THE papers composing this volumetreat of the inner rather than of theouter life of Japan, for which reasonthey have been grouped under the titleKokoro (heart). Written with the abovecharacter, this word signifies also mind,in the emotional sense; spirit; courage;resolve; sentiment; affection; and innermeaning, just as we say in English, "theheart of things."

KOBE September 15, 1895.

CONTENTS

I. AT A RAILWAY STATION II. THEGENIUS Of JAPANESECIVILIZATION III. A STREET

SINGER IV. FROM A TRAVELINGDIARY V. THE NUN OF THETEMPLE OF AMIDA VI. AFTERTHE WAR VII. HARU VIII. AGLIMPSE OF TENDENCIES IX. BYFORCE OF KARMA X. ACONSERVATIVE XI. IN THETWILIGHT OF THE GODS XII.THE IDEA OF PRE-EXISTENCEXIII. IN CHOLERA-TIME XIV.SOME THOUGHTS ABOUTANCESTOR-WORSHIP XV.KIMIKO APPENDIX. THREEPOPULAR BALLADS

KOKORO

IAT A RAILWAY STATION

Seventh day of the sixth Month;twenty-sixth of Meiji.

Yesterday a telegram from Fukuokaannounced that a desperate criminalcaptured there would be brought fortrial to Kumamoto to-day, on the traindue at noon. A Kumamoto policemanhad gone to Fukuoka to take theprisoner in charge.

Four years ago a strong thief enteredsome house by night in the Street of

the Wrestlers, terrified and bound theinmates, and carried away a number ofvaluable things. Tracked skillfully by thepolice, he was captured within twenty-four hours, even before he coulddispose of his plunder. But as he wasbeing taken to the police station heburst his bonds, snatched the sword ofhis captor, killed him, and escaped.Nothing more was heard of him untillast week.

Then a Kumamoto detective,happening to visit the Fukuoka prison,saw among the toilers a face that hadbeen four years photographed upon hisbrain. "Who is that man " he asked theguard. "A thief," was the reply,

"registered here as Kusabe." Thedetective walked up to the prisoner andsaid:

"Kusabe is not your name. NomuraTeichi, you are needed in Kumamotofor murder." The felon confessed all.

I went with a great throng of people towitness the arrival at the station. Iexpected to hear and see anger; I evenfeared possibilities of violence. Themurdered officer had been much liked;his relatives would certainly be amongthe spectators; and a Kumamoto crowdis not very gentle. I also thought to findmany police on duty. My anticipationswere wrong.

The train halted in the usual scene ofhurry and noise, scurry and clatter ofpassengers wearing geta, screaming ofboys wanting to sell Japanesenewspapers and Kumamoto lemonade.Outside the barrier we waited for nearlyfive minutes. Then, pushed through thewicket by a police-sergeant, the prisonerappeared, a large wild-looking man,with head bowed down, and armsfastened behind his back. Prisoner andguard both halted in front of thewicket; and the people pressed forwardto see but in silence. Then the officercalled out,

"Sugihara San! Sugihara O-Kibi! is she

present "

A slight small woman standing near me,with a child on her back, answered,"Hai!" and advanced through the press.This was the widow of the murderedman; the child she carried was his son.At a wave of the officer's hand thecrowd fell back, so as to leave a clearspace about the prisoner and his escort.In that space the woman with the childstood facing the murderer. The hushwas of death.

Not to the woman at all, but to thechild only, did the officer then speak.He spoke low, but so clearly that Icould catch every syllable:

"Little one, this is the man who killedyour father four years ago. You had notyet been born; you were in yourmother's womb. That you have nofather to love you now is the doing ofthis man. Look at him [here the officer,putting a hand to the prisoner's chin,sternly forced him to lift his eyes] lookwell at him, little boy! Do not be afraid.It is painful; but it is your duty. Look athim!"

Over the mother's shoulder the boygazed with eyes widely open, as in fear;then he began to sob; then tears came;but steadily and obediently he stilllooked looked looked straight into the

cringing face.

The crowd seemed to have stoppedbreathing.

I saw the prisoner's features distort; Isaw him suddenly dash himself downupon his knees despite his fetters, andbeat his face into the dust, crying outthe while in a passion of hoarseremorse that made one's heart shake:

"Pardon! pardon! pardon me, little one!That I did not for hate was it done, butin mad fear only, in my desire to escape.Very, very wicked have I been; greatunspeakable wrong have I done you!But now for my sin I go to die. I wish

to die; I am glad to die! Therefore, Olittle one, be pitiful! forgive me!"

The child still cried silently. The officerraised the shaking criminal; the dumbcrowd parted left and right to let themby. Then, quite suddenly, the wholemultitude began to sob. And as thebronzed guardian passed, I saw what Ihad never seen before, what few menever see, what I shall probably never seeagain, the tears of a Japanesepoliceman.

The crowd ebbed, and left me musingon the strange morality of the spectacle.Here was justice unswerving yetcompassionate, forcing knowledge of a

crime by the pathetic witness of itssimplest result. Here was desperateremorse, praying only for pardonbefore death. And here was a populaceperhaps the most dangerous in theEmpire when angered comprehendingall, touched by all, satisfied with thecontrition and the shame, and filled,not with wrath, but only with the greatsorrow of the sin, through simple deepexperience of the difficulties of lifeand the weaknesses of human nature.

But the most significant, because themost Oriental, fact of the episode wasthat the appeal to remorse had beenmade through the criminal's sense offatherhood, that potential love of

children which is so large a part of thesoul of every Japanese.

There is a story that the most famousof all Japanese robbers, IshikawaGoemon, once by night entering ahouse to kill and steal, was charmed bythe smile of a baby which reached outhands to him, and that he remainedplaying with the little creature until allchance of carrying out his purpose waslost.

It is not hard to believe this story. Everyyear the police records tell ofcompassion shown to children byprofessional criminals. Some monthsago a terrible murder case was reported

in the local papers, the slaughter of ahousehold by robbers. Seven personshad been literally hewn to pieces whileasleep; but the police discovered a littleboy quite unharmed, crying alone in apool of blood; and they foundevidence unmistakable that the menwho slew must have taken great carenot to hurt the child.

II

THE GENIUS OF JAPANESECIVILIZATION

I

Without losing a single ship or a singlebattle, Japan has broken down thepower of China, made a new Korea,enlarged her own territory, and changedthe whole political face of the East.Astonishing as this has seemedpolitically, it is much more astonishingpsychologically; for it represents theresult of a vast play of capacities withwhich the race had never been creditedabroad, capacities of a very high order.The psychologist knows that the so-called "adoption of Westerncivilization" within a time of thirtyyears cannot mean the addition to theJapanese brain of any organs or powerspreviously absent from it. He knows

that it cannot mean any sudden changein the mental or moral character of therace. Such changes are not made in ageneration. Transmitted civilizationworks much more slowly, requiringeven hundreds of years to producecertain permanent psychological results.

It is in this light that Japan appears themost extraordinary country in theworld; and the most wonderful thing inthe whole episode of her"Occidentalization" is that the racebrain could bear so heavy a shock.Nevertheless, though the fact be uniquein human history, what does it reallymean Nothing more thanrearrangement of a part of the pre-

existing machinery of thought. Eventhat, for thousands of brave youngminds, was death. The adoption ofWestern civilization was not nearlysuch an easy matter as un-thinkingpersons imagined. And it is quiteevident that the mental readjustments,effected at a cost which remains to betold, have given good results only alongdirections in which the race had alwaysshown capacities of special kinds.Thus, the appliances of Westernindustrial invention have workedadmirably in Japanese hands, haveproduced excellent results in thosecrafts at which the nation had beenskillful, in other and quainter ways, forages. There has been no transformation,

nothing more than the turning of oldabilities into new and larger channels.The scientific professions tell the samestory. For certain forms of science,such as medicine, surgery (there are nobetter surgeons in the world than theJapanese), chemistry, microscopy, theJapanese genius is naturally adapted;and in all these it has done work alreadyheard of round the world. In war andstatecraft it has shown wonderfulpower; but throughout their history theJapanese have been characterized bygreat military and political capacity.Nothing remarkable has been done,however, in directions foreign to thenational genius. In the study, for

example, of Western music, Westernart, Western literature, time would seemto have been simply wasted(1). Thesethings make appeal extraordinary toemotional life with us; they make nosuch appeal to Japanese emotional life.Every serious thinker knows thatemotional transformation of theindividual through education isimpossible. To imagine that theemotional character of an Oriental racecould be transformed in the shortspace of thirty years, by the contact ofOccidental ideas, is absurd. Emotionallife, which is older than intellectual life,and deeper, can no more be alteredsuddenly by a change of milieu thanthe surface of a mirror can be changed

by passing reflections. All that Japanhas been able to do so miraculouslywell has been done without any self-transformation; and those who imagineher emotionally closer to us to-day thanshe may have been thirty years agoignore facts of science which admit ofno argument.

Sympathy is limited by comprehension.We may sympathize to the same degreethat we understand. One may imaginethat he sympathizes with a Japanese ora Chinese; but the sympathy can neverbe real to more than a small extentoutside of the simplest phases ofcommon emotional life, those phases inwhich child and man are at one. The

more complex feelings of the Orientalhave been composed by combinationsof experiences, ancestral andindividual, which have had no reallyprecise correspondence in Western life,and which we can therefore not fullyknow. For converse reasons, the.Japanese cannot, even though theywould, give Europeans their bestsympathy.

But while it remains impossible for theman of the West to discern the truecolor of Japanese life, either intellectualor emotional (since the one is woveninto the other), it is equally impossiblefor him to escape the conviction that,compared with his own, it is very small.

It is dainty; it holds delicatepotentialities of rarest interest andvalue; but it is otherwise so small thatWestern life, by contrast with it, seemsalmost supernatural. For we must judgevisible and measurable manifestations.So judging, what a contrast between theemotional and intellectual worlds ofWest and East! Far less striking thatbetween the frail wooden streets of theJapanese capital and the tremendoussolidity of a thoroughfare in Paris orLondon. When one compares theutterances which West and East havegiven to their dreams, their aspirations,their sensations, a Gothic cathedralwith a Shinto temple, an opera by Verdior a trilogy by Wagner with a

performance of geisha, a Europeanepic with a Japanese poem, howincalculable the difference in emotionalvolume, in imaginative power, in artisticsynthesis! True, our music is anessentially modern art; but in lookingback through all our past the differencein creative force is scarcely less marked,not surely in the period of Romanmagnificence, of marble amphitheatresand of aqueducts spanning provinces,nor in the Greek period of the divinein sculpture and of the supreme inliterature.

And this leads to the subject ofanother wonderful fact in the suddendevelopment of Japanese power. Where

are the outward material signs of thatimmense new force she has beenshowing both in productivity and inwar Nowhere! That which we miss inher emotional and intellectual life ismissing also from her industrial andcommercial life, largeness! The landremains what it was before; its face hasscarcely been modified by all thechanges of Meiji. The miniaturerailways and telegraph poles, thebridges and tunnels, might almostescape notice in the ancient green ofthe landscapes. In all the cities, with theexception of the open ports and theirlittle foreign settlements, there existshardly a street vista suggesting theteaching of Western ideas. You might

journey two hundred miles through theinterior of the country, looking in vainfor large manifestations of the newcivilization. In no place do you findcommerce exhibiting its ambition ingigantic warehouses, or industryexpanding its machinery under acres ofroofing. A Japanese city is still, as it wasten centuries ago, little more than awilderness of wooden sheds,picturesque, indeed, as paper lanternsare, but scarcely less frail. And there isno great stir and noise anywhere, noheavy traffic, no booming andrumbling, no furious haste. In Tokyoitself you may enjoy, if you wish, thepeace of a country village. This wantof visible or audible signs of the new-

found force which is now menacing themarkets of the West and changing themaps of the far East gives one a queer,I might even say a weird feeling. It isalmost the sensation received when,after climbing through miles of silenceto reach some Shinto shrine, you findvoidness only and solitude, an elfish,empty little wooden structure,mouldering in shadows a thousandyears old. The strength of Japan, likethe strength of her ancient faith, needslittle material display: both exist wherethe deepest real power of any greatpeople exists, in the Race Ghost.

(1) In one limited sense, Western arthas influenced Japanese. literature and

drama; but the character of theinfluence proves the racial difference towhich I refer. European plays havebeen reshaped for the Japanese stage,and European novels rewritten forJapanese readers. But a literal version israrely attempted; for the originalincidents, thoughts, and emotionswould be unintelligible to the averagereader or playgoer. Plots are adopted;sentiments and incidents are totallytransformed. "The New Magdalen"becomes a Japanese girl who married anEta. Victor Hugo's Les Miserablesbecomes a tale of the Japanese civilwar; and Enjolras a Japanese student.There have been a few rare exceptions,including the marked success of a

literal translation of the Sorrows ofWerther.

II

As I muse, the remembrance of a greatcity comes back to me, a city walled upto the sky and roaring like the sea. Thememory of that roar returns first; thenthe vision defines: a chasm, which is astreet, between mountains, which arehouses. I am tired, because I havewalked many miles between thoseprecipices of masonry, and havetrodden no earth, only slabs of rock,and have heard nothing but thunder of

tumult. Deep below those hugepavements I know there is a cavernousworld tremendous: systems underlyingsystems of ways contrived for waterand steam and fire. On either handtower facades pierced by scores of tiersof windows, cliffs of architectureshutting out the sun. Above, the paleblue streak of sky is cut by a maze ofspidery lines, an infinite cobweb ofelectric wires. In that block on the rightthere dwell nine thousand souls; thetenants of the edifice facing it pay theannual rent of a million dollars. Sevenmillions scarcely covered the cost ofthose bulks overshadowing the squarebeyond, and there are miles of such.Stairways of steel and cement, of brass

and stone, with costliest balustrades,ascend through the decades anddouble-decades of stories; but no foottreads them. By water-power, by steam,by electricity, men go up and down; theheights are too dizzy, the distances toogreat, for the use of the limbs. Myfriend who pays rent of five thousanddollars for his rooms in the fourteenthstory of a monstrosity not far off hasnever trodden his stairway. I amwalking for curiosity alone; with aserious purpose I should not walk: thespaces are too broad, the time is tooprecious, for such slow exertion, mentravel from district to district, fromhouse to office, by steam. Heights aretoo great for the voice to traverse;

orders are given and obeyed bymachinery. By electricity far-away doorsare opened; with one touch a hundredrooms are lighted or heated.

And all this enormity is hard, grim,dumb; it is the enormity ofmathematical power applied toutilitarian ends of solidity anddurability. These leagues of palaces, ofwarehouses, of business structures, ofbuildings describable and indescribable,are not beautiful, but sinister. One feelsdepressed by the mere sensation of theenormous life which created them, lifewithout sympathy; of their prodigiousmanifestation of power, power with-out pity. They are the architectural

utterance of the new industrial age.And there is no halt in the thunder ofwheels, in the storming of hoofs andof human feet. To ask a question, onemust shout into the ear of thequestioned; to see, to understand, tomove in that high-pressure medium,needs experience. The unaccustomedfeels the sensation of being in a panic,in a tempest, in a cyclone. Yet all this isorder.

The monster streets leap rivers, spansea-ways, with bridges of stone, bridgesof steel. Far as the eye can reach, abewilderment of masts, a web-work ofrigging, conceals the shores, which arecliffs of masonry. Trees in a forest

stand less thickly, branches in a forestmingle less closely, than the masts andspars of that immeasurable maze. Yetall is order.

III

Generally speaking, we construct forendurance, the Japanese forimpermanency. Few things for commonuse are made in Japan with a view todurability. The straw sandals worn outand replaced at each stage of a journey,the robe consisting of a few simplewidths loosely stitched together forwearing, and unstitched again for

washing, the fresh chopsticks served toeach new guest at a hotel, the light shojiframes serving at once for windowsand walls, and repapered twice a year;the mattings renewed every autumn, allthese are but random examples ofcountless small things in daily life thatillustrate the national contentment withimpermanency.

What is the story of a commonJapanese dwelling Leaving my home inthe morning, I observe, as I pass thecorner of the next street crossing mine,some men setting up bamboo poles ona vacant lot there. Returning after fivehours' absence, I find on the same lotthe skeleton of a two-story house. Next

forenoon I see that the walls are nearlyfinished already, mud and wattles. Bysundown the roof has been completelytiled. On the following morning Iobserve that the mattings have been putdown, and the inside plastering hasbeen finished. In five days the house iscompleted. This, of course, is a cheapbuilding; a fine one would take muchlonger to put up and finish. ButJapanese cities are for the most partcomposed of such common buildings.They are as cheap as they are simple.

I cannot now remember where I firstmet with the observation that the curveof the Chinese roof might preserve thememory of the nomad tent. The idea

haunted me long after I hadungratefully forgotten the book inwhich I found it; and when I first saw,in Izumo, the singular structure of theold Shinto temples, with queer cross-projections at their gable-ends andupon their roof-ridges, the suggestionof the forgotten essayist about thepossible origin of much less ancientforms returned to me with great force.But there is much in Japan besidesprimitive architectural traditions toindicate a nomadic ancestry for the race.Always and everywhere there is a totalabsence of what we would call solidity;and the characteristics ofimpermanence seem to mark almosteverything in the exterior life of the

people, except, indeed, the immemorialcostume of the peasant and the shapeof the implements of his toil. Not todwell upon the fact that even duringthe comparatively brief period of herwritten history Japan has had morethan sixty capitals, of which the greaternumber have completely disappeared, itmay be broadly stated that everyJapanese city is rebuilt within the timeof a generation. Some temples and afew colossal fortresses offer exceptions;but, as a general rule, the Japanese citychanges its substance, if not its form,in the lifetime of a man. Fires, earth-quakes, and many other causes partlyaccount for this; the chief reason,however, is that houses are not built to

last. The common people have noancestral homes. The dearest spot to allis, not the place of birth, but the placeof burial; and there is little that ispermanent save the resting-places ofthe dead and the sites of the ancientshrines.

The land itself is a land ofimpermanence. Rivers shift theircourses, coasts their outline, plains theirlevel; volcanic peaks heighten orcrumble; valleys are blocked by lava-floods or landslides; lakes appear anddisappear. Even the matchless shape ofFuji, that snowy miracle which hasbeen the inspiration of artists forcenturies, is said to have been slightly

changed since my advent to thecountry; and not a few other mountainshave in the same short time takentotally new forms. Only the generallines of the land, the general aspects ofits nature, the general character of theseasons, remain fixed. Even the verybeauty of the landscapes is largelyillusive, a beauty of shifting colors andmoving mists. Only he to whom thoselandscapes are familiar can know bowtheir mountain vapors make mockeryof real changes which have been, andghostly predictions of other changesyet to be, in the history of thearchipelago.

The gods, indeed, remain, haunt their

homes upon the hills, diffuse a softreligious awe through the twilight oftheir groves, perhaps because they arewithout form and substance. Theirshrines seldom pass utterly intooblivion, like the dwellings of men.But every Shinto temple is necessarilyrebuilt at more or less brief intervals;and the holiest, the shrine of Ise, inobedience to immemorial custom, mustbe demolished every twenty years, andits timbers cut into thousands of tinycharms, which are distributed topilgrims.

From Aryan India, through China,came Buddhism, with its vast doctrineof impermanency. The builders of the

first Buddhist temples in Japanarchitects of another race built well:witness the Chinese structures atKamakura that have survived so manycenturies, while of the great city whichonce surrounded them not a traceremains. But the psychical influence ofBuddhism could in no land impelminds to the love of material stability.The teaching that the universe is anillusion; that life is but one momentaryhalt upon an infinite journey; that allattachment to persons, to places, or tothings must be fraught with sorrow;that only through suppression of everydesire even the desire of Nirvana itselfcan humanity reach the eternal peace,certainly harmonized with the older

racial feeling. Though the people nevermuch occupied themselves with theprofounder philosophy of the foreignfaith, its doctrine of impermanencymust, in course of time, haveprofoundly influenced nationalcharacter. It explained and consoled; itimparted new capacity to bear all thingsbravely; it strengthened that patiencewhich is a trait of the race. Even inJapanese art developed, if not actuallycreated, under Buddhist influence thedoctrine of impermanency has left itstraces. Buddhism taught that nature wasa dream, an illusion, a phantasmagoria;but it also taught men how to seize thefleeting impressions of that dream, andhow to interpret them in relation to the

highest truth. And they learned well. Inthe flushed splendor of the blossom-bursts of spring, in the coming and thegoing of the cicada, in the dyingcrimson of autumn foliage, in theghostly beauty of snow, in the delusivemotion of wave or cloud, they saw oldparables of perpetual meaning. Eventheir calamities fire, flood, earthquake,pestilence interpreted to themunceasingly the doctrine of the eternalVanishing.

All things which exist in Time must perish.The forests, the mountains, all things thusexist. In Time are born all things havingdesire.

The Sun and Moon, Sakra himself with allthe multitude of his attendants, will all,without exception, perish; there is not one thatwill endure.

In the beginning things were fixed; in the endagain they separate: different combinationscause other substance; for in nature there is nouniform and constant principle.

All component things must grow old;impermanent are all component things. Evenunto a grain of sesamum seed there is no suchthing as a compound which is permanent. Allare transient; all have the inherent quality ofdissolution.

All component things, without exception, are

impermanent, unstable, despicable, sure todepart, disintegrating; all are temporary as amirage, as a phantom, or as foam.... Even asall earthen vessels made by the potter end inbeing broken, so end the lives of men.

And a belief in matter itself isunmentionable and inexpressible, it is neithera thing nor no-thing: and this is known evenby children and ignorant persons.

IV

Now it is worth while to inquire ifthere be not some compensatory valueattaching to this impermanency and

this smallness in the national life.

Nothing is more characteristic of thatlife than its extreme fluidity. TheJapanese population represents amedium whose particles are inperpetual circulation. The motion is initself peculiar. It is larger and moreeccentric than the motion ofOccidental populations, though feeblerbetween points. It is also much morenatural, so natural that it could not existin Western civilization. The relativemobility of a European population andthe Japanese population might beexpressed by a comparison betweencertain high velocities of vibration andcertain low ones. But the high velocities

would represent, in such a comparison,the consequence of artificial forceapplied; the slower vibrations wouldnot. And this difference of kind wouldmean more than surface indicationscould announce. In one sense,Americans may be right in thinkingthemselves great travelers. In another,they are certainly wrong; the man ofthe people in America cannot compare,as a traveler, with the man of thepeople in Japan And of course, inconsidering relative mobility ofpopulations, one must consider chieflythe great masses, the workers, notmerely the small class of wealth. Intheir own country, the Japanese are thegreatest travelers of any civilized

people. They are the greatest travelersbecause, even in a land composedmainly of mountain chains, theyrecognize no obstacles to travel. TheJapanese who travels most is not theman who needs railways or steamers tocarry him.

Now, with us, the common worker isincomparably less free than thecommon worker in Japan. He is lessfree because of the more complicatedmechanism of Occidental societies,whose forces tend to agglomerationand solid integration. He is less freebecause the social and industrialmachinery on which he must dependreshapes him to its own particular

requirements, and always so as toevolve some special and artificialcapacity at the cost of other inherentcapacity. He is less free because he mustlive at a standard making it impossiblefor him to win financial independenceby mere thrift. To achieve any suchindependence, he must possessexceptional character and exceptionalfaculties greater than those ofthousands of exceptional competitorsequally eager to escape from the samethralldom. In brief, then, he is lessindependent because the specialcharacter of his civilization numbs hisnatural power to live without the helpof machinery or large capital. To livethus artificially means to lose, sooner or

later, the power of independentmovement. Before a Western man canmove he has many things to consider.Before a Japanese moves he hasnothing to consider. He simply leavesthe place he dislikes, and goes to theplace he wishes, without any trouble.There is nothing to prevent him.Poverty is not an obstacle, but astimulus. Impedimenta he has none, oronly such as he can dispose of in a fewminutes. Distances have no significancefor him. Nature has given him perfectfeet that can spring him over fifty milesa day without pain; a stomach whosechemistry can extract amplenourishment from food on which noEuropean could live; and a constitution

that scorns heat, cold, and damp alike,because still unimpaired by unhealthyclothing, by superfluous comforts, bythe habit of seeking warmth fromgrates and stoves, and by the habit ofwearing leather shoes.

It seems to me that the character of ourfootgear signifies more than iscommonly supposed. The footgearrepresents in itself a check uponindividual freedom. It signifies thiseven in costliness; but in form itsignifies infinitely more. It has distortedthe Western foot out of the originalshape, and rendered it incapable of thework for which it was evolved. Thephysical results are not limited to the

foot. Whatever acts as a check, directlyor indirectly, upon the organs oflocomotion must extend its effects tothe whole physical constitution. Doesthe evil stop even there Perhaps wesubmit to conventions the most absurdof any existing in any civilizationbecause we have too long submitted tothe tyranny of shoemakers. There maybe defects in our politics, in our socialethics, in our religious system, more orless related to the habit of wearingleather shoes. Submission to thecramping of the body must certainlyaid in developing submission to thecramping of the mind.

The Japanese man of the people the

skilled laborer able to underbid withouteffort any Western artisan in the sameline of industry remains happilyindependent of both shoemakers andtailors. His feet are good to look at, hisbody is healthy, and his heart is free. Ifhe desire to travel a thousand miles, hecan get ready for his journey in fiveminutes. His whole outfit need not costseventy-five cents; and all his baggagecan be put into a handkerchief. On tendollars he can travel for a year withoutwork, or he can travel simply on hisability to work, or he can travel as apilgrim. You may reply that any savagecan do the same thing. Yes, but anycivilized man cannot; and the Japanesehas been a highly civilized man for at

least a thousand years. Hence hispresent capacity to threaten Westernmanufacturers.

We have been too much accustomed toassociate this kind of independentmobility with the life of our ownbeggars and tramps, to have any justconception of its intrinsic meaning. Wehave thought of it also in connectionwith unpleasant things, uncleanlinessand bad smells. But, as ProfessorChamberlain has well said, "a Japanesecrowd is the sweetest in the world"Your Japanese tramp takes his hot bathdaily, if he has a fraction of a cent topay for it, or his cold bath, if he hasnot. In his little bundle there are combs,

toothpicks, razors, toothbrushes. Henever allows himself to becomeunpleasant Reaching his destination, hecan transform himself into a visitor ofvery nice manners, and faultless thoughsimple attire(1).

Ability to live without furniture,without impedimenta, with the leastpossible amount of neat clothing,shows more than the advantage held bythis Japanese race in the struggle of life;it shows also the real character of someweaknesses in our own civilization. Itforces reflection upon the uselessmultiplicity of our daily wants. Wemust have meat and bread and butter;glass windows and fire; hats, white

shirts, and woolen underwear; bootsand shoes; trunks, bags, and boxes;bedsteads, mattresses, sheets, andblankets: all of which a Japanese can dowithout, and is really better offwithout. Think for a moment howimportant an article of Occidentalattire is the single costly item of whiteshirts! Yet even the linen shirt, the so-called "badge of a gentleman," is initself a useless garment. It gives neitherwarmth nor comfort. It represents inour fashions the survival of somethingonce a luxurious class distinction, butto-day meaningless and useless as thebuttons sewn on the outside of coat-sleeves.

(1) Critics have tried to make fun of SirEdwin Arnold's remark that a Japanesecrowd smells like a geranium-flower.Yet the simile is exact! The perfumecalled jako, when sparingly used, mighteasily be taken for the odor of a musk-geranium. In almost any Japaneseassembly including women a slightperfume of jako is discernible; for therobes worn have been laid in drawerscontaining a few grains of jako. Exceptfor this delicate scent, a Japanese crowdis absolutely odorless.

V

The absence of any huge signs of thereally huge things that Japan has done

bears witness to the very peculiar wayin which her civilization has beenworking. It cannot forever so work; butit has so worked thus far with amazingsuccess. Japan is producing withoutcapital, in our large sense of the word.She has become industrial withoutbecoming essentially mechanical andartificial The vast rice crop is raisedupon millions of tiny, tiny farms; thesilk crop, in millions of small poorhomes, the tea crop, on countless littlepatches of soil. If you visit Kyoto toorder something from one of thegreatest porcelain makers in the world,one whose products are known betterin London and in Paris than even inJapan, you will find the factory to be a

wooden cottage in which no Americanfarmer would live. The greatest makerof cloisonne vases, who may ask youtwo hundred dollars for something fiveinches high, produces his miraclesbehind a two-story frame dwellingcontaining perhaps six small rooms.The best girdles of silk made in Japan,and famous throughout the Empire, arewoven in a house that cost scarcely fivehundred dollars to build. The work is,of course, hand-woven. But thefactories weaving by machinery andweaving so well as to ruin foreignindustries of far vaster capacity arehardly more imposing, with very fewexceptions. Long, light, low one-storyor two-story sheds they are, about as

costly to erect as a row of woodenstables with us. Yet sheds like theseturn out silks that sell all round theworld. Sometimes only by inquiry, or bythe humming of the machinery, canyou distinguish a factory from an oldyashiki, or an old-fashioned Japaneseschool building, unless indeed you canread the Chinese characters over thegarden gate. Some big brick factoriesand breweries exist; but they are veryfew, and even when close to the foreignsettlements they seem incongruities inthe landscape.

Our own architectural monstrositiesand our Babels of machinery have beenbrought into existence by vast

integrations of industrial capital. Butsuch integrations do not exist in the FarEast; indeed, the capital to make themdoes not exist. And supposing that inthe course of a few generations thereshould form in Japan correspondingcombinations of money power, it is noteasy to suppose correspondences inarchitectural construction. Even two-story edifices of brick have given badresults in the leading commercial centre;and earthquakes seem to condemnJapan to perpetual simplicity inbuilding. The very land revolts againstthe imposition of Western architecture,and occasionally even opposes the newcourse of traffic by. pushing railroadlines out of level and out of shape.

Not industry alone still remains thusunintegrated; government itselfexhibits a like condition. Nothing isfixed except the Throne. Perpetualchange is identical with state policy.Ministers, governors, superintendents,inspectors, all high civil and militaryofficials, are shifted at irregular andsurprisingly short intervals, and hostsof smaller officials scatter each timewith the whirl. The province in which Ipassed the first twelvemonth of myresidence in Japan has had fourdifferent governors in five years.During my stay at Kumamoto, andbefore the war had begun, the militarycommand of that important post was

three times changed. The governmentcollege had in three years threedirectors. In educational circles,especially, the rapidity of such changeshas been phenomenal There have beenfive different ministers of education inmy own time, and more than fivedifferent educational policies Thetwenty-six thousand public schools areso related in their management to thelocal assemblies that, even were noother influences at work, constantchange would be inevitable because ofthe changes in the assemblies. Directorsand teachers keep circling from post topost; there are men little more thanthirty years old who have taught inalmost every province of the country.

That any educational system could haveproduced any great results under theseconditions seems nothing short ofmiraculous.

We are accustomed to think that somedegree of stability is necessary to allreal progress, all great development. ButJapan has given proof irrefutable thatenormous development is possiblewithout any stability at all. Theexplanation is in the race character, arace character in more ways than onethe very opposite of our own.Uniformly mobile, and thus uniformlyimpressionable, the nation has movedunitedly in the direction of great ends,submitting the whole volume of its

forty millions to be moulded by theideas of its rulers, even as sand or aswater is shaped by wind. And thissubmissiveness to reshaping belongs tothe old conditions of its soul life, oldconditions of rare unselfishness andperfect faith. The relative absence fromthe national character of egotisticalindividualism has been the saving ofan empire; has enabled a great peopleto preserve its independence againstprodigious odds. Wherefore Japan maywell be grateful to her two greatreligions, the creators and the preserversof her moral power to Shinto, whichtaught the individual to think of hisEmperor and of his country beforethinking either of his own family or of

himself; and to Buddhism, whichtrained him to master regret, to endurepain, and to accept as eternal law thevanishing of things loved and thetyranny of things hated.

To-day there is visible a tendency tohardening, a danger of changes leadingto the integration of just such anofficialism as that which has proved thecurse and the weakness of China. Themoral results of the new educationhave not been worthy of the materialresults. The charge of want of"individuality," in the accepted sense ofpure selfishness, will scarcely be madeagainst the Japanese of the nextcentury. Even the compositions of

students already reflect the newconception of intellectual strength onlyas a weapon of offense, and the newsentiment of aggressive egotism."Impermanency," writes one, with afading memory of Buddhism in hismind, "is the nature of our life. We seeoften persons who were rich yesterday,and are poor to-day. This is the resultof human competition, according tothe law of evolution. We are exposed tothat competition. We must fight eachother, even if we are not inclined to doso. With what sword shall we fightWith the sword of knowledge, forgedby education."

Well, there are two forms of the

cultivation of Self. One leads to theexceptional development of thequalities which are noble, and the othersignifies something about which theless said the better. But it is not theformer which the New Japan is nowbeginning to study. I confess to beingone of those who believe that thehuman heart, even in the history of arace, may be worth infinitely more thanthe human intellect, and that it willsooner or later prove itself infinitelybetter able to answer all the cruelenigmas of the Sphinx of Life. I stillbelieve that the old Japanese werenearer to the solution of those enigmasthan are we, just because theyrecognized moral beauty as greater than

intellectual beauty. And, by way ofconclusion, I may venture to quotefrom an article on education byFerdinand Brunetiere:

"All our educational measures willprove vain, if there be no effort toforce into the mind, and to deeplyimpress upon it, the sense of those finewords of Lamennais: 'Human society isbased upon mutual giving, or upon thesacrifice of man for man, or of each man forall other men; and sacrifice is the very essenceof all true society.' It is this that we havebeen unlearning for nearly a century;and if we have to put ourselves toschool afresh, it will be in order that wemay learn it again. Without such

knowledge there can be no society andno education, not, at least, if the objectof education be to form man forsociety. Individualism is to-day theenemy of education, as it is also theenemy of social order. It has not beenso always; but it has so become. It willnot be so forever; but it is so now. Andwithout striving to destroy it-whichwould mean to fall from one extremeinto another we must recognize that, nomatter what we wish to do for thefamily, for society, for education, andfor the country, it is againstindividualism that the work will have tobe done."

III

A STREET SINGER

A woman carrying a samisen, andaccompanied by a little boy seven oreight years old, came to my house tosing. She wore the dress of a peasant,and a blue towel tied round her head.She was ugly; and her natural uglinesshad been increased by a cruel attack ofsmallpox. The child carried a bundle ofprinted ballads.

Neighbors then began to crowd intomy front yard, mostly young mothersand nurse girls with babies on their

backs, but old women and men likewisethe inkyo of the vicinity. Also thejinrikisha-men came from their stand atthe next street-corner; and presentlythere was no more room within thegate.

The woman sat down on my doorstep,tuned her samisen, played a bar ofaccompaniment, and a spell descendedupon the people; and they stared ateach other in smiling amazement.

For out of those ugly disfigured lipsthere gushed and rippled a miracle of avoice young, deep, unutterablytouching in its penetrating sweetness."Woman or wood-fairy " queried a

bystander. Woman only, but a very, verygreat artist. The way she handled herinstrument might have astounded themost skillful geisha; but no such voicehad ever been heard from any geisha,and no such song. She sang as only apeasant can sing, with vocal rhythmslearned, perhaps, from the cicada andthe wild nightingales, and withfractions and semi-fractions and demi-semi-fractions of tones never writtendown in the musical language of theWest.

And as she sang, those who listenedbegan to weep silently. I did notdistinguish the words; but I felt thesorrow and the sweetness and the

patience of the life of Japan pass withher voice into my heart, plaintivelyseeking for something never there. Atenderness invisible seemed to gatherand quiver about us; and sensations ofplaces and of times forgotten camesoftly back, mingled with feelingsghostlier, feelings not of any place ortime in living memory.

Then I saw that the singer was blind.

When the song was finished, we coaxedthe woman into the house, andquestioned her. Once she had beenfairly well to do, and had learned thesamisen when a girl. The little boy washer son. Her husband was paralyzed.

Her eyes had been destroyed bysmallpox. But she was strong, and ableto walk great distances. When the childbecame tired, she would carry him onher back. She could support the littleone, as well as the bed-ridden husband,because whenever she sang the peoplecried, and gave her coppers and food....Such was her story. We gave her somemoney and a meal; and she went away,guided by her boy.

I bought a copy of the ballad, whichwas about a recent double suicide: "Thesorrowful ditty of Tamayone and Takejiro,composed by Tabenaka Yone of NumberFourteen of the Fourth Ward of Nippon-bashi in the South District of the City of

Osaka." It had evidently been printedfrom a wooden block; and there weretwo little pictures. One showed a girland boy sorrowing together. The othera sort of tail-piece represented awriting- stand, a dying lamp, an openletter, incense burning in a cup, and avase containing shikimi, that sacredplant used in the Buddhist ceremonyof making offerings to the dead. Thequeer cursive text, looking likeshorthand written perpendicularly,yielded to translation only lines likethese:

"In the First Ward of Nichi-Hommachi, in far-famed Osaka O thesorrow of this tale of shinju!

"Tamayone, aged nineteen, to see herwas to love her, for Takejiro, the youngworkman.

"For the time of two lives theyexchange mutual vows O the sorrow ofloving a courtesan!

"On their arms they tattoo aRaindragon, and the character'Bamboo' thinking never of thetroubles of life....

"But he cannot pay the fifty-five yen forher freedom O the anguish of Takejiro'sheart!

"Both then vow to pass away together,since never in this world can theybecome husband and wife....

"Trusting to her comrades for incenseand for flowers O the pity of their passinglike the dew!

"Tamayone takes the wine-cup filledwith water only, in which those aboutto die pledge each other....

"O the tumult of the lovers' suicide! O the pityof their lives thrown away!"

In short, there was nothing veryunusual in the story, and nothing at allremarkable in the verse. All the wonder

of the performance had been in thevoice of the woman. But long after thesinger had gone that voice seemed stillto stay, making within me a sense ofsweetness and of sadness so strangethat I could not but try to explain tomyself the secret of those magicaltones.

And I thought that which is hereafterset down:

All song, all melody, all music, meansonly some evolution of the primitivenatural utterance of feeling, of thatuntaught speech of sorrow, joy, orpassion, whose words are tones. Evenas other tongues vary, so varies this

language of tone combinations.Wherefore melodies which move usdeeply have no significance to Japaneseears; and melodies that touch us not atall make powerful appeal to theemotion of a race whose soul-lifediffers from our own as blue differsfrom yellow....Still, what is the reasonof the deeper feelings evoked in me analien by this Oriental chant that I couldnever even learn, by this common songof a blind woman of the people Surelythat in the voice of the singer therewere qualities able to make appeal tosomething larger than the sum of theexperience of one race, to somethingwide as human life, and ancient as theknowledge of good and evil.

One summer evening, twenty-five yearsago, in a London park, I heard a girl say"Good-night" to somebody passing by.Nothing but those two little words,"Good-night." Who she was I do notknow: I never even saw her face; and Inever heard that voice again. But still,after the passing of one hundredseasons, the memory of her "Good-night" brings a double thrillincomprehensible of pleasure and pain,pain and pleasure, doubtless, not ofme, not of my own existence, but ofpre-existences and dead suns.

For that which makes the charm of avoice thus heard but once cannot be of

this life. It is of lives innumerable andforgotten. Certainly there never havebeen two voices having precisely thesame quality. But in the utterance ofaffection there is a tenderness oftimbre common to the myriad millionvoices of all humanity. Inheritedmemory makes familiar to even thenewly-born the meaning of tins toneof caress. Inherited, no doubt, likewise,our knowledge of the tones ofsympathy, of grief, of pity. And so thechant of a blind woman in this city ofthe Far East may revive in even aWestern mind emotion deeper thanindividual being, vague dumb pathosof forgotten sorrows, dim lovingimpulses of generations

unremembered. The dead die neverutterly. They sleep in the darkest cellsof tired hearts and busy brains, to bestartled at rarest moments only by theecho of some voice that recalls theirpast.

IV

FROM A TRAVELING DIARY

I

OSAKA-KYOTO RAILWAY. April 15,1895.

Feeling drowsy in a public conveyance,and not being able to lie down, aJapanese woman will lift her long sleevebefore her face era she begins to nod.In this second-class railway-carriagethere are now three women asleep in arow, all with faces screened by the leftsleeve, and all swaying together with therocking of the train, like lotos-flowersin a soft current. (This use of the leftsleeve is either fortuitous or instinctive;probably instinctive, as the right handserves best to cling to strap or seat incase of shock.) The spectacle is at oncepretty and funny, but especially pretty,as exemplifying that grace with which arefined Japanese woman doeseverything, always in the daintiest and

least selfish way possible. It is pathetic,too, for the attitude is also that ofsorrow, and sometimes of weary prayer.All because of the trained sense ofduty to show only one's happiest faceto the world.

Which fact reminds me of anexperience.

A male servant long in my houseseemed to me the happiest of mortals.He laughed invariably when spoken to,looked always delighted while at work,appeared to know nothing of the smalltroubles of life. But one day I peepedat him when he thought himself quitealone, and his relaxed face startled me.

It was not the face I had known. Hardlines of pain and anger appeared in it,making it seem twenty years older. Icoughed gently to announce mypresence. At once the face smoothed,softened, lighted up as by a miracle ofrejuvenation. Miracle, indeed, ofperpetual unselfish self-control.

II

Kyoto, April 16.

The wooden shutters before my littleroom in the hotel are pushed away; andthe morning sun immediately paintsupon my shoji, across squares of goldlight, the perfect sharp shadow of a

little peach-tree. No mortal artist noteven a Japanese could surpass thatsilhouette! Limned in dark blue againstthe yellow glow, the marvelous imageeven shows stronger or fainter tonesaccording to the varying distance of theunseen branches outside. it sets methinking about the possible influenceon Japanese art of the use of paper forhouse-lighting purposes.

By night a Japanese house with only itsshoji closed looks like a great paper-sided lantern, a magic-lantern makingmoving shadows within, instead ofwithout itself. By day the shadows onthe shoji are from outside only; butthey may be very wonderful at the first

rising of the sun, if his beams areleveled, as in this instance, across aspace of quaint garden.

There is certainly nothing absurd inthat old Greek story which finds theorigin of art in the first untaughtattempt to trace upon some wall theoutline of a lover's shadow. Verypossibly all sense of art, as well as allsense of the supernatural, had itssimple beginnings in the study ofshadows. But shadows on shoji are soremarkable as to suggest explanation ofcertain Japanese faculties of drawing byno means primitive, but developedbeyond all parallel, and otherwisedifficult to account for. Of course, the

quality of Japanese paper, which takesshadows better than any frosted glass,must be considered, and also thecharacter of the shadows themselves.Western vegetation, for example, couldscarcely furnish silhouettes so graciousas those of Japanese garden-trees, alltrained by centuries of caressing care tolook as lovely as Nature allows.

I wish the paper of my shoji couldhave been, like a photographic plate,sensitive to that first deliciousimpression cast by a level sun. I amalready regretting distortions: thebeautiful silhouette has begun tolengthen.

III

Kyoto, April l6.

Of all peculiarly beautiful things inJapan, the most beautiful are theapproaches to high places of worshipor of rest, the Ways that go to Nowhereand the Steps that lead to Nothing.

Certainly, their special charm is thecharm of the adventitious, the effect ofman's handiwork in union withNature's finest moods of light andform and color, a charm whichvanishes on rainy days; but it is nonethe less wonderful because fitful.

Perhaps the ascent begins with asloping paved avenue, half a mile long,lined with giant trees. Stone monstersguard the way at regular intervals. Thenyou come to some great flight of stepsascending through green gloom to aterrace umbraged by older and vastertrees; and other steps from thence leadto other terraces, all in shadow. Andyou climb and climb and climb, till atlast, beyond a gray torii, the goalappears: a small, void, colorless woodenshrine, a Shinto miya. The shock ofemptiness thus received, in the highsilence and the shadows, after all thesublimity of the long approach, is veryghostliness itself.

Of similar Buddhist experiences wholemultitudes wait for those who care toseek them. I might suggest, forexample, a visit to the grounds ofHigashi Otani, which are in the city ofKyoto. A grand avenue leads to thecourt of a temple, and from the court aflight of steps fully fifty feet widemassy, mossed, and magnificentlybalustraded leads to a walled terrace.The scene makes one think of theapproach to some Italian pleasure-garden of Decameron days. But,reaching the terrace, you find only agate, opening into a cemetery! Did theBuddhist landscape-gardener wish totell us that all pomp and power andbeauty lead only to such silence at last

IV

KYOTO, April 10-20.

I have passed the greater part of threedays in the national Exhibition, timebarely sufficient to discern the generalcharacter and significance of thedisplay. It is essentially industrial, butnearly all delightful, notwithstanding,because of the wondrous applicationof art to all varieties of production.Foreign merchants and keenerobservers than I find in it other andsinister meaning, the most formidablemenace to Occidental trade andindustry ever made by the Orient.

"Compared with England," wrote acorrespondent of the London Times,"it is farthings for penniesthroughout.... The story of the Japaneseinvasion of Lancashire is older thanthat of the invasion of Korea andChina. It has been a conquest of peace,a painless process of depletion which isvirtually achieved.... The Kyoto displayis proof of a further immensedevelopment of industrial enterprise....A country where laborers' hire is threeshillings a week, with all other domesticcharges in proportion, must otherthings being equal kill competitorswhose expenses are quadruple theJapanese scale." Certainly the industrialjiujutsu promises unexpected results.

The price of admission to theExhibition is a significant matter also.Only five sen! Yet even at this figure animmense sum is likely to be realized, sogreat is the swarm of visitors.Multitudes of peasants are pouringdaily into the city, pedestrians mostly,just as for a pilgrimage. And apilgrimage for myriads the journeyreally is, because of the inaugurationfestival of the greatest of Shinshutemples.

The art department proper I thoughtmuch inferior to that of the TokyoExhibition of 1890. Fine things therewere, but few. Evidence, perhaps, of

the eagerness with which the nation isturning all its energies and talents indirections where money is to be made;for in those larger departments whereart is combined with industry, such asceramics, enamels, inlaid work,embroideries, no finer and costlier workcould ever have been shown. Indeed,the high value of certain articles ondisplay suggested a reply to a Japanesefriend who observed, thoughtfully, "IfChina adopts Western industrialmethods, she will be able to underbidus in all the markets of the world."

"Perhaps in cheap production," I madeanswer. "But there is no reason whyJapan should depend wholly upon

cheapness of production. I think shemay rely more securely upon hersuperiority in art and good taste. Theart-genius of a people may have aspecial value against which allcompetition by cheap labor is vain.Among Western nations, France offersan example. Her wealth is not due toher ability to underbid her neighbors.Her goods are the dearest in the world:she deals in things of luxury andbeauty. But they sell in all civilizedcountries because they are the best oftheir kind. Why should not Japanbecome the France of the Further East"

The weakest part of the art display is

that devoted to oil-painting, oil-painting in the European manner. Noreason exists why the Japanese shouldnot be able to paint wonderfully in oilby following their own particularmethods of artistic expression. Buttheir attempts to follow Westernmethods have even risen to mediocrityonly in studies requiring very realistictreatment. Ideal work in oil, accordingto Western canons of art, is still out oftheir reach. Perhaps they may yetdiscover for themselves a new gatewayto the beautiful, even through oil-painting, by adaptation of the methodto the particular needs of the race-genius; but there is yet no sign of sucha tendency.

A canvas representing a perfectly nakedwoman looking at herself in a verylarge mirror created a disagreeableimpression. The Japanese press hadbeen requesting the removal of thepiece, and uttering comments notflattering to Western art ideas.Nevertheless the canvas was by aJapanese painter. It was a daub; but ithad been boldly priced at threethousand dollars.

I stood near the painting for a while toobserve its effect upon the people,peasants by a huge majority Theywould stare at it, laugh scornfully, uttersome contemptuous phrase, and turn

away to examine the kakemono, whichwere really far more worthy of noticethough offered at prices ranging onlyfrom ten to fifty yen. The commentswere chiefly leveled at "foreign" ideasof good taste (the figure having beenpainted with a European head). Noneseemed to consider the thing as aJapanese work. Had it represented aJapanese woman, I doubt whether thecrowd would have even tolerated itsexistence.

Now all this scorn for the picture itselfwas just. There was nothing ideal in thework. It was simply the representationof a naked woman doing what nowoman could like to be seen doing.

And a picture of a mere naked woman,however well executed, is never art ifart means idealism. The realism of thething was its offensiveness. Idealnakedness may be divine, the mostgodly of all human dreams of thesuperhuman. But a naked person is notdivine at all. Ideal nudity needs nogirdle, because the charm is of lines toobeautiful to be veiled or broken. Theliving real human body has no suchdivine geometry. Question: Is an artistjustified in creating nakedness for itsown sake, unless he can divest thatnakedness of every trace of the realand personal

There is a Buddhist text which truly

declares that he alone is wise who cansee things without their individuality.And it is this Buddhist way of seeingwhich makes the greatness of the trueJapanese art.

V

These thoughts came:

That nudity which is divine, which isthe abstract of beauty absolute, gives tothe beholder a shock of astonishmentand delight, not unmixed withmelancholy. Very few works of art givethis, because very few approachperfection. But there are marbles andgems which give it, and certain fine

studies of them, such as the engravingspublished by the Society of Dilettanti.The longer one looks, the more thewonder grows, since there appears noline, or part of a line, whose beautydoes not surpass all remembrance. Sothe secret of such art was long thoughtsupernatural; and, in very truth, thesense of beauty it communicates ismore than human, is superhuman, inthe meaning of that which is outsideof existing life, is thereforesupernatural as any sensation known toman can be.

What is the shock

It resembles strangely, and is certainly

akin to, that psychical shock whichcomes with the first experience of love.Plato explained the shock of beauty asbeing the Soul's sudden half-remembrance of the World of DivineIdeas. "They who see here any image orresemblance of the things which arethere receive a shock like a thunderbolt,and are, after a manner, taken out ofthemselves." Schopenhauer explained,the shock of first love as the Willpowerof the Soul of the Race. The positivepsychology of Spencer declares in ourown day that the most powerful ofhuman passions, when it makes its firstappearance, is absolutely antecedent toall individual experience. Thus doancient thought and modern

metaphysics and science accord inrecognizing that the first deep sensationof human beauty known to theindividual is not individual at all.

Must not the same truth hold of thatshock which supreme art gives Thehuman ideal expressed in such artappeals surely to the experience of allthat Past enshrined in the emotional lifeof the beholder, to something inheritedfrom innumerable ancestors.

Innumerable indeed!

Allowing three generations to a century,and presupposing no consanguineousmarriages, a French mathematician

estimates that each existing individualof his nation would have in his veinsthe blood of twenty millions ofcontemporaries of the year 1000. Orcalculating from the first year of ourown era, the ancestry of a man of to-day would represent a total of eighteenquintillions. Yet what are twentycenturies to the time of the life of man!

Well, the emotion of beauty, like all ofour emotions, is certainly the inheritedproduct of unimaginably countlessexperiences in an immeasurable past. Inevery aesthetic sensation is the stirringof trillions of trillions of ghostlymemories buried in the magical soil ofthe brain. And each man carries within

him an ideal of beauty which is but aninfinite composite of dead perceptionsof form, color, grace, once dear to lookupon. It is dormant, this ideal, potentialin essence, cannot be evoked at willbefore the imagination; but it may lightup electrically at any perception by theliving outer senses of some vagueaffinity. Then is felt that weird, sad,delicious thrill, which accompanies thesudden backward-flowing of the tidesof life and time; then are the sensationsof a million years and of myriadgenerations summed into the emotionalfeeling of a moment.

Now, the artists of one civilization onlythe Greeks were able to perform the

miracle of disengaging the Race-Idealof beauty from their own souls, andfixing its wavering out-line in jewel andstone. Nudity, they made divine; andthey still compel us to feel its divinityalmost as they felt it themselves.Perhaps they could do this because, asEmerson suggested, they possessed all-perfect senses. Certainly it was notbecause they were as beautiful as theirown statues. No man and no womancould be that. This only is sure, thatthey discerned and clearly fixed theirideal, composite of countless millionremembrances of dead grace in eyesand eyelids, throat and cheek, mouthand chin, body and limbs.

The Greek marble itself gives proofthat there is no absolute individuality,that the mind is as much a compositeof souls as the body is of cells.

VI

Kyoto, April 21.

The noblest examples of religiousarchitecture in the whole empire havejust been completed; and the great Cityof Temples is now enriched by twoconstructions probably never surpassedin all the ten centuries of its existence.One is the gift of the ImperialGovernment; the other, the gift of thecommon people.

The government's gift is the Dai-Kioku-Den, erected to commemoratethe great festival of Kwammu Tenno,fifty-first emperor of Japan, andfounder of the Sacred City. To theSpirit of this Emperor the Dai-Kioku-Den is dedicated: it is thus a Shintotemple, and the most superb of allShinto temples. Nevertheless, it is notShinto architecture, but a facsimile ofthe original palace of Kwammu Tennoupon the original scale. The effect uponnational sentiment of this magnificentdeviation from conventional forms,and the profound poetry of thereverential feeling which suggested it,can be fully comprehended only by

those who know that Japan is stillpractically ruled by the dead. Muchmore than beautiful are the edifices ofthe Dai-Kioku-Den. Even in this mostarchaic of Japan cities they startle; theytell to the sky in every tilted line oftheir horned roofs the tale of anotherand more fantastic age. The mosteccentrically striking parts of the wholeare the two-storied and five-toweredgates, veritable Chinese dreams, onewould say. In color the construction isnot less oddly attractive than in form,and this especially because of the fineuse made of antique green tiles in thepolychromatic roofing. Surely theaugust Spirit of Kwammu Tenno mightwell rejoice in this charming evocation

of the past by architecturalnecromancy!

But the gift of the people to Kyoto isstill grander. It is represented by theglorious Higashi Hongwanji, or easternHongwan temple (Shinshu). Westernreaders may form some idea of itscharacter from the simple statementthat it cost eight millions of dollars andrequired seventeen years to build. Inmere dimension it is largely exceeded byother Japanese buildings of cheaperconstruction; but anybody familiar withthe Buddhist temple architecture ofJapan can readily perceive the difficultyof building a temple one hundred and,twenty-seven feet high, one hundred

and ninety-two feet deep, and morethan two hundred feet long. Because ofits peculiar form, and especially becauseof the vast sweeping lines of its roof,the Hongwanji looks even far largerthan it is, looks mountainous. But inany country it would be deemed awonderful structure. There are beamsforty-two feet long and four feet thick;and there are pillars nine feet incircumference. One may guess thecharacter of the interior decorationfrom the statement that the merepainting of the lotos-flowers on thescreens behind the main altar coat tenthousand dollars. Nearly all thiswonderful work was done with themoney contributed in coppers by hard-

working peasants. And yet there arepeople who think that Buddhism isdying!

More than one hundred thousandpeasants came to see the grandinauguration. They seated themselvesby myriads on matting laid down by theacre in the great court. I saw themwaiting thus at three in the afternoon.The court was a living sea. Yet all thathost was to wait till seven o'clock forthe beginning of the ceremony, withoutrefreshment, in the hot sun. I saw atone corner of the court a band ofabout twenty young girls, all in white,and wearing peculiar white caps, and Iasked who they were. A bystander

replied: "As all these people must waithere many hours, it is to be feared thatsome may become ill. Thereforeprofessional nurses have been stationedhere to take care of any who may besick. There are likewise stretchers inwaiting, and carriers. And there aremany physicians."

I admired the patience and the faith.But those peasants might well love themagnificent temple, their own creationin very truth, both directly andindirectly. For no small part of theactual labor of building was done forlove only; and the mighty beams for theroof had been hauled to Kyoto fromfar-away mountain-slopes, with cables

made of the hair of Buddhist wivesand daughters. One such cable,preserved in the temple, is more thanthree hundred and sixty feet long, andnearly three inches in diameter.

To me the lesson of those twomagnificent monuments of nationalreligious sentiment suggested thecertain future increase in ethical powerand value of that sentiment,concomitantly with the increase ofnational prosperity. Temporary povertyis the real explanation of the apparenttemporary decline of Buddhism. Butan era of great wealth is beginning.Some outward forms of Buddhismmust perish; some superstitions of

Shinto must die. The vital truths andrecognitions will expand, strengthen,take only deeper root in the heart ofthe race, and potently prepare it for thetrials of that larger and harsher lifeupon which it has to enter.

VII

Kobe, April 23.

I have been visiting the exhibition offishes and of fisheries which is atHyogo, in a garden by the sea. Waraku-en is its name, which signifies, "TheGarden of the Pleasure of Peace." It is

laid out like a landscape garden of oldtime, and deserves its name. Over itsverge you behold the great bay, andfishermen in boats, and the white far-gliding of sails splendid with light, andbeyond all, shutting out the horizon, alofty beautiful massing of peaksmauve-colored by distance.

I saw ponds of curious shapes, filledwith clear sea-water, in which fish ofbeautiful colors were swimming. I wentto the aquarium where stranger kindsof fishes swam behind glass fishesshaped like toy-kites, and fishes shapedlike sword-blades, and fishes thatseemed to turn themselves inside out,and funny, pretty fishes of butterfly-

colors, that move like dancing-girls,waving sleeve-shaped fins.

I saw models of all manner of boatsand nets and hooks and fish-traps andtorch-baskets for night-fishing. I sawpictures of every kind of fishing, andboth models and pictures of menkilling whales. One picture was terrible,the death agony of a whale caught in agiant net, and the leaping of boats in aturmoil of red foam, and one nakedman on the monstrous back a singlefigure against the sky striking with agreat steel, and the fountain-gush ofblood responding to the stroke....Beside me I heard a Japanese father andmother explain the picture to their little

boy; and the mother said:

"When the whale is going to die, itspeaks; it cries to the Lord Buddha forhelp, Namu Amida Butsu!"

I went to another part of the gardenwhere there were tame deer, and a"golden bear" in a cage, and peafowl inan aviary, and an ape. The people fedthe deer and the bear with cakes, andtried to coax the peacock to open itstail, and grievously tormented the ape. Isat down to rest on the veranda of apleasure-house near, the aviary, and theJapanese folk who had been looking atthe picture of whale-fishing foundtheir way to the same veranda; and

presently I heard the little boy say:

"Father, there is an old, old fishermanin his boat. Why does he not go to thePalace of the Dragon-King of the Sea,like Urashima "

The father answered: "Urashima caughta turtle which was not really a turtle,but the Daughter of the Dragon-King.So he, was rewarded for his kindness.But that old fisherman has not caughtany turtle, and even if he had caughtone, he is much too old to marry.Therefore he will not go to the Palace."

Then the boy looked at the flowers, andthe fountains, and the sunned sea with

its white sails, and the mauve-coloredmountains be-yond all, and exclaimed:

"Father, do you think there is any placemore beautiful than this in the wholeworld "

The father smiled deliciously, andseemed about to answer, but before hecould speak the child cried out, andleaped, and clapped his little hands fordelight, because the peacock hadsuddenly outspread the splendor of itstail. And all hastened to the aviary. So Inever heard the reply to that prettyquestion.

But afterwards I thought that it might

have been answered thus:

"My boy, very beautiful this is. But theworld is full of beauty; and there maybe gardens more beautiful than this.

"But the fairest of gardens is not in ourworld. It is the Garden of Amida, inthe Paradise of the West.

"And whosoever does no wrong whattime he lives may after death dwell inthat Garden.

"There the divine Kujaku, bird ofheaven, sings of the Seven Steps andthe Five Powers, spreading its tail as asun.

"There lakes of jewel-water are, and inthem lotos-flowers of a loveliness forwhich there is not any name. And fromthose flowers proceed continually raysof rainbow-light, and spirits ofBuddhas newly-born.

"And the water, murmuring among thelotos-buds, speaks to the souls in themof Infinite Memory and InfiniteVision, and of the Four InfiniteFeelings.

"And in that place there is nodifference between gods and men, savethat under the splendor of Amida eventhe gods must bend; and all sing the

hymn of praise beginning, 'O Thou ofImmeasurable Light!'

"But the Voice of the River Celestialchants forever, like the chanting ofthousands in unison: 'Even this is nothigh; there is still a Higher! This is not real;this is not Peace!'"

V

THE NUN OF THE TEMPLE OFAMIDA

When O-Toyo's husband a distantcousin, adopted into her family for

love's sake had been summoned by hislord to the capital, she did not feelanxious about the future. She felt sadonly. It was the firs time since theirbridal that they had ever beenseparated. But she had her father andmother to keep her company, and,dearer than either, though she wouldnever have confessed it even to herself,her little son. Besides, she always hadplenty to do. There were manyhousehold duties to perform, and therewas much clothing to be woven bothsilk and cotton.

Once daily at a fixed hour, she wouldset for the absent husband, in hisfavorite room, little repasts faultlessly

served on dainty lacquered trays,-miniature meals such as are offered tothe ghosts of the ancestors, and to thegods(1). These repasts were served atthe east side of the room, and hiskneeling-cushion placed before them.The reason they were served at the eastside, was because he had gone east.Before removing the food, she alwayslifted the cover of the little soup-bowlto see if there was vapor upon itslacquered inside surface. For it is saidthat if there be vapor on the inside ofthe lid covering food so offered, theabsent beloved is well. But if there benone, he is dead, because that is a signthat his soul has returned by itself toseek nourishment. O-Toyo found the

lacquer thickly beaded with vapor dayby day.

The child was her constant delight. Hewas three years old, and fond of askingquestions to which none but the godsknow the real answers. When hewanted to play, she laid aside her workto play with him. When he wanted torest, she told him wonderful stories, orgave pretty pious answers to hisquestions about those things which noman can ever understand. At evening,when the little lamps had been lightedbefore the holy tablets and the images,she taught his lips to shape the wordsof filial prayer. When he had been laidto sleep, she brought her work near

him, and watched the still sweetness ofhis face. Sometimes he would smile inhis dreams; and she knew thatKwannon the divine was playingshadowy play with him, and she wouldmurmur the Buddhist invocation tothat Maid "who looketh forever downabove the sound of prayer."

Sometimes, in the season of very cleardays, she would climb the mountain ofDakeyama, carrying her little boy on herback. Such a trip delighted him much,not only because of what his mothertaught him to see, but also of what shetaught him to hear. The sloping waywas through groves and woods, andover grassed slopes, and around queer

rocks; and there were flowers withstories in their hearts, and trees holdingtree-spirits. Pigeons cried korup-korup;and doves sobbed owao, owao andcicada wheezed and fluted and tinkled.

All those who wait for absent dear onesmake, if they can, a pilgrimage to thepeak called Dakeyama. It is visible fromany part of the city; and from itssummit several provinces can be seen.At the very top is a stone of almosthuman height and shape,perpendicularly set up; and littlepebbles are heaped before it and uponit. And near by there is a small Shintoshrine erected to the spirit of a princessof other days. For she mourned the

absence of one she loved, and used towatch from this mountain for hiscoming until she pined away and waschanged into a stone. The peopletherefore built the shrine; and lovers ofthe absent still pray there for the returnof those dear to them; and each, afterso praying, takes home one of the littlepebbles heaped there. And when thebeloved one returns, the pebble mustbe taken back to the pebble-pile uponthe mountain-top, and other pebbleswith it, for a thank-offering andcommemoration.

Always ere O-Toyo and her son couldreach their home after such a day, thedusk would fall softly about them; for

the way was long, and they had to bothgo and return by boat through thewilderness of rice-fields round thetown, which is a slow manner ofjourneying. Sometimes stars andfireflies lighted them; sometimes alsothe moon, and O-Toyo would softlysing to her boy the Izumo child-song tothe moon:

Nono-San, Little Lady Moon, How oldare you "Thirteen days, Thirteen andnine." That is still young, And thereason must be For that bright red obi,So nicely tied(2), And that nice whitegirdle About your hips. Will you give itto the horse "Oh, no, no!" Will you giveit to the cow "Oh, no, no!(3)"

And up to the blue night would risefrom all those wet leagues of laboredfield that great soft bubbling choruswhich seems the very voice of the soilitself, the chant of the frogs. And O-Toyo would interpret its syllables to thechild: Me kayui! me kayui! "Mine eyestickle; I want to sleep."

All those were happy hours.

(1) Such a repast, offered to the spiritof the absent one loved, is called aKage-zen; lit., "Shadow-tray." The wordzen is also use to signify the mealserved on the lacquered tray, which hasfeet, like miniature table. So that time

term "Shadow-feast" would be a bettertranslation of Kage-zen.

(2) Because an obi or girdle of verybright color can be worn only bychildren.

(3) Nono-San, or O-Tsuki-san Ikutsu"Jiu-san, Kokonotsu."

Sore wa mada Wakai yo, Wakai ye moDori Akai iro no Obi to, Shire iro noObi to Koshi ni shanto Musun de.Uma ni yaru "Iyaiya!" Ushi ni yaru"Iyaiya!"

II

Then twice, within the time of threedays, those masters of life and deathwhose ways belong to the eternalmysteries struck at her heart. First shewas taught that the gentle busband forwhom she had so often prayed nevercould return to her, having beenreturned unto that dust out of whichall forms are borrowed. And in anotherlittle while she knew her boy slept sodeep a sleep that the Chinese physiciancould not waken him. These things shelearned only as shapes are learned inlightning flashes. Between and beyondthe flashes was that absolute darknesswhich is the pity of the gods.

It passed; and she rose to meet a foewhose name is Memory. Before allothers she could keep her face, as inother days, sweet and smiling. But whenalone with this visitant, she foundherself less strong. She would arrangelittle toys and spread out little dresseson the matting, and look at them, andtalk to them in whispers, and smilesilently. But the smile would ever end ina burst of wild, loud weeping; and shewould beat her head upon the floor,and ask foolish questions of the gods.

One day she thought of a weirdconsolation, that rite the people nameToritsu-banashi, the evocation of the

dead. Could she not call back her boyfor one brief minute only It wouldtrouble the little soul; but would he notgladly bear a moment's pain for herdear sake Surely!

[To have the dead called back one mustgo to some priest Buddhist or Shintowho knows the rite of incantation.And the mortuary tablet, or ihai, of thedead must be brought to that priest.

Then ceremonies of purification areperformed; candles are lighted andincense is kindled before the ihai; andprayers or parts of sutras are recited;and offerings of flowers and of rice aremade. But, in this case, the rice must

not be cooked. And when everythinghas been made ready, the priest, takingin his left hand an instrument shapedlike a bow, and striking it rapidly withhis right, calls upon the name of thedead, and cries out the words, Kitazoyo! kitazo yo! kitazo yo! meaning, "Ihave come(1)." And, as he cries, thetone of his voice gradually changesuntil it becomes the very voice of thedead person, for the ghost enters intohim.

Then the dead will answer questionsquickly asked, but will cry continually:"Hasten, hasten! for this my comingback is painful, and I have but a littletime to stay!" And having answered, the

ghost passes; and the priest fallssenseless upon his face.

Now to call back the dead is not good.For by calling them back theircondition is made worse. Returning tothe underworld, they must take a placelower than that which they held before.

To-day these rites are not allowed bylaw. They once consoled; but the law isa good law, and just, since there existmen willing to mock the divine whichis in human hearts.]

So it came to pass that O-Toyo foundherself one night in a lonely littletemple at the verge of the city, kneeling

before the ihai of her boy, and hearingthe rite of incantation. And presently,out of the lips of the officiant therecame a voice she thought she knew, avoice loved above all others, but faintand very thin, like a sobbing of wind.

And the thin voice cried to her:

"Ask quickly, quickly, mother! Dark isthe way and long; and I may not linger."

Then tremblingly she questioned:

"Why must I sorrow for my child Whatis the justice of the gods "

And there was answer given:

"O mother, do not mourn me thus!That I died was only that you might notdie. For the year was a year of sicknessand of sorrow, and it was given me toknow that you were to die; and Iobtained by prayer that I should takeyour place(2).

"O mother, never weep for me! it is notkindness to mourn for the dead. Overthe River of Tears(3) their silent road is;and when mothers weep, the flood ofthat river rises, and the soul cannotpass, but must wander to and fro.

"Therefore, I pray you, do not grieve, Omother mine! Only give me a little water

sometimes."

(1) Whence the Izumo saying aboutone who too often announces hiscoming: "Thy talk is like the talk ofnecromancy!" Toritsubanashi no yona.

(2) Migawari, "substitute," is thereligious term.

(3) "Namida-no-Kawa."

III

From that hour she was not seen toweep. She performed, lightly and

silently, as in former days, the gentleduties of a daughter.

Seasons passed; and her father thoughtto find another husband for her. To themother, he said:

"If our daughter again have a son, itwill be great joy for her, and for all ofus."

But the wiser mother made answer:

"Unhappy she is not. It is impossiblethat she marry again. She has becomeas a little child, knowing nothing oftrouble or sin."

It was true that she had ceased to knowreal pain. She had begun to show astrange fondness for very small things.At first she had found her bed too largeperhaps through the sense ofemptiness left by the loss of her child;then, day by day, other things seemed togrow too large, the dwelling itself, thefamiliar rooms, the alcove and its greatflower-vases, even the householdutensils. She wished to eat her rice withminiature chop-sticks out of a verysmall bowl such as children use.

In these things she was lovinglyhumored; and in other matters she wasnot fantastic. The old people consultedtogether about her constantly. At last

the father said:

"For our daughter to live with strangersmight be painful. But as we are aged,we may soon have to leave her. Perhapswe could provide for her by making hera nun. We might build a little templefor her."

Next day the mother asked O-Toyo:

"Would you not like to become a holynun, and to live in a very, very smalltemple, with a very small altar, and littleimages of the Buddhas We should bealways near you. If you wish this, weshall get a priest to teach you thesutras."

O-Toyo wished it, and asked that anextremely small nun's dress be got forher. But the mother said:

"Everything except the dress a goodnun may have made small. But shemust wear a large dress that is the lawof Buddha."

So she was persuaded to wear the samedress as other nuns.

IV

They built for her a small An-dera, orNun's-Temple, in an empty court whereanother and larger temple, called

Amida-ji, had once stood. The An-derawas also called Amida-ji, and wasdedicated to Amida-Nyorai and toother Buddhas. It was fitted up with avery small altar and with miniature altarfurniture. There was a tiny copy of thesutras on a tiny reading-desk, and tinyscreens and bells and kakemono. Andshe dwelt there long after her parentshad passed away. People called her theAmida-ji no Bikuni, which means TheNun of the Temple of Amida.

A little outside the gate there was astatue of Jizo. This Jizo was a specialJizo the friend of sick children. Therewere nearly always offerings of smallrice-cakes to be seen before him. These

signified that some sick child was beingprayed for; and the number of the rice-cakes signified the number of the yearsof the child. Most often there were buttwo or three cakes; rarely there wereseven or ten. The Amida-ji no Bikunitook care of the statue, and supplied itwith incense-offerings, and flowersfrom the temple garden; for there was asmall garden behind the An-dera.

After making her morning round withher alms-bowl, she would usually seatherself before a very small loom, toweave cloth much too narrow forserious use. But her webs were boughtalways by certain shopkeepers whoknew her story; and they made her

presents of very small cups, tinyflower-vases, and queer dwarf-trees forher garden.

Her greatest pleasure was thecompanionship of children; and thisshe never lacked. Japanese child-life, ismostly passed in temple courts; andmany happy childhoods were spent inthe court of the Amida-ji. All themothers in that street liked to have theirlittle ones play there, but cautionedthem never to laugh at the Bikuni-San."Sometimes her ways are strange," theywould say; "but that is because sheonce had a little son, who died, and thepain became too great for her mother'sheart. So you must be very good and

respectful to her."

Good they were, but not quiterespectful in the reverential sense. Theyknew better than to be that. They calledher "Bikuni-San" always, and salutedher nicely; but otherwise they treatedher like one of themselves. They playedgames with her; and she gave them teain extremely small cups, and made forthem heaps of rice-cakes not muchbigger than peas, and wove upon herloom cloth of cotton and cloth of silkfor the robes of their dolls. So shebecame to them as a blood-sister.

They played with her daily till they grewtoo big to play, and left the court of the

temple of Amida to begin the bitterwork of life, and to become the fathersand mothers of children whom theysent to play in their stead. Theselearned to love the Bikuni-San like theirparents had done. And the Bikuni-Sanlived to play with the children of thechildren of the children of those whoremembered when her temple wasbuilt.

The people took good heed that sheshould not know want. There wasalways given to her more than sheneeded for herself. So she was able tobe nearly as kind to the children as shewished, and to feed extravagantlycertain small animals. Birds nested in

her temple, and ate from her hand, andlearned not to perch upon the heads ofthe Buddhas.

Some days after her funeral, a crowd ofchildren visited my house. A little girlof nine years spoke for them all: