Concerning Lafcadio Hearn Part 21

j.a.pan holds infinite legends of ghostly significance, and it is no wonder that Hearn found so much that was sympathetic. Every new town or new temple reveals some aspect of the odd. In this second book the joyousness is gone; he is now a philosopher, and his philosophy reflects much of the ghostly. The gruesome has been buried, but it is not dead: it will return reincarnated, not of the ghastly of real life, but of the dim, far-away, always more distant ghostly in the lives of the dead.

A revelation of the Nirvana into which Hearn is being slowly drawn appears in "At Hakata." He has been telling the story of the sacred mirror that a mother in dying gave to her daughter, bidding her to look into it every morning and evening and there see her mother. And the girl looked and "having the heart of meeting her mother every day," knew not that the shadow in the mirror was her own face.

One are we all,--and yet many, because each is a world of ghosts. Surely that girl saw and spoke to her mother's very soul, while seeing the fair shadow of her own young eyes and lips, uttering love!

And with this thought, the strange display in the old temple court takes a new meaning,--becomes the symbolism of a sublime expectation. Each of us is truly a mirror, imaging something of the universe,--reflecting also the reflection of ourselves in that universe; and perhaps the destiny of all is to be molten by that mighty Image-maker, Death, into some great sweet pa.s.sionless unity. How the vast work shall be wrought, only those to come after us may know. We of the present West do not know: we merely dream. But the ancient East believes Here is the simple imagery of her faith. All forms must vanish at last to blend with that Being whose smile is immutable Rest,--whose knowledge is Infinite Vision.

"The Red Bridal" is a story of _jos.h.i.+_--the joint suicide for love.

These two young people had been playmates since their early school-days, and were deeply attached to each other. The girl's father, under the influence of an evil stepmother, agrees to sell his daughter to the richest and also the most disreputable man in the village. Hearing this awful command, the maiden only smiles the brave smile--inheritance of her Samurai blood. She knows what she must do.... Together she and her lover quietly meet the Tokyo express. As its low roar draws nearer, they "wound their arms about each other, and lay down cheek to cheek, very softly and quietly, straight across the inside rail."

We close the book with the memory of Yuko, heroic little Yuko, who, even as n.o.ble Asakachi, who had his beautiful wish to die for his country fulfilled, proves that the j.a.panese spirit of loyalty is far greater than our word implies. With all her country, Yuko, a humble little serving-maid, whose name signifies "valiant," is sorrowing because of a j.a.panese attack upon the Czarevitch of the Russians. Her soul burns with the desire to give something that will soften the sorrow of the August One; for the heart of the girl, being that of a true j.a.panese, grieves not alone for what has happened, but with a deeper sense of the grief caused to the August One. The cry goes from Yuko asking how she, who has nothing, can give; and from the lips of the dead within her comes the answer: "Give thyself. To give life for the August One is the highest duty, the highest joy." "And in what place?" she asks. "Saikyo,"

answer the silent voices; "in the gateway of those who by ancient custom should have died."

Does she falter? No.

For her the future holds no blackness. Always she will see the rising of the holy Sun above the peaks, the smile of the Lady-Moon upon the waters, the eternal magic of the Seasons. She will haunt the places of beauty, beyond the folding of the mists, in the sleep of the cedar-shadows, through circling of innumerable years. She will know a subtler life, in the faint winds that stir the snow of the flowers of the cherry, in the laughter of playing waters, in every happy whisper of the vast green silences. But first she will greet her kindred, somewhere in shadowy halls awaiting her coming to say to her:

"Thou hast done well,--like a daughter of Samurai. Enter, child!

because of thee to-night we sup with the G.o.ds!"

It is daylight when Yuko enters Kyoto. She finds a lodging, and then goes to a skilful female hairdresser. Her little razor is made very sharp. Returning to her room, she writes a letter of farewell to her brother, and an appeal to the officials asking that the Tens.h.i.+-Sama may be begged to cease from suffering "seeing that a young life, even though unworthy, has been given in voluntary expiation of the wrong."

At the dark hour before dawn she slips to the gate of the Government edifice. Whispering a prayer, she kneels. Then with her long under-girdle of silk she binds her robes tightly about her knees, for

the daughter of a Samurai must always be found in death with limbs decently composed. Then, with steady precision, she makes in her throat a gash, out of which the blood leaps in a pulsing jet....

At sunrise the police find her, quite cold, and the two letters, and a poor little purse containing five _yen_ and a few _sen_ (enough, she had hoped, for her burial); and they take her and all her small belongings away.

KOKORO[32] (9), the next book, could well be a continuation of "Out of the East." Hearn speaks of it as "terribly radical," and "rather crazy"; and he fears that his views, which are greatly opposed in the West, may not be well received.

[32] Copyright, 1896, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

"The fifteen chapters of which the book is composed," says a German review, "do not contain the results of any research into the domain of politics, art or religion. They are rather fragments from j.a.panese life, and so clear is the language that the pictures given are brought home to us with wonderful effect. Lafcadio Hearn is a journalist in the best sense of the word. He is a writer who has something striking and original to say upon the events of the day, upon the conditions and inst.i.tutions of a land, upon the possibilities of development in a people, upon deep philosophical, social and religious problems, upon the 'Idea of Pre-existence,' upon Buddhism and s.h.i.+ntoism, upon the difference between Occidental and Oriental culture, and who judges all things, all conditions that he sees, from lofty heights. He is besides a character, a man of great ideals; he has a fine artistic feeling and is, moreover, able to render in wonderfully sympathetic language tender moods which come to him at the sight of a landscape, a work of art.

Extraordinarily capable of a.s.similation, he, to whom j.a.pan has become a second home, has entirely fitted himself into the j.a.panese life. He is so delighted with the customs, with the political and social conditions, with the simple family life, with the religion, the ceremonies, the ancestor-wors.h.i.+p, and with the business intercourse carried on among themselves--which he a.s.sures us is characterized by exceptional probity--in short, he is so delighted with all the activities of this people that he thinks them the best possible because they spring from the inmost life of an ethical and never intellectual temperament.

Therefore he takes sides with them pa.s.sionately against the modern tendencies of Europe." (395.)

In the opening story, which I think will be found one of his best, is portrayed the manner of a j.a.panese crowd in dealing with a criminal; and how this criminal was brought to atonement by the gaze of a little child, the son of the man he murdered, while the little one was yet in his mother's womb.

The next chapter is a discussion of j.a.panese Civilization. In 1903 Hearn wrote:--

"The Genius of j.a.panese Civilization" is a failure. I thought that it was true when I wrote it; but already j.a.pan has become considerably changed, and a later study of ancient social conditions has proved to me that I made some very serious sociological errors in that paper.

He shows that in the wonderful development of j.a.panese power, there is vitally no self-transformation. All that j.a.pan is, she always has been.

Nor is there any outward change. "The strength of j.a.pan, like the strength of her ancient faith, needs little material display: both exist where the deepest real power of any great peoples exists,--in the Race Ghost." He contrasts the noise and confusion and vastness of Western cities. The construction of the West is endurance; of j.a.pan impermanency. The very land is a land of impermanence. But in this impermanency Hearn finds the greatest excellence. He contrasts how little impedimenta the j.a.panese have--by that means alone how independent they are. He shows with what a quiet simplicity j.a.pan has become a great commercial centre. He fears the new Western spirit which threatens her:--

I confess to being one of those who believe that the human heart, even in the history of a race, may be worth infinitely more than the human intellect, and that it will sooner or later prove itself infinitely better able to answer all the cruel enigmas of the Sphinx of Life.--I still believe that the old j.a.panese were nearer to the solution of those enigmas than are we, just because they recognized moral beauty as greater than intellectual beauty.

It is the old spirit which found infinite meaning--

in the flushed splendour of the blossom-bursts of spring, in the coming and the going of the cicadae, in the dying crimson of autumn foliage, in the ghostly beauty of snow, in the delusive motion of wave or cloud.

The beautiful voice of a blind peasant woman fills Hearn with gentle memories and an exquisite delight. He muses upon what the meaning of this charm can be; and he realizes that it is the old sorrows and loving impulses of forgotten generations.

The dead die never utterly. They sleep in the darkest cells of tired hearts and busy brains,--to be startled at rarest moments only by the echo of some voice that recalls their past.

The lovely spirit of showing only one's happiest face to the world is charmingly brought out in the little incident that, when in a railway carriage, a j.a.panese woman finds herself becoming drowsy, before she nods she covers her face with her long kimono sleeve.

Sometimes one may recall the dead, and speak with them. So it happened that O-Tayo heard once again the voice of her little child who begged her not to weep any more, for when mothers weep, the flood of the River of Tears rises so high that the soul cannot pa.s.s, and must wander and wander.

O-Tayo never wept again, but softly she herself became as a little child. Her good parents built a tiny temple and fitted it with miniature ornaments, and here all day long children came to play games with her.

And when at last she died, the children still played there, for as a little girl of nine said, "We shall still play in the Court of Amida.

She is buried there. She will hear us and be happy."

The pathetic tale of Haru gives an interesting picture of the relation in j.a.pan between man and wife; of the exquisite submission of the wife under the saddest conditions, even to the moment when the little grieved heart, which has never murmured, has the dying strength to utter only the single word, "_Anata_." (Thou.)

"A Glimpse of Tendencies" a.n.a.lyzes many conditions in j.a.pan, with various predictions for her future, and speaks of her lack of sympathy for her foreign teachers.

In "A Conservative" Hearn gives a searching study of how the evils of our civilization appear to a j.a.panese youth.

"In the chapter, 'The Idea of Pre-existence,' Hearn makes the interesting attempt of bringing the teachings of the Buddhistic religion and the conclusions of modern science into accord. The idea which differentiates the Oriental mode of thinking from our own, which more than any other permeates the whole mental being of the Far-East--'it is universal as the wash of air; it colours every emotion; it influences, directly or indirectly, almost every act'--which inspires the utterances of the people, their proverbs, their pious and profane exclamations, that is the idea of pre-existence. The expression, '_Ingwa_,' which signifies the Karma as inevitable retribution, serves as explanation for all suffering, all pain, all evil. The culprit says: 'That which I did I knew to be wicked when doing; but my _ingwa_ was stronger than my heart,' _Ingwa_ means predestination, determinism, necessity." (395.)

In his chapter on "Ancestor-Wors.h.i.+p" it is further proved how important a part of the household are the dead.

Another delightful study is "Kimiko,"--the story of one who turns dancing-girl out of filial piety. In the height of her fame she falls in love with a rich young man, and he with her. Kimiko is so good a woman at heart, that the man's friends do not object to his marrying her. She refuses, however, for her life has made her unworthy to be wife or mother. The man hopes to change her, but one day she disappears and is utterly lost to sight. Years pa.s.s and he marries. At last Kimiko returns as a wandering nun, looks at her lover's little son, whispers a message for the father in his ear, and is gone once more. The grace with which the story is told is inimitable, and the sickly sentimentality that revolts us in the _Dame aux Camelias_ is absent. (381.)

GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS[33] (10) is the third book of the j.a.panese period, and was written at Kobe. In this volume of essays, intermingled with sketches in lighter vein, Hearn continues his philosophical studies. There are the unmistakable signs that even this ardour is losing zest. The charm of j.a.pan is going fast; and after this volume, until his final interpretation, which is a summary of all that has gone before, is reached, we find him seeking material in fairy-tales, legends, and even returning to old thoughts about the West Indian life.

[33] Copyright, 1897, by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

Many of his critics feel that Hearn is becoming too subjective to be quite trustworthy; others feel that he is still too charmed by j.a.pan to render a faithful picture. A review in _Public Opinion_ says:--

"But, this feature of almost pardonable exaggeration pointed out, there is little for the critic to carp at in the majority of the eleven essays that compose the book. The opening paper, 'A Living G.o.d,' is a perfect specimen of the author's style, and evinces in a marked degree the influence of Oriental environment on a sensitive mind. It treats of the temples, shrines, and wors.h.i.+p of the people, and tells by legend how even a living individual may come to be wors.h.i.+pped as a G.o.d by his friends....

"The essay, however, that betrays most strongly the bent of the author's mental metamorphosis, and one, we venture to say, that will be generally challenged is that on 'Faces in j.a.panese Art.' The contention it embodies, which he boldly fathers, is a flat denial of the truth and worth of our accepted schools of art,--of drawing especially." (376.)

Criticizing the chapters on Buddhism in the present book, the _Athenaeum_ says:--

"They are finely written, but the Buddhism is the Buddhism of Mr. Hearn, not of China or j.a.pan, or of anywhere else. Nevertheless, we think them the most attractive of these gleanings. Laputa is placed not very far from j.a.pan; to a quasi-Laputa Mr. Hearn has gone, and his Laputian experiences are more interesting than any ordinary terrestrial experiences could have been." (298.)

The _Spectator_ says:--

"His chapter on Nirvana, which he describes as 'a study in synthetic Buddhism,' will be read with very great interest by all who care for the problems involved. There have been plenty of studies of the doctrine of Nirvana more elaborate and complete, but few more suggestive and more taking.... Mr. Hearn begins by combating the popular Western notion that the idea of Nirvana signifies to Buddhist minds complete annihilation.

The notion is, he declares, erroneous because it contains only half the truth, and a half of the truth which is of no value or interest or intelligibility except when joined to the other half. According to Mr.

Hearn, and, indeed, according to 'the better opinion' generally, Nirvana means not absolute nothingness or complete annihilation, but only the annihilation of what const.i.tutes individualism and personality,--'the annihilation of everything that can be included under the term "I".'"

(382.)

Hearn makes an elaborate study of the varying stages of births and heavens that one must generally pa.s.s through before one rises into the "infinite bliss" of Nirvana. The chapter closes with this significant sentence:--

The only reality is One;--all that we have taken for Substance is only Shadow;--the physical is the unreal:--_and the outer-man is the ghost_.