmoved, with a perfect calm, Youma remains at the window. "There is now neither hate nor fear on her fine face." Softly she whispers to Mayotte, and caresses her with an infinite tenderness. Never to Gabriel had she seemed so beautiful.

Another minute—and he saw her no more. The figure and the light vanished together, as beams and floor and roof all quaked down at once into darkness.... Only the skeleton of stone remained,—black-smoking to the stars.

A stillness follows. The murderers are appalled by their crime.

Then, from below, the flames wrestled out again,—crimsoning the smoke whirls, the naked masonry, the wreck of timbers. They wriggled upward, lengthening, lapping together,—lifted themselves erect,—grew taller, fiercer,—twined into one huge fluid spire of tongues that flapped and shivered high into the night....The yellowing light swelled,—expanded from promontory to promontory,—palpitated over the harbour,—climbed the broken slopes of the dead volcano leagues through the gloom. The wooded mornes towered about the city in weird illumination,—seeming loftier than by day,—blanching and shadowing alternately with the soaring and sinking of the fire;—and at each huge pulsing of the glow, the white cross of their central summit stood revealed, with the strange passion of its black Christ.... And at the same hour, from the other side of the world,—a ship was running before the sun, bearing the Republican gift of liberty and promise of universal suffrage to the slaves of Martinique.

The yellowing light swelled,—expanded from promontory to promontory,—palpitated over the harbour,—climbed the broken slopes of the dead volcano leagues through the gloom. The wooded mornes towered about the city in weird illumination,—seeming loftier than by day,—blanching and shadowing alternately with the soaring and sinking of the fire;—and at each huge pulsing of the glow, the white cross of their central summit stood revealed, with the strange passion of its black Christ.

... And at the same hour, from the other side of the world,—a ship was running before the sun, bearing the Republican gift of liberty and promise of universal suffrage to the slaves of Martinique.

There are two little bits of description which are so characteristic that I quote them:—

Then she became aware of a face ... lighted by a light that came from nowhere,—that was only a memory of some long-dead morning. And through the dimness round about it a soft blue radiance grew,—the ghost of a day.Sunset yellowed the sky,—filled the horizon with flare of gold;—the sea changed its blue to lilac;—the mornes brightened their vivid green to a tone so luminous that they seemed turning phosphorescent. Rapidly the glow crimsoned,—shadows purpled; and night spread swiftly from the east,—black-violet and full of stars.

Sunset yellowed the sky,—filled the horizon with flare of gold;—the sea changed its blue to lilac;—the mornes brightened their vivid green to a tone so luminous that they seemed turning phosphorescent. Rapidly the glow crimsoned,—shadows purpled; and night spread swiftly from the east,—black-violet and full of stars.

Karma[29](242) was written during the Philadelphia period, but was not published inLippincott's Magazineuntil after Hearn had sailed for Japan. The story is concentrated, with its every word a shaft of light, and it seems a wrong to attempt to epitomize it. Except in its entirety no adequate conception can be formed of this marvellous revelation of the anguish that a human soul may suffer; nor of the artistic power with which Hearn has developed and perfected his study. Many quotations could be gleaned from his subsequent books which reflect the inspiration of "Karma."

[29]Copyright, 1889, by Lafcadio Hearn; and, copyright, 1890 by J. B. Lippincott Company.

Despite her unusual intellect, the heroine had a childlike simplicity and frankness which invited her lover's confidence, but he had never told her his admiration, for a dormant power beneath her girlishness made a compliment seem a rudeness. He was often alone with her, which is helpful to lovers, but her charm always confused him, and his embarrassment only deepened. One day she archly asked him to tell her about it.

Is there one who does not know that moment when the woman beloved becomes the ideal, and the lover feels his utter unworthiness? Yet, if she is one of those rare souls,the illusion, however divine, is less perfect than is her worth. Do you know what she truly is—how she signifies "the whole history of love striving against hate, aspiration against pain, truth against ignorance, sympathy against pitilessness? She,—the soul of her! is the ripened passion-flower of the triumph. All the heroisms, the martyrdoms, the immolations of self,—all strong soarings of will through fire and blood to God since humanity began,—conspired to kindle the flame of her higher life."

And then you question yourself with a thousand questions, and then there are as many more of your duty to her, to the future, and to the Supreme Father.

She was not surprised when he told her his wish, but she was not confident that he really loved her, nor whether she should permit herself to like him. Finally she bade him go home and "as soon as you feel able to do it properly,—write out for me a short history of your life;—just write down everything you feel that you would not like me to know. Write it,—and send it.... And then I shall tell you whether I will marry you."

How easy the task seemed, and his whole being was joyous; but the lightness lasted for only a moment, and gradually all that her command meant crept over him.... "Everything you feel you would not like me to know." Surely she had no realization of what she had asked. Did she imagine that men were good like women—how cruel to hurt her.

Then for a period he was uplifted with the desire to meet her truthfulness, but his courage failed again after he had written down the record of his childhood and youth. It was no slight task to make this confession of his sins. And how pale and trivial they had seemed before. Was it possible that he had never before rightly looked at them? Yet why should he so falter? Surely she meant to pardon him. He must put everything down truthfully, and thenrecolour the whole for her gaze. But his face grew hot at the thought of certain passages.

Hour after hour he sat at his desk until it was past midnight, but no skill could soften the stony facts. Finally he lay down to rest: his fevered brain tried to find excuses for his faults. He could forgive himself everything ... except—ah, how unutterably wicked he had been there. No, he could not tell herthat: instead he must lose her for ever. And in losing her he would lose all the higher self which she had awakened. To lose her—when he of all men had found his ideal.

"Everything you feel you would not like me to know." Perhaps when she had put this ban upon him, she suspected that there were incidents in his life which he dared not tell her. Could he not deceive her? No, he might write a lie, but he could never meet her fine sweet eyes with a lie. What was he to do? And why had he always been so humble before that slight girl? "Assuredly those fine grey eyes were never lowered before living gaze: she seemed as one who might look God in the face."

Slowly his senses became more confused, and a darkness came, and a light in the darkness that shone on her; and he saw her bathed in a soft radiance, that seemed of some substance like ivory. And he knew that she was robing for her bridal with him.

He was at her side: all around them was a gentle whispering of many friends, who were dead. Would they smile thus—if they knew?

Then there arose something within him, and he knew that he must tell her all. He commenced to speak, and she became transfigured, and smiled at him with the tenderness of an angel; and the more he told the greater was her forgiveness. And he heard the voices of the others lauding him for his self-sacrifice and his sincerity. Yet as they praised a fear clutched him for one lastavowal that he must make. And with the growing of this doubt all seemed maliciously to change, and even she no longer smiled. He then would have told her alone, but even as he tried to hush his voice, it seemed to pierce the quietude "with frightful audibility, like the sibilation of a possessing spirit." Then with a reckless despair he shouted it aloud, and everything vanished, and the darkness of night was about him.

For many restless days and nights he harried himself with bitter self-analysis; and day by day he tore up a certain page; yet without that page his manuscript was worthless. As the days grew into weeks a new fear seized him that his silence had betrayed him, and that already she had decided against him. In the face of this danger he became terrified, and one morning he feverishly copied the memorable page, and, addressing the whole, dropped it in the first letter-box, before he might change his mind.

Then an awful revelation of his act overcame him. Should he telegraph her to return the manuscript unopened. No, it was already too late. What was done—was done for ever. He now vaguely realized what he feared in her—"a penetrating dynamic moral power that he felt without comprehending." He tried to steel himself for the worst, but he knew with a premonition that behind his imagined worst there were depths beyond depths of worse.

The single word "Come" which he received two days later confirmed his fears. When he reached the door of her apartment, she had already risen to take from a locked drawer an envelope which he knew was his. She proffered him no greeting, but asked in a cold voice if he wished her to burn the document. At his whisperedyes, he met her eyes, and they seemed to strip him of the last remnant of his pride. "He stood before her as before God,—morallynaked as a soul in painted dreams of the Judgment Day."

The fire caught the paper, and he stood near, in fear of her next word, while she watched the flame.

At last she asked if the woman was dead. He well knew to what she referred, and replied that almost five years had passed since her death. To the penetrating questions which followed he answered that the child—a boy—was well, and that his friend was still there—in the same place. She turned to him abruptly and coldly, angered that he could have believed that she would pardon such a crime.

He must have had some hope, or he would not have sent the letter. Had he measured her by his own moral standard? Certainly he had placed her below the level of honest people. Would he dare to ask their judgment of his sin?

Speechless, he writhed under the scorn of her words, and a knowledge of shame to which his former agony was as nothing burned within him. That in him which her inborn goodness had taught her, was now laid bare to himself.

Again she spoke after a silence—perhaps he would think she was cruel; but she was not, nor was she unjust, for transcendent sin that denies "all the social wisdom gained by human experience" cannot be pardoned, it can only be atoned. And that sin was his; and God would exact his expiation. And that expiation she now demanded in God's name, and as her right. He must go to the friend whom he had wronged, and tell him the whole truth. He must ask for the child, and fulfil his whole duty; also he must place even his life at the man's will. And she would rather see him dead than believe that he could be a coward as well as a criminal. This she requested not as a favour, but as her right.

At her words he grew pale as if to death, and for a moment she feared that he might refuse, and that she must despise him. No! his colour rushed back, and her heart leaped, as with a calm resolve he answered, "I will do it."

"Then go!" she replied, betraying no gladness.

A year went by. She knew that he had kept his promise. He wrote to her often, and passionately, but the letters were never answered. Did she doubt him still?—or was she afraid of her own heart? He could not know the truth, so he waited with hopes and fears, and the seasons passed. Then one day she was startled to receive a letter which told her that he was passing through her suburb, and he begged only to be permitted to see her. To his surprise the answer brought the happy words, "You may."

From the shy, beautiful eyes of the child, whom he brought, there seemed to plead a woman's sorrow, until her own soul answered in forgiveness. And the boy and the father marvelled at the tenderness that had come upon her, and the father sobbed until her voice thrilled: that suffering was strength and knowledge, that always he must suffer for the evil he had wrought, but she would help him to bear the pain, and to endure his atonement. She would shield his frailty—she would love his boy.

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard(21) was translated in New York, while Hearn was finishing the proofs of "Two Years in the French West Indies." Of it he writes:—

As for the "Sylvestre Bonnard" I believe I told you that that was translated in about ten days and published in two weeks from the time of beginning it.... But the work suffers in consequence of haste.

After his departure for the Orient, two articles on West Indian Society appeared in theCosmopolitan(243-244).They give a sympathetic study of the sad and pathetic tragedy of the race of the mixed blood. These articles bear a similarity to the chapter upon and the references to this subject, in "Two Years in the French West Indies."

Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan[30](7) is the first of the series of Japanese books. It was published after Hearn had been in Japan for four years; since 1891 six of the articles had appeared in theAtlantic Monthly(246-251). Also in 1890, an article, "A Winter Journey to Japan," was published inHarper's Monthly(245). This was his initial paper on Japan.

[30]Copyright, 1894, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

In many ways the present book on Japan is his happiest, for the charm over everything is fresh and radiant. It is here that we learn the old graceful customs, the touching child-like ways, and the sacred appealing rites and beliefs that so endear to us the Japanese. Later we are to have studies more philosophical, more erudite, but none more penetrating in virtue of the very simplicity of subject.

It is difficult to believe that the writer, bewitched with the warmth and colour of the tropics, giving his pen an unlicensed flow of word colour and enthusiasm, in a few years could have matured into this quiet, gentle thinker equally absorbed by the East. One finds scarcely a trace of the Hearn of the tropics: therein lies his unique genius; just so admirably as he reflected the West Indian life, does he now reflect that of the Japanese.

It is the old Japan that Hearn loves, and the passing of which he mourns even at the first. In his Preface, he says, "My own conviction, and that of many impartial and more experienced observers of Japanese life, is that Japan has nothing whatever to gain by conversion to Christianity, either morally or otherwise, but very much to lose." Alsoin one of his letters he writes, "I felt, as never before, how utterly dead old Japan is, and how ugly New Japan is becoming." It is old Japan that we find in the present volume. It is much as if we looked into a diary of his first days in the Orient, giving his impressions and conclusions, as well as portraying the pictures themselves.

One of the reviews of the book contains the following:—

"If Japan is all that he says; if the Japanese are so compounded of all the virtues, and so innocent of the ugly failings that mar our Western civilization, then the poet's dream of a Golden Age has actually been realized in the remote East. Much as we should like to believe that such a land and such a people actually exist, we cannot altogether conquer our doubts, or avoid the suspicion that the author's feeling sometimes gets the better of his judgment." (379.)

And another says:—

"In volume one he is still the outside observer, remote enough to be amused with the little pretty, bird-like glances of the Orient towards the Occident, pleased at the happy chance which makes a blind shampooer's cry musical as she taps her way down the street, instead of giving her a voice raucous as that which hurts and haunts the unwilling ears of wayfarers down Newgate Street and on Ludgate-Hill; or complimentary to the cunning fancy which paints a branch of flowering cherry in a cleft bamboo on a square of faintly-coloured paper and calls the cherry blossom 'beauty' and the bamboo 'long life.' He notices the shapely feet of the people: 'bare brown feet of peasants, or beautiful feet of children wearing tiny, tinygeta, or feet of young girls in snowytabi. Thetabi, the white digitated stocking, gives to a small light foot a mythological aspect—the white cleft grace of the foot of a fauness.'

"A little further on the leaven of witchcraft is working, and he cannot write so airily. It is not as a mere spectatorthat he talks of his visit to the Buddhist cemetery, where the rotting wooden laths stand huddled about the graves, and one tomb bears an English name and a cross chiselled upon it. Here he made acquaintance with the god, who is the lover of little children, Jizō-Sama, about whose feet are little piles of stones heaped there by the hands of mothers of dead children. He is not quite as much in earnest as volume two will find him, or he could not call the gentle god 'that charming divinity'; but the sight-seer is dying in him nevertheless. It was with a friend's hand that he struck the great bell at Enoshima." (286.)

But even here with a new world unfolding to his delighted eyes, it was colour that Hearn really wanted.

I am not easy about my book, of which I now await the proofs. It lacks colour—it isn't like the West Indian book. But the world here is not forceful: it is all washed in faint blues and greys and greens. There are reallygamboge, or saffron-coloured valleys,—and lilac fields; but these exist only in the early summer and the rape-plant season, and ordinarily Japan is chromatically spectral.

The opening chapter is his first day in the Orient, "the first charm of Japan is intangible and volatile as a perfume." Everything seems to him elfish and diminutive. "Cha," his Kurumaya, takes him past the shops where it appears to him "that everything Japanese is delicate, exquisite, admirable—even a pair of common wooden chop-sticks in a paper bag with a little drawing upon it." The money itself is a thing of beauty. But one must not dare to look, for there is enchantment in these wares, and having looked, one must buy. In truth one wishes to buy everything, even to the whole land, "with its magical trees and luminous atmosphere, with all its cities and towns and temples, and forty millions of the most lovable people."

Before the steps leading to a temple he stops.

I turn a moment to look back through the glorious light. Sea and sky mingle in the same beautiful pale clear blue. Below me the billowing of bluish roofs reaches to the verge of the unruffled bay on the right, and to the feet of the green wooded hills flanking the city on two sides. Beyond that semi-circle of green hills rises a lofty range of serrated mountains, indigo silhouettes. And enormously high above the line of them towers an apparition indescribably lovely,—one solitary snowy cone, so filmly exquisite, so spiritually white, that but for its immemorially familiar outline, one would surely deem it a shape of cloud. Invisible its base remains, being the same delicious tint as the sky: only above the eternal snow-line its dreamy cone appears, seeming to hang, the ghost of a peak, between the luminous land and the luminous heaven,—the sacred and matchless mountain, Fujiyama.

Passing to the temple garden he wonders why the trees are so lovely in Japan.

Is it that the trees have been so long domesticated and caressed by man in this land of the gods, that they have acquired souls, and strive to show their gratitude, like women loved, by making themselves more beautiful for man's sake? Assuredly they have mastered men's hearts by their loveliness, like beautiful slaves. That is to say, Japanese hearts. Apparently there have been some foreign tourists of the brutal class in this place, since it has been deemed necessary to set up inscriptions in English announcing that "it is forbidden to injure the trees."

Of Hearn's first visit to a Buddhist temple, I quote what one of his critics has to say:—

"The silence of centuries seems to descend upon your soul, you feel the thrill of something above and beyond the commonplace of this every-day world, even here, amidst the turmoil, the rush, the struggle of this monster city of the West, if you take up his 'Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan,' and turn to his description of his first visit to a Buddhist temple. Marvellous is his power of imparting the mystery of that strange land, of hidden meanings and allegories, of mists and legends. The bygone spirit of the race, the very essence of the heart of the people, that has lain sleeping in the temple gloom, in the shadows of the temple shrines, awakes and whispers in your ears. You feel the soft, cushioned matting beneath your feet, yousmell the faint odour of the incense, you hear the shuffling of pilgrim feet, the priest sliding back screen after screen, pouring in light upon the gilded bronzes and inscriptions; and you look for the image of the Deity, of the presiding Spirit, between the altar groups of convoluted candelabra. And you see:

Only a mirror, a round, pale disc of polished metal, and my own face therein, and behind this mockery of me a phantom of the far sea.Only a mirror! Symbolizing what? Illusion? Or that the Universe exists for us solely as the reflection of our own souls? Or the old Chinese teaching that we must seek the Buddha only in our own hearts? Perhaps some day I shall be able to find out. (350.)

Only a mirror, a round, pale disc of polished metal, and my own face therein, and behind this mockery of me a phantom of the far sea.

Only a mirror! Symbolizing what? Illusion? Or that the Universe exists for us solely as the reflection of our own souls? Or the old Chinese teaching that we must seek the Buddha only in our own hearts? Perhaps some day I shall be able to find out. (350.)

Many more temples are visited in the following chapter. What impresses him the most is the joyousness of the people's faith: everything is bright and cheerful, and the air is filled with the sound of children's voices as they play in the courts. He sees the many representations of Jizō, the loving divinity who cares for the souls of little children, who comforts them, and saves them from the demons. The face of Jizō is like that of a beautiful boy, and the countenance is made "heavenly by such a smile as only Buddhist art could have imagined, the smile of infinite lovingness and supremest gentleness." There is also Kwannon, "the goddess of mercy, the gentle divinity who refused the rest of Nirvâna to save the souls of men." Her face is golden, smiling with eternal youth and infinite tenderness. And he sees Emma Dai-ō, the unpitying, tremendous one. He learns many things of many gods and goddesses. There is the temple of Kishibojin—the mother of Demons. For some former sin she was born a demon and devoured her own children. But through the teaching of Buddha she became a divine being, loving and protecting the little ones, and Japanese mothers pray to her, and wives pray for beautiful boys. At her shrine what impresses the visitor are hundreds of tiny dresses, mostly of poor material,stretched between tall poles of bamboos. These are the thank-offerings of poor simple country mothers whose prayers to her have been answered.

In another chapter Hearn writes of the Festival of the Dead, for between the 13th and the 15th day of July the dead may come back again. Every small and great shrine is made beautiful with new mats of purest rice straw, and is decorated with lotus flowers,shikimi(anise) andmisohagi(lespedeza). Food offerings, served on a tiny lacquered table—azen—are placed before the altars. Every hour, tea daintily served in little cups is offered to the viewless visitors. At night beautiful special lanterns are hung at the entrances of homes. Those who have dead friends visit the cemeteries and make offerings there with prayers, and the sprinkling of water, and the burning of incense. On the evening of the 15th the ghosts of those, who in expiation of faults committed in a previous life are doomed to hunger, are fed. And also are fed the ghosts of those who have no friends.

For three days everything is done to feast the dead, and on the last night there comes the touching ceremony of farewell, for the dead must then return.

Everything has been prepared for them. In each home small boats made of barley straw closely woven have been freighted with supplies of choice food, with tiny lanterns, and written messages of faith and love. Seldom more than two feet in length are these boats; but the dead require little room. And the frail craft are launched on canal, lake, sea, or river,—each with a miniature lantern glowing at the prow, and incense burning at the stern. And if the night be fair, they voyage long. Down all the creeks and rivers and canals the phantom fleets go glimmering to the sea; and all the sea sparkles to the horizon with the lights of the dead, and the sea wind is fragrant with incense.But alas! it is now forbidden in the great seaports to launch theshōryōbune, "the boats of the blessed ghosts."

But alas! it is now forbidden in the great seaports to launch theshōryōbune, "the boats of the blessed ghosts."

In Kami-Ichi, in the land of Hōki, there is a glimpseinto ancient Japan, for there the Bon-odori, the Dance of the Festival of the Dead, is still maintained. No longer is it danced in the cities. In the temple court, in the shadow of the tomb, with the moonlight as a guide, long processions of young girls dance a slow ghostly dance while the vast audience of spectators keeps a perfect stillness. A deep male chant is heard, and the women respond. Many songs follow, until the night is waning. Then this seeming witchcraft ends, and with merry laughter and soft chatting all disperse.

Hearn spends a long happy day at Matsue, the chief city of the Province of the Gods, where he gathers legends and impressions. Of course it has its temples. The temple is the best place to see the life of the people. There it is that the children play all day long. In the summer evening, the young artisans and labourers prove their strength in wrestling-matches. The sacred dances are held there; and on holidays it is also the place where toys are sold.

Often at night your attention will be drawn to a large, silent, admiring group of people standing before some little booth. They will be looking at a few vases of sprays of flowers—an exhibition of skill in their arrangement.

Returning homeward, there is seen a poor woman scattering some white papers into a stream of water, and, as she throws each one in, murmuring something sweet in a low voice. She is praying for her little dead child, and these are little prayers that she has written to Jizō.

Kitzuki is the most ancient shrine in Japan, and it is the living centre of Shintō. There the ancient faith burns as brightly as ever it did in the unknown past. Buddhism may be doomed to pass away, but Shintō "unchanging and vitally unchanged remains dominant, and appears but to gain in power and dignity." Many of the wisest scholars have tried to define Shintō.

But the reality of Shintō lives not in books, nor in rites, nor in commandments, but in the national heart, of which it is the highest emotional religious expression, immortal and ever young. Far underlying all the surface crop of quaint superstitions and artless myths and fantastic magic, there thrills a mighty spiritual force, the whole soul of a race with all its impulses and powers and intuitions. He who would know what Shintō is must learn to know that mysterious soul in which the sense of beauty and the power of art and the fire of heroism and magnetism of loyalty and the emotion of faith have become inherent, immanent, unconscious, instinctive.

At Kaka is the Cave of the Children's Ghosts. No evil person may enter the Shin-Kukedo, for if he does, a large stone will detach itself and fall down upon him. Here in this great vault, lifting forty feet above the water, and with walls thirty feet apart, is a white rock out of which drips a water apparently as white as the rock itself. This is the Fountain of Jizō, which gives milk to the souls of little dead children.

And mothers suffering from want of milk come hither to pray that milk may be given unto them; and their prayer is heard. And mothers having more milk than their infants need come hither also, and pray to Jizō that so much as they can give may be taken for the dead children; and their prayer is heard and their milk diminishes.At least thus the peasants of Izumo say.

At least thus the peasants of Izumo say.

In another cavern are countless little piles of stones and pebbles, which must have been made by long and patient labour. It is the work of the dead children. One must step carefully, for the sake of these little ones, for if any work is spoiled, they will cry. In the sand are prints of little naked feet, "the footprints of the infant ghosts." Strewn here and there on the rocks are tiny straw sandals, pilgrims' offerings to keep the baby feet from being bruised by the stones.

In the temple of Hojinji of the Zen sect at Mionoseki, there is an altar which bears many images of Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy. Before the altar, and hung from thecarven ceiling, is a bright coloured mass of embroidered purses, patterns of silk-weaving and of cotton-weaving, also balls of threads and worsted and silk. These are the first offerings of little girls. As soon as a baby girl learns how to sew or knit or embroider, she brings to the Maid-Mother of all grace and sweetness and pity, the first piece that she has made successfully.

Even the infants of the Japanese kindergarten bring their first work here,—pretty paper-cuttings, scissored out and plaited into divers patterns by their own tiny flower-soft hands.

Among the many Notes on Kitzuki which interest, is the annual festival of the Divine Scribe, the Tenjin-Matsuri, to which every school-boy sends a specimen of his best writing. The texts are in Chinese characters, and are generally drawn from the works of Confucius or Mencius. And Hearn remarks that the children of other countries can never excel in the art of Japanese writing. The inner ancestral tendencies will not let them catch the secret of the stroke with the brush. It is the fingers of the dead that move the brush of the Japanese boy.

At every temple festival in Japan there is a sale of toys. And every mother, however poor, buys her child a toy. They are not costly, and are charming. Many of these toys would seem odd to a little English child. There is a tiny drum, a model of the drum used in the temples; or a miniature sambo table, upon which offerings are presented to the gods. There is a bunch of bells fastened to a wooden handle. It resembles a rattle, but it is a model of the sacredsuzuwhich the virgin priestess uses in her dance before the gods. Then there are tiny images of priests and gods and goddesses. There is little of grimness in the faiths of the Far East; their gods smile. "Why religion should be considered too awful a subject for children to amuse themselves decently with never occurs to the common Japanese mind."

Besides these, there are pretty toys illustrating some fairy-tale or superstition and many other playthings of clever devices, and the little doll, O-Hina-San (Honourable Miss Hina), which is a type of Japanese girl beauty. The doll in Japan is a sacred part of the household. There is a belief that if it is treasured long enough it becomes alive. Such a doll is treated like a real child: it is supposed to possess supernatural powers. One had such rare powers that childless couples used to borrow it. They would minister to it, and would give it a new outfit of clothes before returning it to its owners. All who did this became parents. To the Japanese a new doll is only a doll; but a doll that has received the love of many generations acquires a soul. A little Japanese girl was asked, "How can a doll live?" "Why," was the lovely answer, "if you love it enough, it will live!"

Never is the corpse of a doll thrown away. When it has become so worn out that it must be considered quite dead, it is either burned or cast in running water, or it is dedicated to the God Kōjin. In almost every temple ground there is planted a tree calledenoki, which is sacred to Kōjin. Before the tree will be a little shrine, and either there or at the foot of the sacred tree, the sad little remains will be laid. Seldom during the lifetime of its owner is a doll given to Kōjin.

When you see one thus exposed, you may be almost certain that it was found among the effects of some poor dead woman—the innocent memento of her girlhood, perhaps even also of the girlhood of her mother and of her mother's mother.

There is a sad and awful tradition in the history of the Kengyōs, the oldest of the noble families of Izumo. Seven generations ago the Daimyō of Izumo made his first official visit to the temples of Hinomisaki, and was entertained royally by the Kengyō. As was the custom, the young wife served the royal visitor. Her simple beauty unfortunatelyenchanted him, and he demanded that she leave her husband and go with him. Terrified, but like a brave loving wife and mother, she answered that sooner than desert her husband and child she would kill herself.

The Lord of Izumo went away, but the little household well knew the evil that now shadowed it. And shortly the Kengyō was suddenly taken from his family; tried at once for some unknown offence, and banished to the islands of Oki, where he died. The Daimyō was exultant, for no obstacle was in the way of his desire. The wife of the dead Kengyō was the daughter of his own minister, whose name was Kamiya. Kamiya was summoned before the Daimyō, who told him that there was no longer any reason why Kamiya's daughter should not enter his household, and bade Kamiya bring her to him.

The next day Kamiya returned, and with the utmost ceremony announced that the command had been fulfilled—the victim had arrived.

Smiling for pleasure, the Matsudaira ordered that she should be brought at once into his presence. The Karō prostrated himself, retired, and presently returned, placed before his master akubi-okeupon which lay the freshly-severed head of a beautiful woman,—the head of the young wife of the dead Kengyō,—with the simple utterance:"This is my daughter."Dead by her own brave will,—but never dishonoured.

"This is my daughter."

Dead by her own brave will,—but never dishonoured.

"None love life more than the Japanese; none fear death less." So it is that when two lovers find that they can never wed, they keep the love death together, which isjōshiorshinjū. By dying they believe that they will at once be united in another world. They always pray that they may be buried together. (In other books are written additional stories illustrating the touching custom.)

At the temple of Yaegaki at Sakusa, are the Deities of Wedlock and of Love, and thither go all youths and maidens who are in love. Hundreds of strips of soft whitepaper are knotted to the gratings of the doors of the shrine. These are the prayers of love. Also there are tresses of girls' hair, love-sacrifices, and offerings of sea-water and of sea-weed. In the soil around the foundation of the shrine are planted quantities of small paper flags.

All over Japan there are little Shintō shrines before which are images in stone of foxes.

The rustic foxes of Izumo have no grace: they are uncouth; but they betray in countless queer ways the personal fancies of their makers. They are of many moods,—whimsical, apathetic, inquisitive, saturnine, jocose, ironical; they watch and snooze and squint and wink and sneer; they wait with lurking smiles; they listen with cocked ears most stealthily, keeping their mouths open or closed. There is an amusing individuality about them all, and an air of knowing mockery about most of them, even those whose noses have been broken off. Moreover, these ancient foxes have certain natural beauties which their modern Tōkyō kindred cannot show. Time has bestowed upon them divers speckled coats of beautiful colours while they have been sitting on their pedestals, listening to the ebbing and flowing of the centuries and snickering weirdly at mankind. Their backs are clad with finest green velvet of old mosses; their limbs are spotted and their tails are tipped with the dead gold or the dead silver of delicate fungi. And the places they most haunt are the loveliest,—high shadowy groves where theuguisusings in green twilight, above some voiceless shrine with its lamps and its lions of stone so mossed as to seem things born of the soil—like mushrooms.

It is difficult to define the Fox superstition, chiefly because it has sprung from so many elements. The origin is Chinese, and in Japan it has become mixed with the worship of a Shintō deity, and further enlarged by the Buddhist belief of thaumaturgy and magic. The peasants worship foxes because they fear them. But there are good foxes and bad ones. The country holds legend after legend of goblin foxes and ghost foxes, and foxes that take the form of human beings. Every Japanese child knows some of them.

Seldom is a Japanese garden a flower-garden: it maynot contain a flower. It is a landscape garden, and its artistic purpose is to give the impression of a real scene. Besides, it is supposed to express "a mood in the soul." Such abstract ideas as Chastity, Faith, Connubial Bliss were expressed by the old Buddhist monks who first brought the art into Japan. Little hills, and slopes of green, tiny river-banks, and little islands, together with trees, and stones, and flowering shrubs are combined by the artist. All these things have their poetry and legend, and sometimes have a special name signifying their position and rank in the whole design.

In the ponds little creatures such as the frog and water-beetle live, and they too have their legends. The children make all of these creatures and the insects their playmates. Then there are thesemi, which are musicians, and lovely dragon-flies which skim over the ponds; and back on the hill above the garden are many birds. It is not necessary to have a garden outdoors, for there are indoor gardens too which can even be put into akoniwa, the size of a fruit-dish.

The dead are never dead with the Japanese; they become even more important members of the family, for the spirits of the dead control the lives of the living. Each day there is some ceremony in memory of these blessed dead; and no home is so poor but it has its household shrine. And Shintō, ancestor-worship,

signifies character in the higher sense,—courage, courtesy, honour, and above all things loyalty. The spirit of Shintō is the spirit of filial piety, the zest of duty, the readiness to surrender life for a principle without a thought of wherefore. It is the docility of the child; it is the sweetness of the Japanese woman. It is conservatism likewise; the wholesome check upon the national tendency to cast away the worth of the entire past in rash eagerness to assimilate too much of the foreign present. It is religion,—but religion transformed into hereditary moral impulse,—religion transmuted into ethical instinct. It is the whole emotional life of the race,—the Soul of Japan.

Self-sacrifice, loyalty, the deepest spirit of Shintō, is born with the child. If you ask any Japanese student what his dearest wish is he will surely answer,—"To die for His Majesty, our Emperor." It is impossible in this limited space to give an adequate idea of all that Shintōism implies.

The dressing of the hair is a very important part of a Japanese woman's toilet. It is dressed once in every three days, and the task takes probably two hours. The elaborateness of the coiffure changes with the growing age of the maiden. But when she is twenty-eight, she is no longer young, and so thereafter only one style is left, that worn by old women. Of course, there are many superstitions about women's hair. It is the Japanese woman's dearest possession, and she will undergo any suffering not to lose it. At one time it was considered a fitting vengeance to shear the hair of an erring wife, and then turn her away.

Only the greatest faith or the deepest love can prompt a woman to the voluntary sacrifice of her entirechevelure, though partial sacrifices, offerings of one or two long thick cuttings, may be seen suspended before many an Izumo shrine.What faith can do in the way of such sacrifice, he best knows who has seen the great cables, woven of women's hair, that hang in the vast Hongwanji temple at Kyōto. And love is stronger than faith, though much less demonstrative. According to an ancient custom a wife bereaved sacrifices a portion of her hair to be placed in the coffin of her husband, and buried with him. The quantity is not fixed: in the majority of cases it is very small, so that the appearance of the coiffure is thereby no wise affected. But she who resolves to remain for ever faithful to the memory of the lost yields up all. With her own hand she cuts off her hair, and lays the whole glossy sacrifice—emblem of her youth and beauty—upon the knees of the dead.It is never suffered to grow again.

What faith can do in the way of such sacrifice, he best knows who has seen the great cables, woven of women's hair, that hang in the vast Hongwanji temple at Kyōto. And love is stronger than faith, though much less demonstrative. According to an ancient custom a wife bereaved sacrifices a portion of her hair to be placed in the coffin of her husband, and buried with him. The quantity is not fixed: in the majority of cases it is very small, so that the appearance of the coiffure is thereby no wise affected. But she who resolves to remain for ever faithful to the memory of the lost yields up all. With her own hand she cuts off her hair, and lays the whole glossy sacrifice—emblem of her youth and beauty—upon the knees of the dead.

It is never suffered to grow again.

The "Diary of a Teacher" gives a careful picture of the school-life in Japan as Hearn finds it. At the Normal School, which is a state institute, the young man studenthas no expenses. In return for these kindnesses, when he graduates he serves as a teacher for five years. Discipline is severe, and deportment is a demand. "A spirit of manliness is cultivated, which excludes roughness but develops self-reliance and self-control."

The silence of study hours is perfect, and without permission no head is ever raised from a book.

The female department is in a separate building. Girls are taught the European sciences, and are trained in all the Japanese arts, such as embroidery, decoration, painting; and of course that most delicate of arts—the arranging of flowers. Drawing is taught in all the schools. By fifty per cent. do Japanese students excel the English students in drawing.

There is also a large elementary school for little boys and girls connected with the Normal School. These are taught by the students in the graduating classes. Noteworthy is the spirit of peace prevailing at the recesses that occur for ten minutes between each lesson. The boys romp and shout and race, but never quarrel. Hearn says that among the 800 scholars whom he has taught, he has never even heard of a fight, nor of any serious quarrel. The girls sing or play some gentle game, and the teachers are kind and watchful of the smaller scholars. If a dress is torn or soiled the child is cared for as carefully as if she were a younger sister.

No teacher would ever think of striking a scholar. If he did so he would at once have to give up his position. In fact, punishments are unknown. "The spirit is rather reversed. In the Occident the master expels the pupil. In Japan it happens quite as often that the pupil expels the master."

It takes the Japanese student seven years to acquire the triple system of ideographs, which is the alphabet of his native literature. He must also be versed in the writtenand the spoken literature. He must study foreign history, geography, arithmetic, astronomy, physics, geometry, natural history, agriculture, chemistry, drawing.

Worst of all he must learn English,—a language of which the difficulty to the Japanese cannot be even faintly imagined by any one unfamiliar with the construction of the native tongue,—a language so different from his own that the very simplest Japanese phrase cannot be intelligibly rendered into English by a literal translation of the words or even the form of the thought.

And he studies all this upon the slimmest of diets, clad in thin clothes in cold rooms. No wonder many fall by the way.

The students have been trained to find a moral in all things. If the theme given to them for a composition is a native one, they will never fail to find it. For instance,—a peony is very beautiful, but it has a disagreeable odour; hence we should remember that "To be attracted by beauty only may lead us into fearful and fatal misfortune." The sting of the mosquito is useful, for "then we shall be bringed back to study."

There is nothing distinctive about the Japanese countenance, but there is an intangible pleasantness that is common to all. Contrasted with Occidental faces they seem "half-sketched." The outlines are very soft, there is "neither aggressiveness nor shyness, neither eccentricity nor sympathy, neither curiosity nor indifference.... But all are equally characterized by a singular placidity,—expressing neither love nor hate, nor anything save perfect repose and gentleness,—like the dreamy placidity of Buddhist images." Later, these faces become individualized.

In another chapter Hearn tells of Two Festivals: one the festival of the New Year; and the other, the Festival of Setsubun, which is the time for the casting out of devils. On the eve of this latter festival, the Yaku-otoshi, who is the caster-out of the demons, goes around, to any housesthat may desire his services, and performs his exorcism, for which he receives a little fee. The rites consist of the recitation of certain prayers, and the rattling of ashakujō. Theshakujōis an odd-shaped staff. There is a tradition that it was first used by Buddhist pilgrims to warn little creatures and insects to get out of the way.

I quote from a French review for the description of one of Hearn's stories:—

"But the most beautiful of all, 'A Dancing Girl,' is drawn from the chronicles of that far-off past, from which, say what one may, he is certainly wise in drawing his inspirations. It is the story of a courtesan in love.

"At the height of her celebrity, this idol of a capital disappears from public life, and nobody knows why. Leaving fortune behind, she flies with a poor youth who loves her. They build for themselves a little house in the mountains, and there exist apart from the world, one for the other. But the lover dies one cold winter, and she remains alone, with no other consolation than to dance for him every evening in the deserted house. For he loved to see her dance, and he must still take pleasure in it. Therefore, daily, she places on the memorial altar the accustomed offerings, and at night she dances decked out in the same finery as when she was the delight of a large city. And the day comes, when old, decrepit, dying, reduced to beggary, she carries her superb costume faded with time, to a painter who had seen her in the days of her beauty, that he may accept it in exchange for a portrait made from memory, which shall be placed before the altar always bearing offerings, that her beloved may ever see her young, the most beautiful of theshirabyashi, and that he may forgive her for not being able to dance any more.

"Thisshirabyashi, from the distance of time, appears to us here, clothed with I know not what of hieratical dignity,such as the moderngeishacould never possess. Lafcadio Hearn in no wise pretends in the pages he devotes to these latter, to idealize them beyond measure. They appear under his pen as pretty animals somewhat dangerous; but is it not their calling to be so? Whatever be the rank of the Japanese woman, he only speaks of her with an extreme discretion, and with a caution that one would look for in vain in the portrait ofMme. Chrysanthème. The subtle voluptuousness of his style is never extended to the scenes he reproduces; it is a style immaterial to a rare degree; he knows how to make us understand what he means, without one word to infringe those proprieties that are dear to the Japanese, even more than virtue itself. And to believe him, the young, well-brought-up girl, the honest wife, are in Japan the most perfect types of femininity that he has ever met in any part of the world;—he, who has travelled so much. Opinions formed superficially by globe-trotters on this subject that he scarcely glances at because of respect, arouse as much indignation in him as could they in the Japanese themselves. Evidently he has penetrated into their inner life, into the mystery of their thoughts, into their hidden springs of action, to the point of participating in their feelings." (390.)

From Hōki to Oki there is much to learn about the landscapes of Western and Central Japan; and Hearn gives many legends, and many more impressions and intimate glimpses.

As there are only walls of thin paper separating the lives of these Japanese people, no privacy can exist. Really everything is done in public, even your thoughts must be known. And it never occurs to a Japanese that there should be any reason for living unobserved. This must show a rare moral condition, and is understood only by those who appreciate the charm of the Japanese character, its goodness, and its politeness.

No one endeavours to expand his own individuality by belittling his fellow; no one tries to make himself appear a superior being: any such attempt would be vain in a community where the weaknesses of each are known to all, where nothing can be concealed or disguised, and where affectation could only be regarded as a mild form of insanity.

Hearn speaks of the strange public curiosity which his presence aroused at Urago. It was not a rude curiosity; in fact, one so gentle that he could not wish the gazers rebuked. But so insistent did it become that he had to close his doors and windows to prevent his being watched while he was asleep.

Kinjurō, the ancient gardener, knows a great many things about souls. "No one is by the gods permitted to have more souls than nine." Kinjurō also knows legends about ghosts and goblins.

An essay penetrating the very heart of the Japanese, is the chapter on the "Japanese Smile." It crowns Hearn's work as a superb interpretation of Japanese soul-life. This smile is the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace of self-sacrifice. It is metaphysically and psychologically exquisite. It is an etiquette which for generations has been cultivated. It was a smile,in origin, however, demanded by hard heathen gods of the victims they sacrificed; and, in history, it was demanded of the subject race by the early conquerors. If refused, then off came their heads! The smile is born with the Japanese child, and is nurtured through all the growing years.

The smile is taught like the bow; like the prostration; like that little sibilant sucking-in of the breath which follows, as a token of pleasure, the salutation to a superior; like all the elaborate and beautiful etiquette of the old courtesy.

The Japanese believe that one should always turn one's happiest face to people. It is a wrong to cause them to share your sorrow or misfortune, and so hurt or saddenthem. One should never look serious. It is not only unkind but extremely rude to show one's personal griefs or anger: these feelings should always be hidden. Even though it is death one must face, it is a duty to smile bravely.

It was with such a smile that the dying boy Shida wrote and pasted upon the wall over his bed:—

Thou, my Lord-Soul, dost govern me. Thou knowest that I cannot now govern myself. Deign, I pray thee, to let me be cured speedily. Do not suffer me to speak much. Make me to obey in all things the command of the physician.This ninth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-fourth year of Meiji.From the sick body of Shida to his Soul.The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable smiles is Japanese politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a fault prostrates himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That smile indicates the very reverse of callousness or insolence: "Be assured that I am satisfied with the great justice of your honourable sentence, and that I am aware of the gravity of my fault. Yet my sorrow and my necessity have caused me to indulge the unreasonable hope that I may be forgiven for my great rudeness in asking pardon." The youth or girl beyond the age of childish tears when punished for some error, receives the punishment with a smile which means: "No evil feeling arises in my heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved."

This ninth day of the eleventh month of the twenty-fourth year of Meiji.

From the sick body of Shida to his Soul.

The key to the mystery of the most unaccountable smiles is Japanese politeness. The servant sentenced to dismissal for a fault prostrates himself, and asks for pardon with a smile. That smile indicates the very reverse of callousness or insolence: "Be assured that I am satisfied with the great justice of your honourable sentence, and that I am aware of the gravity of my fault. Yet my sorrow and my necessity have caused me to indulge the unreasonable hope that I may be forgiven for my great rudeness in asking pardon." The youth or girl beyond the age of childish tears when punished for some error, receives the punishment with a smile which means: "No evil feeling arises in my heart; much worse than this my fault has deserved."

This quality, which has become as natural to the Japanese as the very breath of his body, is the sweet tonic-note of his whole character.

Sayōnara!Across the waters echoes the cry,Manzai, Manzai!(Ten thousand years to you! ten thousand years!). Hearn is leaving. He is going far away. His pupils write expressing their sorrow and regret. He sends them a letter thanking them for their gift of a beautiful sword, and in a loving farewell says:—

May you always keep fresh within your hearts those impulses of generosity and kindliness and loyalty which I have learned to know so well, and of which your gift will ever remain for me the graceful symbol!And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students to teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty expressed, when so many of you wrote down for me, as your dearest wish, the desire to die for His Imperial Majesty, your Emperor. That wish is holy: it means perhaps more than you know, or can know, until you shall have become much older and wiser. This is an era of great and rapid change; and it is probable that many of you, as you grow up, will not be able to believe everything that your fathers believed before you, though I sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the faith, even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors. But however much the life of New Japan may change about you, however much your own thoughts may change with the times, never suffer that noble wish you expressed to me to pass away from your souls. Keep it burning there, clear and pure as the flame of the little lamp that glows before your household shrine.

And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students to teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty expressed, when so many of you wrote down for me, as your dearest wish, the desire to die for His Imperial Majesty, your Emperor. That wish is holy: it means perhaps more than you know, or can know, until you shall have become much older and wiser. This is an era of great and rapid change; and it is probable that many of you, as you grow up, will not be able to believe everything that your fathers believed before you, though I sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the faith, even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors. But however much the life of New Japan may change about you, however much your own thoughts may change with the times, never suffer that noble wish you expressed to me to pass away from your souls. Keep it burning there, clear and pure as the flame of the little lamp that glows before your household shrine.

Out of the East[31](8), followed "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." The charm of the first impression is waning.

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