Volume II Part 3 (2/2)

DEAR MR CHAMBERLAIN,--I am horribly ashamed to confesslived for ten ed to return (for a couple of days only!!!!) to the flesh-pots of Egypt Having beco--even when reenforced with eggs I devoured enore, and fried solid stuffs, and absorbed terrific quantities of beer,--having had the good luck to find one foreign cook in Matsue I am very much ashamed! But the fault is neither mine nor that of the japanese: it is the fault of my ancestors,--the ferocious, wolfish hereditary instincts and tendencies of boreal mankind The sins of the father, etc

Do you know anything about Chozuba-no-Kaes of him

He has no eyes--only ears He passes ry if any one enters the _koka_ without previously heive him notice He makes everybody sick if the place in which he dwells is not regularly cleaned He goes to Kizuki and to Sada with the other Gods once a year; and after a month's absence returns When he returns, he passes his hand over each o to the Chozuba,--to make sure the family is the same But one must not be afraid of the invisible hand I think this kami is an extremely decent, respectable person, with excellent views on the subjects of iene I could not refuse him a lamp nor--for obvious reasons--the worshi+p of incense

I have not been able to travel yet far enough to find anything novel, but hope soon to do so Meanwhile I a to make, if possible, not only a tour of Izumo, but also a very brief visit to Tokyo in company with Mr Nishi+da Perhaps--I may be able to see both you and Mr

Lowell for a tiny little while--you will always have a moment to spare

I am always haunted by a particularly sarcastic translation Mr

Lowell, in one of his books,Ceremony” (Only an American could have dared to h the Gate and into the Court of Everlasting Cereons and water, and the court is full of peace and sweetness Most truly,

LAFCADIO HEARN

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

MATSUE, 1891

DEAR PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN,--Your welcome letter has just reached me, on the eve of a trip to Kizuki, and--unless extraordinary circuuest has departed He was so petted andyou also would not come

I think I could ard to diet,--at any tio, they would embarrass you with kindness Your name here is--well, htful letter I did not fully answer inhurried What you said about the influence of health or sickness on the spiritual life of a ht to my heart I have found, as you have done, that the possessor of pure horse-health never seehts” It is impossible to see the psychical undercurrents of human existence without that self-separation froives--like a revelation One in good health, who has never been obliged to separate his iine that he understands much which, even recorded in words, cannot be understood at all without sharp experience We are all living two lives,--but the revelation of the first see, entitled ”Sickness is Health,”--dealing with the physical results of sickness only; but there is a ical truth in the title than the author of it, whose naet, ever dreamed of All the history of asceticision, appears to nition of the terrible and glorious fact, that we can reach the highest life only through that self-separation which the experiences of illness, that is, the knowledge of physical weakness, brings; perfect health always involves the domination of the spiritual by the physical--at least in the present state of human evolution

Perhaps it will interest you to know the effect of japanese life upon your little friend after the experiences of a year and a half At first, the sense of existence here is like that of escaping from an alhly oxygenatedcontinues: in japan the law of life is not as with us,--that each one strives to expand his own individuality at the expense of his neighbour's But on the other hand, how much one loses! Never a fine inspiration, a deep emotion, a profound joy or a profound pain--never a thrill, or, as the French say so much better than we, a _frisson_ So literary work is dry, bony, hard, dead work I have confined myself strictly to the ion and popular iet at once in any Latin country, a strong emotional thrill Whether it is that the difference in our ancestral history renders e call soul-sympathy almost impossible, or whether it is that the japanese are psychically smaller than we, I cannot venture to decide--I hope the for persons hom I have had a chance to speak seems to be the same

But hoeet the japanese wooodness seem to be concentrated in her It shakes one's faith in some Occidental doctrines If this be the result of suppression and oppression,--then these are not altogether bad On the other hand, how diamond-hard the character of the American woman becomes under the idolatry of which she is the subject In the eternal order of things which is the highest being,--the childish, confiding, sweet japanese girl,--or the superb, calculating, penetrating Occidental Circe of our more artificial society, with her enorood? Viscount Torio's idea haunts me more and more;--I think there are very fory And the question coood, is it necessary that we est power of evil?” For the one may be the Shadow of the other

I aot much more infors japanese” than froht years' labour, that he has only been able to make ”a patchwork”! What, then, can a e, and without any hope of even acquiring the language of the country so as to read even a newspaper? Really it seems toabout japan at all, and the only fact which gives e is that there exists no book especially devoted to the subject I hope to consider

The deity of Mionoseki is called always by the people Ebisu, or Koto-shi+ro-nushi+-no-Kauide the deity is said to be Hiruko, who, I believe, has been identified by shi+nto commentators with Hiruko, as I find in the article on the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, in the Asiatic Transactions But I a the deity of Mio Jinja, as a general statement My friends say that only a shi+nto priest can decide, and I a to see one

Most truly, LAFCADIO HEARN

TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN

MATSUE, August, 1891

DEAR PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN,--I have just received and read yourletter on my return froer, but I o to see the Bon-odori at shi+mo-ichi, where it is danced differently frohostlyat a Dance of Souls

Before leaving I had a copy of Murray's Guide sent to the Kokuzo, as reat temple reproduced and to hear as said about it Before I went away, he gave ular entertain of Kizuki (By the way, the old reverence for the Kokuzo is not dead Folks do not believe now that whoever he looks at immediately becomes unable to reat shrine, the pilgrims fell down and worshi+pped hiave rounds, where seats were prepared, and a supper got ready for us, Mr

Senke gave some order, and the immense court inal began a round dance, such as I had never seen before,--the Honen-odori, as anciently perfor that I watched it until two o'clock in the ;--and the leader, standing on a mochi-mortar turned upside doith an ureat round, and turned sloithin it upon his pedestal He had a superb voice The Kokuzo also got the beautiful _raphed to please me, and presented me with many curious MSS, some of which I hope to show you later on

They ritten expressly for me

Now as to the shoryo-bune Just as the Bon-odori differs in every part of japan, and just as everything at Kizuki is totally different froura, so is the custo away the shi+ps of the Souls different here In many parts the shi+ps are launched at two or three o'clock in theof the day after the Bon; or if shi+ps are not launched, then floating lanterns are sent out by way of guiding the dead home But in Kizuki the shoryo-bune are launched only by day and for those who have been drowned at sea, and the shapes of the shi+ps vary according to the kind of shi+p in which the lost man or woman perished And they are launched every year for ten years after the death:--and when the soul returns yearly to visit the home, the shi+p is hted before launching it to take the beloved ghost back again, and a little stock of provisions is placed in it upon _kawarake_ (principally _dango_) And the _kaimyo_ of the dead is written upon the sail And these boats are launched,--not at night, as elsewhere, but in the daytime