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HARVARD UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

OF THE

PEABODY MUSEUM

GIFT OF
ROLAND BURRAGE DIXON

(A.B. 1897, Ph.D. 1900)
OF HARVARD, MASSACHUSETTS

Received May 7, 1936

THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY, AND
OTHER STUDIES AND STORIES. lamo, gUt
top, lz.25 fut. Postage extra.

KWAIOAN : Stories and Studies of Strange Things.
With two Japanese Illustrations, zamo, gilt top,
$i.5a

GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS. x6mo, gUt
top, $1.25.

KOKORO. Hints and Echoes of Japanese inner
Life. x6mo, gilt top, f z.25.

OUT OF THE EAST. Reveries and Studies in
New Japan. x6mOt f i .25.

GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN, a vols,
crown 8to, gilt top, $4.00,

STRAY LEAVES FROM STRANGE LITERA-
TURE. x6mo, I1.50.

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
Boston and New York.

the:

ROMANCi:

or THE.

MILKY

WAY

CD.

OTHER

STUDIES

AND
STORIES

THE RO-
MANCE
or THE
MILRY
O WAY

AND OTHER
STUDIES <n
STORIES BY

lafcadio
he:arn O

HOUGHTON
MIFFLIN AND
COMPANT •
BOSTON AND
NE\F TORK 1905

3;^?7

COPYRIGHT D^^Lf^ST «^ 1^^"^. "j) U^H

1903 BY ^^C^A iy[c\^l , /^3(g,

HOUGHTON
MIFFLIN &
COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS
RUSilRVilD

PUBLISHED

OCTOBER

1905

c
o

N
T

PAGB N

THE ROMANCE OF THE MILKY WAY .... ^ X

GOBLIN POETRY 51 Q

"ULTIMATE questions" ....... 103

THE MIRROR MAIDEN 1 25

THE STORY OF ITO NORISUK^ 139

STRANGER THAN FICTION 167

A LETTER FROM JAPAN 1 79

I

N
T
R
O

Lafcadio Hearn, known to Nippon D
as Yakumo Koizumi, was born in Leucadia in U
the Ionian Islands, June 27, 1850. His father C
was an Irish surgeon in the British Army ; his 'p
mother was a Greek. Both parents died while j
Hearn was still a child, and he was adopted by ^
a great-aunt, and educated for the priesthood. ^
To this training he owed his Latin scholarship
and, doubtless, something of the subtlety of his
intelligence. He soon found, however, that the
prospect of an ecclesiastical career was alien from
his inquiring mind and vivid temperament, and
at the age of nineteen he came to America to
seek his fortune. After working for a time as a
proof-reader, he obtained employment as a news-
paper reporter in Cincinnati. Soon he rose to
be an editorial writer, and went in the course of
a few years to New Orleans to join the editorial
staff of the "Times-Democrat." Here he lived
until 1887, writing odd fantasies and arabesques
for his paper, contributing articles and sketches

vii

to the magazines, and publishing several curious
little books, among them his " Stray Leaves
from Strange Literature," and his translations
from Gautier. In the winter of 1887 he began
his pilgrimages to exotic countries, being, as he
wrote to a friend, " a small literary bee in search
of inspiring honey." After a couple of years,
spent chiefly in the French West Indies, with
periods of literary work in New York, he went
in 1890 to Japan to prepare a series of articles
for a magazine. Here through some deep affin-
ity of mood with the marvelous people of that
country he seems suddenly to have felt himself
at last at home. He married a Japanese woman ;
he acquired Japanese citizenship in order to
preserve the succession of his property to his
family there ; he became a lecturer in the Im-
perial University at Tokyo ; and in a series of
remarkable books he made himself the inter-
preter to the Western World of the very spirit
of Japanese life and art. He died there of pa-
ralysis of the heart on the 26th of September,
1904.

With the exception of a body of
familiar letters now in process of collection, the
present volume contains all of Heam's writing
viii

that he left uncollected in the magazines or in
manuscript of a sufficient ripeness for publica-
tion. It is worth noting, however, that perfect
as is the writing of " Ultimate Questions," and
complete as the essay is in itself, the author
regarded it as unfinished, and, had he lived,
would have revised and amplified some por-
tions of it.

But if this volume lacks the incom-
parably exquisite touch of its author in its ar-
rangement and revision, it does, nevertheless,
present him in all of his most characteristic
veins, and it is in respect both to style and to
substance perhaps the most mature and signifi-
cant of his works.

In his first days as a writer Heam had
conceived an ideal of his art as specific as it was
ambitious. Early in the eighties he wrote from
New Orleans in an unpublished letter to the Rev.
Wayland D. Ball of Washington : "The lovers
of antique loveliness are proving to me the fu-
ture possibilities of a long cherished dream, —
the English realization of a Latin style, modeled
upon foreign masters, and rendered even more
forcible by that element of strength which is
the characteristic of Northern tongues. This no
man can hope to accomplish, but even a trans-

ix

lator may carry his stones to the master-masons
of a new architecture of language." In the real-
ization of his ideal Heam took unremitting
pains. He gave a minute and analytical study
to the writings of such masters of style as Flau-
bert and Gautier, and he chose his miscella-
neous reading with a peculiar care. He wrote
again to the same friend : " I never read a book
which does not powerfully impress the imagi-
nation ; but whatever contains novel, curious,
potent imagery I always read, no matter what
the subject. When the soil of fancy is really
well enriched with innumerable fallen leaves,
the flowers of language grow spontaneously."
Finally, to the hard study of technique, to
vast but judicious reading, he added a long,
creative brooding time. To a Japanese friend,
Nobushige Amenomori, he wrote in a passage
which contains by implication a deep theory
not only of literary composition, but of all
art: —

" Now with regard to your own
sketch or story. If you are quite dissatisfied
with it, I think this is probably due not to
what you suppose, — imperfection of expres-
sion, — but rather to the fact that some latent
thought or emotion has not yet defined itself in

X

your mind with sufficient sharpness. You feel
something and have not been able to express the
feeling — only because you do not yet quite
know what it is. We feel without understand-
ing feeling ; and our most powerful emotions
are the most undefinable. This must be so, be-
cause they are inherited accumulations of feel-
ing, and the multiplicity of them — superimposed
one over another — blurs them, and makes them
dim, even though enormously increasing their
strength. . . . Uncomcious brain work is the
best to develop such latent feeling or thought.
By quietly writing the thing over and over again,
I find that the emotion or idea often develops
itself in the process, — unconsciously. Again,
it is often worth while to try to analyze the feel-
ing that remains dim. The effort of trying to
understand exactly what it is that moves us
sometimes proves successful. ... If you have
any feeling — no matter what — strongly latent
in the mind (even only a haunting sadness or
a mysterious joy), you may be sure that it is
expressible. Some feelings are, of course, very
difficult to develop. I shall show you one of
these days, when we see each other, a page that
I worked at for months before the idea came
clearly. . . . When the best result comes, it

xi

ought to surprise you, for our best work is out
of the Unconscious."

Through this study, reading, and brood-
ing Laf cadio Hearn's prose ripened and mellowed
consistently to the end. In mere workmanship
the present volume is one of his most admirable,
while in its heightened passages, like the final
paragraph of "The Romance of the Milky
Way,** the rich, melancholy music, the profound
suggestion, are not easily matched from any
but the very greatest English prose.

In substance the volume is equally sig-
nificant. In 1884 he wrote to one of the closest
of his friends that he had at last found his feet
intellectually through the reading of Herbert
Spencer which had dispelled all "isms" from
his mind and left him " the vague but omnipo-
tent consolation of the Great Doubt.** And in
" Ultimate Questions,'* which strikes, so to say,
the dominant chord of this volume, we have an
almost lyrical expression of the meaning for him
of the Spencerian philosophy and psychology.
In it is his characteristic mingling of Buddhist
and Shinto thought with English and French
psychology, strains which in his work " do not
simply mix well,*' as he says in one of his let-
ters, but " absolutely imite, like chemical ele-
xii

ments, — rush together with a shock ; " — and
in it he strikes his deepest note. In his steady
envisagement of the horror that envelops the
stupendous universe of science, in his power to
evoke and revive old myths and superstitions,
and by their glamour to cast a ghostly light of
vanished suns over the darkness of the abyss,
he was the most Lucretian of modern writers.

In outward appearance Heam, the
man, was in no way prepossessing. In the
sharply lined picture of him drawn by one of
his Japanese comrades in the "Atlantic" for
October, 1905, he appears, " slightly corpulent
in later years, short in stature, hardly five feet
high, of somewhat stooping gait. A little brown-
ish in complexion, and of rather hairy skin. A
thin, sharp, aquiline nose, large protruding eyes,
of which the left was blind and the right very
near-sighted."

The same writer, Nobushige Ameno-
mori, has set down a reminiscence, not of Heam
the man, but of Heam the genius, wherewith
this introduction to the last of his writings may
fitly conclude : " I shall ever retain the vivid
remembrance of the sight I had when I stayed
over night at his house for the first time. Being

xiii

used myself also to sit up late, I read in bed that
night. The clock struck one in the morning, but
there was a light in Heam's study. I heard some
low, hoarse coughing. I was afraid my friend
might be ill ; so I stepped out of my room and
went to his study. Not wanting, however, to dis-
turb him, if he was at work, I cautiously opened
the door just a little, and peeped in. I saw my
friend intent in writing at his high desk, with his
nose almost touching the paper. Leaf after leaf
he wrote on. In a while he held up his head, and
what did I see ! It was not the Heam I was
familiar with ; it was another Heam. His face
was mysteriously white ; his large eye gleamed.
He appeared like one in touch with some un-
earthly presence.

"Within that homely looking man
there burned something pure as the vestal fire,
and in that flame dwelt a mind that called forth
life and poetry out of dust, and grasped the
highest themes of human thought."

F. G.

September, 1905.

THE

ROMANCE,

OF THE

MILKY

WAY

Of old it was said : * The Riyer of Heaven is the Ghost
of Waters.' We behold it shifting its bed in the course
of the year as an earthly river sometimes does.

AncisHt Scholar

THE

ROMANCE

OF

THE

MILKY

WAY

Among the many charming festivals
celebrated by Old Japan, the most romantic was
the festival of Tanabata-Sama, the Weaving-
Lady of the Milky Way. In the chief cities her
holiday is now little observed ; and in Tokyo
it is almost forgotten. But in many country
districts, and even in villages near the capi-
tal, it is still celebrated in a small way. If
you happen to visit an old-fashioned country
town or village, on the seventh day of the
seventh month (by the ancient calendar), you
will probably notice many freshly-cut bamboos
fixed upon the roofs of the houses, or planted
in the ground beside them, every bamboo hav-
ing attached to it a number of strips of colored

3

paper. In some very poor villages you might
find that these papers are white, or of one
color only ; but the general rule is that the
papers should be of five or seven different
colors. Blue, green, red, yellow, and white are
the tints commonly displayed. All these papers
are inscribed with short poems written in praise
of Tanabataand her husband Hikoboshi. After
the festival the bamboos are taken down and
thrown into the nearest stream, together with
the poems attached to them.

To understand the romance of this
old festival, you must know the legend of those
astral divinities to whom offerings used to be
made, even by the Imperial Household, on
the seventh day of the seventh month. The
legend is Chinese. This is the Japanese popu-
lar version of it : —

The great god of the firmament had
a lovely daughter, Tanabata-tsum6, who passed
her days in weaving garments for her august
parent. She rejoiced in her work, and thought
that there was no greater pleasure than the
4

pleasure of weaving. But one day, as she sat
before her loom at the door of her heavenly
dwelling, she saw a handsome peasant lad pass
by, leading an ox, and she fell in love with him.
Her august father, divining her secret wish,
gave her the youth for a husband. But the
wedded lovers became too fond of each other,
and neglected their duty to the god of the
firmament; the sound of the shuttle was no
longer heard, and the ox wandered, unheeded,
over the plains of heaven. Therefore the great
god was displeased, and he separated the pair.
They were sentenced to live thereafter apart,
with the Celestial River between them ; but it
was permitted them to see each other once a
year, on the seventh night of the seventh moon.
On that night — providing the skies be clear
— the birds of heaven make, with their bodies
and wings, a bridge over the stream ; and by
means of that bridge the lovers can meet. But
if there be rain, the River of Heaven rises, and
becomes so wide that the bridge cannot be
formed. So the husband and wife cannot always
meet, even on the seventh night of the seventh

S

month ; it may happen, by reason of bad wea-
ther, that they cannot meet for three or four
years at a time. But their love remains immor-
tally young and eternally patient; and they
continue to fulfill their respective duties each
day without fault, — happy in their hope of
being able to meet on the seventh night of the
next seventh month.

To ancient Chinese fancy, the Milky
Way was a luminous river, — the River of Hea-
ven, — the Silver Stream. It has been stated by
Western writers that Tanabata, the Weaving-
Lady, is a star in L3rra ; and the Herdsman,
her beloved, a star in Aquila, on the opposite
side of the galaxy. But it were more correct
to say that both are represented, to Far-East-
ern imagination, by groups of stars. An old
Japanese book puts the matter thus plainly:
" Kengyu (the Ox-Leader) is on the west side
of the Heavenly River, and is represented by
three stars in a row, and looks like a man lead-
ing an ox. Shokujo (the Weaving-Lady) is on
the east side of the Heavenly River : three stars
6

so placed as to appear like the figure of a wo-
man seated at her loom. . . . The former pre-
sides over all things relating to agriculture ; the
latter, over all that relates to women's work."

In an old book called Zatsuwa-Shin, it
is said that these deities were of earthly origin.
Once in this world they were man and wife, and
lived in China ; and the husband was called Is-
shi, and the wife Hakuyo. They especially and
most devoutly reverenced the Moon. Every
clear evening, after sundown, they waited with
eagerness to see her rise. And when she began
to sink towards the horizon, they would climb
to the top of a hill near their house, so that
they might be able to gaze upon her face as
long as possible. Then, when she at last disap-
peared from view, they would mourn together.
At the age of ninety and nine, the wife died ;
and her spirit rode up to heaven on a magpie,
and there became a star. The husband, who
was then one hundred and three years old,
sought consolation for his bereavement in look-
ing at the Moon ; and when he welcomed her

7

rising and mourned her setting, it seemed to
him as if his wife were still beside him.

One summer night, Hakuyo — now
immortally beautiful and young — descended
from heaven upon her magpie, to visit her hus-
band ; and he was made very happy by that visit.
But from that time he could think of nothing
but the bliss of becoming a star, and joining
Hakuy5 beyond the River of Heaven. At last
he also ascended to the sky, riding upon a crow ;
and there he became a star-god. But he could
not join Hakuyo at once, as he had hoped ; —
for between his allotted place and hers flowed
the River of Heaven ; and it was not permitted
for either star to cross the stream, because the
Master of Heaven {TetirTei) daily bathed in its
waters. Moreover, there was no bridge. But
on one day every year — the seventh day of
the seventh month — they were allowed to see
each other. The Master of Heaven goes always
on that day to the Zenhodo, to hear the preach-
ing of the law of Buddha ; and then the mag-
pies and the crows make, with their hovering
bodies and outspread wings, a bridge over the
8

Celestial Stream ; and Hakuyo crosses that
bridge to meet her husband.

There can be little doubt that the
Japanese festival called Tanabata was originally
identical with the festival of the Chinese Weav-
ing-Goddess, Tchi-Niu ; the Japanese holiday
seems to have been especially a woman's holi-
day, from the earliest times ; and the charac-
ters with which the word Tanabata is written
signify a weaving-girl. But as both of the star-
deities were worshiped on the seventh of the
seventh month, some Japanese scholars have
not been satisfied with the common explanation
of the name, and have stated that it was origi-
nally composed with the word tani (seed, or
grain), and the word hata (loom). Those who
accept this etymology make the appellation,
Tanabata-Sama, plural instead of singular, and
render it as " the deities of grain and of the
loom," — that is to say, those presiding over
agriculture and weaving. In old Japanese pic-
tures the star-gods are represented according
to this conception of their respective attributes ;
— Hikoboshi being figured as a peasant lad

9

leading an ox to drink of the Heavenly River,
on the farther side of which Orihim6 (Tanabata)
appears, weaving at her loom. The garb of both
is Chinese ; and the first Japanese pictures of
these divinities were probably copied from some
Chinese original.

In the oldest collection of Japanese
poetry extant, — the Manyoshu, dating from
760 A. D., — the male divinity is usually called
Hikoboshi, and the female Tanabata-tsum6 ;
but in later times both have been called Tana-
bata. In Izumo the male deity is popularly
termed O-Tanabata Sama, and the female M6-
Tanabata Sama. Both are still known by many
names. The male is called Kaiboshi as well as
Hikoboshi and Kengyu ; while the female is
called Asagao-him6 ("Morning Glory Prin-
cess"),' Ito-ori-him6 ("Thread-Weaving Prin-
cess "), Momoko-him6 (" Peach-Child Prin-
cess "), Takimono-him6 ("Incense Princess"),
and Sasagani-him6 (" Spider Princess ").
Some of these names are difficult to explain, —

' Asagao (lit, ** morning-face ") is the Japanese name for
the beautiful climbing plant which we call ** morning glory.**
10

especially the last, which reminds us of the
Greek legend of Arachne. Probably the Greek
myth and the Chinese story have nothing what-
ever in common; but in old Chinese books
there is recorded a curious fact which might
well suggest a relationship. In the time of
the Chinese Emperor Ming Hwang (whom the
Japanese call Gens5), it was customary for the
ladies of the court, on the seventh day of the
seventh month, to catch spiders and put them
into an incense-box for purposes of divination.
On the morning of the eighth day the box was
opened ; and if the spiders had spun thick webs
during the night the omen was good. But if
they had remained idle the omen was bad.

There is a story that, many ages ago,
a beautiful woman visited the dwelling of a
farmer in the mountains of Izimio, and taught
to the only daughter of the household an art
of weaving never before known. One evening
the beautiful stranger vanished away ; and the
people knew that they had seen the Weaving-
Lady of Heaven. The daughter of the farmer

II

became renowned for her skill in weaving.
But she would never marry, — because she had
been the companion of Tanabata-Sama.

Then there is a Chinese story -^de-
lightfully vague — about a man who once made
a visit, unawares, to the Heavenly Land. He
had observed that every year, during the eighth
month, a raft of precious wood came floating to
the shore on which he lived; and he wanted
to know where that wood grew. So he loaded
a boat with provisions for a two years* voyage,
and sailed away in the direction from which the
rafts used to drift. For months and months
he sailed on, over an always placid sea ; and at
last he arrived at a pleasant shore, where won-
derful trees were growing. He moored his boat,
and proceeded alone into the unknown land,
until he came to the bank of a river whose
waters were bright as silver. On the opposite
shore he saw a pavilion ; and in the pavilion a
beautiful woman sat weaving; she was white
like moonshine, and made a radiance all about
her. Presently he saw a handsome young pea-

12

sant approaching, leading an ox to the water ;
and he asked the young peasant to tell him the
name of the place and the country. But the
youth seemed to be displeased by the question,
and answered in a severe tone : " If you want
to know the name of this place, go back to
where you came from, and ask Gen-Kum-Pei." '
So the vo)rager, feeling afraid, hastened to his
boat, and returned to China. There he sought
out the sage Gen-Kum-Pei, to whom he related
the adventure. Gen-Kum-Pei clapped his hands
for wonder, and exclaimed, " So it was you !
. . . On the seventh day of the seventh month
I was gazing at the heavens, and I saw that
the Herdsman and the Weaver were about to
meet; — but between them was a new Star,
which I took to be a Guest-Star. Fortunate
man ! you have been to the River of Heaven,
and have looked upon the face of the Weaving-
Lady ! ..."

— It is said that the meeting of the
Herdsman and the Weaver can be observed by

^ This is the Japanese reading of the Chinese name.

13

any one with good eyes; for whenever it oc-
curs those stars bum with five different colors.
That is why oflFerings of five colors are made
to the Tanabata divinities, and why the poems
composed in their praise are written upon paper
of five different tints.

But, as I have said before, the pair
can meet only in fair weather. If there be the
least rain upon the seventh night, the River
of Heaven will rise, and the lovers must wait
another whole year. Therefore the rain that
happens to fall on Tanabata night is called
Namida no Ami^ " The Rain of Tears."

When the sky is clear on the seventh
night, the lovers are fortunate ; and their stars
can be seen to sparkle with delight. If the star
Kengyu then shines very brightly, there will
be great rice crops in the autumn. If the star
Shokujo looks brighter than usual, there will
be a prosperous time for weavers, and for every
kind of female industry.

In old Japan it was generally sup-
posed that the meeting of the pair signified
14

good fortune to mortals. Even to-day, in many
ports of the country, children sing a little song
on the evening of the Tanabata festival, —
Tenki ni naH ! (" O weather, be clear 1 ") In
the province of Iga the young folks also sing
a jesting song at the supposed hour of the
lovers' meeting : —

Tanabata ya 1
Amari isogaba,
Korobubdshi 1 *

But in the province of Izumo, which
is a very rainy district, the contrary belief pre-
vails ; and it is thought that if the sky be clear
on the seventh day of the seventh month, mis-
fortune will follow. The local explanation of
this belief is that if the stars can meet, there
will be born from their union many evil deities
who will afflict the country with drought and
other calamities.

' <<Hoi Tanabata 1 if you hurry too much, you will
tumble down I "

15

The festival of Tanabata was first
celebrated in Japan on the seventh day of the
seventh month of Tembyo Sh5h6 (a. d. 755).
Perhaps the Chinese origin of the Tanabata
divinities accounts for the fact that their public
worship was at no time represented by many
temples.

I have been able to find record of
only one temple to them, called Tanabata-jinja,
which was situated at a village called Hoshiai-
mura, in the province of Owari, and surrounded
by a grove called Tanabata-mori.*

Even before Temby5 Shoho, however,
the legend of the Weaving-Maiden seems to
have been well known in Japan; for it is re-
corded that on the seventh night of the seventh
year of Y6r5 (a. d. 723) the poet Yamagami
no Okura composed the song : —

Amanogawa,
Ai-muki tachit6,
Waga kolshi

I There is no mention, however, of any such village in
any modem directory.

16

Kimi kimasu nari —
Himo-toki makina 1 '

It would seem that the Tanabata festi-
val was first established in Japan eleven hundred
and fifty years ago, as an Imperial Court festival
only, in accordance with Chinese precedent.
Subsequently the nobility and the military
classes everywhere followed imperial example ;
and the custom of celebrating the Hoshi-mat-
suri, or Star-Festival, — as it was popularly
called, — spread gradually downwards, until at
last the seventh day of the seventh month be-
came, in the full sense of the term, a national
holiday. But the fashion of its observance va-
ried considerably at different eras and in diflFer-
ent provinces.

The ceremonies at the Imperial Court
were of the most elaborate character: a full
account of them is given in the Kqji Kongen^ —
with explanatory illustrations. On the evening
of the seventh day of the seventh month, mat-

X For a translation and explanation of this song, see
infra, page 3a

17

tings were laid down on the east side of that
portion of the Imperial Palace called the Seir-
yoden; and upon these mattings were placed
four tables of oflFerings to the Star-deities. Be-
sides the customary food-oflFerings, there were
placed upon these tables rice-wine, incense, vases
of red lacquer containing flowers, a harp and
flute, and a needle with five eyes, threaded with
threads of five different colors. Black-lacquered
oil-lamps were placed beside the tables, to illu-
minate the feast. In another part of the grounds
a tub of water was so placed as to reflect the
light of the Tanabata-stars ; and the ladies of
the Imperial Household attempted to thread a
needle by the reflection. She who succeeded
was to be fortunate during the following year.
The court-nobility {Kugf) were obliged
to make certain oflFerings to the Imperial House
on the day of the festival. The character of
these oflFerings, and the manner of their presen-
tation, were fixed by decree. They were con-
veyed to the palace upon a tray, by a veiled
lady of rank, in ceremonial dress. Above her,
as she walked, a great red umbrella was borne
i8

by an attendant. On the tray were placed seven
tanzaku (longilateral slips of fine tinted paper
for the writing of poems) ; seven ^^i^-leaves ; ■
seven inkstones; seven strings of somen (a
kind of vermicelli); fourteen writing-brushes;
and a bunch of yam-leaves gathered at night,
and thickly sprinkled with dew. In the pakice
grounds the ceremony began at the Hour of
the Tiger, — 4 a. m. Then the inkstones were
carefully washed, — prior to preparing the ink
for the writing of poems in praise of the Star-
deities, — and each one set upon a kudzuAssl.
One bunch of bedewed yam-leaves was then laid
upon every inkstone ; and with this dew, instead
of water, the writing-ink was prepared. All the
ceremonies appear to have been copied from
those in vogue at the Chinese court in the time
of the Emperor Ming-Hwang.

It was not until the time of the Toku-
gawa Shdgiuiate that the Tanabata festival be-
came really a national holiday ; and the popular
custom of attaching tanzaku of different colors

' Pueraria Thunbergiana,

19

to freshly-cut bamboos, in celebration of the
occasion, dates only from the era of BunseT
(1818). Previously the tanzaku had been made
of a very costly quality of paper ; and the old
aristocratic ceremonies had been not less ex-
pensive than elaborate. But in the time of the
Tokugawa Shogunate a very cheap paper of
various colors was manufactured ; and the holi-
day ceremonies were suflFered to assume an in-
expensive form, in which even the poorest
classes could indulge.

The popular customs relating to the
festival differed according to locality. Those of
Izumo — where all classes of society, samurai
or common folk, celebrated the holiday in much
the same way — used to be particularly inter-
esting ; and a brief account of them will suggest
something of the happy aspects of life in feudal
times. At the Hour of the Tiger, on the seventh
night of the seventh month, everybody was up ;
and the work of washing the inkstones and writ-
ing-brushes was performed. Then, in the house-
hold garden, dew was collected upon yam-leaves.
This dew was called Amanogawa no suzuki
20

(" drops from the River of Heaven ") ; and it
was used to make fresh ink for writing the
poems which were to be suspended to bamboos
planted in the garden. It was usual for friends
to present each other with new inkstones at the
time of the Tanabata festival; and if there
were any new inkstones in the house, the fresh
ink was prepared in these. Each member of
the family then wrote poems. The adults com-
posed verses, according to their ability, in praise
of the Star-deities ; and the children either wrote
dictation or tried to improvise. Little folk too
young to use the writing-brush without help
had their small hands guided, by parent or
elder sister or elder brother, so as to shape on
a tanzaku the character of some single word
or phrase relating to the festival, — such as
"Amanogawa," or "Tanabata," or "Kasasagi
no Hashi " (the Bridge of Magpies). In the
garden were planted two freshly-cut bamboos,
with branches and leaves entire, — a male bam-
boo (ptoko-daki) and a female bamboo (pnna-
daki). They were set up about six feet apart,
and to a cord extended between them were sus-

21

pended paper-cuttings of five colors, and skeins
of dyed thread of five colors. The paper-cuttings
represented upper-robes, — kimono. To the leaves
and branches of the bamboos were tied the tanr
zaku on which poems had been written by the
members of the family. And upon a table, set
between the bamboos, or immediately before
them, were placed vessels containing various
offerings to the Star-deities, — fruits, somen^ rice-
wine, and vegetables of different kinds, such as
cucimibers and watermelons.

But the most curious Izumo custom
relating to the festival was the NAnu-nagashi^
or " Sleep-wash-away " ceremony. Before day-
break the young folks used to go to some stream,
carrying with them bunches composed of nAnuri-
leaves and bean-leaves mixed together. On
reaching the stream, they would fling their
bunches of leaves into the current, and sing a
little song : —

N6mu wa, nagar6 yo !
Mam6 no ha wa, tomar6 1

These verses might be rendered in two ways ;

22

because the word nAnu can be taken in the
meanmg either of nAnuri (sleep), or of nemuri-gi
or nhnunoki^ the " sleep-plant " (mimosa), —
while the syllables mami^ as written in kana^
can signify either "bean," or "activity," or
"strength," "vigor," "health," etc. But the
ceremony was s)anbolical, and the intended
meaning of the song was : —

Drowsiness, drift away !
Leaves of vigor, remain !

After this, all the young folk would jump into
the water, to bathe or swim, in token of their
resolve to shed all laziness for the coming year,
and to maintain a vigorous spirit of endeavor.

Yet it was probably in Y6do (now
Tokyo) that the Tanabata festival assumed its
most picturesque aspects. During the two days
that the celebration lasted, — the sixth and
seventh of the seventh month, — the city used
to present the appearance of one vast bamboo
grove ; fresh bamboos, with poems attached to
them, being erected upon the roofs of the

23

houses. Peasants were in those days able to
do a great business in bamboos, which were
brought into town by hundreds of wagonloads
for holiday use. Another feature of the Y6do
festival was the children's procession, in which
bamboos, with poems attached to them, were
carried about the city. To each such bamboo
there was also fastened a red plaque on which
were painted, in Chinese characters, the names
of the Tanabata stars.

But almost everywhere, under the
Tokugawa regime, the Tanabata festival used
to be a merry holiday for the young people of
all classes, — a holiday beginning with lan-
tern displays before sunrise, and lasting well
into the following night. Boys and girls on
that day were dressed in their best, and paid
visits of ceremony to friends and neighbors.

— The moon of the seventh month
used to be called Tanabata-tsuki^ or "The
Moon of Tanabata." And it was also called
Fumi-tsukiy or " The Literary Moon," because
during the seventh month poems were every-
24

where composed in praise of the Celestial
Lovers.

«
« «

I think that my readers ought to be
interested in the following selection of ancient
Japanese poems, treating of the Tanabata le-
gend. All are from the Manyoshu, The Man-
yoshu^ or " Gathering of a M)rriad Leaves," is a
vast collection of poems composed before the
middle of the eighth century. It was compiled
by Imperial order, and completed early in the
ninth century. The nimiber of the poems which
it contains is upwards of four thousand; some
being "long poems" {naga'Uta)^ but the great
majority tanka^ or compositions limited to
thirty-one syllables ; and the authors were cour-
tiers or high officials. The first eleven tanka
hereafter translated were composed by Yama-
gami no Okura, Governor of the province of
Chikuzen more than eleven hundred years ago.
His fame as a poet is well deserved ; for not a
little of his work will bear comparison with

25

some of the finer epigrams of the Greek An-
thology. The following verses, upon the death
of his little son Furubi, will serve as an ex-
ample : —

Wakaker^ba
Nichi-yuki shiraji :

Mahi wa s6mu,
Shitab6 no tsukahi
Ohit6-tohoras6.

— l^As he is so yaungy he cannot know the
way, , , . To the messenger of the Underworld I
will give a Mde, and entreat him, saying: " Do thou
kindly take the little one upon thy back along the
road:';\

Eight hundred years earlier, the Greek poet
Diodorus Zonas of Sardis had written : —

" Do thou, who rowest the boat of the
dead in the water of this reedy lake, for Hades,
stretch out thy hand, dark Charon, to the son of
Kinyras, as he mounts the ladder by the gang-
way, andreceive hint. For his sandals will cause
the lad to slip, and he fears to set his feet naked
on the sand of the shored
26

But the charming epigram of Diodo-
rus was inspired only by a myth, — for the
" son of Kin)rras " was no other than Adonis, —
whereas the verses of Okura express for us the
yearning of a father's heart.

— Though the legend of Tanabata was
indeed borrowed from China, the reader will find
nothing Chinese in the following compositions.
They represent the old classic poetry at its pur-
est, free from alien influence ; and they offer us
many suggestions as to the condition of Japan-
ese life and thought twelve hundred years ago.
Remembering that they were written before any
modem European literature had yet taken form,
one is startled to find how little the Japanese
written language has changed in the course of
so many centuries. Allowing for a few obsolete
words, and sundry slight changes of pronunci-
ation, the ordinary Japanese reader to-day can
enjoy these early productions of his native muse
with about as little difficulty as the English
reader finds in stud)dng the poets of the Eliza-
bethan era. Moreover, the refinement and the

27

simple charm of the Manyoshu compositions
have never been surpassed, and seldom equaled,
by later Japanese poets.

As for the forty-odd tanka which I have
translated, their chief attraction lies, I think, in
what they reveal to us of the human nature of
their authors. Tanabata-tsum6 still represents
for us the Japanese wife, worshipfully loving; —
Hikoboshi appears to us with none of the lumi-
nosity of the god, but as the young Japanese
husband of the sixth or seventh century, before
Chinese ethical convention had begun to exer-
cise its restrainLj upon life and literature. Also
these poems interest us by their expression of
the early feeling for natural beauty. In them
we find the scenery and the seasons of Japan
transported to the Blue Plain of High Heaven ;
— the Celestial Stream with its rapids and shal-
lows, its sudden risings and clamorings within
its stony bed, and its water-grasses bending in
the autumn wind, might well be the Kamo-
gawa ; — and the mists that haunt its shores are
the very mists of Arashiyama. The boat of Hi-
koboshi, impelled by a single oar working upon a
28

wooden peg, is not yet obsolete ; and at many a
country ferry you may still see the kiki-fun^ in
which Tanabata-tsum^ prayed her husband to
cross in a night of storm, — a flat broad barge
pulled over the river by cables. And maids and
wives still sit at their doors in country villages,
on pleasant autumn days, to weave as Tanabata-
tsimi6 wove for the sake of her lord and lover.

— It will be observed that, in most of
these verses, it is not the wife who dutifully
crosses the Celestial River to meet her husband,
but the husband who rows over the stream to
meet the wife ; and there is no reference to
the Bridge of Birds. ... As for my render-
ings, those readers who know by experience
the difficulty of translating Japanese verse will
be the most indulgent, I fancy. The Romaji
system of spelling has been followed (except
in one or two cases where I thought it better
to indicate the ancient syllabication after the
method adopted by Aston) ; and words or
phrases necessarily supplied have been inclosed
in parentheses.

29

Amanogawa
Ai-muki tachit6,

Waga kotshi
Kimi kimasu nari
Himo-toki mak6na t

[He is coming, my long-desired lord, whom
I have been waiting to meet here, on the banks of the
River of Heaven. • . . The moment of loosening my
girdle is nigh ! ' ]

Hisakata no '
Ama no kawas^ ni,

Fun6 uk6t6,
KoyoT ka kimi ga

Agari kimasan ?

' The last line alludes to a charming custom of which
mention is made in the most ancient Japanese literature.
Lovers, ere parting, were wont to tie each other's inner
girdle {himo) and pledge themselves to leave the knot un-
touched until the time of their next meeting. This poem is
said to have been composed in the seventh year of Yoro, —
A. D. 723, — eleven hundred and eighty-two years ago.

• Hisaktita-no is a " pillow-word " used by the old poets in
relation to celestial objects ; and it is often difficult to trans-
late. Mr. Aston thinks that the literal meaning of hisakata
is simply *< long-hard/' in the sense of long-enduring, — hisa

30

[Ovtr the Rapids of the Everlasting
Heaveriy floating in his boat, my lord will doubtless
deign to come to me this very night.]

Kaz6 kumo wa
Futatsu no kishi ni

Kayoedomo,
Waga toho-tsuma no
Koto zo kayowanu I

{^Though winds and clouds to either bank
may freely come or go, between myself and my far-
away spouse no message whatever may pass.]

Tsubut6 ' ni mo
Nag6 koshitsu-Wki,

Amanogawa
H6dat6r6ba ka mo,
Amata sub6-naki !

(long), Jkatai (hard, or firm), — so that hisakata-no woald
have the meaning of "firmamental.*' Japanese commenta-
tors, however, say that the term is composed with the three
words, ^1 (sun), sasu (shine), and kata (side); — and this
etymology would justify the rendering of hisakata-no by
some such expression as ** light-shedding," '* radiance-giv-
ing." On the subject of pillow-words, see Aston's Grammar
of the Japanese Written Language.
^ The old text has tabutl.

31

[^To the apposite bank one might easily
fling a pebble; yety being separated from him by the
River of Heaven^ alas I to hope for a meeting {except
in autumn) is utterly useless^]

Aki-kaz6 no
Fukinishi hi yori

"Itsushika^'to— ;
Waga machi kolshi
Kimi zo kimas^ru.

[^From the day that the autumn wind be-
gan to blow (/ kept saying to myself \ " Ah / when
shall we meetV — but now my beloved^ for whom I
waited and longed^ has come indeed f\

Amanogawa
Ito kawa-nami wa

Tatan6domo,
Samoraigatashi —
Chikaki kono s6 wo.

\Though the waters of the River of Hea-
ven have not greatly risen^ (jet to cross) this near
stream and to wait upon (my lord and lover) remains
impossible^
32

Sod6 furaba
Mi mo kawashitsu-b6ku

Chika-kerddo,
Watani suh6 nashi,
Aki nishi arandba.

[^TlkougA she is so mar that the waving
of her (long) sleeves can be distinctly seen^ yet there is
no way to cross the stream before the season of autumn,]

Kagdrol no
Honoka ni mi6t6

Wakar^naba ; —
Motonaya koln
Aii-toki mad6 wa !

[^fVhen we were separated^ I had seen
her for a moment only, — and dimly as one sees a fly-
ing midge; * now I must vainly long for her as before^
until time of our next meeting I ]

Hikoboshi no
Tsuma mukae-bun6

Kogizurashi, —

Ama-no-Kawara ni

Kiri no tatdru wa.

> Kagirm, is an obsolete form of kagiro^ meaning an
ephemera.

33

[Methinks that Hikoboshi must he row-
ing his boat to meet his wife^ — for a mist (as of oar-
spray) is rising over the course of the Heavenly
Stream.]

Kasumi tatsu
Ama-no-Kawara ni,

Kimi matsu to, —
Ikayo hodo ni
Mono-suso nurenu.

[^ While awaiting my lord on the misty
shore of the River of Heaven^ the skirts of my robe
have somehow become wet.]

Amanogawa,
Mi-tsu no nami oto

Sawagu-nari :
Waga matsu-kimi no
Funadd-surashi mo.

[On the River of Heaven^ at the place
of the august ferry ^ the sound of the water hc^ be-
come loud: perhaps my long-awaited lord wUl soon
be coming in his boat.]

34

Tanabata no
Sod6 maku yor no

Akatoki wa,
Kawas^ no tazu wa
Nakazu to mo yoshi.

[As Tanabata (slumbers) with her long
sleeves rolled up, until the reddening of the dawn^ do
not^ O storks of the river-shaUowSy awaken her by
your cries.']

Amanogawa
Kiri-tachi-wataru :

Kyo, kyo, to —
Waga matsu-kotshi
Funad6-surashi !

[(She sees that) a mist is spreading across
the River of Heaven. ..." To-day, to-day ^'^ she thinks^
** my long-awaited lord will probably come over in his
boat:']

Amanogawa,
Yasu no watari ni,
Fun6 uk6t6 ; —

' Lit, **not to cry out (will be) good" — bat a literal
translation of the poem is scarcely possible.

35

Waga tachi-matsu to
Imo ni tsugd koso.

[By the ferry of Vasu, on the River of
Heaven, the boat is floating: I pray you tell my
younger sister ^ that I stand here and wait. \

O-sora yo
Kayo war6 sura,

Na ga yu^ ni,
Amanokawa-ji no
Nazumit6 zo koshi.

[Though I {being a Star-god) can pass
freely to and fro ^ through the great sky, — yet to cross
over the River of Heaven, for your sake, was weary
work indeed !\

Yachihoko no
Kami no mi-yo yori

Tomoshi-zuma ; —
Hito-shiri ni keri
Tsugit^shi omoeba.

' That is to say, '* wife." In archaic Japanese the word
imo signified both " wife " and " younger sister." The term
might also be rendered " darling," or " beloved."

36

[From the august Age of the God-of-
Eight'JTiousand-SpeaySy^ she had been my spouse in
secret* only ; yet naWy because of my constant longing
for her^ our rekttion has become known to men,]

Am6 tsuchi to
^ Wakar^shi toki yo

Onoga tsuma ;
Shika zo t6 ni aru
Aki matsu ar6 wa.

[From the time when heaven and earth
were parted, she has been my own wife; — yet, to be
with her, I must always wait tUl autumn.^]

Waga koru
Niho no omo wa

' Yachihoko-no-Kami, who has many other names, is the
Great God of Izumo, and is commonly known by his appella-
tion Oho-knni-nushi-no-Kami, or the ** Deity-Master-of-the
Great-Land.'' He is locally worshiped also as the god of
marriage, — for which reason, perhaps, the poet thus refers
to him.

• Or, "my seldom -visited spouse." The word tsuma
(zuma), in ancient Japanese, signified either wife or hus-
band ; and this poem might be rendered so as to express
either the wife's or the husband's thoughts.

' By the ancient calendar, the seventh day of the seventh
month would fall in the autumn season.

37

Koyol mo ka
Ama-no-kawara ni
Ishi-makura makan.

[fVM my beloved y of the ruddy^Hnted
cheeks ^^ this night indeed will I descend into the bed of
the River of Heaven^ to sleep on a pillow of stone.]

Amanogawa.
Mikomori-gusa no

Aki-kaz6 ni
Nabikaf u mir^ba,
Toki kitarurashi.

[ fVhen I see the water-grc^ses of the River
of Heaven bend in the autumn wind (/ think to my-
self) : " The time {for our meeting) seems to have
come.'*]

Waga s6ko ni
Ura-koi or6ba,

Amanogawa
Yo-fun6 kogi-toyomu
Kaji no 'to kikoyu.

I The literal meaning is **6M'dnted face," — that is to
say, a face of which the cheeks and lips have been tinted with
dMi, a kind of rouge.

38

[ When I feel in my heart a sudden long-
ing/or my husbandy^ then on the River of Heaven the
sound of the rowing of the night-boat is heard^ and
the plash of the oar resounds,}

T5-zuma to
Tamakura kawashi

N6taru yo wa,
Tori-gan6 na naki
Ak6ba aku to mo 1

[In the night when I am reposing with
my (now) far-away spouse^ having exchanged jewel-
pillows^ with her^ let not the cock crow^ even though
the day should daivn,]

Yorozu-yo ni
Tazusawari it6
Ai mi-domo,

' In ancient Japanese the word slko signified either husband
or elder brother. The beginning of the poem might also be
rendered thus : — ** When I feel a secret longing for my hus-
band/' etc.

* '* To exchange jewel-pillows ^ signifies to use each other's
arms for pillows. This poetical phrase is often used in the
earliest J2q;>anese literature. The word for jewel, tama, often
appears in compounds as an equivalent of <* precious,"
« dear," etc

39

Omoi-sugu-b6ki
Koi naranaku ni.

\Though for a myriad ages we should
remain hand-in-hand and face to face, our exceeding
lovi could never come to an end, ( Why then should
Heaveti deem it necessary to part us /)]

Waga tam^ to,
Tanabata-tsum6 no,

Sono yado ni,
Or^ru shirotai
Nurt ken kamo?

\The white cloth which Tanabata hcts
woven for my sake, in that dwelling of hers, is now, 1
think, being made into a robe for me,]

Shirakumo no
I-ho 6 kakurit^

T5-k6domo,
Yol-sarazu min
Imo ga atari wa.

[Though she be far-away, and hidden
from me by five hundred layers of white cloud, still
shall I turn my gaze each night toward the dwelling-
place of my younger sister {wife),]
40

Aki sar^ba
Kawagiri tat^ru

Amanogawa,
Kawa ni muki-it^
Km ' yo zo 5ki 1

[ Whm autumn comes ^ and the river^mists
spread over the Heavenly Stream^ I turn toward the
river y {and long) ; and the nights of my longing are
many /]

Hito-tos6 ni
Nanuka no yo nomi

Aii-hito no —
KoY mo tsuki-n^ba
Sayo zo ak6 ni keru !

[But once in the whole year^ and only
upon the seventh night {of the seventh month\ to meet
the beloved person — and lo! The day has dawned
before our mutual love could express itself I ^\

Toshi no koY

KoyoY tsukushft^,

Asu yori wa,

* For kofuru,

• Or " satisfy itself." A literal rendering is difficult

41

Tsun6 no gotoku ya
Waga koY oran.

[7^ love-longir^ of one whole year hav-
ing ended to-night y every day from to-morrow I must
again pine for him as before /]

Hikoboshi to
Tanabata-tsum^ to

KoyoY aii ; —
Ama-no-Kawa to ni
Nami tatsu-na yum6 1

[Hikoboshi and Tanabata-tsumi are to
meet each other to-night; — ye waves of the River of
Heaven J take heed that ye do not rise /]

Aki-kaz^ no
Fuki tadayowasu

Shirakumo wa,
Tanabata-tsum6 no
Amatsu hir6 kamo ?

[Oh/ that white cloud driven by the
autumn^wind — can it be the heavenly hxx6 ' of Tana^
bata^sumk ?]

> At difierent times, in the history of Japanese female

42

Shiba-shiba mo
Ai minu kimi wo,

Amanogawa
Funa-d6 haya s6yo
Yo no fuk^nu ma ni.

[Because Ae is my not-often4(hbe^fnet be-
lavedy hastm to row the boat across the River of
Heavefi ere the night be advanced^

Amanogawa
Kiri tachi-watari

Hikoboshi no
Kaji no 'to kikoyu
Yo no fuk^-yuk^ba.

\Late in the nighty a mist sprectds over

costume, different articles of dress were called by this name.
In the present instance, the hir^ referred to was probably a
white scarf, worn about the neck and carried over the shoul-
ders to the breast, where its ends were either allowed to hang
loose, or were tied into an ornamental knot The hiri was
often used to make signals with, much as handkerchiefs are
waved to-day for the same purpose; — and the question
uttered in the poem seems to signify : " Can that be Tana-
bata waving her scarf — to call me ? " In very early times,
the ordinary costumes worn were white.

43

the River of Heaven ; and the sound of the oar " of
Hikoboshi is heard.]

Amanogawa
Kawa *to sayak^shi :

Hikoboshi no
Haya kogu fund no
Nami no sawagi ka ?

[On the River of Heaven a sound of
plashing can be distinctly heard: is it the sound of
the rippling made by Hikoboshi quickly rowing his
boat?]

Kono yub6,
Furikuru amd wa,

Hikoboshi no
Haya kogu fund no
KaX no chiri ka mo.

[Perhaps this evening shower is but the
spray {flung dovm) from the oar of Hikoboshi^ rowing
his boat in haste.]

* Or, " the creaking of the oar." (The word kaji to-day
means ** helm " ; — the single oar, or scull, working upon a
pivot, and serving at once for rudder and oar, being now
called ro.) The mist passing across the Amanogawa is, ac-
cording to commentators, the spray from the Star-god*s oar.

44

Waga tama-doko wo

Asu yori wa

Uchi harar,
Kimi to m6zut6
Hitori ka mo nen 1

[From t(hmorroWy alas / after having put
my jewel-bed in order ^ no longer reposing with my
lord^ I must sleep alone /]

Kaz6 fukit^,
Kawa-nami tachinu ; —

Hiki-fun6 ni
Watari mo kimas6
Yo no fuk^nu ma ni.

\The wind having risen^ the waves of the
river have become high ; — this night cross over in a
towboat,^ I pray thee^ before the hour be late /]

Amanogawa
Nami wa tatsutomo,

Waga f un^ wa

Iza kogi iden

Yo no fuk^nu ma ni.

\Even though the waves of the River of

> Lit. " pull-boat " {hiki-funl)^ — a barge or boat pulled by
a rope.

45

Heaven run highy I must raw over quickly^ before it
becomes late in the night\

Inishi6 ni
Oritdshi hata wo ;

Kono yuW
Koromo ni Tiult6 —
Kimi matsu ar6 wo 1

\Long ago I finished weaving the ma-
teria/; and, this evening^ having finished sewing the
garment for him — {why must) I stiU wait for my
Urdf]

Amanogawa
S6 wo hayami ka mo ?

Nubatama no
Yo wa f uk6 ni tsutsu,
Awanu Hikoboshi I

[Is it that the current of the River of

' Nubatama noyo might better be rendered by some sach
phrase as " the berry-black night," — but the intended effect
would be thus lost in translation. Nubatama-no (a ** pillow-
word ") is written with characters signifying << like the black
fruits of KarasU'Ogi; " and the ancient phrase ** nubatama no
yo ^ therefore may be said to have the same meaning as our
expressions *< jet-black night,*' or *' pitch-dark night"

46

Heaven {has become too) rapids JTie jet-black night
advances — and Hikoboshi has not come /]

Watashi-mori,
Fun6 haya watas6 ; —

Hito-tos6 ni
Futatabi kayo
Kimi naranaku ni 1

[Oh, ferryman, make speed across the
stream /— my lord is not one who can come and go
twice in a year/]

Aki kaze no
Fukinishi hi yori,

Amanogawa
Kawas6 ni d^dachi ; —
Matsu to tsug6 koso 1

[On the very day that the autumn^vind
began to blow, I set out for the shallows of the River
of Heaven ; — / pray you, tell my lord that I am
waiting here still/]

Tanabata no
Funanori surashi, —
Maso-kagami,

47

Kiyoki tsuki-yo ni
Kumo tachi-wataru.

[Methinks Tanabata must be coming in
her boat ; for a cloud is even now passing across the
clear f cue of the moon}\

— And yet it has been gravely as-
serted that the old Japanese poets could find no
beauty in starry skies ! . . .

Perhaps the legend of Tanabata, as it
was understood by those old poets, can make
but a faint appeal to Western minds. Never-
theless, in the silence of transparent nights, be-
fore the rising of the moon, the charm of the
ancient tale sometimes descends upon me, out
of the scintillant sky, — to make me forget the
monstrous facts of science, and the stupendous
horror of Space. Then I no longer behold the
Milky Way as that awful Ring of the Cosmos,

X Composed by the famous poet Otomo no Sukun^ Ya-
kamochi, while gazmg at the Milky Way, on the seventh
night of the seventh month of the tenth year of Tampyo
(A. D. 738). The pillow-word in the third line {maso-kagami)
is untranslatable.

48

whose hundred million suns are powerless to
lighten the Abyss, but as the very Amanogawa
itself, — the River Celestial. I see the thrill of
its shining stream, and the mists that hover
along its verge, and the water-grasses that bend
in the winds of autumn. White Orihim^ I see
at her starry loom, and the Ox that grazes on
the farther shore ; — and I know that the fall-
ing dew is the spray from the Herdsman's oar.
And the heaven seems very near and warm
and human ; and the silence about me is filled
with the dream of a love unchanging, immortal,
— forever yearning and forever young, and for-
ever left unsatisfied by the paternal wisdom of
the gods.

GOBLIN
POETRY

GOBI^IN
POETRT

Recently, while groping about an
old book shop, I found a collection of Goblin
Poetry in three volumes, containing many pic-
tures of goblins. The title of the collection is
Kyoka HyaktdrMonogatariy or " The Mad Poetry
of the Hyakti-Monogatariy The Hyaku-Mono-
gatariy or " Hundred Tales," is a famous book
of ghost stories. On the subject of each of
the stories, poems were composed at different
times by various persons, — poems of the sort
called ii^^^, or Mad Poetry, — and these were
collected and edited to form the three volumes
of which I became the fortunate possessor.
The collecting was done by a certain Takumi
Jingoro, who wrote under the literary pseudo-

53

nym "Temmdr Rdojin" (Ancient of the Tem-
mix Era). Takumi died in the first year of
Bunkyu (i86i), at the good age of eighty ; and
his collection seems to have been published in
the sixth year of Kadr (1853). The pictures
were made by an artist called Masazumi, who
worked under the pseudonym " Ry5sai Kanjin."
From a prefatory note it appears
that Takumi Jingord published his collection
with the hope of reviving interest in a once
popular kind of poetry which had fallen into
neglect before the middle of the century. The
word kydka is written with a Chinese character
signifying " insane " or " crazy ; " and it means
a particular and extraordinary variety of comic
poetry. The form is that of the classic tanka of
thirty-one sylkbles (arranged S7S77)l — but
the subjects are always the extreme reverse of
ckssical ; and the artistic effects depend upon
methods of verbal jugglery which cannot be
explained without the help of numerous ex-
amples. The collection published by Takumi
includes a good deal of matter in which a
Western reader can discover no merit ; but the
54

best of it has a distinctly grotesque quality
that reminds one of Hood's weird cleverness in
playing with grim subjects. This quality, and
the peculiar Japanese method of mingling the
playful with the terrific^ can be suggested and
explained only by reproducing in Romaji the
texts of various kydka^ with translations and
notes.

The selection which I have made
should prove interesting, not merely because it
will introduce the reader to a class of Japanese
poetry about which little or nothing has yet
been written in English, but much more be-
cause it will afford some glimpses of a super-
natural world which still remains for the most
part unexplored. Without knowledge of Far
Eastern superstitions and folk-tales, no real
understanding of Japanese fiction or drama or
poetry will ever become possible.

There are many himdreds of poems in
the three volumes of the Kyoka Hyaku-Motuh
gatari; but the number of the ghosts and gob-
lins falls short of the one hundred suggested by

55

the title. There axe just ninety-five. I could
not expect to interest my readers in the whole
of this goblinry, and my selection includes less
than one seventh of the subjects. The Faceless
Babe, The Long-Tongued Maiden, The Three-
Eyed Monk, The Pillow-Mover, The Thou-
sand Heads, The Acolyte-with-the-Lantem,
The Stone-that-Cries-in-the-Night, The Goblin-
Heron, The Goblin- Wind, The Dragon-Lights,
and The Mountain-Nurse, did not much impress
me. I omitted kyoka dealing with fancies too
gruesome for Western nerves, — such as that
of the ObunUdori^ — also those treating of
merely local tradition. The subjects chosen re-
present national rather than provincial folklore,
— old beliefs (mostly of Chinese origin) once
prevalent throughout the country, and often re-
ferred to in its popular literature.

I. KITSUNfi-BI

The Will-o'-the-wisp is called kitsun^-
bi (" fox-fire "), because the goblin-fox was for-
merly supposed to create it. In old Japanese
56

pictures it is represented as a tongue of pale
red flame, hovering in darkness, and shedding
no radiance upon the surfaces over which it
glides.

To understand some of the following
kyoka on the subject, the reader should know
that certain superstitions about the magical
power of the fox have given rise to several
queer folk-sayings, — one of which relates to
manying a stranger. Formerly a good citizen
was expected to marry within his own com-
munity, not outside of it ; and the man who
dared to ignore traditional custom in this re-
gard would have found it difficult to appease
the communal indignation. Even to-day the
villager who, after a long absence from his
birthplace, returns with a strange bride, is likely
to hear unpleasant things said, — such as :
" Wakaranai-mono wo hippati-kita ! , , , Doko
no uma no honi da kaf (" Goodness knows
what kind of a thing he has dragged here after
him! Where did he pick up that old horse-
bone?") The expression uma no honi^ "old
horse-bone," requires explanation.

57

A goblin-fox has the power to assume
many shapes ; but, for the purpose of deceiv-
ing men^ he usually takes the form of a pretty
woman. When he wants to create a charming
phantom of this kind, he picks up an old horse-
bone or cow-bone, and holds it in his mouth.
Presently the bone becomes luminous ; and the
figure of a woman defines about it, — the figure
of a courtesan or singing-girl. ... So the vil-
kge query about the man who marries a strange
wife, " What old horse-bone has he picked up ? '*
signifies really, " What wanton has bewitched
him?" It further implies the suspicion that
the stranger may be of outcast blood : a certain
class of women of pleasure having been chiefly
recruited, from ancient time, among the daugh-
ters of fita and other pariah-people.

Hi tomoshitd
Kitsun^ no kwas^shi,
Asobimi * wa —

I Asobimiy a courtesan : lit, *' sporting-woman." The £ta
and other pariah classes furnished a large proportion of these
women. The whole meaning of the poem is as follows:
*< See that young wanton with her lantern I It is a pretty

58

Izuka no uma no
Honi ni ya aruran !

[ — Ah the wanton (lighting her lantern) /
— so afox'fire is kindled in the time of fox-transfor-
mation! . . . Perhaps she is really nothing more
than an old horse-bone from somewhere or other, . . .]

Kitsund-bi no
Moyuru ni tsukdtd,

Waga tama no
Kiyuru yo nari
Kokoro-hoso-michi !

[Because of that Fox-fire burning there^
the very soul of me is like to be extinguished in this
narrow path (pr^ in this heart-depressing solitude) y\

sight — but so is the sight of a fox, when the creature kin-
dles his goblin-fire and assumes the shape of a girl. And
just as your fox -woman will prove to be no more than an
old horse-bone, so that young courtesan, whose beauty de-
ludes men to folly, may be nothing better than an £ta.''

X The supposed utterance of a belated traveler frightened
by a will-o'-the-wisp. The last line allows of two readings.
Kokaro-hosoi means << timid ; " and hosoi michi [hoso-michiS
means a " narrow path," and, by implication, a ** lonesome
path."

59

II. RIKOMBYO

The term Rikombyo is composed with
the word rikon^ signifying a "shade," "ghost,"
or "spectre," and the word byd^ signifying
"sickness," "disease." An almost literal ren-
dering would be " ghost-sickness." In Japanese-
English dictionaries you will find the meaning
of Rikombyo given as " hypochondria ; " and
doctors really use the term in this modern sense.
But the ancient meaning was a disorder of the
mind which produced a Double ; and there is a
whole strange literature about this weird dis-
ease. It used to be supposed, both in China and
Japan, that under the influence of intense grief
or longing, caused by love, the spirit of the suf-
fering person would create a Double. Thus the
victim of Rikombyo would appear to have two
bodies, exactly alike; and one of these bodies
would go to join the absent beloved, while the
other remained at home. (In my " Exotics and
Retrospectives," under the title " A Question in
the Zen Texts," the reader will find a typical
60

Chinese story on the subject, — the story of
the girl Ts'ing.) Some form of the primitive
belief in doubles and wraiths probably exists in
every part of the world ; but this Far Eastern
variety is of peculiar interest because the double
is supposed to be caused by love, and the sub-
jects of the affliction to belong to the gentler
sex. . . . The term Rikombyo seems to be ap-
plied to the apparition as well as to the mental
disorder supposed* to produce the apparition : it
signifies " doppelganger " as well as " ghost-dis-

ease."

— With these necessary explanations,
the quaUty of the following kyoka can be un-
derstood. A picture which appears in the
Kyoka Hyaku-Monogatari shows a maid-servant
anxious to offer a cup of tea to her mistress,
— a victim of the "ghost-sickness." The ser-
vant cannot distinguish between the original
and the apparitional shapes before her; and
the difficulties of the situation are suggested
in the first of the kyoka which I have trans-
lated:—

6i

Ko-ya, sor^ to ?
Ayamd mo wakanu

Rikombyo :
Izuri wo tsuma to
Hiku zo wazuraii I

[ Whick one is this ? — which one is that ?
Between the two shapes of the Rikombyo it is not pos-
sible to distinguish. To find out which is the real wife

^that will be an affliction of spirit indeed /'\

*

Futatsu naki
Inochi nagara mo

Kak^gae no
Karada no mi)ruru —
Kag^ no wazund !

\^Two lives there certainly are not;'^neih
ertheless an extra body is visible^ by reason of the
Shcuhw-SicknessJ]

Naga-tabi no

Oto wo shitaltd

Mi futatsu ni

Nam wa onna no

Saru rikombyo.

62

[ Yearning after her far-Journeying hus-
band^ the woman has thus become two bodies^ by
reason of her ghostly sickness. "]

Mini kagd mo
Naki wazurai no

Rikombyo, —
Omoi no hoka ni
Futatsu mini kagd I

\_7hough (it was said that), because of her
ghostly sickness, there was not even a shadow of
her left to be seen, — yet, contrary to expectcUion, there
are two shculows of her to be seen /*]

Rikombya
Hito ni kakushit6
Oku-zashikiy

> The Japanese 3ayof a person greatly emaciated by sick-
ness, miru'kagi mo naki : '< Even a visible shadow of him is
not 1 " — Another rendering is made possible by the fact that
the same expression is used in the sense of *' unfit to be
seen, — ** though the face of the person afflicted with this
ghostly sickness is unfit to be seen, yet by reason of her secret
longing [for another man] there are now two of her faces to
be seen/' The phrase ifmai no hoka^ in the fourth line, means
" contrary to expectation ; " but it is ingeniously made to sug-
gest also the idea of secret longing.

63

Omot^ y deasanu
Kag6 no wazurai.

\Afflicted with the Rikotnbyo^ she hides
away from people in the back rootn^ and never ap-
proaches the front of the house^ — because of her
ShcLdoTihdisease}\

Mi wa koko ni ;
Tama wa otoko ni

Solfnd sum ; —
Kokoro mo shiraga
Haha ga kaih5.

{^Here her body lies ; but her soul is far
away, asleep in the arms of a man ; — and the white-
haired mother y little knowing her daughter's heart, is
nursing {only the body),^"]

' There is a curious play on words in the fourth line. The
word omotlj meaning *<the front," might, in reading, be
sounded as omottiy *' thinking." The verses therefore might
also be thus translated: — ''She keeps her real thoughts
hidden in the back part of the house, and never allows them
to be seen in the front part of the house, — because she is
suffering from the * Shadow-Sickness * [of love]."

A There is a double meaning, suggested rather than ex-
pressed, in the fourth line. The word shiraga^ "white-hair,"
su^ests skiragUt " not knowing."

64

Tamakushig6
Futatsu no sugata

Mis^nuru wa,
Awasd-kagami no
Kag^ no wazurai.

[Ify when seated before her toilet-stand^ she
sees two faces reflected in her mirror^ — that might
be caused by the mirror doubling itself under the influ-
ence of the ShadoTV- Sickness, *]

III. O-GAMA

In the old Chinese and Japanese liter-
ature the toad is credited with supernatural

I There is in this poem a multiplicity of suggestion im-
possible to render in translation. While making her toilet,
the Japanese woman uses two mirrors (awasl-kagami) — one
of which, a hand-mirror, serves to show her the appearance of
the back part of her coiffure, by reflecting it into the larger
stationary mirror. But in this case of Rikombyo, the woman
sees more than her face and the back of her head in the larger
mirror : she sees her own double. The verses indicate that
one of the mirrors may have caught the Shadow- Sickness,
and doubled itself. And there is a further suggestion of the
ghostly sympathy said to exist between a mirror and the soul
of its possessor.

65

capacities, — such as the power to call down
clouds, the power to make rain, the power to
exhale from its mouth a magical mist which
creates the most beautiful illusions. Some toads
are good spirits, — friends of holy men ; and in
Japanese art a famous Rishi called " Gama-Sen-
nin '' (Toad Rishi) is usually represented with a
white toad resting upon his shoulder, or squat-
ting beside him. Some toads are evil goblins,
and create phantasms for the purpose of luring
men to destruction. A typical story about a
creature of this class will be found in my
« Kotto," entitled "The Story of Chugoro."

M^ wa kagami,
Kuchi wa tarai no

Hodo ni aku :
Gama mo k£sh5 no
Mono to koso shir6.

[7%^ eye of it^ widely open^ like a {round)
mirror; the mouth of it opening like a wash-basin —
by these things you may know that the Toad is a
goblifhthing {or, that the Toad is a toilet articUy]

I There are two Japanese words, keshd, which in kana are
written alike and pronounced alike, though represented by

66

IV. SHINKIRO

The term Shinkird is used in the
meaning of " mirage/' and also as another name
for Horai, the Elf-land of Far Eastern fable.
Various beings in Japanese myth are credited
with power to delude mortals by creating a
mirage of Horai. In old pictures one may see
a toad represented in the act of exhaling from
its mouth a vapor that shapes the apparition
of Horai.

But the creature especially wont to
produce this illusion is the Hamaguriy — a Jap-
anese moUusk much resembling a clam. Open-
ing its shell, it sends into the air a purplish
misty breath; and that mist takes form and
defines, in tints of mother-of-pearl, the luminous
vision of Horai and the palace of the Dragon-
Kmg.

Hamaguri no
Kuchi aku toki ya,

very different Chinese characters. As written in kana^ the
term kesho-no-mono may signify either ** toilet articles" or
" a monstrous being/* " a goblin."

6;

Shinkird 1
Yo ni shirar6 ken
Tatsu-no-miya-him^ !

[ When the hamaguri opens its mouth —
lo! Shinkird appears / . . . Then all can clearly see
the Maiden-Princess of the Dragon-FcUace,"]

Shinkiro —
Tatsu no miyako no

Hinagata ' wo
Shio-hi no oki ni
Misuru hamaguri I

[Lo ! in the offing at ebb-tide^ the hamor
guri makes visible the miniature image of Shinkird
— the Dragon-Capital /l^

V. ROKURO-KUBI

The etymological meaning of Rokuro-
Kubi can scarcely be indicated by any English
rendering. The term rokuro is indifferently
used to designate many revolving objects —

I Hinagata means especially '*a model,"
copy," " a drawn plan," etc.

68

'a mmiatnre

objects as dissimilar as a pulley, a capstan, a
windlass, a turning lathe, and a potter's wheel.
Such renderings of Rokuro-Kubi as " Whirling-
Neck" and " Rotating-Neck " are unsatisfac-
tory ; — for the idea which the term suggests
to Japanese fancy is that of a neck which re-
volves, and lengthens or retracts according to
the direction of the revolution, . . . As for the
ghostly meaning of the expression, a Rokuro-
Kubi is either (i) a person whose neck length-
ens prodigiously during sleep, so that the head
can wander about in all directions, seeking what
it may devour, or (2) a person able to detach
his or her head completely from the body, and
to rejoin it to the neck afterwards. (About this
last mentioned variety of Rokuro-Kubi there is
a curious story in my "Kwaidan," translated
from the Japanese.) In Chinese mythology the
being whose neck is so constructed as to allow
of the head being completely detached belongs
to a special class ; but in Japanese folk-tale this
distinction is not always maintained. One of
the bad habits attributed to the Rokuro-Kubi
is that of drinking the oil in night-lamps. In

69

Japanese pictures the Rokuro-Kubi is usually
depicted as a woman; and old books tell us
that a woman might become a Rokuro-Kubi
without knowing it, — much as a somnambulist
walks about while asleep, without being aware
of the fact. . . . The following verses about
the Rokuro-Kubi have been selected from a
group of twenty in the Kyoka HyakttrManogOr
tari: —

Nemidar^ no

Nagaki kami woba
Furi-wak^t6,

Chi hiro ni nobasu

Rokuro-Kubi kana 1

\ph! . . . Shaking loose her long hair
disheveled by sleepy the Rokuro-Kubi stretches her
neck to the length of a thousand fathoms /]

" Atama naki
Bak^mono nari " — to

Rokuro-Kubi,
Mitd odorokan
Onoga karada wo.

[ Will not the Rokuro-Kubi^ viewing with
70

astonishment her own body (left behind) cry out^ ^*0h^
what a headless goblin have you become r^'\

Tsuka-no-ma ni
Hari wo tsutawaru,

RokuroKubi
K^ta-k^ta warau —
Kao no kowasa yo 1

\Swiftly gliding along the roof -beam {and
among the props of the roof)^ the Rokuro-Kubi laughs
with the sound of " kitorkita " — oh! the featfulness
of her face / ^^

Roku shaku no
Byobu ni nobiru

Rokuro-Kubi
Mit^ wa, go shaku no
Mi wo chijimi-k^ri !

I It is not possible to render all the double meanings in
this composition. Tsuka-no-ma signifies ** in a moment " or
** quickly " ; but it may also mean " in the space \md[ be-
tween the roof -props" [tmJka], **A<fti»" means a cross-
beam, but kitark^ta warau means to chuckle or laugh in a
mocking way. Ghosts are said to laugh with the sound of
k^ta-k^ta.

71

[Beholding the Rokuro-Kubi rise up above
the six-foot screen^ any five-foot person would have
become shortened by fear {pr^ " the stature of any
person five feet high would have been diminished^^),^'\

VI. YUKI-ONNA

The Snow-Woman, or Snow-Spectre,
assumes various forms ; but in most of the old
folk-tales she appears as a beautiful phantom,
whose embrace is death. (A very curious story
about her can be found in my " Kwaidan.")

Yuki-Onna —
Yos5 kushi mo

Atsu kori ;
Sasu-kogai ya
Kori naruran.

[^As for the Snow- Woman^ — even her
best comb ^ if I mistake not^ is made of thick ice; and
her hair-pin,^ too, is probably made of iceJ]

" The ordinary height of a full screen is six Japanese feet.

' Kogai is the name now given to a qnadrangolar bar of
tortoise-shell passed under the coiffure, which leaves only
the ends of the bar exposed. The true hair-pin is called
kanzashu

72

Honrai wa
Kii nam mono ka,

Yuki-Onna ?
Yoku-yoku mireba
Ichi-butsu mo nashi 1

[ Was sAe, thm^ a delusion from the very
firsts that Sfwtih Woman^ — a thing that vanishes into
empty space ? When I look carefully all about me, not
one trace of her is to be seen /]

Yo-ak^r^ba
Ki6t6 yuku ^ wa

Shirayuki * no
Onna to mishi mo
Yanagi nari-keri 1

[Having vanished at daybreak {that Snow-
Woman), none could say whither she hcul gone. But
what had seemed to be a snow-white woman became
indeed a wUlow-tree /]

I The term shirayuki^ as here used, offers an example of
what Japanese poets call Kenyogen^ or " donble-parpose
words." Joined to the words immediately following, it makes
the phrase ** white-snow woman '' (shirayuki no onna) ; —
united with the words immediately preceding, it suggests the
reading, '* whither-gone not-knowing '' (yuku /wa sAira[zu\),

73

Yuki-Onna
Mit6 wa yasathikUy

Matsu wo ori
Nama-dakd hishigu
Chikara ari-keri 1

^TTumgA the SnauhWoman appears to sight
slender and gentle, yet, to snap the pine-trees asunder
and to crush the live bamboos, she must have had
strength^

Samukdsa ni
Zotto ' wa sur^o
Yuki-Onna, —

I Zotto is a difficult word to render literally: perhaps
the nearest English equivalent is ** thrilling." Zotto sum sig-
nifies **to cause a thrill" or "to give a shock," or "to
make shiver;" and of a very beautiful person it is said
^^ZottO'Suru hodo no bijin^^^ — meaningi "She is so pretty
that it gives one a shock merely to look at her." The term
yanagi-goshi (" willow-loins ") in the last line is a common
expression designating a slender and graceful figure ; and the
reader should observe that the first half of the term is in-
geniously made to do double duty here, — suggesting, with
the context, not only the grace of willow branches weighed
down by snow, but also the grace of a human figure that one
must stop to admire, in spite of the cold.

74

Yuki ot6 no naki
Yanagi-goshi ka mo !

{Though the SnauhWotnan makes one
shiver by her coldness^ — ah^ the willowy grace of her
form cannot be broken by the snow (/. e. charms us in
spite of the cold).]

VII. FUNA-YtJRfii

The spirits of the drowned are said
to follow after ships, calling for a bucket or a
water-dipper (Aishaku). To refuse the bucket
or the dipper is dangerous ; but the bottom of
the utensil should be knocked out before the
request is complied with, and the spectres must
not be allowed to see this operation performed.
If an undamaged bucket or dipper be thrown
to the ghosts, it will be used to fill and to sink
the ship. These phantoms are commonly called
FunorYUrit (" Ship-Ghosts ").

The spirits of those warriors of the
H^lk^ clan who perished in the great sea-fight
at Dan-no-ura, in the year 1185, are famous
among Funa-Yur^L Taira no Tomomori, one

75

of the chiefs of the clan, is celebrated in this
weird r61e : old pictures represent him, followed
by the ghosts of his warriors, running over the
waves to attack passing ships. Once he men-
aced a vessel in which Benkdl, the celebrated
retainer of Yoshitsun6, was voyaging; and
Benk^I was able to save the ship only by means
of his Buddhist rosary, which frightened the
spectres away. . . .

Tomomori is frequently pictured as walking
upon the sea, carrying a ship's anchor on his
back. He and his fellow-ghosts are said to have
been in the habit of uprooting and making oflF
with the anchors of vessels imprudently moored
in their particular domain, — the neighborhood
of Shimonos^ki.

Erimoto y6
Mizu kak^raruru

Kokochi seri,
" Hishaku kasd " cho
F\m6 no kowand ni.

[As if the nape of our necks had been
sprinkled with cold water ^ — so we felt while listening

76

to the voice of the ship-ghost^ saying: — " Lend me a
dipper I ''"^

Yiirei ni
Kasu-hishaku yori

Ichi-hayaku
Onord ga koshi mo
Nuk^ru sench5.

\T7ie loins of the captain himself were
knocked out very much more quickly than the bottom
of the dipper that was to he given to the ghost.*]

Benkdl no
Zuzu no kuriki ni

Tomomori no
Sugata mo ukamu —
Fund no yur6r.

[By the virtue of BenkiCs rosary^ even

I Hishaku^ a wooden dipper with a long handle, used to
transfer water from a backet to smaller vessels.

* The common expression Koshi ga nuJUru (to have one's
loins taken out) means to be nnable to stand np by reason
of fear. The suggestion is that while the captain was trying
to knock out the bottom of a dipper, before giving it to the
ghost, he fell senseless from fright

77

the ship-following ghost — even the apparition of To-
momori — is saved,]

Yur6r wa
Ki naru Izumi no

Hito nagara,
Ao-umibora ni
Nadot^ itsuran ?

[Since any ghost must be an inhabitant
of the Yellow Springs^ how should a ghost appear on
the Blue SeorPlain ? «]

Sono sugata,
Ikari wo 6t6,
• Tsuki-matoii

Fim6 no h^saki ya
Tomomori no r6r !

[That Shape, carrying the anchor on its
bctck, and following after the ship — now at the bow
and now at the stem — ah, the ghost of Tomomori,^]

» The Underworld of the Dead — Vomi or K5sen — is
called ** The Yellow Springs ; " these names being written
with two Chinese characters respectively signifying *' yellow "
and "fountain." A very ancient term for the ocean, fre-
quently used in the old Shinto rituals, is ** The Blue Sea-
Plain."

* There is an untranslatable play upon words in the last

78

Tsumi f ukaki
Umi ni shidzumishi,

Yurdr no
"Ukaman" tot^ya!
Fun^ ni sugar^ru.

[Crying^ ^^ Now perchance I shall be
saved /^* The ghost thai sank into the deep Sea of
Sin clings to thepc^sing ship!^\

two lines. The above rendering includes two possible read-
ings.

I There is more weirdness in this poem than the above
rendering suggests. The word ukaman in the fourth line can
be rendered as " shall perhaps float/' or as ** shall perhaps
be saved " (in the Buddhist sense of salvation), — as tliere
are two verbs ukami. According to an old superstition, the
spirits of the drowned must continue to dwell in the waters
until such time as they can lure the living to destruction.
When the ghost of any drowned person succeeds in drown-
ing somebody, it may be able to obtain rebirth, and to leave
the sea forever. The exclamation of the ghost in this poem
really means, ** Now perhaps I shall be able to drown some-
body.'' (A very similar superstition is said to exist on the
Breton coast.) A common Japanese saying about a child or
any person who follows another too closely and persistently
is: Kawa de shinda-yUrit no yona tsuri-hoshigaru I —
"Wants to follow you everywhere like the ghost of a
drowned person."

79

Ukaman to
Fun^ wo shitaeru

Yur^lf wa,
Shidzumishi hito no
Omor naruran.

[Tke ghosts following after our ship in
their efforts to rise again (or, " to be saved ") might
perhaps be the (last vengeful^ thoughts of drowned
fnen}\

Uram^shiki
Sugata wa sugoki

Yur6l no,
Kaji wo jama suru
Fun^ no Tomomori.

[ With vengeful aspect , the grisly ghost of
Tomomori (rises) at the stem of the ship to hinder the
play of her rudders ]

> Here I cannot attempt to render the various plays upon
words ; but the term ** amdi " needs explanation. It means
<* thought " or " thoughts ; *^ but in colloquial phraseology it
is often used as a euphemism for a dying person's last de-
sire of vengeance. In various dramas it has been used in
the signification of ''avenging ghost.'' Thus the exclama-
tion, ** His thought has come back I " — in reference to a
dead man — really means : ** His angry ghost appears I "

* There is a double meaning given by the use of the name

80

Ochi-iritd,
Uwo no ^jiki to

Nari ni ken ; —
Funa-yur^r mo
Nama-kusaki kaz6.

[Ifaving perished in the sea, (those HtikS)
would probably have become food for fishes. {Anyhow^
whenever) the shipfollowing ghosts {appear), the wind
has a smeU of raw fish /']

VIII. HfiiKfiGANi

Readers can find in my "Kotto" a
paper about the H^rk^-Crabs, which have on
their upper shells various wrinklings that resem-
ble the outlines of an angry face. At Shimono-
sdki dried specimens of these curious creatures

Tomomori in the last line. Tomo means "the stem ''of a
ship ; mori means '* to leak." So the poem suggests that the
ghost of Tomomori not only interferes with the ship's rudder,
but causes her to leak.

I Namakusaki-kaze really means a wind having a ** raw
stench ; " but the smell of bait is suggested by the second
line of the poem. A literal rendering is not possible in this
case; the art of the composition being altogether sugges-
tive.

^ 8 1

are offered for sale. . . . The H6lk6-Crabs are
said to be the transformed angry spirits of the
H^rk^ warriors who perished at Dan-no-ura.

Shiwo-hi ni wa
S^feoroe shit^,

H^rk^gani
Ukiyo no sama wo
Yoko ni niramitsu.

[Marshaled (on the beach) at the ebb of
the tide^ the Htikk-crabs obliquely glare at the appa^
ritian of this miserable worldS\

Saikai ni
Shizumi-nur6domo,

Hdrk^gani
Kora no iro mo
Yahari aka-hata.

[Though (the Hiiki) long ago sank and
perished in the Western Sea^ the Hekii-crabs still dis-

I Hi, the third syllable of the first line of the poem, does
duty for hi, signifying " ebb/' and for hikata^ " dry beach.*'
SA'zoroe'is a noun signifying "battle-array" — in the sense
of the Roman term acies ; — and sHzoroi shiU means " drawn
np in battle-array."

82

play upon their upper shells the color of the Red
Standards ]

Mak^-ikusa
Munen to mun6 ni

Hasami ken ; —
Kao mo makka ni
Nam HdXk^gani.

[Because of the pain of defeat^ claws have
grown on their breasts, I think ; — even the faces of
the HHki-crabs have become crimson (with anger and
shame).]

Mikata mina
Oshi-tsubusar^shi

H^rk^gani
Ikon wo mun^ ni
Hasami mochik^ri.

[All the (JTeikt) party having been ut-
terly crushed, claws have grown upon the breasts of
the Hiiki-crabs because of the resentment in their
hearts.^ ]

» The ensign of the H^ike, or Taira clan was red ; while
that of their rivals, the Genji or Minamoto, was white.

* The use of the word hasami in the fifth line is a very
good example of kenyogen. There is a noun hasami^ mean-

83

IX. YANARI

Modem dictionaries ignore the un-
canny significations of the word Yanari^ — only
telling us that it means the sound of the shak-
ing of a house during an earthquake. But the
word used to mean the noise of the shaking of
a house moved by a goblin ; and the invisible
shaker was also called Yanari, When, without
apparent cause, some house would shudder and
creak and groan in the night, folk used to sup-
pose that it was being shaken from without by
supernatural malevolence.

Tokonoma ni
Ik^shi tachiki mo
Taor6-keri ;

ing the nippers of a crab, or a pair of scissors ; and there
is a verb hasami, meaning to harbor, to cherish, or to enter-
tain. {Ikon wo hasamu means "to harbor resentment
against.") Reading the word only in connection with those
which follow it, we have the phrase hasami mochikiriy " got
claws ; ** but, reading it with the words preceding, we have
the expression ikon wo munini hasami, ** resentment in their
breasts nourishing."

84

Yanari ni yama no
Ugoku kakemono !

[jEven the live tree set in the alcove has
fallen down ; and the mountains in the hanging pic-
ture tremble to the quaking made by the Yanari I^]

X. SAKASA-BASHIRA

The term Sakasa-bashira (in these
J^dka often shortened into saka-bashird) liter-
ally means " upside-down post." A wooden post
or pillar, especially a house-post, should be set
up according to the original position of the tree
from which it was hewn, — that is to say, with
the part nearest to the roots downward. To
erect a house-post in the contrary way is thought
to be imlucky ; — formerly such a blunder was
believed to involve unpleasant consequences of
a ghostly kind, because an " upside-down " pil-
lar would do malignant things. It would moan
and groan in the night, and move all its cracks

X The tokonoma in a Japanese room is a sort of ornamen-
tal recess or alcove, in which a picture is usually hung, and
vases of flowers, or a dwarf tree, are placed.

85

like mouths, and open all its knots like eyes.
Moreover, the spirit of it (for every house-post
has a spirit) would detach its long body from
the timber, and wander about the rooms, head-
downwards, making faces at people. Nor was
this all. A Sakasa-bashira knew how to make
all the affairs of a household go wrong, — how
to foment domestic quarrels, — how to contrive
misfortune for each of the family and the ser-
vants, — how to render existence almost in-
supportable until such time as the carpenter's
blunder should be discovered and remedied.

Saka-bashira
Tat^shi wa tazo ya ?

Kokoro ni mo
Fushi aru hito no
Shiwaza naruran.

[Who set the house-pillar upside-down'^
Surely that must have been the work of a man with
a knot in his heart.]

Hidayama wo
Kiri-kit6 tat^shi
Saka-bashira —
86

Nanno takumi ' no
Shiwaza naruran ?

[77^ house-pillar hewn in the mountains
of Hida^ and thence brought here and erected upside-
down — what carpenter's work can it bef (or, ^^for
what evil design can this deed have been done f ")]

Ue shita wo
Chigaet6 tat^shi

Hashira ni wa
Sakasama-goto no
Ur6r aranan.

[As/or that house-pillar mistakenly planted
upside-down, it will certainly cause adversity and sor-
row.*]

Kab^ ni mimi

Arit^, kik6 to ka ?

Sakashima ni

■ The word takumi, as written in Mana, may signify either
" carpenter " or " intrigue/' " evil plot," " wicked device."
Thus two readings are possible. According to one reading,
the post was fixed upside-down through inadvertence; ac-
cording to the other, it was so fixed with malice prepense.

• lit, " upside-down-matter-sorrow." Sakasama-goto, ** up-
side-down affair," is a common expression for calamity, con-
trariety, adversity, vexation.

87

Tat^shi hashira ni
Yanari suru oto !

[O Ears that be in the waU!^ listen^ will
ye ? to the groaning and the creaking of the house-
post that was planted upside-down / ]

Uri-iy^ no
Aruji wo toeba,

Oto arit6 :
War6 m6 ga kuchi wd
Aku saka-bashira.

[When I inquired for the master of the
house that wasforsale^ there came to me only a strange
sound by way of reply ^ — the sound of the upside-
down house-post opening its eyes and mouth /» (/. e.
its crctcks).']

I Alluding to the proverb, JCM ni mimi ari (" There are
ears in the wall '')» which signifies : *' Be careful how you talk
about other people, even in private."

* There is a pun in the fourth line which suggests more
than even a free translation can express. Wari means " I,"
or "mine," or" one's own," etc., according to circumstances;
and wari mi (written separately) might be rendered " its own
eyes." But warimi (one word) means a crack, rent, split, or
fissure. The reader should remember that the term saka-
88

Omolkiya I
Sakasa-bashira no

Hashira-kak6
Kakinishit uta mo
Yamai ari to wa !

[Who could have thought it! — even the
poem inscribed upon the pillar-tablet^ att€u:hed to the
pillar which wcu planted upside-down^ has taken the
same {ghostly) sickness.^"]

XI. BAK£-JIZ0

The figure of the Bodhi-sattva Jizo,
the savior of children's ghosts, is one of the
most beautiful and humane in Japanese Bud-
dhism. Statues of this divinity may be seen in
almost every village and by every roadside. But
some statues of Jizo are said to do uncanny

bctshira means not only ''upside-down post," bat also the
goblin or spectre of the npside-down post.

> That is to say, '< Even the poem on the tablet is np-
side-down,'' — all wrong. Hashira-kaki ('' pillar-sospended
thing ") is the name given to a thin tablet of fine wood, in-
scribed or painted, which is hung to a post by way of orna-
ment.

89

things — such as to walk about at night in vari-
ous disguises. A statue of this kind is called a
Baki-Jizd^^ — meaning a Jizo that undergoes
transformation* A conventional picture shows
a little boy about to place the customary
child's-oflFering of rice-cakes before the stone
image of Jizo, — not suspecting that the statue
moves, and is slowly bending down towards
him.

Nanig6 naki

Ishi no Jizo no
Sugata sae,

Yo wa osoroshiki

Mikag6 to zo naki.

\T7iough the stone yizo looks as if nothing
were the matter with it^ they say that at night it
assumes an awful aspect (or, " Though this image ap-
pears to be a common stone JizOy they say thctt at night
it becomes an awful yizo ofgraniteJ* »)]

I Perhaps the term might be rendered '' Shape-changing
Jizo.*' The verb bakiru means to change shape, to undergo
metamorphosis, to haunt, and many other supernatural
things. '

' The Japanese word for granite is mikagi; and there is
also an honorific term tnikagS^ applied to divinities and em-

90

XII. UMI-BOZU

Place a large cuttlefish on a table,
body upwards and tentacles downwards — and
you will have before you the grotesque reality
that first suggested the fancy of the Umi-Bozu^
or Priest of the Sea. For the great bald body
in this position, with the staring eyes below,
bears a distorted resemblance to the shaven
head of a priest ; while the crawling tentacles
underneath (which are in some species united
by a dark web) suggests the wavering motion
of the priest's upper robe. . . . The Umi-Bozu
figures a good deal in the literature of Japanese
goblinry, and in the old-fashioned picture-books.
He rises from the deep in foul weather to seize
his prey.

peroTS, which signifies " august aspect," " sacred presence,**
etc. . . . No literal rendering can suggest the effect, in the
fifth line, of the latter reading. Kagi signifies " shadow,"
« aspect," and " power ** — especially occult power ; the hon-
orific prefix mi^ attached to names and attributes of divini-
ties, may be rendered " august."

91

Ita hitoe
Shita wa Jigoku ni,

Sumizomd no
Bozu no umi ni
D6ru mo ayashina !

[^Since there is hut the thickness of a sifh
gk plank (between the voyager and the sed)^ and un^-
demeath is Hell^ *tis indeed a weird thing that a
black-robed priest should rise from the sea (pr^ "*tis
surely a marvelous happening that^^ etc. \ *)]

XIII. FUDA-H^GASHI*

Homes are protected from evil spirits
by holy texts and charms. In any Japanese

I The puns are too much for me. . . . Ayashii means
"suspicious,'' " marvelous/' " supernatural,*' "weird," "doubt-
ful." — In the first two lines there is a reference to the
Buddhist proverb : Funa4ta ichi-^nai shita wa Jigoku ("un-
der the thickness of a single ship's-plank is Hell "). (See
my Gleanings in Buddha-Fields^ p. 206, for another reference
to this saying.)

* Higashi is the causative form of the verb higu^ " to pull
off," "peeloflf," "strip off," "spUt oflf." The term Fuda^
higashi signifies "Make-peel-off-august-charm Ghost" In
my Ghostly Japan the reader can find a good Japanese story
about a Fuda-higashi,

92

village, or any city by-street, you can see these
texts when the sliding-doors are closed at night :
they are not visible by day, when the sliding-doors
have been pushed back into the tobukuro. Such
texts are called o-fuda (august scripts) : they
are written in Chinese characters upon strips of
white paper, which are attached to the door with
rice-paste ; and there are many kinds of them.
Some are texts selected from sAtras — such as
the SAtra of Transcendent Wisdom (Pragfia-
ParamitA-Hridaya-Sdtra), or the SAtra of the
Lotos of the Good Law (Saddharma-Pundarik4-
SAtra). Some are texts from the dhdranls, —
which are magical. Some are invocations only,
indicating the Buddhist sect of the household.
. . . Besides these you may see various smaller
texts, or little prints, pasted above or beside
windows or apertures, — some being names of
Shinto gods ; others, symbolical pictures only,
or pictures of Buddhas and Bodhi-sattvas. All
are holy charms, — o-fuda: they protect the
houses ; and no goblin or ghost can enter by
night into a dwelling so protected, unless the
o-fuda be removed.

93

Vengeful ghosts cannot themselves
remove an o-fuda ; but they will endeavor by
threats or promises or bribes to make some
person remove it for them. A ghost that wants
to have the o-fuda pulled off a door is called a
Fuda-h^gashi.

H^gasan to
Rokuji-no-fuda wo,

Yur^y mo
Nam'mai da to
Kazoet6 zo mini.

[Evm the ghost that would remove the
charms written with six characters actually tries to
count them, repeating: ^^ How many sheets are
there V {or, repeating, '' Hail to thee, O Buddha
Amit&bha/'\^)]

" The fourth line gives these two readings : —
NanCmai da} — " How many sheets are there ? "
Nam [u\ A [m]ida /— " Hail, O Amitabha I »'

The invocation, Namu Amida BtUsu, is chiefly used by
members of the great Shin sect ; but it is also used by other
sects, and especially in praying for the dead. While repeating
it, the person praying numbers the utterances upon his Bud-
dhist rosary ; and this custom is suggested by the use of the
word kazoetiy " counting."

94

Tada ichi no
Kami no o-f uda wa

Sasuga ni mo
Norik6 naku to mo
H^gashi kandkdri.

[0/ the august writtetirchartns of the god
(which were pasted upon the walls of the house)^ not
even one could by any effort he pulled off, though the
rice-paste with which they had been fastened wets all
gone,]

XIV. FURU-TSUBAKI

The old Japanese, like the old Greeks,
had their flower-spirits and their hamadryads,
concerning whom some charming stories are
told. They also believed in trees inhabited by
malevolent beings, — goblin trees. Among other
weird trees, the beautiful tsubaki {Camellia
yaponica) was said to be an imlucky tree ; —
this was said* at least, of the red-flowering
variety, the white-flowering kind having a better
reputation and being prized as a rarity. The
large fleshy crimson flowers have this curious
habit : they detach themselves bodily from the

95

stem, when they begin to fade ; and they fall
with an audible thud. To old Japanese hncy
the falling of these heavy red flowers was like
the falling of human heads under the sword ;
and the dull sound of their dropping was said to
be like the thud made by a severed head strik-
ing the ground. Nevertheless the tsubaki seems
to have been a feivorite in Japanese gardens be-
cause of the beauty of its glossy foliage ; and its
flowers were used for the decoration of alcoves.
But in samurai homes it was a rule never to place
tsubaki-flowers in an alcove during war-time.

The reader will notice that in the f ol-
lovring kyoka — which, as grotesques, seem to
me the best in the collection — the goblin-tsu-
baki is called furu-tsuiaki, " old tsubaki." The
young tree was not supposed to have goblin-
propensities, — these being developed only
after many years. Other uncanny trees — such
as the willow and the /noki— were likewise
said to become dangerous only as they became
old ; and a similar belief prevailed on the sub-
ject of uncanny animals, such as the eat — in-
nocent in kittenhood, but devilish in age.

96

Yo-arashi ni
Chishiho itadaku

Furu tsubaki,
Hota-hota ochiru
Haha no nama-kubi.

[When by the night-storm is shaken the
blood<rowned and ancient tsubaki-tree^ then one by
onefcUl the gory heads of the flowers^ {with the sound
of) hota-hota /^]

Kusa mo ki mo
N^mur^ru koro no

Sayo kaz6 ni,
M6hana no ugoku
Furu-tsubaki kana !

[When even the grass and the trees are
sleeping under the faint wind of the nighty — then do
the eyes and the noses of the old tsubaJd-tree (or " t?u
buds and the flowers of the old tsubaki-tree ") move /«]

I The word furu in the third line is made to do doable
duty, — as the adjective, y^rM[<], "ancienf ; and as the
verb furu^ ** to shake.** The old term nama-kubi (lit, " raw
head **) means a hnman head, freshly-severed, from which
the blood is still oozing.

* Two Japanese words are written, mkana^ as "m^ " —
one meaning ** a bud ; " the other *' eye." The syllables

97

Tomoshibi no
Kag6 ayashig6 ni

Miy6nuru wa
Abura shiborishi
Furu-tsubaki ka-mo ?

[As /or (the reason why) the light of thai
lamp appears to be a Weirdness^^ — perhaps the oU
was escpressed from (the nuts of) the ancient tsu-
bahif]

« «

'* hana,'' in like fashion, may signify either " flower " or
** nose." As a grotesque, this little poem is decidedly snc-
cessfnl.

X AyasAtff^is a noon formed from the adjective ayashij
"suspicions," "strange,** "supernatural," "doubtful." The
word kagS signifies both *< light" and "shadow," — and is
here used with double suggestiveness. The vegetable oil
used in the old Japanese lamps used to be obtained from the
nuts of the tsubaH. The reader should remember that the
expression " ancient tsubaki " is equiv^ent to the expression
" goblin-tsubaki," — the tsubaki being supposed to turn into
a goblin-tree only when it becomes old.

98

— Nearly all the stories and folk-
beliefs about which these Jq^oka were written
seem to have come from China ; and most of
the Japanese tales of tree-spirits appear to have
had a Chinese origin. As the flower-spirits and
hamadryads of the Far East are as yet little
known to Western readers, the following Chi-
nese story may be found interesting.

There was a Chinese scholar — called,
in Japanese books. To no Busanshi — who was
famous for his love of flowers. He was particu-
larly fond of peonies, and cultivated them with
great skill and patience.^

One day a very comely girl came to
the house of Busanshi, and begged to be taken
into his service. She said that circumstances
obliged her to seek humble employment, but
that she had received a literary education, and

I The tree-peony {ffotarC^ is here referred to, — a flower
much esteemed in Japan. It is said to have been introduced
from China during the eighth century ; and no less than five
hundred varieties of it are now cultivated by Japanese
gardeners.

99

therefore wished to enter, if possible, into the
service of a scholar. Busanshi was charmed by
her beauty, and took her into his household
without further questioning. She proved to be
much more than a good domestic : indeed, the
nature of her accomplishments made Busanshi
suspect that she had been brought up in the
court of some prince, or in the palace of some
great lord. She displayed a perfect knowledge
of the etiquette and the polite arts which are
taught only to ladies of the highest rank ; and
she possessed astonishing skill in calligraphy, in
painting, and in every kind of poetical composi-
tion. Busanshi presently fell in love with her,
and thought only of how to please her. When
scholar-friends or other visitors of importance
came to the house, he would send for the new
maid that she might entertain and wait upon
his guests ; and all who saw her were amazed
by her grace and charm.

One day Busanshi received a visit
from the great Teki-Shin-Ketsu, a famous
teacher of moral doctrine ; and the maid did
not respond to her master's call. Busanshi went

100

himself to seek her, being desirous that Teki-
Shin-Ketsu should see her and admire her ; but
she was nowhere to be found. After having
searched the whole house in vain, Busanshi was
returning to the guest-room when he suddenly
caught sight of the maid, gliding soundlessly
before him along a corridor. He called to her,
and hurried after her. Then she turned half-
round, and flattened herself against the wall
like a spider ; and as he reached her she sank
backwards into the wall, so that there remained
of her nothing visible but a colored shadow, —
level like a picture painted on the plaster. But
the shadow moved its lips and eyes, and spoke
to him in a whisper, saying : —

" Pardon me that I did not obey your
august call ! ... I am not a mankind-person ;
— I am only the Soul of a Peony. Because
you loved peonies so much, I was able to take
human shape, and to serve you. But now this
Teki-Shin-Ketsu has come, — and he is a per-
son of dreadful propriety, — and I dare not
keep this form any longer. ... I must return
to the place from which I came."

lOI

Then she sank back into the wall, and
vanished altogether: there was nothing where
she had been except the naked plaster. And
Busanshi never saw her again.

This story is written in a Chinese
book which the Japanese call " Kai-ten-i-ji."

1 02

"ULTIMATE
QUESTIONS "

"ULTIMATE
QUESTIONS'*

A MEMORY of long ago. ... I am
walking upon a granite pavement that rings like
iron, between buildings of granite bathed in the
light of a cloudless noon. Shadows are short
and sharp : there is no stir in the hot bright
air ; and the sound of my footsteps, strangely
loud, is the only sound in the street. . . . Sud-
denly an odd feeling comes to me, with a sort
of tingling shock, — a feeling, or suspicion, of
universal illusion. The pavement, the bulks of
hewn stone, the iron rails, and all things visible,
are dreams ! Light, color, form, weight, solid-
ity — all sensed existences — are but phantoms
of being, manifestations only of one infinite
ghostliness for which the language of man has
not any word. . . .

105

This experience had been produced by
study of the first volume of the Synthetic Philo-
sophy, which an American friend had taught me
how to read. I did not find it easy reading ;
partly because I am a slow thinker, but chiefly
because my mind had never been trained to sus-
tained effort in such directions. To learn the
" First Principles " occupied me many months :
no other volume of the series gave me equal
trouble. I would read one section at a time, —
rarely two, — never venturing upon a fresh sec-
tion until I thought that I had made sure of the
preceding. Very cautious and slow my progress
was, like that of a man mounting, for the first
time, a long series of ladders in darkness.
Reaching the light at last, I caught a sudden
new vision of things, — a momentary percep-
tion of the illusion of surfaces, — and from
that time the world never again appeared to
me quite the same as it had appeared before.

— This memory of more than twenty
years ago, and the extraordinary thrill of the
moment, were recently revived for me by the
io6

reading of the essay "Ultimate Questions,"
in the last and not least precious volume be-
queathed us by the world's greatest thinker.
The essay contains his final utterance about the
riddle of life and death, as that riddle presented
itself to his vast mind in the dusk of a lifetime
of intellectual toil. Certainly the substance of
what he had to tell us might have been inferred
from the Synthetic Philosophy; but the par-
ticular interest of this last essay is made by
the writer's expression of personal sentiment
regarding the problem that troubles all deep
thinkers. Perhaps few of us could have re-
mained satisfied with his purely scientific posi-
tion. Even while fully accepting his declara-
tion of the identity of the power that "wells up
in us under the form of consciousness " with
that Power Unknowable which shapes all things,
most disciples of the master must have longed
for some chance to ask him directly, " But how
do you feel in regard to the prospect of per-
sonal dissolution ? " And this merely emotional
question he has answered as frankly and as
fully as any of us could have desired, — perhaps

107

even more frankly. " Old people," he remarks
apologetically, " must have many reflections in
common. Doubtless one which I have now
in mind is very familiar. For years past, when
watching the unfolding buds in the spring,
there has arisen the thought, * Shall I ever
again see the buds unfold ? Shall I ever again
be awakened at dawn by the song of the
thrush ? ' Now that the end is not likely to be
long postponed, there results an increasing
tendency to meditate upon ultimate questions."
. . . Then he tells us that these ultimate ques-
tions — "of the How and the Why, of the
Whence and the Whither " — occupy much
more space in the minds of those who cannot
accept the creed of Christendom, than the cur-
rent conception fills in the minds of the major-
ity of men. The enormity of the problem of
existence becomes manifest only to those who
have permitted themselves to think freely and
widely and deeply, with all such aids to thought
as exact science can furnish ; and the larger
the knowledge of the thinker, the more press-
ing and tremendous the problem appears, and
io8

\

the more hopelessly unanswerable. To Herbert
Spencer himself it must have assumed a vast-
ness beyond the apprehension of the average
mind ; and it weighed upon him more and more
inexorably the nearer he approached to death.
He could not avoid the conviction — plainly
suggested in his magnificent Psychology and in
other volumes of his great work — that there
exists no rational evidence for any belief in
the continuance of conscious personality after
death : —

"After studying primitive beliefs, and
finding that there is no origin for the idea of an
after-life, save the conclusion which the savage
draws, from the notion suggested by dreams, of a
wandering double which comes back on awaking,
and which goes away for an indefinite time at
death; — and after contemplating the inscrutable
relation between brain and consciousness, and
finding that we can get no evidence of the exist-
ence of the last without the activity of the first, —
we seem obliged to relinquish the thought that con-
sciousness continues after physical organization has
become inactive."

109

In this measured utterance there is no
word of hope ; but there is at least a carefully
stated doubt, which those who will may try to
develop into the germ of a hope. The guarded
phrase, "we seem obliged to relinquish," cer-
tainly suggests that, although in the present
state of human knowledge we have no reason
to believe in the perpetuity of consciousness,
some larger future knowledge might help us to
a less forlorn prospect. From the prospect as
it now appears even this mightiest of thinkers
recoiled : —

..." But it seems a strange and repug-
nant conclusion that with the cessation of con-
sciousness at death there ceases to be any know-
ledge of having existed. With his last breath it
becomes to each the same thing as though he had
never lived.

"And then the consciousness itself —
what is it during the time that it continues ? And
what becomes of it when it ends? We can only
infer that it is a specialized and individualized
form of that Infinite and Eternal Energy which
transcends both our knowledge and our imagina-
IIO

tion ; and that at death its elements lapse into that
Infinite and Eternal Energy whence they were
derived."

— With his last breath it becomes to
each the same thing as though he had never
lived ? To the individual, perhaps — surely not
to the humanity made wiser and better by his
labors. . . . But the world must pass away:
will it thereafter be the same for the universe
as if humanity had never existed ? That might
depend upon the possibilities of future inter-
planetary communication. . . . But the whole
universe of suns and planets must also perish :
thereafter will it be the same as if no intelli-
gent life had ever toiled and suffered upon
those countless worlds ? We have at least the
certainty that the energies of life cannot be de-
stroyed, and the strong probability that they
will help to form another life and thought in
universes yet to be evolved. . . . Nevertheless,
allowing for all imagined possibilities, — grant-
ing even the likelihood of some inapprehensible
relation between all past and all future condi-

III

tioned-being, — the tremendous question re-
mains : What signifies the whole of apparitional
existence to the Unconditioned? As flickers
of sheet-lightning leave no record in the night,
so in that Darkness a million billion trillion
universes might come and go, and leave no
trace of their having been.

To every aspect of the problem Her-
bert Spencer must have given thought ; but he
has plainly declared that the human intellect,
as at present constituted, can offer no solution.
The greatest mind that this world has yet pro-
duced — the mind that systematized all human
knowledge, that revolutionized modem science,
that dissipated materialism forever, that re-
vealed to us the ghostly unity of all existence,
that reestablished all ethics upon an immutable
and eternal foundation, — the mind that could
expound with equal lucidity, and by the same
universal formula, the history of a gnat or the
history of a sun — confessed itself, before the
Riddle of Existence, scarcely less helpless than
the mind of a child.

112

But for me the supreme value of this
last essay is made by the fact that in its pathetic
statement of uncertainties and probabilities one
can discern something very much resembling
a declaration of faith. Though assured that we
have yet no foundation for any belief in the
persistence of consciousness after the death
of the brain, we are bidden to remember that
the ultimate nature of consciousness remains
inscrutable. Though we cannot surmise the
relation of consciousness to the unseen, we
are reminded that it must be considered as a
manifestation of the Infinite Energy, and that
its elements, if dissociated by death, will return
to the timeless and measureless Source of Life.
. . . Science to-day also assures us that what-
ever existence has been — all individual life
that ever moved in animal or plant, — all feel-
ing and thought that ever stirred in human
consciousness — must have flashed self-record
beyond the sphere of sentiency; and though
we cannot know, we cannot help imagining that
the best of such registration may be destined
to perpetuity. On this latter subject, for ob-

113

vious reasons, Herbert Spencer has remained
silent; but the reader may ponder a remark-
able paragraph in the final sixth edition of the
"First Principles/' — a paragraph dealing with
the hypothesis that consciousness may belong
to the cosmic ether. This hypothesis has not
been lightly dismissed by him ; and even while
proving its inadequacy, he seems to intimate
that it may represent imperfectly some truth
yet inapprehensible by the human mind : —

" The only supposition having consistency
is that that in which consciousness inheres is the
all-pervading ether. This we know can be affected
by molecules of matter in motion, and conversely
can affect the motions of molecules; — as witness
the action of light on the retina. In pursuance
of this supposition we may assume that the ether,
which pervades not only all space but all matter,
is, under special conditions in certain parts of the
nervous system, capable of being affected by the
nervous changes in such way as to result in feeling,
and is reciprocally capable under these conditions
of affecting the nervous changes. But if we accept
this explanation, we must assume that the poten-
114

tiality of feeling is universal, and that the evolution
of feeling in the ether takes place only under the
extremely complex conditions occurring in certain
nervous centres. This, however, is but a semblance
of an explanation, since we know not what the
ether is, and since, by confession of those most
capable of judging, no hypothesis that has been
framed accounts for all its powers. Such an expla-
nation may be said to do no more than s3mibolize
the phenomena by symbols of unknown natures.''
— [" First Principles," § 71 ^, definitive edition of
1900.]

— " Inscrutable is this complex conscious-
ness which has slowly evolved out of infantine
vacuity — consciousness which, in other shapes,
is manifested by animate beings at large — con-
sciousness which, during the development of every
creature, makes its appearance out of what seems
unconscious matter; suggesting the thought that
consciousness^ in some rudimentary form^ is omnipre-
sent:' »

— Of all modem thinkers, Spencer
was perhaps the most careful to avoid giving
encouragement to any hypothesis unsupported

* Autobiography, vol. ii, p. 470.

"5

by powerful evidence. Even the simple sum
of his own creed is uttered only, with due
reservation, as a statement of three probabili-
ties : that consciousness represents a spe-
cialized and individualized form of the infinite
Energy ; that it is dissolved by death ; and
that its elements then return to the source of
all being. As for our mental attitude toward
the infinite Mystery, his advice is plain. We
must resign ourselves to the eternal law, and
endeavor to vanquish our ancient inheritance
of superstitious terrors, remembering that,
"merciless as is the Cosmic process worked
out by an Unknown Power, yet vengeance is
nowhere to be found in it." '

«
« «

In the same brief essay there is an-
other confession of singular interest, - — an
acknowledgment of the terror of Space. To
even the ordinary mind, the notion of infinite

> Facts and Comments ^ p. 201.

116

Space, as forced upon us by those monstrous
facts of astronomy which require no serious
study to apprehend, is terrifying ; — I mean the
mere vague idea of that everlasting Night into
which the blazing of millions of suns can bring
neither light nor warmth. But to the intellect
of Herbert Spencer the idea of Space must
have presented itself after a manner incom-
parably more mysterious and stupendous. The
mathematician alone will comprehend the full
significance of the paragraph dealing with the
Geometry of Position and the mystery of space-
relations, — or the startling declaration that
" even could we penetrate the mysteries of ex-
istence, there would remain still more tran-
scendent mysteries." But Herbert Spencer tells
us that, apart from the conception of these
geometrical mysteries, the problem of naked
Space itself became for him, in the twilight of
his age, an obsession and a dismay : —

. . . '' And then comes the thought of this
universal matrix itself, anteceding alike creation
or evolution, whichever be assumed, and infinitely

117

transcending both, alike in extent and duration ;
since both, if conceived at all, must be conceived
as having had beginnings, while Space had no
beginning. The thought of this blank form of
existence which, explored in all directions as far as
imagination can reach, has, beyond that, an unex-
plored region compared with which the part which
imagination has traversed is but infinitesimal, —
the thought of a Space compared with which our
immeasurable sidereal system dwindles to a point
b a thought too overwhelming to be dwelt upon.
Of late years the consciousness that without origin
or cause infinite Space has ever existed and must
ever exist, produces in me a feeling from which I
shrink."

How the idea of infinite Space may
afifect a mind incomparably more powerful than
my own, I cannot know ; — neither can I di-
vine the nature of certain problems which the
laws of space-relation present to the geometri-
cian. But when I try to determine the cause of
the horror which that idea evokes within my
own feeble imagination, I am able to distin-
guish different elements of the emotion, — par-
ii8

ticular forms of terror responding to particular
ideas (rational and irrational) suggested by the
revelations of science. One feeling — perhaps
the main element of the horror — is made by
the thought of heing prisoned forever and ever
within that unutterable Viewlessness which
occupies infinite Space.

Behind this feeling there is more
than the thought of eternal circumscription ; —
there is also the idea of being perpetually pene-
trated, traversed, thrilled by the Nameless ; —
there is likewise the certainty that no least
particle of innermost secret Self could shun
the eternal touch of It ; — there is furthermore
the tremendous conviction that could the Self
of me rush with the swiftness of light, — with
more than the swiftness of light, — beyond all
galaxies, beyond durations of time so vast that
Science knows no sign by which their magni-
tudes might be indicated, — and still flee on-
ward, onward, downward, upward, — always,
always, — never could that Self of me reach
nearer to any verge, never speed farther from
any centre. For, in that Silence, all vastitude

119

and height and depth and time and direction
are swallowed up : relation therein could have
no meaning but for the speck of my fleeting
consciousness, — atom of terror pulsating alone
through atomless, soundless, nameless, illimita-
ble potentiality.

And the idea of that potentiality
awakens another quality of horror, — the horror
of infinite Possibility. For this Inscrutable that
pulses through substance as if substance were
not at all, — so subtly that none can feel the
flowing of its tides, yet so swiftly that no life-
time would suffice to count the number of the
oscillations which it makes within the fraction
of one second, — thrills to us out of endless-
ness; — and the force of infinity dwells in its
lightest tremor ; the weight of eternity presses
behind its faintest shudder. To that phantom-
Touch, the tinting of a blossom or the dissipa-
tion of a universe were equally facile : here it
caresses the eye with the charm and illusion
of color ; there it bestirs into being a cluster
of giant suns. All that human mind is capa-
ble of conceiving as possible (and how much
1 20

also that human mind must forever remain in-
capable of conceiving ?) may be wrought any-
where, everywhere, by a single tremor of that
Abyss. . . ,

Is it true, as some would have us
believe, that the fear of the extinction of self
is the terror supreme? . . . For the thought
of personal perpetuity in the infinite vortex is
enough to evoke sudden trepidations that no
tongue can utter, — fugitive instants of a hor-
ror too vast to enter wholly into consciousness :
a horror that can be endured in swift black
glimpsings only. And the trust that we are one
with the Absolute — dim points of thrilling in
the abyss of It — can prove a consoling faith
only to those who find themselves obliged to
think that consciousness dissolves with the
crumbling of the brain. ... It seems to me
that few (or none) dare to utter frankly those
stupendous doubts and fears which force mor-
tal intelligence to recoil upon itself at every
fresh attempt to pass the barrier of the Know-
able. Were that barrier unexpectedly pushed

121

back, — were knowledge to be suddenly and
vastly expanded beyond its present limits^ —
perhaps we should find ourselves unable to en-
dure the revelation. . . .

Mr.Percival Lowell's astonishing book,
" Mars," sets one to thinking about the results
of being able to hold communication with the
habitants of an older and a wiser world, — some
race of beings more highly evolved than we,
both intellectually and morally, and able to in-
terpret a thousand mysteries that still baffle our
science. Perhaps, in such event, we should not
find ourselves able to comprehend the methods,
even could we borrow the results, of wisdom
older than all our civilization by m)rriads or hun-
dreds of myriads of years. But would not the
sudden advent of larger knowledge from some
elder planet prove for us, by reason of the pre-
sent moral condition of mankind, nothing less
than a catastrophe ? — might it not even result
in the extinction of the human species .? . . .

The rule seems to be that the dis-
semination of dangerous higher knowledge, be-

122

fore the masses of a people are ethically pre-
pared to receive it, will always be prevented by
the conservative instinct ; and we have reason
to suppose (allowing for individual exceptions)
that the power to gain higher knowledge is de-
veloped only as the moral ability to profit by
such knowledge is evolved. I fancy that if the
power of holding intellectual converse with
other worlds could now serve us, we should
presently obtain it. But if, by some astonishing
chance, — as by the discovery, let us suppose,
of some method of ether-telegraphy, — this
power were prematurely acquired, its exercise
would in all probability be prohibited. . . .
Imagine, for example, what would have hap-
pened during the Middle Ages to the person
guilty of discovering means to communicate
with the people of a neighboring planet ! As-
suredly that inventor and his apparatus and his
records would have been burned; every trace
and memory of his labors would have been
extirpated. Even tOKlay the sudden discovery
of truths unsupported by human experience,
the sudden revelation of facts totally opposed to

123

existing convictions, might evoke some frantic
revival of superstitious terrors, — some reli-
gious panic-fury that would strangle science,
and replunge the world in mental darkness for
a thousand years.

124

THE
MIRROR
MAIDEN

THE
MIRROR
MAIDEN

In the period of the Ashikaga Sho-
gunate the shrine of Ogawachi-My6jin,at Mina-
mi-Is6, fell into decay ; and the daimyo of the
district, the Lord Kitahatak6, found himself una-
ble, by reason of war and other circumstances, to
provide for the reparation of the building. Then
the Shinto priest in charge, Matsumura Hyogo,
sought help at Kyoto from the great daimyo
Hosokawa, who was known to have influence
with the Shogim. The Lord Hosokawa received
the priest kindly, and promised to speak to the
Sh5gun about the condition of Ogawachi-Myojin.
But he said that, in any event, a grant for the
restoration of the temple could not be made
without due investigation and considerable de-

127

lay; and he advised Matsumura to remain in
the capital while the matter was being arranged.
Matsumura therefore brought his family to
Kyoto, and rented a house in the old Kyogoku
quarter.

This house, although handsome and
spacious, had been long unoccupied. It was said
to be an unlucky house. On the northeast side
of it there was a well ; and several former ten-
ants had drowned themselves in that well, with-
out any known cause. But Matsumura, being a
Shintd priest, had no fear of evil spirits ; and
he soon made himself very comfortable in his
new home.

In the summer of that year there was
a great drought. For months no rain had fallen
in the Five Home-Provinces; the river-beds
dried up, the wells failed ; and even in the cap-
ital there was a dearth of water. But the well
in Matsumura's garden remained nearly full ;
and the water — which was very cold and clear,
with a faint bluish tinge — seemed to be sup-
plied by a spring. During the hot season many
128

people came from all parts of the city to beg
for water; and Matsumura allowed them to
draw as much as they pleased. Nevertheless
the supply did not appear to be diminished.

But one morning the dead body of a
young servant, who had been sent from a neigh-
boring residence to fetch water, was found float-
ing in the well. No cause for a suicide could be
imagined ; and Matsumura, remembering many
impleasant stories about the well, began to sus-
pect some invisible malevolence. He went to
examine the well, with the intention of having
a fence built around it ; and while standing there
alone he was startled by a sudden motion in the
water, as of something alive. The motion soon
ceased ; and then he perceived, clearly reflected
in the still surface, the figure of a young wo-
man, apparently about nineteen or twenty years
of age. She seemed to be occupied with her
toilet : he distinctly saw her touching her lips
with bhd} At first her face was visible in pro-
file only ; but presently she turned towards him
and smiled. Immediately he felt a strange shock

* A kind of rouge, noT7 used only to color the lips.

129

at his hearty and a dizziness came upon him
like the dizziness of wine, and everything be-
came dark, except that smiling face, — white
and beautiful as moonlight, and always seeming
to grow more beautiful, and to be drawing him
down — down — down into the darkness. But
with a desperate effort he recovered his will
and closed his eyes. When he opened them
again, the face was gone, and the light had re-
turned; and he foimd himself leaning down
over the curb of the well. A moment more of
that dizziness, — a moment more of that daz-
zling lure, — and he would never again have
looked upon the sun. . . .

Returning to the house, he gave
orders to his people not to approach the well
under any circumstances, or allow any person to
draw water from it. And the next day he had
a strong fence built round the well.

About a week after the fence had
been built, the long drought was broken by a
great rain-storm, accompanied by wind and
lightning and thimder, — thunder so tremendous
130

that the whole city shook to the rolling of it,
as if shaken by an earthquake. For three days
and three nights the downpour and the light-
nings and the thunder continued ; and the
Kamogawa rose as it had never risen before,
carrying away many bridges. During the third
night of the storm, at the Hour of the Ox,
there was heard a knocking at the door of the
priest's dwelling, and the voice of a woman
pleading for admittance. But Matsumura,
warned by his experience at the well, forbade
his servants to answer the appeal. He went
himself to the entrance, and asked, —

"Who calls?'*

A feminine voice responded : —

" Pardon ! it is I, — Yayoi h . . . I
have something to say to Matsumura Sama, —
something of great moment. Please open ! " . . .

Matsumura half opened the door, very
cautiously ; and he saw the same beautiful face
that had smiled upon him from the well. But it
was not smiling now : it had a very sad look.

" Into my house you shall not come,"

I This name, though uncommon, is still in use.

/

the priest exclaimed. " You are not a human
being, but a Well-Person. . . . Why do you
thus wickedly try to delude and destroy
people ? "

The Well-Person made answer in a
voice musical as a tinkling of jewels (tanta-wo-
korogasurkotj : —

" It is of that very matter that I want
to speak. ... I have never wished to injure
human beings. But from ancient time a Poison-
Dragon dwelt in that well. He was the Master
of the Well ; and because of him the well was
always full. Long ago I fell into the water
there, and so became subject to him ; and he
had power to make me lure people to death,
in order that he might drink their blood. But
now the Heavenly Ruler has commanded the
Dragon to dwell hereafter in the lake called
Torii-no-Ik6, in the Province of Shinshu ; and
the gods have decided that he shall never be
allowed to return to this city. So to-night,
after he had gone away, I was able to come
out, to beg for your kindly help. There is now
very little water in the well, because of the
132

Dragon's departure ; and if you will order
search to be made, my body will be found
there. I pray you to save my body from the
well without delay ; and I shall certainly return
your benevolence." . . ,

So saying, she vanished into the night.

Before dawn the tempest had passed ;
and when the sun arose there was no trace of
cloud in the pure blue sky. Matsumura sent at
an early hour for well-cleaners to search the
well. Then, to everybody's surprise, the well
proved to be almost dry. It was easily cleaned ;
and at the bottom of it were found some hair-
ornaments of a very ancient fashion, and a
metal mirror of curious form — but no trace of
any body, animal or human.

Matusmura imagined, however, that
the mirror might yield some explanation of the
mystery; for every such mirror is a weird
thing, having a soul of its own, — and the soul
of a mirror is feminine. This mirror, which
seemed to be very old, was deeply crusted with
scurf. But when it had been carefully cleaned,

133

by the priest's order, it proved to be of rare and
costly workmanship; and there were wonder-
ful designs upon the back of it, — also several
characters. Some of the characters had be-
come indistinguishable ; but there could still be
discerned part of a date, and ideographs signi-
fying, " third mouthy the third day'' Now the
third month used to be termed Yayoi (meaning,
the Month of Increase) ; and the third day of
the third month, which is a festival day, is still
called Yayoi-no-sekku, Remembering that the
Well-Person called herself " Yayoi," Matsumura
felt almost sure that his ghostly visitant had
been none other than the Soul of the Mirror.

He therefore resolved to treat the
mirror with all the consideration due to a Spirit.
After having caused it to be carefully repolished
and resilvered, he had a case of precious wood
made for it, and a particular room in the house
prepared to receive it. On the evening of the
same day that it had been respectfully depos-
ited in that room, Yayoi herself unexpectedly
appeared before the priest as he sat alone in his
study. She looked even more lovely than be-
134

fore ; but the light of her beauty was now soft
as the Ught of a summer moon shining through
pure white clouds. After having humbly saluted
Matsumura, she said in her sweetly tinkling
voice : —

" Now that you have saved me from
solitude and sorrow, I have come to thank you.
... I am indeed, as you supposed, the Spirit
of the Mirror. It was in the time of the Em-
peror Saimei that I was first brought here from
Kudara ; and I dwelt in the august residence
until the time of the Emperor Saga, when I
was augustly bestowed upon the Lady Kamo,
Naishinno of the Imperial Court.' Thereafter
I became an heirloom in the House of Fuji-
wara, and so remained until the period of
Hogen, when I was dropped into the well.
There I was left and forgotten during the years

^ The Emperor Saimei reigned from 655 to 662 (a. d.) ;
the Emperor Saga from 810 to 842. — Kudara T^as an
ancient kingdom in southwestern Korea, frequently men-
tioned in early Japanese history. — A NcUshinno was of
Imperial blood. In the ancient court-hierarchy there were
twenty -five ranks or grades of noble ladies; — that of
Naishinno was seventh in order of precedence.

135

of the great war.' The Master of the Well * was
a venomous Dragon, who used to live in a lake
that once covered a great part of this district.
After the lake had been filled in, by govern-
ment order, in order that houses might be built
upon the place of it, the Dragon took posses-
sion of the well ; and when I fell into the well
I became subject to him ; and he compelled me
to lure many people to their deaths. But the
gods have banished him forever. . . . Now I
have one more favor to beseech: I entreat
that you will cause me to be offered up to the
Shogim, the Lord Yoshimasa, who by descent
is related to my former possessors. Do me but
this last great kindness, and it will bring you

I For centuries the ^ves of the emperors and the ladies
of the Imperial Court were chosen from the Fujiwara clan.
— The period called Hogen lasted from 1 156 to 11 59: the
war referred to is the famous war between the Taira and
Minamoto clans.

^ In old-tune belief every lake or spring had its invisible
guardian, supposed to sometimes take the form of a serpent
or dragon. The spirit of a lake or pond was commonly
spoken of as IkS-no-Mushit the Master of the Lake. Here
we find the title ''Master" given to a dragon living in a well;
but the guardian of wells is really the god Suijin.
136

good-fortune. . . . But I have also to warn you
of a danger. In this house, after to-morrow, you
must not stay, because it will be destroyed."
. . . And with these words of warning Yayoi
disappeared.

Matsumura was able to profit by this
premonition. He removed his people and his
belongings to another district the next day ; and
almost immediately afterwards another storm
arose, even more violent than the first, causing
a flood which swept away the house in which
he had been residing.

Some time later, by favor of the Lord
Hosokawa, Matsumura was enabled to obtain
an audience of the Shogun Yoshimasa, to whom
he presented the mirror, together with a writ-
ten account of its wonderful history. Then the
prediction of the Spirit of the Mirror was ful-
filled ; for the Shogun, greatly pleased with this
strange gift, not only bestowed costly presents
upon Matsumura, but also made an ample grant
of money for the rebuilding of the Temple of
Ogawachi-Mydjin.

137

THE
STORY

or

ITO
NORISURE

THE

STORY

OF

ITO

NORISUHE

In the town of Uji, in the province
of Yamashiro, there lived, about six hundred
years ago, a young samurai named Ito Tat6-
waki Norisuk^, whose ancestors were of the
H^rk6 clan. Ito was of handsome person and
amiable character, a good scholar and apt at
arms. But his family were poor ; and he had
no patron among the military nobility, — so
that his prospects were small. He lived in a
very quiet way, devoting himself to the study
of literature, and having (says the Japanese
story-teller) " only the Moon and the Wind for
friends."

One autumn evening, as he was tak-
ing a solitary walk in the neighborhood of the

141

hill called Kotobikiyama, he happened to over-
take a young girl who was following the same
path. She was richly dressed, and seemed to be
about eleven or twelve years old. Ito greeted
her, and said, " The sun will soon be setting,
damsel, and this is rather a lonesome place.
May I ask if you have lost your way ? " She
looked up at him with a bright smile, and an-
swered deprecatingly : " Nay ! I am a miya-dzu'
kai,^ serving in this neighborhood ; and I have
only a little way to go."

By her use of the term miya-dzukai^
Ito knew that the girl must be in the service
of persons of rank ; and her statement surprised
him, because he had never heard of any family
of distinction residing in that vicinity. But he
only said : " I am returning to Uji, where my
home is. Perhaps you will allow me to accom-
pany you on the way, as this is a very lone-
some place." She thanked him gracefully,
seeming pleased by his offer ; and they walked
on together, chatting as they went. She talked
about the weather, the flowers, the butterflies,

I August-residence servant.
142

and the birds ;. about a visit that she had once
made to Uji, about the famous sights of the
capital, where she had been born ; — and the
moments passed pleasantly for It5, as he lis-
tened to her fresh prattle. Presently, at a turn
in the road, they entered a hamlet, densely
shadowed by a grove of young trees.

[Here I must interrupt the story to
tell you that, without having actually seen them,
you cannot imagine how dark some Japanese
country villages remain even in the brightest
and hottest weather. In the neighborhood of
Tokyo itself there are many villages of this
kind. At a short distance from such a settle-
ment you see no houses : nothing is visible but
a dense grove of evergreen trees. The grove,
which is usually composed of young cedars and
bamboos, serves to shelter the village from
storms, and also to supply timber for various
purposes. So closely are the trees planted that
there is no room to pass between the trunks of
them : they stand straight as masts, and mingle
their crests so as to form a roof that excludes

143

the sun. Each thatched cottage occupies a clear
space in the plantation, the trees forming a
fence about it, double the height of the build-
ing. Under the trees it is always twilight, even
at high noon ; and the houses, morning or even-
ing, are half in shadow. What makes the first
impression of such a village almost disquieting
is, not the transparent gloom, which has a cer-
tain weird charm of its own, but the stillness.
There may be fifty or a himdred dwellings ; but
you see nobody; and you hear no sound but
the twitter of invisible birds, the occasional
crowing of cocks, and the shrilling of cicadas.
Even the cicadae, however, find these groves
too dim, and sing faintly; being sim-lovers,
they prefer the trees outside the village. I for-
got to say that you may sometimes hear a
viewless shuttle — chaka-totiy chaka-ton ; — but
that familiar sound, in the great green silence,
seems an elfish happening. The reason of the
hush is simply that the people are not at home.
All the adults, excepting some feeble elders,
have gone to the neighboring fields, the women
carrying their babies on their backs ; and most
144

of the children have gone to the nearest school,
perhaps not less than a mile away. Verily, in
these dim hushed villages, one seems to behold
the mysterious perpetuation of conditions re-
corded in the texts of Kwang-Tze : —

" The ancients who had the nourishment
of the world wished for nothings and the world
had enough : — they did nothings and all things
were transformed: — their stillness was abys-
mal^ and the people were all composedr\

. . . The village was very dark when
Ito reached it ; for the sun had set, and the
after-glow made no twilight in the shadowing
of the trees. "Now, kind sir," the child said,
pointing to a narrow lane opening upon the
main road, " I have to go this way." " Permit
me, then, to see you home," Ito responded; and
he turned into the lane with her, feeling rather
than seeing his way. But the girl soon stopped
before a small gate, dimly visible in the gloom,
— a gate of trelliswork, beyond which the lights
of a dwelling could be seen. " Here," she said,
*.* is the honorable residence in which I serve.

I4S

As you have come thus far out of your way,
kind sir, will you not deign to enter and to rest
a while ? " Ito assented. He was pleased by
the informal invitation ; and he wished to learn
what persons of superior condition had chosen
to reside in so lonesome a village. He knew
that sometimes a family of rank would retire in
this manner from public life, by reason of gov-
ernment displeasure or political trouble ; and he
imagined that such might be the history of the
occupants of the dwelling before him. Passing
the gate, which his yoimg guide opened for him,
he found himself in a large quaint garden. A
miniature landscape, traversed by a winding
stream, was fciintly distinguishable. " Deign for
one little moment to wait," the child said ; " I
go to announce the honorable coming;" and
hurried toward the house. It was a spacious
house, but seemed very old, and built in the
fashion of another time. The sliding doors were
not closed ; but the lighted interior was con-
cealed by a beautiful bamboo curtain extending
along the gallery front. Behind it shadows were
moving — shadows of women ; — and suddenly
146

the music of a koto rippled into the night. So
light and sweet was the playing that Ito could
scarcely believe the evidence of his senses. A
slumbrous feeling of delight stole over him as
he listened, — a delight strangely mingled with
sadness. He wondered how any woman could
have learned to play thus, — wondered whether
the player could be a woman, — wondered even
whether he was hearing earthly music ; for en-
chantment seemed to have entered into his blood
with the sound of it.

The soft music ceased; and almost
at the same moment Ito found the little miya-
dzukai beside him. "Sir," she said, "it is
requested that you will honorably enter." She
conducted him to the entrance, where he re-
moved his sandals ; and an aged woman, whom
he thought to be the Rqjo^ or matron of the
household, came to welcome him at the thresh-
old. The old woman then led him through
many apartments to a large and well-lighted
room in the rear of the house, and with many
respectful salutations requested him to take the

147

place of honor accorded to guests of distinction.
He was surprised by the stateliness of the
chamber, and the curious beauty of its decora-
tions. Presently some maid-servants brought
refreshments; and he noticed that the cups
and other vessels set before him were of rare
and costly workmanship, and ornamented with
a design indicating the high rank of the pos-
sessor. More and more he wondered what noble
person had chosen this lonely retreat, and what
happening could have inspired the wish for
such solitude. But the aged attendant suddenly
interrupted his reflections with the question :

" Am I wrong in supposing that you
are Ito Sama, of Uji, — Ito Tatiwaki Nori-
suk6 ? "

Ito bowed in assent. He had not told
his name to the little miyordzukai^ and the
manner of the inquiry startled him.

"Please do not think my question
rude," continued the attendant. "An old wo-
man like myself may ask questions without
improper curiosity. When you came to the
house, I thought that I knew your face ; and I
148

asked your name only to clear away all doubt,
before speaking of other matters. I have some
thing of moment to tell you. You often pass
through this village, and our young Him^gimi-
Sama ' happened one morning to see you going
by ; and ever since that moment she has been
thinking about you, day and night. Indeed, she
thought so much that she became ill ; and we
have been very uneasy about her. For that
reason I took means to find out your name and
residence ; and I was on the point of sending
you a letter when — so unexpectedly! — you
came to our gate with the little attendant. Now,
to say how happy I am to see you is not pos-
sible ; it seems almost too fortunate a hap-
pening to be true! Really I think that this
meeting must have been brought about by the
favor of Enmusubi-no-Kami, — that great God of
Izumo who ties the knots of fortunate union.
And now that so lucky a destiny has led you
hither, perhaps you will not refuse — if there

I A scarcely translatable honorific title compounded of
the word himS (princess) and kimi (sovereign, master or
mistress, lord or lady, etc.).

149

be no obstacle in the way of such a union — to
make happy the heart of our Him6gimi-Sama?"

For the moment Ito did not know
how to reply. If the old woman had spoken the
truth, an extraordinary chance was being offered
to him. Only a great passion could impel the
daughter of a noble house to seek, of her own
will, the affection of an obscure and masterless
samurai, possessing neither wealth nor any sort
of prospects. On the other hand, it was not in
the honorable nature of the man to further his
own interests by taking advantage of a feminine
weakness. Moreover, the circumstances were
disquietingly mysterious. Yet how to decline
the proposal, so unexpectedly made, troubled
him not a little. After a short silence, he re-
plied : —

"There would be no obstacle, as I
have no wife, and no betrothed, and no rela-
tion with any woman. Until now I have lived
with my parents ; and the matter of my mar-
riage was never discussed by them. You must
know that I am a poor samurai, without any
patron among persons of rank ; and I did not
150

wish to marry until I could find some chance
to improve my condition. As to the proposal
which you have done me the very great honor
to make, I can only say that I know myself yet
imworthy of the notice of any noble maiden."

The old woman smiled as if pleased
by these words, and responded : —

" Until you have seen our Him^gimi-
Sama, it were better that you make no decision.
Perhaps you will feel no hesitation after you
have seen her. Deign now to come with me,
that I may present you to her."

She conducted him to another larger
guest-room, where preparations for a feast had
been made, and having shown him the place
of honor, left him for a moment alone. She
returned accompanied by the Himigimi-Sama ;
and, at the first sight of the young mistress,
Ito felt again the strange thrill of wonder and
delight that had come to him in the garden,
as he listened to the music of the koto. Never
had he dreamed of so beautiful a being. Light
seemed to radiate from her presence, and to
shine through her garments, as the light of the

151

moon through flossy clouds ; her loosely flowing
hair swayed about her as she moved, Uke the
boughs of the drooping willow bestirred by the
breezes of spring; her lips were like flowers
of the peach besprinkled with morning dew.
Ito was bewildered by the vision. He asked
himself whether he was not looking upon the
person of Amano-kawara-no-Ori-Him6 herself,
— the Weaving-Maiden who dwells by the
shining River of Heaven.

Smiling, the aged woman turned to
the fair one, who remained speechless, with
downcast eyes and flushing cheeks, and said to
her: —

" See, my child I — at the moment
when we could least have hoped for such a
thing, the very person whom you wished to
meet has come of his own accord. So fortunate
a happening could have been brought about
only by the will of the high gods. To think of
it makes me weep for joy." And she sobbed
aloud. " But now," she continued, wiping away
her tears with her sleeve, " it only remains for
you both — unless either prove unwilling,
152

which I doubt — to pledge yourselves to each
other, and to partake of your wedding feast."

Ito answered by no word : the in-
comparable vision before him had numbed his
will and tied his tongue. Maid-servants entered,
bearing dishes and wine : the wedding feast was
spread before the pair ; and the pledges were
given. It5 nevertheless remained as in a trance :
the marvel of the adventure, and the wonder of
the beauty of the bride, still bewildered him.
A gladness, beyond aught that he had ever
known before, filled his heart — like a great
silence. But gradually he recovered his wonted
calm ; and thereafter he found himself able to
converse without embarrassment. Of the wine
he partook freely ; and he ventured to speak,
in a self-depreciating but merry way, about the
doubts and fears that had oppressed him.
Meanwhile the bride remained still as moon-
light, never lifting her eyes, and replying only
by a blush or a smile when he addressed her.
Ito said to the aged attendant : —
" Many times, in my solitary walks, I

IS3

have passed through this village without know-
ing of the existence of this honorable dwelling.
And ever since entering here, I have been won-
dering why this noble household should have
chosen so lonesome a place of sojourn. . . .
Now that your Him^gimi-Sama and I have be-
come pledged to each other, it seems to me a
strange thing that I do not yet know the name
of her august family."

At this utterance, a shadow passed
over the kindly face of the old woman ; and the
bride, who had yet hardly spoken, turned pale,
and appeared to become painfully anxious. Af-
ter some moments of silence, the aged woman
responded : —

" To keep our secret from you much
longer would be difficult ; and I think that,
under any circumstances, you should be made
aware of the facts, now that you are one of us.
Know then. Sir Ito, that your bride is the
daughter of Shig6hira-Kyo, the great and un-
fortunate San-mi Chiijo."

At those words — " Shig6hira-Kyo,
San-mi Chiijd " — the young samurai felt a
154

chill, as of ice, strike through all his veins.
Shig6hira-Ky6, the great H^rk^ general and
statesman, had been dust for centuries. And
Ito suddenly understood that everything around
him — the chamber and the lights and the ban-
quet — was a dream of the past ; that the forms
before him were not people, but shadows of
people dead.

But in another instant the icy chill
had passed; and the charm returned, and
seemed to deepen about him ; and he felt no
fear. Though his bride had come to him out
of Yomi, — out of the place of the Yellow
Springs of death, — his heart had been wholly
won. Who weds a ghost must become a ghost;
— yet he knew himself ready to die, not once,
but many times, rather than betray by word or
look one thought that might bring a shadow
of pain to the brow of the beautiful illusion be-
fore him. Of the affection proffered he had no
misgiving : the truth had been told him when
any unloving purpose might better have been
served by deception. But these thoughts and
emotions passed in a flash, leaving him resolved

to accept the strange situation as it had pre-
sented itself, and to act just as he would have
done if chosen, in the years of Jii-ei, by Shig6-
hira's daughter.

" Ah, the pity of it I " he exclaimed ;
" i have heard of the cruel fate of the august
Lord Shig^hira."

"Ay," responded the aged woman,
sobbing as she spoke ; — "it was indeed a cruel
fate. His horse, you know, was killed by an
arrow, and fell upon him ; and when he called
for help, those who had lived upon his bounty
deserted him in his need. Then he was taken
prisoner, and sent to Kamakura, where they
treated him shamefully, and at last put him to
death.' His wife and child — this dear maid

I Shig^hira, after a brave fight in defense of the capital,
— then held by the Taira (or H^ik^) party, — was surprised
and routed by Yoshitsun^, leader of the Minamoto forces.
A soldier named ly^naga, who was a skilled archer, shot
down Shigdhira's horse ; and Shig^hira fell under the strug-
gling animaL He cried to an attendant to bring another
horse; but the man fled. Shigehira was then captured by
lydnaga, and eventually given up to Yoritomo, head of the
Minamoto clan, who caused him to be sent in a cage to

156 ,

here — were then in hiding ; for ever3rwhere
the H6ik6 were being sought out and killed.
When the news of the Lord Shig^hira's death
reached us, the pain proved too great for
the mother to bear, so the child was left with
no one to care for her but me, — since her
kindred had all perished or disappeared. She
was only five years old. I had been her milk-
nurse, and I did what I could for her. Year
after year we wandered from place to place,
traveling in pilgrim-garb. . . . But these tales
of grief are ill-timed," exclaimed the nurse,
wiping away her tears ; — " pardon the foolish
heart of an old woman who cannot forget the
past. See I the little maid whom I fostered has
now become a Him^gimi-Sama indeed ! — were
we living in the good days of the Emperor Ta-
kakura, what a destiny might be reserved for
her I However, she has obtained the husband

Kamakura. There, after sundry humiliations, he was treated
for a time with consideration, — having been able, by a Chi-
nese poem, to touch even the cruel heart of Yoritomo. But
in the following year he was executed by request of the
Buddhist priests of Nanto, against whom he had formerly
waged war by order of Kiyomori.

157

whom she desired ; that is the greatest happi-
ness. . . . But the hour is late. The bridal-
chamber has been prepared ; and I must now
leave you to care for each other until morning."

She rose, and sliding back the screens
parting the guest-room from the adjoining
chamber, ushered them to their sleeping apart-
ment. Then, with many words of joy and con-
gratulation, she withdrew; and Ito was left
alone with his bride.

As they reposed together, Ito said : —

" Tell me, my loved one, when was it
that you first wished to have me for your hus-
band."

(For everything appeared so real that
he had almost ceased to think of the illusion
woven around him.)

She answered, in a voice like a dove's
voice : —

" My august lord and husband, it was
at the temple of Ishiyama, where I went with
my foster-mother, that I saw you for the first
time. And because of seeing you, the world
became changed to me from that hour and mo-
158

ment. But you do not remember, because our
meeting was not in this, your present life : it
was very, very long ago. Since that time you
have passed through many deaths and births,
and have had many comely bodies. But I have
remained always that which you see me now :
I could not obtain another body, nor enter into
another state of existence, because of my great
wish for you. My dear lord and husband, I have
waited for you through many ages of men."

And the bridegroom felt nowise afraid
at hearing these strange words, but desired no-
thing more in life, or in all his lives to come,
than to feel her arms about him, and to hear
the caress of her voice.

But the pealing of a temple-bell pro-
claimed the coming of dawn. Birds began to
twitter; a morning breeze set all the trees
a-whispering. Suddenly the old nurse pushed
apart the sliding screens of the bridal-chamber,
and exclaimed : —

" My children, it is time to separate I
By daylight you must not be together, even for

159

an instant : that were fatal I You must bid each
other good-by."

Without a word, Ito made ready to
depart. He vaguely understood the warning ut-
tered, and resigned himself wholly to destiny.
His will belonged to him no more ; he desired
only to please his shadowy bride.

She placed in his hands a little suBuri,
or ink-stone, curiously carved, and said : —

"My young lord and husband is a
scholar ; therefore this small gift will probably
not be despised by him. It is of strange fashion
because it is old, having been augustly bestowed
upon my father by the favor of the Emperor
Takakura. For that reason only, I thought it
to be a precious thing."

Its, in return, besought her to accept
for a remembrance the kogai^ of his sword,
which were decorated with inlaid work of silver
and gold, representing plum-flowers and night-
ingales.

I This was the name given to a pair of metal rods attached
to a sword-sheath, and used like chop-sticks. They were
sometimes exquisitely ornamented.
1 60

Then the little miya-dzukai came to
guide him through the garden, and his bride
with her foster-mother accompanied him to the
threshold.

As he turned at the foot of the steps
to make his parting salute, the old woman
said: —

" We shall meet again the next Year
of the Boar, at the same hour of the same day
of the same month that you came here. This
being the Year of the Tiger, you will have to
wait ten years. But, for reasons which I must
not say, we shall not be able to meet again in
this place ; we are going to the neighborhood
of Kyoto, where the good Emperor Takakura
and our fathers and many of our people are
dwelling. All the H6rk6 will be rejoiced by
your coming. We shall send a kago * for you
on the appointed day."

Above the village the stars were burn-
ing as Its passed the gate ; but on reaching the
open road he saw the dawn brightening beyond

I A kind of palanquin.

i6i

leagues of silent fields. In his bosom he carried
the gift of his bride. The charm of her voice
lingered in his ears, — and nevertheless, had it
not been for the memento which he touched
with questioning fingers, he could have per-
suaded himself that the memories of the night
were memories of sleep, and that his life still
belonged to him.

But the certainty that he had doomed
himself evoked no least regret : he was troubled
only by the pain of separation, and the thought
of the seasons that would have to pass before
the illusion could be renewed for him. Ten
years I — and every day of those years would
seem how long I The mystery of the delay he
could not hope to solve ; the secret ways of the
dead are known to the gods alone.

Often and often, in his solitary walks,
Ito revisited the village at Kotobikiyama, vaguely
hoping to obtain another glimpse of the past.
But never again, by night or by day, was he
able to find the rustic gate in the shadowed
lane ; never again could he perceive the figure
162

of the little miycudzukai^ walking alone in the
sunset-glow.

The village people, whom he ques-
tioned carefully, thought him bewitched. No
person of rank, they said, had ever dwelt in the
settlement ; and there had never been, in the
neighborhood, any such garden as he described.
But there had once been a great Buddhist tem-
ple near the place of which he spoke ; and some
gravestones of the temple-cemetery were still to
be seen. Ito discovered the monuments in the
middle of a dense thicket. They were of an an-
cient Chinese form, and were covered with moss
and lichens. The characters that had been cut
upon them could no longer be deciphered.

Of his adventure Ito spoke to no one.
But friends and kindred soon perceived a great
change in his appearance and manner. Day by
day he seemed to become more pale and thin,
though physicians declared that he had no bod-
ily ailment ; he looked like a ghost, and moved
like a shadow. Thoughtful and solitary he had
always been, but now he appeared indifferent

163

to everything which had formerly given him
pleasure, — even to those literary studies by
means of which he might have hoped to win
distinction. To his mother — who thought that
marriage might quicken his former ambition,
and revive his interest in life — he said that he
had made a vow to marry no living woman.
And the months dragged by.

At last came the Year of the Boar,
and the season of autumn; but Ito could no
longer take the solitary walks that he loved.
He could not even rise from his bed. His life
was ebbing, though none could divine the cause ;
and he slept so deeply and so long that his sleep
was often mistaken for death.

Out of such a sleep he was startled,
one bright evening, by the voice of a child ;
and he saw at his bedside the little miya-dzukai
who had guided him, ten years before, to the
gate of the vanished garden. She saluted him,
and smiled, and said : " I am bidden to tell you
that you will be received to-night at Ohara, near
Kyoto, where the new home is, and that a kago
has been sent for you." Then she disappeared.
164

Ito knew that he was being summoned
away from the light of the sun ; but the message
so rejoiced him that he found strength to sit up
and call his mother. To her he then for the
first time related the story of his bridal, and he
showed her the ink-stone which had been given
him. He asked that it should be placed in his
coffin, — and then he died.

The ink-stone was buried with him.
But before the funeral ceremonies it was exam-
ined by experts, who said that it had been made
in the period of yd-an (i 169 a. d.), and that it
bore the seal-mark of an artist who had lived in
the time of the Emperor Takakura.

16S

STRANGER

THAN

FICTION

STRANGER

THAN

FICTION

It was a perfect West Indian day.
My friend the notary and I were crossing the
island by a wonderful road which wound up
through tropic forest to the clouds, and thence
looped down again, through gold-green slopes
of cane, and scenery amazing of violet and blue
and ghost-gray peaks, to the roaring coast of
the trade winds. All the morning we had been
ascending, — walldng after our carriage, most
of the time, for the sake of the brave little
mule ; — and the sea had been climbing behind
us till it looked like a monstrous wall of blue,
pansy-blue, under the ever heightening horizon.
The heat was like the heat of a vapor-bath, but
the air was good to breathe with its tropical
odor, — an odor made up of smells of strange

169

saps, queer spicy scents of mould, exhalations
of aromatic decay. Moreover, the views were
glimpses of Paradise ; and it was a joy to watch
the torrents roaring down their gorges under
shadows of tree-fern and bamboo.

My friend stopped the carriage before
a gateway set into a hedge full of flowers that
looked like pink-and-white butterflies. " I have
to make a call here," he said ; — " come in with
me." We dismounted, and he knocked on the
gate with the butt of his whip. Within, at the
end of a shady garden, I could see the porch of
a planter's house ; beyond were rows of cocoa
palms, and glimpses of yellowing cane. Pre-
sently a negro, wearing only a pair of canvas
trousers and a great straw hat, came hobbling
to open the gate, — followed by a multitude,
an astonishing multitude, of chippering chick-
ens. Under the shadow of that huge straw
hat I could not see the negro's face; but I
noticed that his limbs and body were strangely
shrunken, — looked as if withered to the bone.
A weirder creature I had never beheld ; and I
wondered at his following of chickens.
170

" Eh 1 " exclaimed the notary, " your
chickens are as lively as ever 1 ... I want to
see Madame Floran."

^^ Moin ki di^^ the goblin responded
huskily, in his patois ; and he limped on before
us, all the chickens hopping and cheeping at
his withered heels.

"That fellow," my friend observed,
"was bitten by difer-de-lance about eight or nine
years ago. He got cured, or at least half-cured,
in some extraordinary way ; but ever since then
he has been a skeleton. See how he limps I "

The skeleton passed out of sight be-
hind the house, and we waited a while at the
front porch. Then a m^tisse — turbaned in
wasp colors, and robed in iris colors, and won-
derful to behold — came to tell us that Madame
hoped we would rest ourselves in the garden,
as the house was very warm. Chairs and a little
table were then set for us in a shady place, and
the m^tisse brought out lemons, sugar-syrup, a
bottle of the clear plantation rimi that smells
like apple juice, and ice-cold water in a dobanne
of thick red clay. My friend prepared the re-

171

f reshments ; and then our hostess came to greet
us, and to sit with us, — a nice old lady with
hair like newly minted silver. I had never seen
a smile sweeter than that with which she bade
us welcome ; and I wondered whether she could
ever have been more charming in her Creole
girlhood than she now appeared, — with her
kindly wrinkles, and argent hair, and frank,
black, sparkling eyes. . . .

In the conversation that followed I
was not able to take part, as it related only to
some question of title. The notary soon ar-
ranged whatever there was to arrange ; and,
after some charmingly spoken words of fare-
well from the gentle lady, we took our depar-
ture. Again the mummified negro hobbled be-
fore us, to open the gate, — followed by all his
callow rabble of chickens. As we resumed our
places in the carriage we could still hear the
chippering of the creatures, pursuing after that
ancient scarecrow.

" Is it African sorcery ? " I queried.
..." How does he bewitch those chickens ? "
172

" Queer — is it not ? " the notary re-
sponded as we drove away. " That negro must
now be at least eighty years old ; and he may
live for twenty years more, — the wretch I "

The tone in which my friend uttered
this epithet — le miserable ! — somewhat sur-
prised me, as I knew him to be one of the kind-
liest men in the world, and singularly free from
prejudice. I suspected that a story was coming,
and I waited for it in silence.

" Listen,*' said the notary, after a
pause, during which we left the plantation well
behind us ; " that old sorcerer, as you call him,
was bom upon the estate, a slave. The estate
belonged to M. Floran, — the husband of the
lady whom we visited ; and she was a cousin,
and the marriage was a love-match. They had
been married about two years when the revolt
occurred (fortunately there were no children),
— the black revolt of eighteen hundred and
forty-eight. Several planters were murdered;
and M. Floran was one of the first to be killed.
And the old negro whom we saw to-day — the
old sorcerer, as you call him — left the plan-
^ ^ 173

tation, and joined the rising: do you under-
stand?"

"Yes," I said; "but he might have
done that through fear of the mob."

" Certainly : the other hands did the
same. But it was he that killed M. Floran, —
for no reason whatever, — cut him up with a
cutlass. M. Floran was riding home when the
attack was made, — about a mile below the
plantation. . . . Sober, that negro would not
have dared to face M. Floran: the scoundrel
was drunk, of course, — raving drunk. Most
of the blacks had been drinking tafia, with dead
wasps in it, to give themselves courage."

"But," I interrupted, "how does it
happen that the fellow is still on the Floran
plantation ? "

"Wait a moment! . . . When the
military got control of the mob, search was
made ever)nvhere for the murderer of M. Flo-
ran ; but he could not be foimd. He was lying
out in the cane, — in M. Floran's cane! — like a
field-rat, like a snake. One morning, while the
gendarmes were still looking for him, he rushed
174

into the house, and threw himself down in front
of Madame, weeping and screaming, * Ate- y ate-
yau-yate I — moin U tchoud y I main ti tchoui
y! — ate-yaie-yate !* Those were his very
words : — * I killed him ! I killed hun ! ' And
he begged for mercy. When he was asked why
he killed M. Floran, he cried out that it was the
devil — diabe-d — that had made him do it !
. . . Well, Madame forgave him I "

" But how could she ? " I queried.

" Oh, she had always been very reli-
gious," my friend responded, — " sincerely reli-
gious. She only said, * May God pardon me as
I now pardon you ! * She made her servants
hide the creature and feed him ; and they kept
him hidden until the excitement was over.
Then she sent him back to work ; and he has
been working for her ever since. Of course he
is now too old to be of any use in the field ; —
he only takes care of the chickens."

"But how," I persisted, "could the
relatives allow Madame to forgive him ? "

" Well, Madame insisted that he was
not mentally responsible, — that he was only a

175

poor fool who had killed without knowing what
he was doing ; and she argued that if she could
forgive him, others could more easily do the
same. There was a consultation ; and the rela-
tives decided so to arrange matters that Ma-
dame could have her own way."

"But why?"

"Because they knew that she found
a sort of religious consolation — a kind of reli-
gious comfort — in forgiving the wretch. She
imagined that it was her duty as a Christian,
not only to forgive him, but to take care of
him. We thought that she was mistaken, —
but we could understand. . . . Well, there is
an example of what religion can do." . . .

The suprise of a new fact, or the
sudden perception of something never before
imagined, may cause an involimtary smile. Un-
consciously I smiled, while my friend was yet
speaking; and the good notary's brow dark-
ened.

" Ah, you laugh I " he exckdmed, —
" you laugh ! That is wrong ! — that is a mis-
176

take ! . . . But you do not believe : you do not
know what it is, — the true religion, — the real
Christianity ! "

Earnestly I made answer : —

" Pardon me I I do believe every word
of what you have told me. If I laughed unthink-
ingly, it was only because I could not help won-
dering" . . .

" At what ? '* he questioned gravely.

"At the marvelous instinct of that
negro."

"Ah, yes! " he returned approvingly.
" Yes, the cunning of the animal it was, — the
instinct of the brute I . . . She was the only
person in the world who could have saved him."

"And he knew it," I ventured to
add.

" No — no — no ! " my friend em-
phatically dissented, — " he never could have
known it I He only felt it I . . . Find me an
instinct like that, and I will show you a brain
incapable of any knowledge, any thinking, any
understanding : not the mind of a man, but the
brain of a beast ! "

177

A

LETTER

FROM

JAPAN

A

LETTER
FROM
JAPAN

Tokyo, August i, 1904.
Here, in this quiet suburb, where the
green peace is broken only by the voices of
children at play and the shrilling of cicadae, it is
difficult to imagine that, a few hundred miles
away, there is being carried on one of the most
tremendous wars of modern times, between
armies aggregating more than half a million of
men, or that, on the intervening sea, a hundred
ships of war have been battling. This contest,
between the mightiest of Western powers and
a people that began to study Western science
only within the recollection of many persons
still in vigorous life, is, on one side at least, a
struggle for national existence. It was inevita-

181

ble, this struggle, — might perhaps have been
delayed, but certainly not averted. Japan has
boldly challenged an empire capable of threaten-
ing simultaneously the civilizations of the East
and the West, — a mediaeval power that, unless
vigorously checked, seems destined to absorb
Scandinavia and to dominate China. For all
industrial civilization the contest is one of vast
moment ; — for Japan it is probably the supreme
crisis in her national life. As to what her fleets
and her armies have been doing, the world is
fully informed ; but as to what her people are
doing at home, little has been written.

To inexperienced observation they
would appear to be doing nothing unusual ; and
this strange calm is worthy of record. At the
beginning of hostilities an Imperial mandate was
issued, bidding all non-combatants to pursue
their avocations as usual, and to trouble them-
selves as little as possible about exterior events ;
— and this command has been obeyed to the
letter. It would be natural to suppose that all
the sacrifices, tragedies, and uncertainties of the
contest had thrown their gloom over the life of
182

the capital in especial ; but there is really no-
thing whatever to indicate a condition of anxiety
or depression. On the contrary, one is aston-
ished by the joyous tone of public confidence,
and the admirably restrained pride of the nation
in its victories. Western tides have strewn the
coast with Japanese corpses ; regiments have
been blown out of existence in the storming of
positions defended by wire-entanglements ; bat-
tleships have been lost : yet at no moment has
there been the least public excitement. The
people are following their daily occupations just
as they did before the war ; the cheery aspect of
things is just the same ; the theatres and flower
displays are not less well patronized. The life
of Toky5 has been, to outward seeming, hardly
more aflfected by the events of the war than the
Uf e of nature beyond it, where the flowers are
blooming and the butterflies hovering as in other
summers. Except after the news of some great
victory, — celebrated with fireworks and lantern
processions, — there are no signs of public emo-
tion ; and but for the frequent distribution of
newspaper extras, by rimners ringing bells, you

183

could almost persuade yourself that the whole
story of the war is an evil dream.

Yet there has been, of necessity, a
vast amount of suffering — viewless and voice-
less suffering — repressed by that sense of social
and patriotic duty which is Japanese religion.
As a seventeen-syllable poem of the hour tells
us, the news of every victory must bring pain
as well as joy: —

Gogwai no
Tabi teki mikata
Gok6 ga f ufe.

[EacA time that an extra is circulated
the widows of foes and friends have increcued in
multitude,]

The great quiet and the smiling tear-
lessness testify to the more than Spartan dis-
cipline of the race. Anciently the people were
trained, not only to conceal their emotions, but
to speak in a cheerful voice and to show a plea-
sant face under any stress of moral suffering ;
and they are obedient to that teaching to-day.
It would still be thought a shame to betray per-
184

sonal sorrow for the loss of those who die for
Emperor and fatherland. The public seem to
view the events of the war as they would watch
the scenes of a popular play. They are interested
without being excited ; and their extraordinary
self-control is particularly shown in various
manifestations of the " Play-impulse." Every-
where the theatres are producing war dramas
(based upon actual fact); the newspapers and
magazines are publishing war stories and nov-
els ; the cinematograph exhibits the monstrous
methods of modem warfare; and numberless
industries are turning out objects of art or util-
ity designed to commemorate the Japanese tri-
imiphs.

But the present psychological condi-
tion, the cheerful and even playful tone of
public feeling, can be indicated less by any
general statement than by the mention of or-
dinary facts, — every-day matters recorded in
the writer's diary.

Never before were the photographers
so busy ; it is said that they have not been able

185

to fulfill half of the demands made upon them.
The himdreds of thousands of men sent to the
war wished to leave photographs with their
families, and also to take with them portraits of
parents, children, and other beloved persons.
The nation was being photographed during the
past six months.

A fact of sociological interest is that
photography has added something new to the
poetry of the domestic faith. From the time of
its first introduction, photography became popu-
lar in Japan ; and none of those superstitions,
which inspire fear of the camera among less civ-
ilized races, offered any obstacle to the rapid
development of a new industry. It is true that
there exists some queer-folk beliefs about pho-
tographs, — ideas of mysterious relation be-
tween the sun-picture and the person imaged.
For example : if, in the photograph of a group,
one figure appear indistinct or blurred, that is
thought to be an omen of sickness or death.
But this superstition has its industrial value : it
has compelled photographers to be careful about
their work, — especially in these days of war,
i86

when everybody wants to have a good clear
portrait, because the portrait might be needed
for another purpose than preservation in an
album.

During the last twenty years there has
gradually come into existence the custom of
placing the photograph of a dead parent, brother,
husband, or child, beside the mortuary tablet
kept in the Buddhist household shrine. For
this reason, also, the departing soldier wishes
to leave at home a good likeness of himself.

The rites of domestic affection, in old
samurai families, are not confined to the cult
of the dead. On certain occasions, the picture
of the absent parent, husband, brother, or be-
trothed, is placed in the alcove of the guest-
room, and a feast laid out before it. The pho-
tograph, in such cases, is fixed upon a little
stand (dai) ; and the feast is served as if the
person were present. This pretty custom of
preparing a meal for the absent is probably
more ancient than any art of portraiture ; but
the modem photograph adds to the human
poetry of the rite. In feudal time it was the

187

rule to set the repast facing the direction in
which the absent person had gone — north,
south, east, or west. After a brief interval the
covers of the vessels containing the cooked food
were lifted and examined. If the lacquered
inner surface was thickly beaded with vapor, all
was well ; but if the surface was dry, that was
an omen of death, a sign that the disembodied
spirit had returned to absorb the essence of the
offerings.

As might have been expected, in a
country where the " pkiy-impulse " is stronger,
perhaps, than in any other part of the world,
the Zeitgeist found manifestation in the flower
displays of the year. I visited those in my
neighborhood, which is the Quarter of the Gar-
deners. This quarter is famous for its azaleas
{tsutstgi) ; and every spring the azalea gardens
attract thousands of visitors, — not only by the
wonderful exhibition then made of shrubs
which look like solid masses of blossom (rang-
ing up from snowy white, through all shades of
pink, to a flamboyant purple) but also by dis-
i88

plays of effigies : groups of figures ingeniously
formed with living leaves and flowers. These
figures, life-size, usually represent famous inci-
dents of history or drama. In many cases —
though not in all — the bodies and the costumes
are composed of foliage and flowers trained to
grow about a framework ; while the faces, feet,
and hands are represented by some kind of
flesh-colored composition.

This year, however, a majority of the
displays represented scenes of the war, — such
as an engagement between Japanese infantry
and mounted Cossacks, a night attack by tor-
pedo boats, the sinking of a battleship. In the
last-mentioned display, Russian bluejackets ap-
peared, swimming for their lives in a rough sea ;
— the pasteboard waves and the swimming
figures being made to rise and fall by the pull-
ing of a string ; while the crackling of quick-
firing guns was imitated by a mechanism con-
' trived with sheets of zinc.

It is said that Admiral Togo sent to
Tokyo for some flowering-trees in pots — inas-
much as his responsibilities allowed him no

189

chance of seeing the cherry-flowers and the
plum-blossoms in their season, — and that the
gardeners responded even too generously.

Almost immediately after the begin-
ning of hostilities, thousands of " war pictures "
— mostly cheap lithographs — were published.
The drawing and coloring were better than
those of the prints issued at the time of the war
with China ; but the details were to a great ex-
tent imaginary, — altogether imaginary as to the
appearance of Russian troops. Pictures of the
engagements with the Russian fleet were efifec-
tive, despite some lurid exaggeration. The most
startling things were pictures of Russian defeats
in Korea, published before a single military
engagement had taken place ; — the artist had
"flushed to anticipate the scene." In these
prints the Russians were depicted as fleeing in
utter rout, leaving their officers — very fine-
looking officers — dead upon the field; while
the Japanese infantry, with dreadfully deter-
mined faces, were coming up at a double. The
propriety and the wisdom of thus pictorially pre-
190

dieting victory, and easy victory to boot, may
be questioned. But I am told that the custom
of so doing is an old one ; and it is thought that
to realize the common hope thus imaginatively
is lucky. At all events, there is no attempt at
deception in these pictorial undertakings ; —
they help to keep up the public courage, and
they ought to be pleasing to the gods.

Some of the earlier pictures have now
been realized in grim fact. The victories in
China had been similarly foreshadowed: they
amply justified the faith of the artist. . . .
To-day the war pictures continue to multiply ;
but they have changed character. The inexora-
ble truth of the photograph, and the sketches
of the war correspondent, now bring all the
vividness and violence of fact to help the artist's
imagination. There was something naive and
theatrical in the drawings of anticipation*; but
the pictures of the hour represent the most
tragic reality, — always becoming more terrible.
At this writing, Japan has yet lost no single
battle ; but not a few of her victories have been
dearly won.

191

To enumerate even a tenth of the va-
rious articles ornamented with designs inspired
by the war — articles such as combs, clasps,
fans, brooches, card-cases, purses — would re-
quire a volume. Even cakes and confectionery
are stamped with naval or military designs ;
and the glass or paper windows of shops — not
to mention the signboards — have pictures of
Japanese victories painted upon them. At night
the shop lanterns proclaim the pride of the
nation in its fleets and armies; and a whole
chapter might easily be written about the new
designs in transparencies and toy lanterns. A
new revolving lantern — turned by the air-cur-
rent which its own flame creates — has become
very popular. It represents a charge of Jai>-
anese infantry upon Russian defenses; and
holes pierced in the colored paper, so as to
produce a continuous vivid flashing while the
transparency revolves, suggest the exploding
of shells and the volleying of machine guns.

Some displays of the art-impulse, as
inspired by the war, have been made in direc-
tions entirely unfamiliar to Western experience,
192

— in the manufacture, for example, of women's
hair ornaments and dress materials. Dress goods
decorated with war pictures have actually be-
come a fashion, — especially crfipe silks for
underwear, and figured silk linings for cloaks
and sleeves. More remarkable than these are
the new hairpins ; — by hairpins I mean those
long double-pronged ornaments of flexible metal
which are called kanzashi^ and are more or less
ornamented according to the age of the wearer.
(The kanzashi made for young girls are highly
decorative ; those worn by older folk are plain,
or adorned only with a ball of coral or pol-
ished stone.) The new hairpins might be called
commemorative : one, of which the decoration
represents a British and a Japanese flag inter-
crossed, celebrates the Anglo- Japanese alliance ;
another represents an officer's cap and sword ;
and the best of all is surmounted by a tiny
metal model of a battleship. The battleship-pin
is not merely fantastic : it is actually pretty !

As might have been expected, mili-
tary and naval subjects occupy a large place
among the year's designs for toweling. The

193

towel designs celebrating naval victories have
been particularly successful : they are mostly in
white, on a blue ground ; or in black, on a white
ground. One of the best — blue and white —
represented only a flock of gulls wheeling about
the masthead of a sunken iron-clad, and, far
away, the silhouettes of Japanese battleships
passing to the horizon. . . . What especially
struck me in this, and in several other designs,
was the original manner in which the Japanese
artist had seized upon the traits of the modem
battleship, — the powerful and sinister lines of
its shape, — just as he would have caught for
us the typical character of a beetle or a lobster.
The lines have been just enough exaggerated
to convey, at one glance, the real impression
made by the aspect of these iron monsters, —
a vague impression of bulk and force and men-
ace, very difficult to express by ordinary methods
of drawing.

Besides towels decorated with artistic
sketches of this sort, there have been placed
upon the market many kinds of towels bearing
comic war pictures, — caricatures or cartoons
194

which are amusmg without being malignant. It
will be remembered that at the time of the first
attack made upon the Port Arthur squadron,
several of the Russian officers were in the Dalny
theatre, — never dreaming that the Japanese
would dare to strike the first blow. This inci-
dent has been made the subject of a towel de-
sign. At one end of the towel is a comic study
of the faces of the Russians, delightedly watch-
ing the gyrations of a ballet dancer. At the
other end is a study of the faces of the same
commanders when they find, on returning to
the port, only the masts of their battleships
above water. Another towel shows a proces-
sion of fish in front of a surgeon's office —
waiting their turns to be relieved of sundry bay-
onets, swords, revolvers, and rifles, which have
stuck in their throats. A third towel picture
represents a Russian diver examining, with a
prodigious magnifying-glass, the holes made
by torpedoes in the hull of a sunken cruiser.
Comic verses or legends, in cursive text, are
printed beside these pictures.

The great house of Mitsui, which

195

placed the best of these designs on the market,
also produced some beautiful souvenirs of the
war, in the shape of fukusa. {Afukusa is an
ornamental silk covering, or wrapper, put over
presents sent to friends on certain occasions,
and returned after the present has been re-
ceived.) These are made of the heaviest and
costliest silk, and inclosed within appropriately
decorated covers. Upon on^ fukusa is a colored
picture of the cruisers Nisshin and Klasuga,
under full steam ; and upon another has been
printed, in beautiful Chinese characters, the
full text of the Imperial Declaration of war.

But the strangest things that I have
seen in this line of production were silk dresses
for baby girls, — figured stuffs which, when
looked at from a little distance, appeared incom-
parably pretty, owing to the masterly juxtapo-
sition of tints and colors. On closer inspection
the charming design proved to be composed en-
tirely of war pictures, — or, rather, fragments of
pictures, blended into one astonishing combina-
tion : naval battles ; burning warships ; subma-
rine mines exploding ; torpedo boats attacking ;
196

charges of Cossacks repulsed by Japanese infan-
try ; artillery rushing into position ; storming of
forts ; long lines of soldiery advancing through
mist. Here were colors of blood and fire, tints of
morning haze and evening glow, noon-blue and
starred night-purple, sea-gray and field-green, —
most wonderful thing ! . . . I suppose that the
child of a military or naval officer might, with-
out impropriety, be clad in such a robe. But
then — the unspeakable pity of things I

The war toys are innumerable : I can
attempt to mention only a few of the more
remarkable kinds.

Japanese children play many sorts of
card games, some of which are old, others quite
new. There are poetical card games, for exam-
ple, played with a pack of which each card bears
the text of a poem, or part of a poem ; and the
player should be able to remember the name
of the author of any quotation in the set. Then
there are geographical card games, in which
each of the cards used bears the name, and per-
haps a little picture, of some famous site, town,

197

or temple ; and the player should be able to re-
member the district and province in which the
mentioned place is situated. The latest novelty
in this line is a pack of cards with pictures upon
them of the Russian war vessels ; and the player
should be able to state what has become of
every vessel named, — whether sunk, disabled,
or confined in Port Arthur.

There is another card game in which
the battleships, cruisers, and torpedo craft of
both Japan and Russia are represented. The
winner in this game destroys his " captures " by
tearing the cards taken. But the shops keep
packages of each class of warship cards in stock ;
and when all the destroyers or cruisers of one
country have been put hors de combat ^ the de-
feated party can purchase new vessels abroad.
One torpedo boat costs about one fcirthing ; but
five torpedo boats can be bought for a penny.

The toy-shops are crammed with mod-
els of battleships, — in wood, clay, porcelain,
lead, and tin, — of many sizes and prices. Some
of the larger ones, moved by clockwork, are
named after Japanese battleships : Shikishima,
198

Fuji, Mikasa. One mechanical toy represents
the sinking of a Russian vessel by a Japanese
torpedo boat. Among cheaper things of this
class is a box of colored sand, for the represen-
tation of naval engagements. Children arrange
the sand so as to resemble waves ; and with each
box of sand are sold two fleets of tiny leaden
vessels. The Japanese ships are white, and the
Russian black ; and explosions of torpedoes are
to be figured by small cuttings of vermilion
paper, planted in the sand.

The children of the poorest classes
make their own war toys ; and I have been
wondering whether those ancient feudal laws
(translated by Professor Wigmore), which fixed
the cost and quality of toys to be given to chil-
dren, did not help to develop that ingenuity
which the little folk display. Recently I saw a
group of children in our neighborhood playing
at the siege of Port Arthur, with fleets impro-
vised out of scraps of wood and some rusty nails.
A tub of water represented Port Arthur. Bat-
tleships were figured by bits of plank, into

199

which chop-sticks had been fixed to represent
masts, and rolls of paper to represent funnels.
Little flags, appropriately colored, were fastened
to the masts with rice paste. Torpedo boats
were imaged by splinters, into each of which a
short thick nail had been planted to indicate a
smokestack. Stationary submarine mines were
represented by small squares of wood, each hav-
ing one long nail driven into it; and these little
things, when dropped into water with the nail-
head downwards, would keep up a curious bob-
bing motion for a long time. Other squares
of wood, having clusters of short nails driven
into them, represented floating mines: and the
mimic battleships were made to drag for these,
with lines of thread. The pictures in the Japan-
ese papers had doubtless helped the children to
imagine the events of the war with tolerable
accuracy.

Naval caps for children have become,
of course, more in vogue than ever before.
Some of the caps bear, in Chinese characters of
burnished metal, the name of a battleship, or
the words Nippon Teikoku (Empire of Japan),

2,00

— disposed like the characters upon the cap
of a blue-jacket. On some caps, however, the
ship's name appears in English letters, — Ya-
shima, Fuji, etc.

The play-impulse, I had almost for-
gotten to say, is shared by the soldiers them-
selves, — though most of those called to the
front do not expect to return in the body.
They ask only to be remembered at the Spirit-
Invoking Shrine (Shokanshd)^ where the shades
of all who die for Emperor and country are
believed to gather. The men of the regiments
temporarily quartered in our suburb, on their
way to the war, found time to play at mimic
war with the small folk of the neighborhood.
(At all times Japanese soldiers are very kind
to children ; and the children here march with
them, join in their military songs, and cor-
rectly salute their officers, feeling sure that the
gravest officer will return the salute of a little
child.) When the last regiment went away, the
men distributed toys among the children assem-
bled at the station to give them a parting cheer,

20 1

— hairpins, with military symbols for ornament,
to the girls ; wooden infantry and tin cavalry
to the boys. The oddest present was a small
clay model of a Russian soldier's head, presented
with the jocose promise : " If we come back,
we shall bring you some real ones." In the top
of the head there is a small wire loop, to which
a rubber string can be attached. At the time
of the war with China, little clay models of
Chinese heads, with very long queues, were
favorite toys.

The war has also suggested a variety
of new designs for that charming object, the
toko-niwa. Few of my readers know what a
toko-niway or "alcove-garden," is. It is a min-
iature garden — perhaps less than two feet
square — contrived within an ornamental shal-
low basin of porcelain or other material, and
placed in the alcove of a guest-room by way of
decoration. You may see there a tiny pond ; a
streamlet crossed by humped bridges of Chinese
pattern ; dwarf trees forming a grove, and
shading the model of a Shinto temple ; imita-
202

tions in baked clay of stone lanterns, — perhaps
even the appearance of a hamlet of thatched
cottages. If the toko-niwa be not too small, you
may see real fish swimming in the pond, or a
pet tortoise crawling among the rockwork.
Sometimes the miniature garden represents
H5rai, and the palace of the Dragon-King.

Two new varieties have come into
fashion. One is a model of Port Arthur, show-
ing the harbor and the forts ; and with the
materials for the display there is sold a little
map, showing how to place certain tiny battle-
ships, representing the imprisoned and the in-
vesting fleets. The other toko-niwa represents
a Korean or Chinese landscape, with hill ranges
and rivers and woods; and the appearance of
a battle is created by masses of toy soldiers —
cavalry, infantry, and artillery — in all positions
of attack and defense. Minute forts of baked
clay, bristling with cannon about the size of
small pins, occupy elevated positions. When
properly arranged the effect is panoramic.
The soldiers in the foreground are about an
inch long ; those a little farther away about

203

half as long ; and those upon the hills are no
larger than flies.

But the most remarkable novelty of
this sort yet produced is a kind of toko-niwa
recently on display at a famous shop in Ginza.
A label bearing the inscription, Kautit no Ikken
(View of the Ocean-Bed) sufficiently explained
the design. The sutbon^ or " water-tray," con-
taining the display was half filled with rocks
and sand so as to resemble a sea-bottom ; and
little fishes appeared swarming in the fore-
ground. A little farther back, upon an ele-
vation, stood Otohim6, the Dragon-King's
daughter, surrounded by her maiden attendants,
and gazing, with just the shadow of a smile, at
two men in naval uniform who were shaking
hands, — dead heroes of the war: Admiral
Makaroff and Commander Hiros6! . . . These
had esteemed each other in life ; and it was a
happy thought thus to represent their friendly
meeting in the world of Spirits.

Though his name is perhaps unfamiliar
to English readers. Commander Takeo Hiros6
204

has become, deservedly, one of Japan's national
heroes. On the 27th of March, during the
second attempt made to block the entrance to
Port Arthur, he was killed while endeavoring
to help a comrade, — a comrade who had
formerly saved him from death. For five years
Hiros6 had been a naval attach^ at St. Peters-
burg, and had made many friends in Russian
naval and military circles. From boyhood his
life had been devoted to study and duty ; and
it was commonly said of him that he had
no particle of selfishness in his nature. Unlike
most of his brother officers, he remained un-
married, — holding that no man who might be
called on at any moment to lay down his life
for his country had a moral right to marry.
The only amusements in which he was ever
known to indulge were physical exercises ; and
he was acknowledged one of the best jujutsu
(wrestlers) in the empire. The heroism of his
death, at the age of thirty-six, had much less
to do with the honors paid to his memory than
the self-denying heroism of his life.

Now his picture is in thousands of

205

homes, and his name is celebrated in every vil-
lage. It is celebrated also by the manufacture
of various souvenirs, which are sold by myriads.
For example, there is a new fashion in sleeve-
buttons, called Kinetirbotany or " Commemora-
tion-buttons." Each button bears a miniature
portrait of the commander, with the inscription,
Shichusho hokoku^ " Even in seven successive
lives — for love of country." It is recorded
that Hiros6 often cited, to friends who criticised
his ascetic devotion to duty, the famous utter-
ance of Kusunoki Masashig6, who declared, ere
laying down his life for the Emperor Go-Daigo,
that he desired to die for his sovereign in seven
successive existences.

But the highest honor paid to the
memory of Hiros6 is of a sort now possible
only in the East, though once possible also in
the West, when the Greek or Roman patriot-
hero might be raised, by the common love of
his people, to the place of the Immortals. . . .
Wine-cups of porcelain have been made, deco-
rated with his portrait ; and beneath the portrait
appears, in ideographs of gold, the inscription,
206

Gunshin Hirosi Chusa, The character " gun **
signifies war ; the character " shin^' a god, —
either in the sense of divus or deus^ according
to circumstances ; and the Chinese text, read
in the Japanese way, is Ikusa no Kami, Whether
that stern and valiant spirit is really invoked
by the millions who believe that no brave soul
is doomed to extinction, no well-spent life laid
down in vain, no heroism cast away, I do not
know. But, in any event, human affection and
gratitude can go no farther than this ; and it
must be confessed that Old Japan is still able
to confer honors worth dying for.

Boys and girls in all the children's
schools are now singing the Song of Hiros6
Chusa, which is a marching song. The words
and the music are published in a little booklet,
with a portrait of the late commander upon the
cover. Ever3^here, and at all hours of the day,
one hears this song being sung : —

He whose every word and deed gave
to men an example of what the war-folk of the

207

Empire of Nippon should be^ — Commander
Hirosi : is he really dead?

Though the body die^ the spirit dies
not. He who wished to be reborn seven times
into this worlds for the sake of serving his coun-
l^yfor the sake of requiting the Imperial favor^
— Commander Hirosi : has he really died ?

" Since I am a son of the Country of
the Gods^ the fire of the evil-hearted Russians
cannot touch me T' — The sturdy Takeo who
spoke thus: can he really be dead? . . .

Nay I that glorious war-death meant
undying fame ; — beyond a thousand years the
valiant heart shall live ; — as to a god of war
shall reverence be paid to him, , , ,

Observing th.e playful confidence of
this wonderful people in their struggle for
existence against the mightiest power of the
West, — their perfect trust in the wisdom of
their leaders and the valor of their armies, —
the good humor of their irony when mocking
the enemy's blunders, — their strange capacity
to find, in the world-stirring events of the hour,
208

the same amusement that they would find in
watching a melodrama, — one is tempted to
ask : " What would be the moral consequence
of a national defeat ? "... It would depend, I
think, upon circumstances. Were Kuropatkin
able to fulfill his rash threat of invading Japan,
the nation would probably rise as one man.
But otherwise the knowledge of any great disas-
ter would be bravely borne. From time unknown
Japan has been a land of cataclysms, — earth-
quakes that ruin cities in the space of a mo-
ment ; tidal waves, two hundred miles long,
sweeping whole coast populations out of exist-
ence ; floods submerging hundreds of leagues
of well-tilled fields ; eruptions burying provinces.
Calamities like this have disciplined the race in
resignation and in patience ; and it has been
well trained also to bear with courage all the
misfortunes of war. Even by the foreign peo-
ples that have been most closely in contact with
her, the capacities of Japan remained unguessed.
Perhaps her power to resist aggression is far
surpassed by her power to endure.

209

RUctratyped and prinUd by H. O. H<mght<m &» Co.
Cambridge^ MdsM., U.S.A.

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The romance of the Mflky Way and ok
To*^ Uhvarv Arlo9U0

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