Part 5
Oh! as for vacation, I always get two months, or nearly two months,--the greater part of July and all of August. This time I have been travelling alone with my little wife, who translates my "Hearnian dialect" into Japanese,--eating little dishes of seaweed, and swimming across all the bays I could find on the Izumo coast. They take me to be a good swimmer out here; but I am a little afraid to face really rough water at a distance from shore.--About getting to you, I don't really see my way clear to do it for another year or two--must wait till I feel very strong with the Japanese. Just now friend Chamberlain is trying to get me south, to teach Latin and English, at $200 per month, in a beautiful climate. I would like it--but the Latin--"_hic sunt leones!_" I am awfully rusty. Should I be offered the place and dare to take it, you would find me at Kumamoto, in Kyūshū,--much more accessible than Matsue. I think I have a better chance of seeing you here than you of seeing me. But what a dear glorious chap you are to offer me the ways and means;--I'll never forget it, old boy--never!
Pretty to talk of "my pen of fire." I've lost it. Well, the fact is, it is no use here. There isn't any fire here. It is all soft, dreamy, quiet, pale, faint, gentle, hazy, vapoury, visionary,--a land where lotus is a common article of diet,--and where there is scarcely any real summer. Even the seasons are feeble ghostly things. Don't please imagine there are any tropics here. Ah! the tropics--they still pull at my heart-strings. Goodness! my real field was there--in the Latin countries, in the West Indies and Spanish-America; and my dream was to haunt the old crumbling Portuguese and Spanish cities, and steam up the Amazon and Orinoco, and get romances nobody else could find. And I could have done it, and made books that would sell for twenty years yet. Perhaps, however, it's all for the best: I might have been killed in that Martinique hurricane. And then, I think I may see the tropics on this side of the world yet,--the Philippines, the Straits Settlements,--perhaps Reunion or Madagascar. (When I get rich!)
Besides, I _must_ finish my work on Japan, and that will take a couple of years more. It is the hardest country to learn--except China--in the world. I am the only man who ever attempted to learn the people seriously; and I think I shall succeed. But there is work ahead--phew! I have sent away about 1500 pp. MSS., and I have scarcely touched the subject--merely broken ground.
... Fact is, there is only one way to really marry a Japanese legally,--to be adopted into a Japanese family after marrying the daughter, and so become a Japanese citizen. Otherwise the wife loses her citizenship--a terrible calamity to a good girl. She would have to live in the open ports, unless I could always live in the interior. And the children--the children would have no rights or prospects in Japan. I don't see any way out of it except to abandon my English citizenship, and change my name to _Koizumi_,--my wife's name. I am still hesitating a little--because of the Japanese. _Would_ they try to take advantage, and cut down my salary? I am thinking, and waiting. But meantime, I am morally, and according to public opinion, fast married.
By the way, she would very much like to see E. B. If E. has a yacht, make her "sail the seas over" and come to this place; and she will be much pleased and humbly served and somewhat amused.
Well, so long, with best heart-wishes and thanks,
LAFCADIO HEARN.
I have accepted a new position, in Southern Japan.
Oh! read Zola's "L'Argent"--you will appreciate it. There are delicious _financial_ characters in it. For goodness' sake, don't read a translation.
TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA
KUMAMOTO, 1891.
DEAR FRIEND NISHIDA,--Your very welcome letter came to-day. I was beginning to be anxious about you, as my cook, who arrived here only yesterday, said that it was extremely cold in Matsue; and I was afraid the bitter weather might have given you cold. I am very glad you are taking care of yourself....
I am now a little more reconciled to Kumamoto; but it is the most uninteresting city I was ever in, in Japan. The famous shrines of Katō Kiyomasa (the Katō-sha and the Hommyōji) are worth visiting; they are at Akitagun, a little outside the town. The city is packed with soldiers. Things are dear and ugly here--except silks. This is quite a place for pretty silks, and they are cheaper than in Matsue: but there is nothing pretty in the shape of lacquer-ware, porcelain, or bronze. There is no art, and there are no _kakemonos_, and no curio-shops.
The weather here is queer--something like that of the Pacific slope, a few hundred miles north of San Francisco. The nights and the mornings are cold; and at sunrise, you see the ground covered with white frost, and mists all over the hills. But by noon it gets warm, and in the afternoon even hot; then after sundown it turns cold again.
Mr. Kano was too modest when he told me there were other teachers who spoke English better than he. There are not. He speaks and writes better English than any Japanese I know. However, there is a Mr. Sakuma here, from Kyōto, who has a very uncommon knowledge of _literary_ English: he has read a great deal, has a good library, and has made a special study of Old English and Middle English. He teaches literature (English) and grammar, etc. Mr. Ōzawa (_I think_) is the second English teacher: I like him the best personally. He has that fine consideration for others which you have,--and which is not a common quality of men anywhere. He speaks French. The Head-master, Mr. Sakurai, a young and very silent man, also speaks French. Nearly all the teachers speak English,--except the delightful old teacher of Chinese, who has a great beard and a head like Socrates. I liked him at once,--just as I liked Mr. Katayama at first sight. I wonder if there is anything in the learning of Chinese which makes men amiable. Perhaps it is the constant need of patience and the æsthetic sentiment also involved by such studies, that changes or modifies character so agreeably. I don't know much, however, about the teachers yet. I say good-morning and good-evening, and sit in my corner, and smoke my pipe. So far they all seem very gentle and courteous. I think I shall be able to get along pleasantly with them; but I don't think I shall become as friendly with any of them as I was with you. Indeed there is nobody like you here--no chats in the ten minutes,--no curious information,--no projects and discoveries. I often look at your pretty little tea-tray, with the _semi_ and the dragonflies upon it,--and wish I could hear your voice at the door....
LAFCADIO HEARN.
I have become very strong, and weigh about 20 lbs. more than I did last summer. But I can't tell just why. Perhaps because I am eating three full meals a day instead of two. My house is not quite so large as the one I had in Matsue. We are five here now--myself and wife, the cook, the _kurumaya_, and O-Yone. It was very funny about O-Yone when she first came. Nobody could understand her Izumo dialect (she is from Imaichi); but both she and the _kurumaya_ can now get along. The hotels here are outrageously expensive: at least some of them. I cannot recommend the Shirakuin for cheapness. I paid, including tea-money, 24 yen for 6-1/2 days. No more of that!
About the boys? Yes, Ōtani writes to me, and Azukizawa,--and I got a charming letter from Tanabe, late of the 5th Class.
I was surprised to hear of the decision of the Council. But I cannot help thinking this is much better than that the boys should be taught by a missionary; 99 out of 100 will not teach conscientiously and painstakingly. And a clever Japanese teacher can do so much. I have now no one to prepare some of my classes for the English lesson; and I know what it means. The main use of a foreign teacher is to teach accent and conversational habits. But I suspect that within another generation few foreign teachers will be employed for English--except in higher schools and for special purposes. There will be thousands of Japanese teachers, speaking English perfectly well. I hope you will be the new Director. Please kindly remember me to Mr. Sato, Mr. Katayama, Mr. Nakamura (I wish I could hear him laugh now), and all friends.
* * * * *
P. S. Setsu insists that I shall tell you that the _kurumaya_ of this town are _oni_, and that one must be careful in hiring them;--so that if you should come down here when the weather is better, you must be as careful as in Tōkyō,--where they are also _oni_. Also that rent is high: my house is eleven yen. But with any Izumo cook, living is just as cheap as in Matsue; and there is much good bread and meat and sake and food of all kinds.
I am sorry about that Tamatsukuri affair; for I wrote, as you will see, words of _extreme_ praise,--never suspecting such possibilities. Why, the first duty of gentlemen is to face death like soldiers,--not like sailors on a sinking ship, who stave in the casks--sometimes. However, don't such things make you wish for the chance to do the same duty better? They do me. That is one good effect of a human weakness: it makes others wish to be strong and to do strong things.
TO MASANOBU ŌTANI
KUMAMOTO, November, 1891.
MY DEAR ŌTANI,--I have just received your most kind letter, for which my sincerest thanks. But I don't want to correct it, and send it back to you: I would rather keep it always, as a pleasant remembrance.
It has been very cold in Kumamoto--a sharp frost came last night, with an icy wind. Everybody says such cold is extraordinary here; but I am not quite sure if this is really true, because they have told me everywhere I have been during the last twenty years: "Really we never saw such weather before."
Kumamoto is not nearly so pretty a city as Matsue, although it is as neat as Tenjin-machi. There are some very beautiful houses and hotels, but the common houses are not so fine as those of Matsue. Most of the old Shizoku houses were burned during the Satsuma war, so that there are no streets like Kita-bori-machi, and it is very hard to find a nice house. I have been fortunate enough to find one nearly as nice as the one I had in Matsue, but the garden is not nearly so pretty; and the rent is eleven dollars--nearly three times more than what I paid in Matsue. There is, of course, no lake here, and no beautiful scenery like that of Shinji-ko; but on clear days we can see the smoke rising from the great volcano of Aso-san.
As for the Dai Go Kōtō-Chūgakkō, the magnificence of it greatly surprised me. The buildings are enormous,--of brick for the most part; and they reminded me at first sight of the Imperial University of Tōkyō. Most of the students live in the school. There is a handsome military uniform; but all the boys do not wear it,--some wear Japanese clothes, and the rules about dress (except during drilling-time, etc.) are not very strict. There is no bell. The classes are called and dismissed by the sound of a bugle. There are ten minutes between class-hours for rest; but the buildings are so long, that it takes ten minutes to walk through them to the teacher's room, which is in a separate building. Two of the teachers speak French, and six or seven English: there are 28 teachers. The students are very nice,--and we became good friends at once. There are three classes, corresponding with the three higher classes of the Jinjō Chūgakkō,--and two higher classes. I do not now teach on Saturdays. There are no stoves--only _hibachi_. The library is small, and the English books are not good; but this year they are going to get better books, and to enlarge the library. There is a building in which _jū-jutsu_ is taught by Mr. Kano; and separate buildings for sleeping, eating, and bathing. The bath-room is a surprise. Thirty or forty students can bathe at the same time; and four hundred can eat at once in the great dining-hall. There is a separate building also for the teaching of chemistry, natural history, etc.; and there is a small museum.
You have been kind enough to offer to find out for me something about Shintō. Well, if you have time, I will ask you to find out for me as much as you can about the _miya_ of the household,--the household shrine and _kamidana_ in Izumo. I would like to know what way the _kamidana_ should face--north, south, east, or west.
Also, what is the origin of the curious shape of the little stoppers of the _omiki-dokkuri_?
[Illustration]
Also, whether the ancestors are ever worshipped before the _kamidana_ in the same way as they are worshipped before the _butsudan_.
Are the names of the dead ever written upon something to be placed in the _miya_, in the same way, or nearly the same way, as the _kaimyō_ is written upon the _ihai_ or Buddhist mortuary tablet.
In the Shintō worship of _family_ ancestors (if there is any such worship, which I doubt), what prayers are said?
Are any particular _family_-prayers said by Buddhists when praying before the _kaimyō_, or do the common people utter only the ordinary prayer of their sect--such as "_Namu Amida Butsu_," or, "_Namu Myōhō Rengekyō_?"
But do not give yourself too much trouble about these things, and take your own time;--in a month, or two months, or even three months will be quite time enough. And if you have no time, do not trouble yourself about it at all; and write to me that you cannot, or would rather not,--then I will ask some one who is less busy.
I shall be hoping really to see you in Kumamoto next year. You would like the school very much. Perhaps you would not like the city as well as Matsue; but the school is not in the city exactly; it is a little outside of it, and you would live in the school, probably,--or very near it. The students make excursions to Nagasaki and other places, by railroad and steamer.
Now about your letter. It was very nice. You made a few mistakes in using "_will_,"--and in saying "if I would have promote my school." It ought to have been "if I should go to a higher school."
"This will be a bad letter" ought to have been "I fear this _is_ ... etc." But you and I and everybody learn best by making mistakes.
With best remembrance from your old teacher, believe me
Ever truly yours, LAFCADIO HEARN.
TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA
KUMAMOTO, December, 1891.
DEAR FRIEND NISHIDA,--Your letter has just reached me. I am more sorry than I can express to hear of the death of Yokogi. Nature seems strangely cruel in making such a life, and destroying it before the time of ripeness. And the good hearts and the fine brains pass to dust, while the coarse and the cunning survive all dangers....
The name of the delightful old Samurai who teaches Chinese here, I think you know,--Akizuki. He was at Aizu, and made a great soldier's name; and he is just as gentle and quiet as Mr. Katayama,--and still more paternally charming in his manner. He is sixty-three years old....
I have made no friends among the teachers yet. I attended my first Japanese dinner with them the night before last; and, because _you_ were not there, I think I made some queer mistakes about the dishes--when to use chopsticks, etc. There were no _geishas_: the former director had forbidden their employment at teachers' dinners; and I don't think that Mr. Kano is going to revoke the order. The reason for it was not prudery; but the opposition paper used to take advantage of the presence of _geishas_ at the teachers' banquets to print nasty things against the school. So it was determined not to give the paper a chance to say anything more....
I have been very cautious in writing you about the climate, because I wanted to be very sure that, in case you should come here, it would be for the best. So far the climate is like this: every morning and night cold, with white frost; afternoons so warm that one can go out without an overcoat. Very little rain. No snow yet; but I am told that it will come.
As for me, I have become stronger than I have been for years. All my clothes, even my Japanese _kimono_, have become too small!! But I cannot say whether this be the climate or the diet or what. Setsu says it is because I have a good wife;--but she might be prejudiced, you know! My lungs are sound as a bell; I never cough at all. This is all that I can tell you at present.
No: O-Yone came with us. She took O-Yoshi's place, when O-Yoshi went back to live with her mother. I am sorry to say I had to send the _kurumaya_ away. He abandoned his wife in Matsue, and she went to the house of the Inagaki, crying and telling a very pitiful story. When I heard this, I told the man he must go back. But on the same days later, I found he had been doing very wrong things,--trying to make trouble among the other servants, and playing tricks upon us by making secret arrangements with the shopkeepers. I had bought him clothes, and given him altogether 14 yen and 50 sen, besides his board and lodging--including 5 yen to go back with. But he had squandered his little money and how he managed afterward I don't know. I could not help him any more; for his cunningness and foolishness together made it impossible to keep him a day longer in the house. The cook is from the _Nisho-tei_,--to which you first introduced me. The _kurumaya's_ place would have been a nice place for a good man. I shall be very careful about employing another _kurumaya_ by the month.
Now about the question you asked me. The words you underlined are from the Jewish Bible. The ideas of VALUE and of WEIGHT were closely connected in the minds of the old Semites, as they are still, to some extent, in our own. Everything was sold by WEIGHT, and according to the WEIGHT was the VALUE. The weighing was done with the SCALES or BALANCE, of which there were several kinds. The balancing was done by suspending a weight at one end of the "balance," or scales, as in Japan, and the article to be sold in the other. If too light, the article was "found wanting"--(i. e.: in weight). So in such English expressions as "to make LIGHT of" (to ridicule, to belittle, to speak contemptuously of)--the idea of WEIGHT thus estimated survives. Now, in the mythology of the Jews God is represented as one who WEIGHS, in a scale or balance, the good that is in a man--(his MORAL WEIGHT or VALUE)--and sends him to hell if he proves too light. Public opinion is now the God with the scales. If I am an author, for example, I (that is, my work) will be WEIGHED in the BALANCE (of public or of literary opinion) and found perhaps WANTING. Poor Ito was weighed many, many times, and found wanting--before being expelled. I am afraid he will be found wanting also by the world into which he must enter.
As for the phrase, "not a hair of their _head_," the singular is often used for the plural in the old English of the Bible, and other books. (To-day, we should use only the plural,--as a general rule.)
_Examples from the Bible:_
1. "The fire had no power upon their bodies, nor singular was the hair of _their_ HEAD singed."
--_Daniel, 3d Chap. 27th verse._
plural singular 2. "But the very hairs of your HEAD are all numbered."
--_Luke_ 12. 7.
singular 3. "And he bowed the HEART of _all the men of Judah_"
--_II Samuel_ 19. 14.
Poets to-day, or writers of poetical prose, may take similar liberties with grammar as that in No. 3.
There are very many quotations in the Bible about the words "weighed in the balance;" the most famous being that in the story of Belshazzar, in the book of Daniel. The first poetical use of the phrase is in the book of Job--supposed, you know, to have been written by an Arab, not a Jew.
Now I hope and pray that you will take good care of yourself, and not allow your Samurai-spirit of self-denial to urge you into taking any risks on bitterly cold days. Many, many happy new years to you and yours.
LAFCADIO HEARN.
TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
KUMAMOTO, November, 1891.
DEAR PROFESSOR,--Your welcome postal to hand. One must travel out of Izumo after a long residence to find out how utterly different the place is from other places,--for instance, this country. Matsue is incomparably prettier and better built and in every way more interesting than Kumamoto. What Kumamoto is religiously, I have not yet been able to find out. There are no shops here full of household shrines of _hinoki_-wood for sale, no display of _shimenawa_ over doors, no charms in the fields, no _o fuda_ pasted upon house-doors, no profusion of Shintō emblems, no certainty of seeing a _kamidana_ or a _butsudan_ in every house, and a strange scarcity of temples and images. Religiously, the place seems to be uninteresting; and to-day it is infernally cold. Everything is atrociously dear, and the charming simplicity of the Izumo folk does not here exist. My own people--four came with me--feel like fish out of water. My little wife said the other morning, with an amusing wonder in her eyes, that there was a _mezurashii kedamono_ in the next yard. We looked out, and the extraordinary animal was a goat. Some geese were also a subject of wonder, and a pig. None of these creatures are to be seen in Izumo.
About Inari. I may enquire again, but I think that the representation of Inari as a man with a beard, riding upon a white fox, in the pictures of Toyokuni, for instance, and in the sacred _kakemono_ is tolerably good evidence. Also the relief carving I have seen representing him as a man. Also the general popular idea concerning him, about which there is no mistake. Also the letter of Hideyoshi to Inari Daimyōjin cited in Walter Dening's Readers, under the heading: "Hideyoshi's Letter to Gods."