The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Volume II Part 16

"Yes."

"I think they were much better men than the j.a.panese of to-day. They seemed to me like the ideals of their own G.o.ds realized. They seemed to me all that was good and n.o.ble."

"And do you still think as well of them?"

"I think better of them, if anything. The more I see the j.a.panese of the new generation, the more I admire the men of the old."

"But you must have, as a foreigner, also observed their defects."

"What defects?"

"Such weaknesses or faults as foreigners would observe."

"No. According as a man is more or less perfectly adapted to the society to which he belongs, so is he to be judged as a citizen and as a man. To judge a man by the standards of a society totally different to his own would not be just."

"That is true."

"Well, judged by that standard, the old-fashioned j.a.panese were perfect men. They represented fully all the virtues of their society. And that society was morally better than ours."

"In what respect?"

"In kindness, in benevolence, in generosity, in courtesy, in heroism, in self-sacrifice, in simple faith, in loyalty, in self-control,--in the capacity to be contented with a little,--in filial piety."

"But would those qualities you admire in the old j.a.panese suffice for success in Western life--practical success?"

"Why, no."

"The qualities required for practical success in a Western country are just those qualities which the old j.a.panese did not possess, are they not?"

"I am sorry to say they are."

"And the old j.a.panese society cultivated those qualities of unselfishness and courtesy and benevolence which you admire at the sacrifice of the individual. But Western society cultivates the individual by a compet.i.tion in mere powers--intellectual power, power of calculating and of acting?"

"Yes."

"But in order that j.a.pan may be able to keep her place among nations, she _must_ adopt the industrial and financial methods of the West. Her future depends upon industry and commerce; and these cannot be developed if we continue to follow our ancient morals and manners."

"Why?"

"Not to be able to compete with the West means ruin; yet in order to compete with the West, we must follow the methods of the West,--and these are contrary to the old morality."

"Perhaps--"

"I do not think there is any 'perhaps.' To do any business on a large scale, we must not be checked by the idea that we should never take any advantage if another be injured by it. Those who are checked by emotional feeling, where no check is placed upon compet.i.tion, must fail.

The law of what you call the struggle for existence is that the strong and clever succeed, and the weak and foolish fail. But the old morality condemned such compet.i.tion."

"That is true."

"Then, sir, no matter how good the old morality may seem to be, we can neither make any great progress in industry or commerce or finance, nor even preserve our national independence, by following it. We must forsake our past, and subst.i.tute law for morality."

"But it is not a good subst.i.tute."

"It seems to me that it has proved a good subst.i.tute in Western countries--England especially--if we are to judge by material progress.

We will have to learn to be moral by reason, not by emotion. Knowledge of law, and the reasons for obeying law, must teach a rational morality of some sort at last."

Pretty good reasoning for a j.a.panese boy, wasn't it? He goes to the university next month,--a splendid fellow. Later the Government is to send him abroad.

Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO SENTARO NISHIDA

k.u.mAMOTO, August, 1894.

DEAR NISHIDA,--Many, many best thanks for the excellent photograph of yourself, and your kindest letter. The photograph brought so vividly before me again the kind eyes that saw so much for me, and the kind lips that told me so many wise, good things, and advised me and helped me so much,--that I could not but feel more sorry than ever at having missed you.

Mr. Senke has sent me the most beautiful letter, which I hope to answer by this same mail. What a divine thing the old j.a.panese courtesy was!

and how like _Kami sama_ the dear old men who remember it, and preserve it. Of course Mr. Senke is a young man, but _his_ courtesy is the old courtesy. The high schools seem to me to be ruining j.a.panese manners, and therefore morals--because morals are manners to a certain extent.

Those who lose the old ways never replace them; they cannot learn foreign courtesy, which is largely a matter of tone,--tone of voice, address, touch of minds, and benevolence in small things, which is our politeness. So they remain without any manners at all, and their hearts get hardened in some queer way. They cease to be lovable, and often become unbearable. I hope the great reaction will bring back, among other things, some of the knightly old ways.

I send a reprint of my last j.a.panese story. Hope my book will reach you soon, and will not displease you. Of course, you will find in it many mistakes--as any book written by a foreigner must be rich in errors. But the general effect of the book will not be bad, I think. I am now trying to write a sketch about Yuko Hatakeyama, the girl who killed herself at Kyoto in May, 1891, for loyalty's sake. The fact is full of wonderful meaning--as indicating a national sentiment.

Kazuo is crawling about, opening drawers, and causing much trouble. His eyes have again changed colour,--from blue to brown, like my own; but his hair remains chestnut. His upper teeth are well out, and everybody wonders how strong he is. He has one j.a.panese virtue: he does not cry, and keeps his self-control even when hurt. I hope he will keep all these traits. My whole anxiety is now about him: I must send him, or, if possible, take him abroad--for a scientific education, if he prove to have a good head. That will be expensive. But I hope to do it. I do not think a father should leave his son alone in a foreign school, if it can be helped: he ought to be always near him, until manhood. And Setsu would feel at home soon in France or in Italy,--at least at home enough to bear the life until Kazuo could get through a course or two.

The foreign community sorrows about the war,--naturally. Business is paralyzed. Every one feels the j.a.panese will win the fights. But who will win the war? That might be a question of money. j.a.pan is daring to do what the richest country in Europe fears to do--because it costs so much to fight China. And some of the Izumo boys are out there in the rice-fields of Choson. I trust they will pa.s.s safely through all perils.

Please send me any news of them you can.

LAFCADIO HEARN.

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

MATSUE, September, 1894.

DEAR HENDRICK,--If ever I must go to America, I hope I can keep out of New York. The great nightmare of it always dwells with me,--moos at me in the night, especially in the time of earthquakes. Of London I should be much less afraid. But in such great cities I do not think a literary man can write any literature. Certainly not if he has to stay in the heart of the clockwork. Society withers him up--unless he have been born into the manner of it; and the complexities of the vast life about him he never could learn. Fancy a good romance about Wall Street,--so written that the public could understand it! There is, of course, a tremendous romance there; but only a financier can really know the machinery, and his knowledge is technical. But what can the mere litterateur do, walled up to heaven in a world of mathematical mystery and machinery! Your own city of Albany is a paradise compared to the metropolis: you are really very fortunate--very, very happy to be able to live at home.

Of course, there is a philosophy of good manners--too much of it, eh?

There is Emerson, all suggestive,--but touching eternal truths in his essays on conduct, behaviour, etc.; and there is Spencer, who traces back the history of nearly all good manners to the earliest period of savagery and perpetual war. (You know about the origin of the bow, of our forms of address, and of the forms of prayer.) Politeness survives longest and develops most elaborately under militant conditions, and diminishes in exact proportion as militancy decreases. That there should be less politeness in America than in other countries, and less in the Northern States than in the Southern, might be expected. This was true as to both conditions: it is now true probably only as to the first. With the growth of industrialism,--the sense of equal chances, at least of equal rights before the law,--the abolition of cla.s.s distinctions,--fine manners vanish more or less. Nevertheless I fancy that under all the American roughness and lack of delicacy, or of that politeness which means "benevolence in small things," there is growing up a vast, deep feeling of human brotherhood,--of genuine kindliness, which may show itself later under stabler conditions. All now is unsettled. It is said that nearly all our _formal_ politeness must eventually disappear under conditions of industrialism, and be replaced by something more real and more agreeable,--kindly consideration, and natural desire to please. But that will be in ages and ages only after we are dead. There must be an end of all fighting first,--of cruelty in compet.i.tion, and this cannot happen until with intellectual expansion, population ceases to so increase as to enforce compet.i.tion without mercy.

The tendency now (referring to what you said about trusts) seems to point indeed to what Spencer calls "The Coming Slavery." Monopolies and trusts must continue to grow and multiply,--must eventually tend to coalesce,--must ultimately hold all. Bellamy's ideas will be partly carried out, but in no paradisaical manner. The State itself will become the one monstrous trust. Socialism will be promised all, and be compelled to work against its own ends unconsciously. The edifice is even now being reared in which every man will be a veritable slave to the State,--the State itself a universal monopoly, or trust. Then every life will be regulated to infinitesimal details, and the working population of the whole West find themselves situated just as men in factories or on railroads are situated. The trust will be nominally for the universal benefit, and must for a time so seem to be. But just so surely as human nature is not perfect, just so surely will the directing cla.s.s eventually exploit the wonderful situation,--just as some Roman rulers exploited the world. a.s.suredly anarchy will eventuate; but first,--in spite of all that human wisdom can do,--nations will pa.s.s under the most fearful tyranny ever known. And perhaps centuries of persistent effort will scarcely suffice to burst the fetters which Socialism now seeks to impose on human society;--the machinery will be too frightfully perfect, too harmonious in operation, too absolutely exact and of one piece,--to be easily attacked. As well try with naked hands to pierce the side of an iron-clad. The law, the police, the military power, religious influence, commercial and industrial interests,--all will be as One, working to preserve the form of the new socialism. To seek redress, to demand change, were then sheer madness.

And even the power to flee away out of the land, to dwell among beasts and birds, might be denied. Liberty of opinion, which we all boast of now, would be then less possible than in the time of the sway of Torquemada....

You have heard of the j.a.panese facile victories by land and sea. I should not be surprised to hear of their winning every engagement, and capturing Pekin. But what the end will be for the country, who can say? The whole thing is the last huge effort of the race for national independence. Under the steady torturing pressure of our industrial civilization,--being robbed every year by unjust treaties,--j.a.pan has determined to show her military power to the world by attacking her old teacher, China. At the same time she has asked and obtained from England such revision of the treaty as would not only protect her against the danger of large fresh investments of foreign capital, but would probably result in driving existing capital away. I cannot think that the United States will be short-sighted enough to grant the same terms.

For instance, though the country is to be opened to foreign settlement, no Englishman can hold land except on lease; and the lease, by j.a.panese law, expires with the death of the lessor. So that if I build a stone house, and my landlord die in twenty years after, I must be at the mercy of his heir, or carry away my house on my back.

It is an ugly business, this war. It may leave j.a.pan absolutely independent, as in the days of Ieyasu. But will that be best for her?

I am no longer sure. The people are still good. The upper cla.s.ses are becoming corrupt. The old courtesy, the old faith, the old kindness are vanishing like snow in sun.