Japanese Girls and Women Part 4

But I have spoken so far only of those happy women whose sons grow to maturity, and who manage to evade the dangerous reefs of divorce upon which so many lives are shipwrecked. What becomes of the hundreds who have no children to rise up and call them blessed, but who have in old age to live as dependents upon their brothers or nephews? Even these, who in this country often lead hard and unrewarded lives of toil among their happier relatives, find in old age a pleasanter lot than that of youth. Many such old ladies I have met, whose short hair or shaven heads proclaim to all who see them that the sorrow of widowhood has taken from them the joy that falls to other women, but whose cheerful, wrinkled faces and happy, childlike ways have given one a feeling of pleasure that the sorrow is past, and peace and rest have come to their declining years. Fulfilling what little household tasks they can, respected and self-respecting members of the household, the _O Ba San_, or Aunty, is not far removed in the honor and affection of the children from the _O Ba San_, or Grandma, but both alike find a peaceful shelter in the homes of those nearest and dearest to them.

One of the happiest old ladies I have ever seen was one who had had a rough and stormy life. The mother of many children, most of whom had died in infancy, she was at last left childless and a widow. In her children's death the last tie that bound her to her husband's family was broken, and, rather than be a burden to them, she made her home for many years with her own younger brother, taking up again the many cares and duties of a mother's life in sharing with the mother the bringing up of a large family of children. One by one, from the oldest to the youngest, each has learned to love the old aunty, to be lulled asleep on her back, and to go to her in trouble when mother's hands were too full of work.

Many the caress received, the drives and walks enjoyed in her company, the toys and candies that came out unexpectedly from the depths of mysterious drawers, to comfort many an hour of childish grief. That was years ago, and the old aunty's hard times are nearly over. Hale and hearty at three-score years and ten, she has seen these children grow up one by one, until now some have gone to new homes of their own. Her bent form and wrinkled face are ever welcome to her children,--hers by the right of years of patient care and toil for them. They now, in their turn, enjoy giving her pleasure, and return to her all the love she has lavished upon them. It is a joy to see her childlike pride and confidence in them all, and to know that they have filled the place left vacant by the dead with whom had died all her hopes of earthly happiness.

The old women of j.a.pan,--how their withered faces, bent frames, and shrunken, yellow hands abide in one's memory! One seldom sees among them what we would call beauty, for the almost universal shrinking with age that takes place among the j.a.panese covers the face with mult.i.tudinous wrinkles, and produces the effect of a withered russet apple; for the skin, which in youth is usually brightened by red cheeks and glossy black hair, in old age, when color leaves cheek and hair, has a curiously yellow and parchment-like look. But with all their wrinkles and ugliness, there is a peculiar charm about the old women of j.a.pan.

In Tokyo, when the gra.s.s grows long upon your lawn, and you send to the gardener to come and cut it, no boy with patent lawn-mower, nor stalwart countryman with scythe and sickle, answers your summons, but some morning you awake to find your lawn covered with old women. The much-washed cotton garments are faded to a light blue, the exact match of the light blue cotton towels in which their heads are swathed, and on hands and knees, each armed with an enormous pair of shears, the old ladies clip and chatter cheerfully all day long, until the lawn is as smooth as velvet under their careful cutting. An occasional rest under a tree, for pipes and tea, is the time for much cheerful talk and gossip; but the work, though done slowly and with due attention to the comfort of the worker, is well done, and certainly accomplished as rapidly as any one could expect of laborers who earn only from eight to twelve cents a day. Another employment for this same cla.s.s of laborers is the picking of moss and gra.s.s from the crevices of the great walls that inclose the moats and embankments of the capital. Mounted on little ladders, they pick and sc.r.a.pe with knives until the wall is clear and fresh, with no insidious growth to push the great uncemented stones out of their places.

In contrast with these humble but cheerful toilers may be mentioned another cla.s.s of women, often met with in the great cities. Dressed in rags and with covered heads and faces, they wander about the streets playing the _samisen_ outside the latticed windows, and singing with cracked voices some wailing melody. As they go from house to house, gaining a miserable pittance by their weird music, they seem the embodiment of all that is hopeless and broken-hearted. What they are or whence they come, I know not, but they always remind me of the gra.s.shopper in the fable, who danced and sang through the brief summer, to come, wailing and wretched, seeking aid from her thriftier neighbor when at last the winter closed in upon her.

As one rides about the streets, one often sees a little, white-haired old woman trotting about with a yoke over her shoulders from which are suspended two swinging baskets, filled with fresh vegetables. The fact that her hair is still growing to its natural length shows that she is still a wife and not a widow; her worn and patched blue cotton clothes, bleached light from much washing, show that extreme poverty is her lot in life; and as she hobbles along with the gait peculiar to those who carry a yoke, my thoughts are busy with her home, which, though poor and small, is doubtless clean and comfortable, but my eye follows her through the city's crowd, where laborer, soldier, student, and high official jostle each other by the way. Suddenly I see her pause before the gateway of a temple. She sets her burden down, and there in the midst of the bustling throng, with bowed head, folded hands, and moving lips, she invokes her G.o.d, s.n.a.t.c.hing this moment from her busy life to seek a blessing for herself and her dear ones. The throng moves busily on, making a little eddy around the burden she has laid down, but paying no heed to the devout little figure standing there; then in a moment the prayer is finished; she stoops, picks up her yoke, balances it on her shoulders, and moves on with the crowd, to do her share while her strength lasts, and to be cared for tenderly, I doubt not, by children and children's children when her work is done.

Another picture comes to me, too, a picture of one whose memory is an inspiring thought to the many who have the honor to call her "mother." A stately old lady, left a widow many years ago, before the recent changes had wrought havoc preparatory to further progress, she seemed always to me the model of a mother of the old school. Herself a woman of thorough cla.s.sical education, her example and teaching were to both sons and daughters a constant inspiration; and in her old age she found herself the honored head of a family well known in the arts of war and peace, a goodly company of sons and daughters, every one of them heirs of her spirit and of her intellect. Though conservative herself, and always clinging to the old customs, she put no block in the path of her children's progress, and her fine character, heroic spirit, and stanch loyalty to what she believed were worth more to her children than anything else could have been. Tried by war, by siege, by banishment, by danger and sufferings of all kinds, to her was given at last an old age of prosperity among children of whom she might well be proud. Keeping her physical vigor to the end, and dying at last, after an illness of only two days, her spirit pa.s.sed out into the great unknown, ready to meet its dangers as bravely as she had met those of earth, or to enjoy its rest as sweetly and appreciatively as she had enjoyed that of her old age in the house of her oldest son.

My acquaintance with her was limited by our lack of common language, but was a most admiring and appreciative one on my side; and I esteem it one of the chief honors of my stay in j.a.pan, that upon my last meeting with her, two weeks before her death, she gave me her wrinkled but still beautiful and delicately shaped hand at parting,--a deference to foreign customs that she only paid upon special occasions.

Two weeks later, amid such rain as j.a.panese skies know all too well how to let fall, I attended her funeral at the cemetery of Aoyama. The cemetery chapel was crowded, but a place was reserved for me, on account of special ties that bound me to the family, just behind the long line of white-robed mourners. In the Buddhist faith she had lived, and by the Buddhist ceremonial she was buried,--the chanted ritual, the gorgeously robed priests, and the heavy smell of incense in the air reminding one of a Roman Catholic ceremony. The white wooden coffin was placed upon a bier at the entrance to the chapel, and when the priests had done their work, and the ecclesiastical ceremony was over, the relatives arose, one by one, walked over to the coffin, bowed low before it, and placed a grain of incense upon the little censer that stood on a table before the bier, then, bowing again, retired to their places. Slowly and solemnly, from the tall soldier son, his hair already streaked with gray, to the two-year-old grandchild, all paid this last token of respect to a n.o.ble spirit; and after the relatives the guests, each in the order of rank or nearness to the deceased, stepped forward and performed the same ceremony before leaving the room. What the meaning of the rite was, I did not know, whether a worship of strange G.o.ds or no; but to me, as I performed the act, it only signified the honor in which I held the memory of a heroic woman who had done well her part in the world according to the light that G.o.d had given her.

j.a.panese art loves to picture the old woman with her kindly, wrinkled face, leaving out no wrinkle of them all, but giving with equal truthfulness the charm of expression that one finds in them. Long life is desired by all as pa.s.sionately as by ancient Hebrew poet and psalmist, and with good reason, for only by long life can a woman attain the greatest honor and happiness. We often exclaim in impatience at the thought of the weakness and dependence of old age, and pray that we may die in the fullness of our powers, before the decay of advancing years has made us a burden upon our friends. But in j.a.pan, dependence is the lot of woman, and the dependence of old age is that which is most respected and considered. An aged parent is never a burden, is treated by all with the greatest love and tenderness; and if times are hard, and food and other comforts are scarce, the children, as a matter of course, deprive themselves and their children to give ungrudgingly to their old father and mother. Faults there are many in the j.a.panese social system, but ingrat.i.tude to parents, or disrespect to the aged, must not be named among them; and Young America may learn a salutary lesson by the study of the place that old people occupy in the home.

It is not only for the women of j.a.pan, but for the men as well, that old age is a time of peace and happiness. When a man reaches the age of fifty or thereabouts, often while apparently in the height of his vigor, he gives up his work or business and retires, leaving all the property and income to the care of his eldest son, upon whom he becomes entirely dependent for his support.[23] This support is never begrudged him, for the care of parents by their children is as much a matter of course in j.a.pan as the care of children by those who give them birth. A man thus rarely makes provision for the future, and looks with scorn on foreign customs which seem to betoken a fear lest, in old age, ungrateful children may neglect their parents and cast them aside. The feeling, so strong in America, that dependence is of itself irksome and a thing to be dreaded, is altogether strange to the j.a.panese mind. The married son does not care to take his wife to a new and independent home of his own, and to support her and her children by his own labor or on his own income, but he takes her to his father's house, and thinks it no shame that his family live upon his parents. But in return, when the parents wish to retire from active life, the son takes upon himself ungrudgingly the burden of their support, and the bread of dependence is never bitter to the parents' lips, for it is given freely. To the time-honored European belief, that a young man must be independent and enterprising in early life in order to lay by for old age, the j.a.panese will answer that children in j.a.pan are taught to love their parents rather than ease and luxury, and that care for the future is not the necessity that it is in Europe and America, where money is above everything else,--even filial love. This habit of thought may account for the utter want of provision for the future, and the disregard for things pertaining to the acc.u.mulation of wealth, which often strikes curiously the foreigner in j.a.pan. A j.a.panese considers his provision for the future made when he has brought up and educated for usefulness a large family of children.

He invests his capital in their support and education, secure of bountiful returns in their grat.i.tude and care for his old age. It is hard for the men of old j.a.pan to understand the rush and struggle for riches in America,--a struggle that too often leaves not a pause for rest or quiet pleasure until sickness or death overtakes the indefatigable worker. The _go inkyo_[24] of j.a.pan is glad enough to lay down early in life the cares of the world, to have a few years of calm and peace, undisturbed by responsibilities or cares for outside matters.

If he be an artist or a poet, he may, uninterrupted, spend his days with his beloved art. If he is fond of the ceremonial tea, he has whole afternoons that he may devote to this aesthetic repast; and even if he has none of these higher tastes, he will always have congenial friends who are ready to share the _sake_ bottle, to join in a quiet smoke over the _hibachi_, or to play the deep-engrossing game of _go_, or _shogi_, the j.a.panese chess. To the j.a.panese mind, to be in the company of a few kindred souls, to spend the long hours of a summer's afternoon at the ceremonial tea party, sipping tea and conversing in a leisurely manner on various subjects, is an enjoyment second to none. A cultivated j.a.panese of the old times must receive an education fitting him especially for such pursuits. At these meetings of friends, artistically or poetically inclined, the time is spent in making poems and exchanging wittily turned sentiments, to be read, commented on, and responded to; or in the making of drawings, with a few bold strokes of the brush, in ill.u.s.tration of some subject given out. Such enjoyments as these, the j.a.panese believe, cannot be appreciated or even understood by the practical, rush-ahead American, the product of the wonderful but material civilization of the West.

[23] It is this custom of going into early retirement that made it possible for the n.o.bles in old times to keep the Emperor always a child.

The ruling Emperor would be induced to retire from the throne at the age of sixteen or twenty; thus making room for some baby, who would be in his turn the puppet of his ambitious courtiers.

[24] _Go Inkyo Sama_ is the t.i.tle belonging to a retired old gentleman or old lady. _Inkyo_ is the name of the house or suite of rooms set apart for such a person, and the t.i.tle itself is made up of this word with the Chinese honorific _go_ and the t.i.tle _Sama_, the same as _San_, used in addressing all persons except inferiors.

Thus, amid enjoyments and easy labors suited to their closing years, the elder couple spend their days with the young people, cared for and protected by them. Sometimes there will be a separate suite of rooms provided for them; sometimes a little house away from the noises of the household, and separated from the main building by a well-kept little garden. In any case, as long as they live they will spend their days in quiet and peace; and it is to this haven, the _inkyo_, that all j.a.panese look forward, as to the time when they may carry out their own inclinations and tastes with an income provided for the rest of their days.[*137]

CHAPTER VI.

COURT LIFE.

The court of the Emperor was, in the early ages of j.a.pan, the centre of whatever culture and refinement the country could boast, and the emperors themselves took an active part in the promotion of civilization. The earliest history of j.a.pan is so wrapped in the mists of legend and tradition that only here and there do we get glimpses of heroic figures,--leaders in those early days. DemiG.o.ds they seem, children of Heaven, receiving from Heaven by special revelation the wisdom or strength by means of which they conquered their enemies, or gave to their subjects new arts and better laws. The traditional emperors, the early descendants of the great Jimmu Tenno,[25] seem to have been merely conquering chieftains, who by virtue of their descent were regarded as divine, but who lived the simple, hardy life of the savage king, surrounded by wives and concubines, done homage to by armed retainers and subject chiefs, but living in rude huts, and moving in and out among the soldiers, not in the least retired into the mysterious solitude which in later days enveloped the Son of the G.o.ds. The first emperors ruled not only by divine right, but by personal force and valor; and the stories of the valiant deeds of these early rulers kept strong the faith of the people in the divine qualities of the imperial house during the hundreds of years when the Emperor was a mere puppet in the hands of ambitious and powerful n.o.bles.

[25] The j.a.panese claim for their present Emperor direct descent from Jimmu Tenno, the Son of the G.o.ds; and it is for this reason that the Emperor is supposed to be divine, and the representative of the G.o.ds on the earth. The dynasty, for about twenty-five hundred years since Jimmu Tenno, has never been broken. It must, however, be said in connection with this statement, that the j.a.panese family is a much looser organization than that known to our Western civilization, on account of the customs of concubinage and adoption, and that descent through family lines is not necessarily actual descent by blood.

Towards the end of this legendary period, a figure comes into view that for heroic qualities cannot be excelled in the annals of any nation,--Jingo Kogo, the conqueror of Corea, who alone, among the nine female rulers of j.a.pan, has made an era in the national history. She seems to have been from the beginning, like Jeanne D'Arc, a hearer of divine voices; and through her was conveyed to her unbelieving husband a divine command, to take ship and sail westward to the conquest of an unknown land. Her husband questioned the authenticity of the message, took the earthly and practical view that, as there was no land to be seen in the westward, there could be no land there, and refused to organize any expedition in fulfillment of the command; but for his unbelief was sternly told that he should never see the land, but that his wife should conquer it for the son whom she should bear after the father's death. This message from the G.o.ds was fulfilled. The Emperor died in battle shortly after, and the Empress, after suppressing the rebellion in which her husband had been killed, proceeded to organize an expedition for the conquest of the unknown land beyond the western sea.

By as many signs as those required by Gideon to a.s.sure himself of his divine mission, the Empress tested the call that had come to her, but at last, satisfied that the voices were from Heaven, she gave her orders for the collection of troops and the building of a navy. I quote from Griffis the inspiring words with which she addressed her generals: "The safety or destruction of our country depends upon this enterprise. I intrust the details to you. It will be your fault if they are not carried out. I am a woman and young. I shall disguise myself as a man, and undertake this gallant expedition, trusting to the G.o.ds and to my troops and captains. We shall acquire a wealthy country. The glory is yours, if we succeed; if we fail, the guilt and disgrace shall be mine."

What wonder that her captains responded to such an appeal, and that the work of recruiting and shipbuilding began with a will! It was a long preparation that was required--sometimes, to the impatient woman, it seemed unnecessarily slow--but by continual prayer and offerings she appealed to the G.o.ds for aid; and at last all was ready, and the brave array of ships set sail for the unknown sh.o.r.e, the Empress feeling within her the new inspiration of hope for her babe as yet unborn.

Heaven smiled upon them from the start. The clearest of skies, the most favoring of breezes, the smoothest of seas, favored the G.o.d-sent expedition; and tradition says that even the fishes swarmed in shoals about their keels, and carried them on to their desired haven. The fleet ran safely across to southern Corea, but instead of finding battles and struggles awaiting them, the king of the country met them on the beach to receive and tender allegiance to the invaders, whose unexpected appearance from the unexplored East had led the natives to believe that their G.o.ds had forsaken them. The expedition returned laden with vast wealth, not the spoil of battle, but the peaceful tribute of a bloodless victory; and from that time forward j.a.pan, through Corea, and later by direct contact with China itself, began to receive and a.s.similate the civilization, arts, and religions of China. Thus through a woman j.a.pan received the start along the line of progress which made her what she is to-day, for the sequel of Jingo Kogo's Corean expedition was the introduction of almost everything which we regard as peculiar to civilized countries. With characteristic belittling of the woman and exalting of the man, the whole martial career of the Empress is ascribed to the influence of her son as yet unborn,--a son who by his valor and prowess has secured for his deified spirit the position of G.o.d of War in the j.a.panese pantheon. We should say that pre-natal influences and heredity produced the heroic son; the j.a.panese reason from the other end, and show that all the n.o.ble qualities of the mother were produced by the influence of the unborn babe.

With the introduction of literature, art, and Buddhism, a change took place in the relations of the court to the people. About the Emperor's throne there gathered not only soldiers and governors, but the learned, the accomplished, the witty, the artistic, who found in the Emperor and the court n.o.bles munificent patrons by whom they were supported, and before whom they laid whatever pearls they were able to produce. The new culture sought not the clash of arms and the shout of soldiers, but the quiet and refinement of palaces and gardens far removed from the noise and clamor of the world. And while emperors sought to encourage the new learning and civilization, and to soften the warlike qualities of the people about them, there was a frontier along which the savages still made raids into the territory which the j.a.panese had wrested from them, and which it required a strong arm and a quick hand to guard for the defense of the people. But the Emperor gradually gave up the personal leadership in war, and pa.s.sed the duty of defending the nation into the hands of one or another of the great n.o.ble families. The n.o.bles were not by any means slow to see the advantage to be gained for themselves by the possession of the military power in an age when might made right, even more than it does to-day, and when force, used judiciously and with proper deference to the prejudices of the people, could be made to give to its possessor power even over the Emperor himself. And so gradually, in the pursuit of the new culture and the new religion, the emperors withdrew themselves more and more into seclusion, and the court became a little world in itself,--a centre of culture and refinement into which few excitements of war or politics ever came. While the great n.o.bles wrangled for the possession of the power, schemed and fought and turned the nation upside down; while the heroes of the country rose, lived, fought, and died,--the Emperor, amid his ladies and his courtiers, his priests and his literary men, spent his life in a world of his own; thinking more of this pair of bright eyes, that new and charming poem, the other witty saying of those about him, than of the kingdom that he ruled by divine right; and retiring, after ten years or so of puppet kinghood, from the seclusion of his court to the deeper seclusion of some Buddhist monastery.

Within the sacred precincts of the court, much time was given to such games and pastimes as were not too rude or noisy for the refinement that the new culture brought with it. Polo, football, hunting with falcons, archery, etc., were exercises not unworthy of even the most refined of gentlemen, and certain n.o.ble families were trained hereditarily in the execution of certain stately, antique dances, many of them of Chinese or Corean origin. The ladies, in trailing garments and with flowing hair, reaching often below the knees, played a not inconspicuous part, not only because of their beauty and grace, but for their quickness of wit, their learning in the cla.s.sics, their skill in repartee, and their quaint fancies, which they embodied in poetic form.[26]

[26] In ancient times, before the long civil wars of the Middle Ages, much attention was given by both men and women to poetry, and many of the cla.s.sics of j.a.panese literature are the works of women. Among these distinguished writers can be mentioned Murasaki Shikibu, Seisho Nagon, and Iseno Taiyu, all court ladies in the time of the Emperor Ichijo (about 1000 A. D.). The court at that time was the centre of learning, and much encouragement was given by the Emperor to literary pursuits, the cultivation of poetry, and music. The Emperor gathered around him talented men and women, but the great works that remain are, strange to say, mostly those of women.

Much attention was given to that harmony of art with nature that the j.a.panese taste makes the _sine qua non_ of all true artistic effort. The gorgeously embroidered gowns must change with the changing season, so that the cherry succeeds the plum, the wistaria the cherry, and so on through the whole calendar of flowers, upon the silken robes of the court, as regularly as in the garden that graces the palace grounds. And so with the confectionery, which in j.a.pan is made in dainty imitation of flowers and fruits. The chrysanthemum blooms in sugar no earlier than on its own stalk; the little golden orange, with its dark green leaves, is on the confectioner's list in winter, when the real orange is yellow on its tree. The very decorations of the palace must be changed with the changing of the months; and _kakemono_ and vase are alternately stored in the _kura_ and brought out to decorate the room, according as their designs seem in harmony with the mood of Nature. This effort to harmonize Nature and Art is seen to-day, not only in the splendid furnishings of the court, but all through the decorative art of j.a.pan.

In every house the decorations are changed to suit the changing seasons.

Through the years when j.a.pan was adopting the civilization of China, a danger threatened the nation,--the same danger that threatens it to-day: it was the danger lest the adoption of so much that was foreign should result in a servile copying of all that was not j.a.panese, and lest the introduction of literature, art, and numerous. .h.i.therto unknown luxuries should take from the people their independence, patriotism, and manliness. But this result was happily avoided; and at a time when the language was in danger of being swept almost out of existence by the introduction of Chinese learning through Chinese letters, the women of j.a.pan, not only in their homes and conversation, but in the poetry and lighter literature of the country, preserved a strain of pure and graceful j.a.panese, and produced some of the standard works of a distinctly national literature. Favor at court to-day, as in the olden times, is the reward, not of mere rank, beauty, and grace of person, but must be obtained through the same intellectual endowments, polished by years of education, that made so many women famous in the mediaeval history of j.a.pan. Many court ladies have read much of their national literature, so that they are able to appreciate the _bonmots_ which contain allusions in many cases to old poems, or plays on words; and are able to write and present to others, at fitting times, those graceful but untranslatable turns of phrase which form the bulk of j.a.panese poetry.[27] Even in this busy era of Meiji,[28] the Emperor and his court keep up the old-time customs, and strive to promote a love of the beautiful poetry of j.a.pan. At each New Year some subject appropriate to the time is chosen and publicly announced. Poems may be written upon this subject by any one in the whole realm, and may be sent to the palace before a certain date fixed as the time for closing the list of compet.i.tors. All the poems thus sent are examined by competent judges, who select the best five and send them to the Emperor, an honor more desired by the writers than the most favorable of reviews or the largest of emoluments are desired by American poets. Many of the other poems are published in the newspapers. It is interesting to note that many of the prominent men and women of the country are known as compet.i.tors, and that many of the court ladies join in the contest.

[27] The court ladies in immediate contact with the Emperor and Empress are selected from the daughters of the n.o.bles. Only in the present reign have a few samurai women risen to high positions at court on account of special talents.

[28] _Meiji_ (Enlightened Rule) is the name of the era that began with the present Emperor's accession to the throne. The year A. D. 1890 is the twenty-third year of Meiji, and would be so designated in all j.a.panese dates.

There are also, at the palace, frequent meetings of the poets and lovers of poetry connected with the court. At these meetings poems are composed for the entertainment of the Emperor and Empress, as well as for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the poets themselves.

In the school recently established for the daughters of the n.o.bles, under the charge of the imperial household, much attention is given to the work of thoroughly grounding the scholars in the j.a.panese language and literature, and also to making them skillful in the art of composing poetry. At the head of the school, in the highest position held by any woman in the employ of the government, is a former court lady, who is second to none in the kingdom, not only in her knowledge of all that belongs to court etiquette, but in her study of the history and literature of her own people, and in her skill in the composition of these dainty poems. A year or two ago, when one of the scholars in the school died after a brief decline, her schoolmates, teachers, and school friends wrote poems upon her death, which they sent to the bereaved parents.

It is difficult for any j.a.panese, much more so for a foreigner, to penetrate into the seclusion of the palace and see anything of the life there, except what is shown to the public in the occasional entertainments given at court, such as formal receptions and dinner parties. In 1889, the new palace, built on the site of the old Tokugawa Castle, burnt seventeen years ago, was finally completed; and it was my privilege to see, before the removal of the court, not only the grand reception rooms, throne-room, and dining-room, but also the private apartments of the Emperor and Empress. The palace is built in j.a.panese style, surrounded by the old castle moats, but there are many foreign additions to the palace and grounds. It is heated and lighted in foreign style, and the larger rooms are all furnished after the magnificent manner of European palaces; while the lacquer work, carvings, and gorgeous paneled ceilings remind one of the finest of j.a.panese temples.

The private apartments of the Emperor and Empress are, on the other hand, most simple, and in thorough j.a.panese style; and though the woodwork and polished floors of the corridors are very beautiful, the paintings and lacquer work most exquisite, there is little in this simplicity to denote the abode of royalty. It seems that their majesties, though outwardly conforming to many European customs, and to the European manner of dress, prefer to live in j.a.panese ways, on matted, not carpeted floors, reposing on them rather than on chairs and bedsteads.[*152]

Their apartments are not large; each suite consisting of three rooms opening out of each other, the Empress's rooms being slightly smaller than the Emperor's, and those of the young Prince Haru, the heir apparent, again a little smaller. The young prince has a residence of his own, and it is only on his visits that he occupies his apartments in his father's palace. There are also rooms for the Empress dowager to occupy on her occasional visits. All of these apartments are quite close together in one part of the palace, and are connected by halls; but the private rooms of the court ladies are in an entirely separate place, quite removed, and only connected with the main building by a long, narrow pa.s.sageway, running through the garden. There, in the rooms a.s.signed to them, each one has her own private establishment, where she stays when she is not on duty in attendance on the Emperor and Empress.

Each lady has her own servants, and sometimes a younger sister or a dependent may be living there with her, though they are entirely separate from the court and the life there, and must never be seen in any of the other parts of the building. In these rooms, which are like little homes in themselves, cooking and housekeeping are done, entirely independent of the other parts of the great palace; and the tradesmen find their way through some back gate to these little establishments, supplying them with all the necessaries of life, as well as the luxuries.

A court lady is a personage of distinction, and lives in comparative ease and luxury, with plenty of servants to do all the necessary work.

Besides her salary, which of course varies with the rank and the duties performed, but is always liberal enough to cover the necessary expenses of dress, the court lady receives many presents from the Emperor and Empress, which make her position one of much luxury.

The etiquette of the imperial household is very complicated and very strict, though many of the formalities of the olden times have been given up. The court ladies are models of conservatism. In order to be trained for the life there and its duties, they usually enter the court while mere children of ten or eleven, and serve apprenticeship to the older members. In the rigid seclusion of the palace they are strictly, almost severely, brought up, and trained in all the details of court etiquette. Cut off from all outside influences while young, the little court maidens are taught to go through an endless round of formalities which they are made to think indispensable. These details of etiquette extend not only to all that concerns the imperial household, but to curious customs among themselves, and in regard to their own habits.

Many of these ideas have come down from one generation to another, within the narrow limits of the court, so that the life there is a curious world in itself, and very unlike that in ordinary j.a.panese homes.

But among all the ladies of j.a.pan to-day,--charming, intellectual, refined, and lovely as many of them are,--there is no one n.o.bler, more accomplished, more beautiful in life and character, than the Empress herself. The Emperor of j.a.pan, though he may have many concubines, may have but one wife, and she must be chosen out of one of the five highest n.o.ble families.[29] Haru Ko, of the n.o.ble family of Ichijo, became Empress in the year 1868, one year after her husband, then a boy of seventeen, had ascended the throne, and the very year of the overthrow of the Shogunate,[30] and the restoration of the Emperor to actual power and the leading part in the government. Reared amid the deep and scholarly seclusion of the old court at Kyoto, the young Empress found herself occupying a position very different from that for which she had been educated,--a position the duties and responsibilities of which grow more multifarious as the years go by. Instead of a life of rigid seclusion, unseeing and unseen, the Empress has had to go forth into the world, finding there the pleasures as well as the duties of actual leadership. With the removal of the court to Tokyo, and the reappearance of the Emperor, in bodily form, before his people, there came new opportunities for the Empress, and n.o.bly has she used them. From the time when, in 1871, she gave audience to the five little girls of the samurai cla.s.s who were just setting forth on a journey to America, there to study and fit themselves to play a part in the j.a.pan of the future, on through twenty years of change and progress, the Empress Haru Ko has done all that lay within her power to advance the women of her country.[*157] Many stories are afloat which show the lovable character of the woman, and which have given her an abiding place in the affections of the people.

[29] The Empresses of j.a.pan are not chosen from any branch of the imperial family, but from among the daughters of the five of the great _kuge_, or court n.o.bles, who are next in rank to the imperial princes.

The choice usually rests with the Emperor or his advisers, and would be naturally given to the most worthy, whether in beauty or accomplishments.

No doubt one reason why the Empress is regarded as far below the Emperor is, that she is not of royal blood, but one of the subjects of the Empire. In the old times, the daughters of the Emperor could never marry, as all men were far beneath them in rank. These usually devoted their lives to religion, and as Shinto priestesses or Buddhist nuns dwelt in the retirement of temple courts or the seclusion of cloisters.

[30] Tokugawa Shoguns were the military rulers of the Tokugawa family, who held the power in j.a.pan for a period of two hundred and fifty years.

They are better known to Americans, perhaps, under the t.i.tle of _Tyc.o.o.n_ (Great Prince), a name a.s.sumed, or rather revived, to impress the foreigners when Commodore Perry was negotiating in regard to treaties.

The Shogun held the daimios in forced subjection,--a subjection that was shaken in 1862, and broken at last in the year 1868, when, by the fall of the Shogunate, the Emperor was restored to direct power over his people.

Some years ago, when the castle in Tokyo was burned, and the Emperor and Empress were obliged to take refuge in an old daimio's house, a place entirely lacking in luxuries and considerably out of repair, some one expressed to her the grief that all her people felt, that she should have to put up with so many inconveniences. Her response was a graceful little poem, in which she said that the narrowness of her abode would not limit her love for her people, and that for them she would endeavor to explore wisely the unlimited fields of knowledge.

Upon another occasion, when Prince Iwakura, one of the leaders of j.a.pan in the early days of the crisis through which the country is still pa.s.sing, lay dying at his home, the Empress sent him word that she was coming to visit him. The prince, afraid that he could not do honor to such a guest, sent her word back that he was very ill, and unable to make proper preparation to entertain an Empress. To this the Empress replied that he need make no preparations for her, for she was coming, not as an Empress, but as the daughter of Ichijo, his old friend and colleague, and as such he could receive her. And then, setting aside imperial state and etiquette, she visited the dying statesman, and brightened his last hours with the thought of how lovely a woman stood as an example before the women of his beloved country.

Many of the charities and schools of new j.a.pan are under the Empress's special patronage; and this does not mean simply that she allows her name to be used in connection with them, but it means that she thinks of them, studies them, asks questions about them, and even practices little economies that she may have the more money to give to them. There is a charity hospital in Tokyo, having in connection with it a training school for nurses, that is one of the special objects of her care. Last year she gave to it, at the end of the year, the savings from her own private allowance, and concerning this act an editorial from the "j.a.pan Mail" speaks as follows:--

"The life of the Empress of j.a.pan is an unvarying routine of faithful duty-doing and earnest charity. The public, indeed, hears with a certain listless indifference, engendered by habit, that her Majesty has visited this school, or gone round the wards at that hospital. Such incidents all seem to fall naturally into the routine of the imperial day's work.

Yet to the Empress the weariness of long hours spent in cla.s.srooms or in laboratories, or by the beds of the sick, must soon become quite intolerable did she not contrive, out of the goodness of her heart, to retain a keen and kindly interest in everything that concerns the welfare of her subjects. That her Majesty does feel this interest, and that it grows rather than diminishes as the years go by, every one knows who has been present on any of the innumerable occasions when the promoters of some charity or the directors of some educational inst.i.tution have presented, with merciless precision, all the petty details of their projects or organizations for the examination of the imperial lady. The latest evidence of her Majesty's benevolence is, however, more than usually striking. Since the founding of the Tokyo Charity Hospital, where so many poor women and children are treated, the Empress has watched the inst.i.tution closely, has bestowed on it patronage of the most active and helpful character, and has contributed handsomely to its funds. Little by little the hospital grew, extending its sphere of action and enlarging its ministrations, until the need of more capacious premises--a need familiar to such undertakings--began to be strongly felt. The Empress, knowing this, cast about for some means of a.s.sisting this project. To practice strict economy in her own personal expenses, and to devote whatever money might thus be saved from her yearly income to the aid of the hospital, appears to have suggested itself to her Majesty as the most feasible method of procedure. The result is, that a sum of 8,446 yen, 90 sen, and 8 rin has just been handed over to Dr. Takagi, the chief promoter and mainstay of the hospital, by Viscount Kagawa, one of her Majesty's chamberlains. There is something picturesque about these sen and rin. They represent an account minutely and faithfully kept between her Majesty's unavoidable expenses and the benevolent impulse that constantly urged her to curtail them. Such gracious acts of sterling effort command admiration and love."