THE INNER LIFE OF JAPAN.* MOST travellers who have recorded
their impressions of Japan, have written rather in the spirit of the lover who can see no defect in the object of affection, and Mr. Hearn is no excep- tion to the rule. His impressions however, in spite of his Own manifest bias in favour of all things Japanese, are more valuable than those of the ordinary traveller inasmuch as he has been at some p aim to get below the external grace and beauty of the country, and to explore its less familiar depths. A residence of four years in Japan—during a part of which time the author taught in a Japanese school— a patient desire to visit every shrine and home of reli- gion within his reach, and an insatiable curiosity as to Buddhist and Shinto rites and ceremonies, which seems to have been always moat kindly gratified by his Japanese friends, have enabled him to attain a more extensive know- ledge of the inner life of the country than often falls to the Western traveller. But the picture which he now presents as the result of his investigations is, we fancy, too uniformly charming and delightful to be absolutely true to fact. If Japan is all that he says ; if the Japanese are so compounded of all the virtues, and so innocent of the ugly failings that mar our Western civilisation, then the poet's dream of a Golden Age has actually been realised in the remote East. Much as we should like to believe that such a land and such a people actually exist, we cannot altogether conquer our doubts, or avoid the suspicion that the author's feelings sometimes get the better of his judgment. Or is it really possible that th,Tle,- is actually a country in this world where one may live for four years without ever seeing a blow struck in anger, without ever hearing even an angry word,—a country where there is no exception known to the most perfect family harmony, where childish innocence and childish joy endure through old age to death, and where there is such an unfailing kindness and tenderness of heart upon the part of mankind, that the domestic animals, and even wild beasts and birds, know no fear of a gentle race of men P The author has a charming style and a very pretty and felici- tous taste in language ; he writes so prettily, in fact, that it is difficult not to fancy that he sometimes sacrifices ugly facts to preserve the harmony of his tale. We may be wronging him, but that is the main impression that his account of Japan leaves upon our minds. The fault, however, is one upon the the right side, and though a too persistent rose-colour may detract from the accuracy of his picture, it does not impair our pleasure in regarding it. Unfortunately, the author gives us to understand that this pleasant aspect of Japanese life is gradually being changed by the invading influence of Western ideas. It is only to be found among the "great common people," and has already faded away from the Europeanised circles of Japanese society. Intellectual Japan has become agnostic, and in its anxiety to throw off the primitive superstitions of which it is now ashamed, it is really sapping the foundations of all that is best in its life. Long ago it exchanged the more florid forms of Buddhism for the purer simplicity of Shintoism ; and now it seems disposed to turn its back even upon the purified tenets of its archaic worship. How far this revulsion from primitive beliefs is likely to affect the great majority of the people it is difficult to say. Probably to no great extent. Even to-day, apparently, all the
* Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. By Lafeadio Hearn. London ; Osgood, lifeilvaine, and Os.
efforts of successive Governments to purge Shintoism of Buddhist excrescences have only resulted in producing a religious belief that is a modified mixture of both creeds. It is hardly likely, then; that the breath of agnosticism will do more than ruffle the extreme outward surface of Japanese faith. After all, the main fact of Shintoism—the worship of ancestors—is something stronger than a superstition in the hold that it has taken upon the national life. As the author says, in the course of a most interesting chapter upon the importance of the household shrine,— " The secret living force of Shinto to-day—that force which repels missionary efforts at proselytising—means something much more profound than tradition, or worship, or ceremonialism. Shinto may yet, without loss of real power, survive all these. Certainly the expansion of the popular mind through education, the influences of modern science, must compel modification or abandonment of many ancient Shinto conceptions ; but the ethics of Shinto will surely endure. For Shinto signifies character in the highest sense,—courage, courtesy, honour, and above all things, loyalty. The spirit of Shinto is the spirit of filial piety, the zest of duty, the readiness to surrender life for a principle without a thought of wherefore. It is the docility of the child ; it is the sweetness of the Japanese woman. It is Conservatism likewise ; the wholesome cheek upon the national tendency to cast away the worth of the entire past in rash eagerness to assimilate too much of the foreign present. It is religion—but religion transformed into hereditary moral impulse—religion transmuted into ethical instinct. It is the whole emotional life of the race,—the Soul of Japan."
To know and understand the Japanese it is necessary then to understand the simpler faiths of the country-people. Our author has been at some pains to put these clearly before us; and although it is difficult to fit together the scraps that he has collected into anything like a coherent scheme of religion, we can at least catch the spirit that generally seems to underlie them. His descriptions of the many shrines and temples that he visited would be just a little monotonous, were it not that he contrives to discover in each some trace of the unseen life of the country. But some of his chapters— notably, those upon Household Shrines, upon Jizo the guardian of children, upon the mysteries of the Bon-Odori, and that which is entitled "At the Market of the Dead," have quite a special charm and interest for a thoughtful reader.
Not less pleasant in their way are his experiences as a school- master among Japanese scholars. As a race the Japanese seem to have an extraordinary natural love of learning, and it is carious to contrast their system of education based as it is entirely upon kindness and gentleness, with that of the English public school. Aut disce, aut discede ; manet sets tertia, ccedi—runs an old Winchester motto, and it is not unfair to say that learning by compulsion is dill the rule in England. In Japan the rod would be impossible. It is the boys and not their teachers who are the masters of the situation. Scholars might expel their professor for want of ability to teach, but no professor could ever expel a scholar for being wanting in eagerness to learn. The author gives some amusing little English essays, the work of his class, to illustrate the moralising tendency which seems to be innate in Japanese youth. Here is a specimen, in the shape of an essay upon mosquitoes :— "On summer nights we hear the sound of faint voices ; and little things come and sting our bodies very violently. We call them ka,—in English, mosquitoes.' I think the sting is useful to us, because if we begin to sleep, the ka shall come and sting us, uttering a small voice,—and then we shall be bringed back to study by the sting."
The most curious and suggestive of Mr. Ream's disquisi- tions is that upon the Japanese smile. In this chapter, as in most of the others, the fanciful form in which he expresses his thoughts somewhat detracts from their force. Indeed, the chief fault that we have to find with the author is a rather obvious struggle for effect in all that he writes. His style is too persistently picturesque; after a time it begins to cloy upon the palate. Nevertheless, one must still confess that these two volumes upon Japanese life are not only more interesting, but also infinitely more readable than many works of a similar character.
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