Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
Hearn says:--
”I have had two years' experience in large japanese schools; and I have never had personal knowledge of any serious quarrel between students
A teacher is a teacher only: he stands to his pupils in the relation of an elder brother He never tries to impose his will upon them
severity would scarcely be tolerated by the students Strangely pleasant is the first sensation of a japanese class, as you look over the ranges of young faces Those traits have nothing incisive, nothing forcible: compared with Occidental faces they seem but 'half-sketched,' so soft their outlines are Some have a childish freshness and frankness indescribableall are equally characterized by a singular placidity--expressing neither love nor hate nor anything save perfect repose and gentleness I find aard to certain forms of popular belief
Scientific education is rapidly destroying credulity in old superstitions But the deeper religious sense re strengthenedby the new education shi+nto the students all sincerely arewhat the higher shi+nto signifies,--loyalty, filial piety, obedience to parents, and respect for ancestors The de too faultless Never a whisper is heard; never is a head raised from the book without permission My favourite students often visit hts are of the siifts of flowers, and sohtfully queer things,--family heirlooms Never by any possible chance are they troublesome, impolite, curious, or even talkative
Courtesy in its utmost possible exquisiteness seems as natural to the Izumo boy as the colour of his hair or the tint of his skin”
Of the teacher one of his pupils, Teizaburo Inoe, says:--
”We liked hientle ners do to the japanese”
Masanobu Otani, his favourite pupil in Matsue, says: ”He was a very kind and industrious teacher, incoed in the Middle Schools of those days No wonder therefore that he won at once the admiration of all the teachers and students of the school” He sends a copy of one of his own compositions corrected and annotated by Hearn, and observes:--
”Hoas kind and earnest in his teaching can well be seen by the above specimen It seems that themes for our coenuine thoughts and feelings He attentively listened to our reading, corrected each mispronunciation whenever we did We japanese feel much pain to pronounce 'l' and 'th' He kindly and scrupulously taught the pronunciation of these sounds He was not tired to correct mispronunciation He was always exact, but never severe”
Hearn's first residence in Matsue was at an inn in the quarter called Zaimoku-cho, ”but,” says his wife in the rerapher, ”circumstances made him resolve to leave it very soon The chief cause was as follows: The daughter of the innkeeper was suffering from a disease of the eyes This aroused his sympathy (as did all such troubles in a special manner); he asked the landlord to send her to a hospital for treatment, but the landlord did not care reat mortification
'Unmerciful felloithout a father's heart,' he said to himself, and removed to a house of his own on the shore of the lake”
This house was near the bridge Ohashi+ which crossed the largest of the three outlets from the lake to the bay, and commanded the beautiful scenery described in ”The Chief City of the Province of the Gods”:--
”I slide openover a soft green cloud of foliage rising froarden below Before li into the shi+nji Lake, which spreads out broadly to the right in a direy frame of peaks But oh, the charhostly love-colours of areaches of faintly-tinted vapour cloud the far lake verge All the bases of the mountains are veiled by theer than it really is, and not an actual lake, but a beautiful spectral sea of the sa with it, while peak-tips rise like islands fro aspect as the delicate fogs rise, slowly, very slowly As the sun's yellow riht, fine thin lines of warmer tone--violets and opalines--shoot across the flood, tree-tops take tender fire Looking sunward, up the long Ohashi+-gawa, beyond the h-pooped junk, just hoisting sail, seems to me the most fantastically beautiful craft I ever saw,--a dreahost of a junk, but a ghost that catches the light as clouds do; a shape of gold ly seht”
Here, constantly absorbed when off duty in the study of the sights and sounds of the city,--thesun, the thin ringing of thousands of wooden _geta_ across the bridge, the fantastic craft of the water traffic, the trades of the street an to register his first impressions, to make his first studies for his first book Of its two voluly as full of misconceptions and errors, but it at once, upon its appearance in print, attracted the serious consideration of literary critics, and is the hich, with ”japan: an Interpretation,” remains most popular with his japanese friends It records his many expeditions to the islands and ports of the three provinces included in the Ken of shi+ion of the people Of special value was his visit to the famous temple at Kizuki, to whose shrine he was the first Westerner ever admitted Lord Senke Takamori, priest of this temple, was a friend of the family of the lady who became Hearn's wife, and prince of a house which had passed its office by direct enerations; as old a house as that of the Mikado hi ordered for his special benefit a religious dance by the te in the house by the Ohashi+ bridge that he h samurai rank The revolution in japan which overthrew the power of the Shoguns and restored the Mikado to temporal power had broken the whole feudal structure of japanese society, and with the downfall of the daimyos, whose position was siland, fell the lesser nobility, the sareat poverty as that which befel the _e those whose fortunes were entirely ruined were the Koizumis Sentaro Nishi+da, who appears to have been a sort of head lish department, was of one of the lesser sa been an inmate of the Koizumi household before the decline of their fortunes Because of his fluency in English, as well as because of what seenity of character, he soon becalish teacher It was through his ed
Under ordinary circumstances a japanese woner an inexpugnable disgrace; but the circumstances of the Koizumis were not ordinary, and whatever irl of twenty-two, it is certain that she immediately becae continued to the end to be a very happy one It was celebrated by the local rites, as to havetreaties, would have deprived her of her japanese citizenshi+p and obliged them to reality of the , and finally obliged hiiance and become a subject of the Mikado in order that she and her children ht never suffer from any complications or doubts as to their position This could only be achieved by his adoption into his wife's fanifies ”Little Spring,” and for personal title chose the classical terht Clouds”--or ”the place of the issuing of clouds”--and also being the first word of the oldest known japanese poem
Mrs Hearn says: ”We afterwards removed to a samurai house where we could have a home of our own conveniently equipped with nu of us two, maids, and a small cat Now about this cat: while we lived near the lake, when the spring was yet cold, as I atching fro upon the lake one day, I found a group of boys trying to drown a small cat near our house I asked the boys and took it home 'O pity! cruel boys!' Hearn said, and took that all-wet, shi+vering creature into his own bosoly impressed me with his deep sincerity, which I ever after witnessed at various occasions Such conduct would be very extreme, but he had such an intensity in his character” This cat seems to have been an i to it says: ”It was a purely black cat It was given the na eyes like live coals It became his pet It was often held in his hat”
Later another pet was added to the establishuisu_, sent to hihter of the Governor of Izuht feel lonesoift of this dainty creature”
”You do not knohat an _uguisu_ is?” he says ”An _uguisu_ is a holy little bird that professes Buddhismvery brief indeed is my feathered Buddhist's confession of faith,--only the sacred naain, like a litany--'_Ho-ke-kyo!_'--a single word only But also it is written: 'He who shall joyfully accept but a single word froreater shall be his s in the four hundred thousand worlds with all the necessaries for happiness'Always heit First the warble; then a pause of about five seconds; then a sloeet, solemn utterance of the holy name in a tone as of meditative wonder; then another pause; then another wild, rich, passionate warble Could you see hi a soprano could ripple from so minute a throat, yet his chant can be heard a whole _cho_ awaya neutral-tinted e darkened with paper screens, for he loves the gloo even to tyranny All his diet hed in scales, and measured out to him at precisely the same hour each day”
In this house, surrounded with beautiful gardens, and lying under the very shadow of the ruined Daimyo castle, Hearn and his wife passed a very happy year The rent was about four dollars a month; his salaries from the middle and normal schools, added to what he earned with his pen, made him for the first time in his life easy about money matters
He was extreovernor to the barber; the chare, and he found himself at last able to achieve so laboured He even found pleasure in the fact that reater stature than himself It seems to have been in every way the happiest portion of his life Mrs Hearn's notes concerning it are so delightful as to deserve literal reproduction
”The governor of the prefecture at that time was Viscount Yasusada Koteda, an earnest advocate of preserving old, genuine japanese essentials, a conservatist He was very eneral
”Mr Koteda was also very kind to Lafcadio
”Thus all Izumo proved favourable to him The place welcouest, a good friend, and not as a stranger or a foreigner To his were full of novel interest; and the hospitality and good-naturedness of the city-people were the great pleasure for him Matsue was, as it were, a paradise for him; and he became enthusiastically fond of Matsue The newspapers of the city often published his anecdotes for his praise The students were very pleased that they had a good teacher In the e happened to unite me with Lafcadio
”When I first saw Lafcadio, his property was a very scanty one,--only a table, a chair, a few nun and japanese cloth [clothes], etc
”When he came home from school, he put on japanese cloth and sat on cushi+on and s in all ways like japanese