Volume II Part 28 (2/2)

After all, the Jesuit _is_ really theperson We are close to each other because we are so enormously far away,--just as in Wundt's colour-theory the red and violet ends of the spectrum overlap after a fashi+on

Ever faithfully, LAFCADIO HEARN

(Y KOIZUMI)

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

TOKYO, May, 1897

DEAR E H,--I have been reading your last over and over again--because it is very pretty indeed, one of the very prettiest letters I ever read

There is altogether so so deliriously _assured_ about it--so full of happy confidence, that I feel quite co the fact that I am tolerably sure you will be taken utterly away from me in the end For this shall a man leave not only his friend, but his father and his mother,--saith the Sacred Book You know that particular passage makes the japanese mad,--but not quite so mad as the observation: ”Unless a man shall hate his father and his mother,”

etc, which has knocked the wind out of much missionary enterprise

I can't writeyet So I shall talk about Tokyo

As you know, I have been somewhat idle--for a entleround with a loud noise when I pass by I believe the trick is not confined to the Occident, having found japanese skilful at it; but these be neverthelessdoctors! Nevertheless, it won't work

But really the conditions are very queer I felt instinctively before going to Tokyo, that I was going into a world of intrigue; but what a world I had no conception The foreign element appears to live in a condition of perpetual panic Everybody is infinitely afraid of everybody else, afraid to speak not only theirexcept irrelevant matters, and then only in a certain forether so,--like people in the expectation of a possible catastrophe, or like folks hosts Somebody, quite accidentally, observes--or rather drops an observation about facts Instantly there is a scattering away from that man as from dynamite He is isolated for several weeks by coroup of his own Gradually he collects one--and rival groups are formed But presently so as it ought to be Bang-fizz--chaos and confusion Then all the groups unite to isolate that wicked tongue The uer--ha!

And so on--_ad lib_

This is panic, pure and simple, and the selfishness of panic But there is so the class ofis stable All japanese officialdo but the throne is even temporarily fixed; and the direction of the currents depends ue They shi+ft, like currents in the sea, off a coast of tides But the side currents penetrate everywhere, and _clapotent_ all co-stool of the smallest clerk,--whose pen trembles with continual fear for his wife's and babies' rice

Being good or clever or generous or popular or the bestat all to do with qualities Popularity in the biggest sense has, of course, so upon certain alternations of the rhythue has been cultivated as an art for ages, and it has been cultivated as an art in every country, no doubt But the result of the adoption of constitutional government by a race accustoue to spread like a ferh every condition of society,--and almost into every household It has becoh strong enough to upset ministers as readily as to oust clerks

Future prospects--? _Degringolade_

I feel sorry to say that I think I have been wrong about a goodpredictions Tokyo takes out of reat japanese future You kno easily a society in such a state can be ive evidence of so power, before my hopes can be restored to their former rainbow hues At present I think it can truthfully be said that every official branch of service shows the rapidly groeakness that means demoralization The causes are nue one, as the best reat cause is utter instability and discourageraph-service, the railroads, etc, all are in a queer state

And I--am as a flea in a wash-bowl My best chance is to lie quiet and wait the co of events I hope to see Europe, with my boy, some day

Well, this is only private history to amuse E H, to make Western by contrast to Eastern life seem more beautiful to him Affectionately,

LAFCADIO

TO ELLWOOD HENDRICK

TOKYO, May, 1897

DEAR E H,--I aloom and sun I anticipate now chiefly a national bankruptcy, or a ith Russia to upset my bank-account There is a Buddhist text (Saddharma-Pundarika, chap III, verse 125):--”The ive theives is soon lost Such is the fruit of sinfulness” It would be iine, that I should escape some future extraordinary experience of cala the absurdity of it Otherwise I have sorrow

For o, one said to er than japanese” This I did not think true, as I know evity of the western far not very rare, and 100 plentiful, as exa to the rowths, moulded by etiquette and classical culture and hoht Nearly all my japanese friends are dead The last case was three or four days ago,--the sweetest of little woly of flesh and blood, but hly accoood ht to have been cared for No force to bear children: the pretty creature had never been too strong, and over-education had strained her nerves She ought never to have been ood-bye, laughing and lying bravely ”I o home,” she said, ”but I'll soon be well and come back” She must have suffered terribly for more than a year--but she never complained, never ceased to s ho, tells his wife: ”Open the s (_shoji_) wide, that arden” And he watches , while I pretend to be pleased The beauty of his soul is finer than any chrysantheht and calls: ”Mother, did you hear froain--his last words--for he is dead at sunrise These lives are too fine and frail for the brutal civilization that is going to crush them all out--every one of them,--and prove to the future that sweetness is immoral _a la Nietzsche_: that to be unselfish is to sentence one's self to death and one's beloved to ine beings who never, in their lives, did anything which was not--I will not say ”right,” that is co which was not _beautiful_! Should I write this the world would, of course, call me a liar, as it has become accustomed to do But I could not now even write of them except to you--the wounds are raw