Lafcadio Hearn Part 18

"Romances are not in novels, but in lives. Can you not tell me some of yours when you are feeling very, very well, and don't know what to do?

What surprised me was your observation about 'sentimental' in your last letter,--and that upon such a worthy topic! What can you think of me?

And here in this Orient, where the spirit of more ancient faiths enters into one's blood with the sense of the doctrine of filial piety, and the meaning of ancestor worship,--how very, very strange and cruel it seems to me that my little sister should be afraid of being thought _sentimental_ about the photograph of her father! What self-repression does all this mean, and what iron influences in Western life--English life that I have almost forgotten! However, character loses nothing: under the exterior ice, the Western could only gain warmth and depth if it be of the right sort. I hope, nevertheless, my little sister will be just as 'sentimental' as she possibly can when she writes to j.a.pan,--and feel sure of more than sympathy and grat.i.tude. Unless she means by 'sentimental' only something in regard to style of writing--in which case I a.s.sure her that she cannot err. If she is afraid of being thought really sentimental, I should be much more afraid of meeting her,--for I should wish to say sweet things and to hear them, too, should I deserve.

"At all events remember that you have given me something very precious,--not only in itself,--but precious because precious to you.

And it shall never be lost,--in spite of earthquakes and possible fires."

(The something he alludes to as "very precious" was a photograph of their father, Charles Hearn, that Mrs. Atkinson had sent him.)

"--I wish I could talk to you more about Father and India. I wish to ask a hundred thousand questions. But on paper it is difficult to express all one wishes to say. And letters of mere questions carry no joy with them, and no sympathy. So I shall not ask _now_ any more. And you must not tire your dear little aching head to write when you do not feel well. I shall write again soon. For a little while good-bye, with love and all sweet hope to you ever,

"LAFCADIO HEARN.

"_k.u.mamoto, "Kyushu, j.a.pan.

"Jan_. 30, '94."

On November 17th, 1893, at one o'clock in the morning, Hearn's eldest son, Leopold Kazuo Koizumi, was born.

He declared that the strangest and strongest sensation of his life was hearing for the first time the cry of his own child. There was a strange feeling of being double; something more, also, impossible to a.n.a.lyse--the echo in a man's heart of all the sensations felt by all the fathers and mothers of his race at a similar instant in the past.

A few weeks later he writes to his sister, giving her news about his son. "The physician says that from the character of his bones he ought to become very tall. He is very dark. He has my nose and promises to have the Hearn eyebrows; but he has the Oriental eye. Whether he will be handsome or ugly, I can't tell: his little face changes every day;--he has already looked like five different people. When first born, I thought him the prettiest creature I ever saw. But that did not last. I am so inexperienced in the matter of children that I cannot trust myself to make any predictions. Of course I find the whole world changed about me....

"My wife," he goes on, "is quite well. Happily the old military caste to which she belongs is a strong one, but how sacred and terrible a thing is maternity. When it was all over I felt very humble and grateful to the Unknowable Power which had treated us so kindly. The possibility of men being cruel to the women who bear their children seemed at the moment to darken existence.

"I have received your last beautiful photograph--or I should say two:--the vignette is, of course, the most lovable, but both are very, very nice. I gave the full-figure one to Setsu. She would like to have her boy grow up looking either like you or like Posey--but most like you. (Thanks also for the pretty photo of yourself and Posey: Posey is decidedly handsome.) But I fear my son can never be like either of you.

He is altogether Oriental so far,--looks at me with the still calm Buddhist eyes of the Far East, and the soul of another race. Even his nose will never declare his Western blood; for the finest cla.s.s of the j.a.panese offer many strongly aquiline faces. Setsu is a Samurai, and though her own features are the reverse of aquiline, there are aquiline faces among the kindred.

"I am awfully anxious that the boy should get to be like you. I have had your most beautiful photograph copied by a clever photographer here and have sent the copies to friends, saying, 'this is my sister; and this is the boy. I want him to look like her.' You see I am proud of you,--not only as to the ghostly, but also as to the material part of you.

Physiologically I am all Latin and Pagan,--even though my little boy's eyes are bright blue.

"... It is really nonsense, sending such a thing as his photo at fifty-five days old, because the child changes so much every week. But you are my little sister. I have called him Leopold Kazuo Hearn--for European use and custom. Kazuo, in j.a.panese, signifies 'First of the Excellent.' I have not registered him under that name, however; because by the law, if I registered my wife or son in the Consulate, both become English citizens, and lose the right to hold any property, or do any business in j.a.pan, or even to live in the interior without a pa.s.sport. I have, therefore, stopped at the j.a.panese marriage ceremony, and a publication of the fact abroad. In the present order I dare not deprive my folks of their nationality."

Then some time later he writes:--

"You ask for all kinds of news about Kajiwo. Well, he is now able to stand well, and is tremendously strong to all appearance. He tries to speak. 'Aba' is the first _word_ spoken by j.a.panese babes: it means 'good-bye.' Here is a curious example of the contrast between West and East,--the child comes into the world saying farewell. But this would be in accordance with Buddhist philosophy,--saying farewell to the previous life.

"You are right about supposing that the birth of a son in j.a.pan is an occasion of special rejoicing. All the baby clothes are ready long before birth--(except the ornamental ones)--as the _Kimono_ or little robe is the same shape for either s.e.x (_of children_). But, when the child is born, if it be a girl, very beautiful clothes of bright colours, covered with wonderful pictures, are made for it. If it be a boy the colours are darker, and the designs different. My little fellow's silken Kimono is covered with pictures of tortoises, storks, pine, and other objects typical of long life, prosperity, steadfastness, etc. This subject is enormously elaborate and complicated,--so that I cannot tell you all about it in a letter.

"After the child is born, all friends and relatives bring presents,--and everybody comes to see and congratulate the mother. You would think this were a trial. I was afraid it would tire Setsu. But she was walking about again on the seventh day after birth. The strength of the boy is hers,--not mine.

"I was also worried about the physician. I wanted the chief surgeon of the garrison,--because I was afraid. He was a friend, and laughed at me.

He said: 'If anything terrible should happen, call me, but otherwise don't worry about a doctor. The j.a.panese have managed these things in their own way for thousands of years without doctors: a woman or two will do.' So two women came, and all was well. I hated the old women first, but after their success, I became very fond of them, and hugged them in English style, which they could not understand."

The kind dull veil that nature keeps stretched between mankind and the Unknown was drawn again. The world became to Hearn nearly the same as it had been before the birth of his child, and he could plan, he said, for the boy's future. He was afraid he might be near-sighted, and wondered if he would be intellectual. "He was so proud of him," his wife says, "that whenever a guest, a student, or a fellow-professor called, he would begin talking about him and his perfections without allowing his friend to get a word in. He perfectly frightened me with a hundred toys he brought home when he returned."

After his son's birth, Hearn naturally became still more anxious to have Setsu registered legally as his wife, but he was always met by official excuses and delays. He was told that if he wished the boy to remain a j.a.panese citizen he must register him in the mother's name only. If he registered him in his own name his son became a foreigner. On the other hand, Hearn knew that if he nationalised himself his salary would be reduced to a j.a.panese level.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kazuo (Hearn's Son) and his Nurse.]

"I don't quite see the morality of the reduction," he says, "for services should be paid according to the market value at least;--but there is no doubt it would be made. As for America, and my relatives in England, I am married: that has been duly announced. Perhaps I had better wait a few years and then become a citizen. Being a j.a.panese citizen would, of course, make no difference whatever as to my relations in any civilised countries abroad. It would only make some difference in an uncivilised country,--such as revolutionary South America, where English or French, or American protection is a good thing to have. But the long and the short of the matter is that I am anxious about Setsu's and the boy's interests: my own being concerned only at that point where their injury would be Setsu's injury."

The only way out of the difficulty, he concluded, was to abandon his English nationality and adopt his wife's family name, Koizumi. As a prefix for his own personal use he selected the appellation of the Province of Izumo "Yak.u.mo" ("Eight clouds," or the "Place of the Issuing of Clouds," the first word of the ancient, j.a.panese song "Ya-he-gaki").

On one of his letters he shows his sister how his name is written in j.a.panese.

Mrs. Atkinson's youngest child, Dorothy, was born in March, 1894. There is an interval of exactly four months between her and her cousin Kazuo.

It is in reference to this event that the following letter was written:--

"How sweet of you to get Mrs. or Miss Weatherall to write me the dear news! You will be well by the time this reaches you, so that I may venture to write more than congratulations.

"I was quite anxious about you,--feeling as if you were the only real _fellow-soul_ in my world but one:--and birth is a thing so much more terrible than all else in the universe--more so than death itself--that the black border round the envelope made my heart cold for a moment. I had forgotten the why. Now I hope you will not have any more sons or daughters; you have three,--and I trust you will have no more pain or trouble. As for me, I am very resolved not to become a father again.

"You will laugh at me, and perhaps think it very strange that when only thirty-five I began to feel a kind of envy of friends with children. I knew their troubles, anxieties, struggles; but I saw their sons grow up, beautiful and gifted men, and I used to whisper to myself,--'But I never shall have a child.' Then it used to seem to me that no man died so utterly as the man without children: for him I fancied (like some folk still really think in other lands) that death would be utter eternal blackness. When I did, however, hear the first cry of my boy--_my_ boy, dreamed about in forgotten years--I had for that instant the ghostly sensation of being _double_. Just then, and only then, I did not think,--but _felt_, 'I am TWO.' It was weird but gave me thoughts that changed all pre-existing thoughts. My boy's gaze still seems to me a queerly beautiful thing: I still feel I am looking at myself when he looks at me. Only the thought has become infinitely more complicated.

For I think about all the dead who live in the little heart of him--races and memories diverse as East and West. But who made his eyes blue and his hair brown? And will he be like you? And will he ever see the little cousin who has just entered the world? The other day, for one moment, he looked just like your boy in the picture."

Mrs. Atkinson about this time went through private trials upon which it is unnecessary to touch here. The following letter of consolation and encouragement was written to her by her half-brother:--

"Well, you too have had your revelations,--which means deep pains. One must pay a terrible price to see and to know. Still, the purchase is worth making. You know the Emerson lines:--

"Though thou love her as thyself, As a self of purer clay; Though her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know When half-G.o.ds go, The G.o.ds arrive!...

"Reverse the condition: the moral is the same,--and it is eternal. By light alone one cannot see; there must be shadows in mult.i.tude to help.

What we love is good, and exists, but often exists only in _us_,--then we become angry at others, not knowing the illusion was the work of the G.o.ds. The G.o.ds are always right. They make us sometimes imagine that something we love ever so much is in others, while it is only in our own hearts. The reason they do this to some, like you and me, is to teach us what terrible long, long mistakes we might have made without their help.

Sometimes they really cause a great deal of more serious trouble, and we can't tell why. We must wait and believe and be quite sure the G.o.ds are good.

"What is not always good is the tender teaching we get at home. We are told of things so beautiful that we believe everybody must believe them,--truth, and love, and duty, and honour of soul, etc. We are even taught the enormous lie that the world is entirely regulated by these beliefs. I wonder if it would not be much better to teach children the adult truth:--'The world is thus and so:--those beliefs are ideal only which do not influence the intellectual life, nor the industrial life, nor the social life. The world is a carnival-ball; and you must wear a mask thereat,--and never, _never_ doff it;--except to the woman or the man you must love always. Learn to wear your mask with grace--only keep your heart fresh in spite of all bitter knowledge.' Wouldn't this be the best advice? As a mere commonplace fact,--the whole battle of life is fought in disguise by those who win. No man knows the heart of another man. No woman knows the heart of another woman. Only the woman can learn the man, and the man the woman;--and this only after years! What a great problem it is; and how utterly it is neglected in teaching the little human flowers that we set out in the world's cold without a thought!

"You are more and more like me in every letter; but you are better far.

I have not learned reserve with friends yet: I supply the lack by a retreating disposition,--a disinclination to make acquaintances. I love very quickly and strongly; but just as quickly dislike what I loved--if deceived, and the dislike does not die. My general experience has been that the loveable souls are but rarely lodged in the forms which most attract us: there _are_ such exceptions on the woman's side as my dear little Sis,--and there are exceptions on the male side of a particular order, and rare. But the rule remains. I wonder if all these jokes are not played on us by the G.o.ds, who think,--'No!--you want the infinite!

That can be reached later only,--after innumerable births. First learn, for a million years or so, just to love only _souls_. You _must_! for you will be punished if you try to obtain all perfections in one.' I think the G.o.ds talk to us about that way; and when we leave the Spring season of life behind, we find the G.o.ds were right after all.

"--Still, the great puzzle is in all these things there are no general rules solid enough to trust in. I fancy the best teaching for a heart would be,--'Always caution,--but--believe the tendency of the world is to good.' And _largeness_ seems to be necessary,--never to suffer oneself to see only one charm; but to train oneself to study combinations and understand them. Any modern human nature is too complex to be otherwise judged.

"Music,--yes! If I were near you I would be always teasing you to play:--and would bring you all kinds of queer exotic melodies to make variations on: strange melodies from Spanish America and the Creole Islands, and j.a.pan, and China, and all sorts of strange places. We should try to do very curious things in the way of ballads and songs, and you would teach me all sorts of musical things I don't know. By the way, you will be shocked to learn, perhaps, that I have never been able to appreciate the superiority of the new German music: The Italian still seems to me the divine: but that may be because I have never had time to train myself to appreciate.

"--You do not know how much I sympathise with all your anxieties and troubles, and how much I wish for your strength and happiness. Would I not like to be travelling with you to countries where you would find all the rest and light and warmth you could enjoy! Perhaps, some day that may be. Pray to the G.o.ds for my good fortune; and we shall share the pleasure together if They listen. If They do not, we must wait as the Buddhists say until the future birth. Then I want to be a very rich man, or woman, and you a very dear little sister or brother;--and I want to have a steam yacht of 30,000 horse-power.

"--Your sweetest little daughter, may you live to see her happiness in all things! I am glad I have no daughter. A boy can fight--must fight his way; but a daughter is the luxury of a rich man. Had I a daughter, she would be too dear; and I should feel inclined to say if dying:--'My child, I am unable to guard you longer, and the world is difficult: you would do better to come to Shadowland with me.' But your Marjory will be well guarded and petted, and have the world made sweet for her; and you will have no more grief. You have had all your disappointments and troubles in girlhood--childhood;--the future must be kind to you. As for me, I really think the G.o.ds owe me some favours; they have ignored me so long that I am now all expectation."

Then again:--

"MY VERY SWEET LITTLE SISTER,

"Your dear letter came yesterday, and filled us all with gladness. You see I say US;--for my folks prayed very hard for you to the ancient G.o.ds and to the Buddhas,--that I might not lose that little sister of mine.--And now to answer questions.

"Indeed, Setsu got the photos, and wondered at them, for she had never seen a carriage before of that kind, or a room like your room; and very childishly asked me to make her a room like yours. To which I said:--'The cost of such a room would buy for you a whole street in your native city of Matsue; and besides, you would be very unhappy and uncomfortable in such a room.' And when I explained, she wondered still more. (A very large j.a.panese house could be bought with the grounds for about 30--I mean a big, big merchant's house--in Izumo.) Another wonder was the donkey in the other photo, for none had ever seen such an animal.

"--As for your ever coming to j.a.pan, my dear, if you do, you shall have a chair. But I fear--indeed I am almost certain--that the day is not very far away when I must leave Setsu and Kajiwo to the care of the ancient G.o.ds, and go away and work bravely for them elsewhere, till Kajiwo is old enough to go abroad. The days of foreign influence and of foreign teaching in j.a.pan are rapidly drawing to a close. j.a.pan is learning to do well without us; and we have not been kind enough to her to win her love. We have persecuted her with hordes of fanatical missionaries, robbed her by unjust treaties, forced her to pay monstrous indemnities for trifling wrongs;--we have forced her to become strong, and she is going to do without us presently, the future is dark. Happily my folks will be provided for; and I expect to be able, if I must go, to return in a few years. It is barely possible that I might get into journalism in j.a.pan,--but not at all sure. I suppose you know that is my living profession: I understand all kinds of newspaper work. But as I am no believer in conventions, I am not likely to get any of the big sinecures. To do that one must be a ladies' man, a member of some church, a social figure. I am no ladies' man: I am known to the world as an 'infidel,' and I hate society unutterably. Were I rich enough to live where I please, I should certainly (if unable to live in j.a.pan) return to the tropics. Indeed, I have a faint hope of pa.s.sing at least the winters of my old age near the Equator. Where the means are to come from I don't know; but I have a kind of faith in Goethe's saying, that whatever a man most desires in youth, he will have an excess of in his old age. Leisure to write books in a warm climate is all I ask. Pray to the G.o.ds, if you believe in any G.o.ds, to help the dream to be realised.