BOOKS.

"OUT OF TM! EAST." * MR. LAFCADIO HEARN is in love, and Japan is his mistress. He does not write, at least he does not publish, sonnets to her ; but his "reveries and studies" about her, contained in

the volume before us, though written in prose, have much of the charm of true poetry. He is possessed by a genuine passion, for he loves everything about Japan,—her scenery, her atmosphere, her past ; her eagerness to learn from the West, her readiness, as soon as she has learned what in her opinion is enough, to throw over her teachers ; her people of almost every type ; her art, of course, intensely ; and, we are inclined to say, both her religions. The defects of vision commonly attributed to love are not wanting in Mr. Hearn's case. He hardly notices faults on which unimpassioned, but undoubtedly friendly, observers have felt obliged to dwell. It does not strike him that the stories of Japanese life told in one " study," are not always in perfect harmony with the theories of that life expounded in another. On the other hand, his passion makes his vision, where merits are con- cerned, very keen and searching, and qualifies him to help his readers to a deeper, even if less well-balanced, understanding than they might otherwise obtain of the subject of his reveries.

In selecting illustrations for these remarks, the real embarrassment of the reviewer arises from the large pro- portion of very attractive material presented by Mr. Hearn's book. He excels alike in dreamy description and in pathetic narrative. As an example of the former, take this passage from the chapter entitled " The Dream of a Summer Day " :—

" Mile after mile I rolled along that shore, looking into the infinite light. All was steeped in blue—a marvellous blue, like that which comes and goes in the heart of a great shell. Glowing blue sea met hollow blue sky in a brightness of electric fusion ; and vast blue apparitions—the mountains of Higo —angled up through the blaze like masses of amethyst. What a blue transparency ! The universal colour was broken only by the dazzling white of a few high summer clouds, motionlessly curled above one phantom peak in the offing. They threw down upon the water snowy tremulous lights. Midges of ships creeping far away seemed to pull long threads after them—the only sharp lines in all that hazy glory. But what divine clouds ! White purified spirits of clouds, resting on their way to the beatitude of Nirvana ? Or perhaps the mists escaped from Urashima's box a thousand years ago ? "

We have not space to elucidate this closing allusion by printing—and it would be brutal to summarise—Mr. Hearn's delightful account of the circumstances under which "the mists escaped from Urashima's box a thousand years ago." But it will be agreed that the sentences we have quoted furnish a singularly effective piece of poetic "im-

pressionism." Personally, we are not prepared easily to admit that clouds can ever throw down " light " upon any- thing. But Mr. Hearn's words are evidently chosen with great care, and in a later chapter he comments so severely on the absurdity of the Western view that the element of shadow is essential to true art, that we are reluctant to raise a cavil in connection with a subject on which it is plain that our author feels deeply. The main drift of his book, however, is to bring into view not so much the glories of Japanese sunlight or the charms of animate and inanimate Nature on which it falls, as the prevalence, at any rate in extensive sections of Japanese society, of modes of thought and standards of conduct which, though often widely apart from our own, demand the respect of every candid English- man. And certainly in this endeavour he meets with a large measure of success. His account of the essays written and the questions asked by the members of his class in English language and literature at the Government College, or Higher Middle School, of Kyfishia, discloses not only what must be regarded as a very good development of general intelligence among those young men, but a moral tone which in many respects is quite as high, though with interesting differences

• (1.) Out of the East : Reveries and Studies in New Japan. By Lafcadio Hearn. London : Osgood, McIlvaine, and Co.—(2.) Eatables in Japan. By H. B.. Tristram, D.D., LL.D., E.R.S,, Canon of Durham. Illustrated by Edward Whympar. London Religious Tract Society,

in point of view, as would be expected among English boys or young men in the upper forms of our great public schools or at the Universities. Of course, what boys or young men write for or say to their masters and tutors cannot by any means always be taken as sure evidence of their inner feelings or of the character of their daily life. But, so far as one can judge, Mr. Hearn's pupils appear to have given him their confidence, and what he tells us of them may therefore reasonably be taken without much discount. It certainly

illustrates an attractive simplicity of character and thought, not untouched by poetic imagination, together with a high development of family affection and strong sense of family duty, and also a remarkably high level of patriotic feeling. This spirit is apparently inherited from the old military class of the island of Kyushu, and it is not surprising to hear that rich men at a distance are keen to give their sons the oppor- tunity of acquiring the Kyushu " tone." Towards the close of his book Mr. Hearn gives an extremely interesting account of a farewell visit paid him in the autumn of 1894 by an old pupil who had entered the army after leaving college, and had been placed, at his own request, in one of the divisions ordered for service in Corea :— " And now I am so glad,' he exclaimed, his face radiant with a soldier's joy ; ` we go to-morrow.' Then he blushed again, as if ashamed of having uttered his frank delight. I thought of Carlyle's deep saying, that never pleasures, but only suffering and death are the lures that draw true hearts. I thought also— what I could not say to any Japanese—that the joy in the lad's eyes was like nothing I had ever seen before, except the caress in the eyes of a lover on the morning of his bridal."

A beautiful thought, the reader will agree ; but why could it not be uttered to a Japanese ? A good deal will be found on this subject in Mr. Hearn's book, and, as we have indicated, we do not think it all holds together. His class of students, we learn, professed to think it "very, very strange" that there

should be so much in English novels about love and marrying ; and then he tell us that— "Any social system of which filial piety is not the moral cement ; any social system in which children leave their parents in order to establish families of their own ; any social system in which it is considered not only natural but right to love wife and child more than the authors of one's being ; any social system in which marriage can be decided independently of the will of the parents by the mutual inclination of the young people themselves

appears, to the Japanese student of necessity, a state of life scarcely better than that of the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, or at best a sort of moral chaos."

Now of course it is known here that in Japan, as in other Oriental countries, it is a rule for marriages to be family arrangements, as regards which it is expected that the young persons will conform to the wishes of their respective parents. But that that expectation is so generally fulfilled as to render the modes of thought and sentiment current in the West on the subject of honourable love between the sexes,

foreign to the well-conducted youth of Japan, is what we must respectfully decline to believe. We should have done so on the strength of such books as Mr. Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, and of references in Mrs. Bird's excellent book

on her travels in that country to the frequent occurrence of joint suicides of lovers. But we do so with still greater con- fidence in view of a pathetic story, charmingly told by Mr.

Hearn, in this very volume, under the title of " The Red Bridal." There we have the case of a young couple who had grown up together from school-days, and were deeply in love with one another. The young man's parents cordially approved of the match, but the girl's father, under the influence of her designing stepmother, agreed to sell her to the wealthiest but most disreputable man in the village. The gentle maiden made no indignant protest when she was told of this terrible decision, but next morning she and her lover walked quietly off very early to meet the TOIry6 express, "wound their arms about each other, lay down cheek to cheek, very softly and quickly, straight across the inside rail," and so died together. Then what follows ? Is their memory accursed, as that of beings who have done what in them lay to bring about " a sort of moral chaos " in society ? Not a bit of it ! " The village people now put bamboo cups full of flowers upon the single grave-stone of the united pair, and burn incense-sticks and repeat prayers. This," adds our author, "is not orthodox at all, because Buddhism forbids jtishi (joint-suicide), and the cemetery is a Buddhist one ; but there is religion in it,—a religion worthy of profound respect."

Bit of course some inconsistencies are to be expected from

an author enamoured of the whole country. He is very Buddhist, and is anxious to show that Buddhists have always held, in matters of faith, something very like the doctrines of modern science with regard to the perpetual sequence of evolution and dissolution. On this subject he argues cleverly and effectively ; but when, by implication or expressly, he compares Buddhism with Christianity, it is evident that the latter faith has not received any very close study from him. None the less is his book, though dominated by a some- what uncritical enthusiasm, full of interest and instruction as to the differences between the gifts, the motives, and the mental and moral attitude of the Japanese and the peoples of the West, ourselves in particular. It is well worth while to study that remarkable people as they are seen by one who is so much captivated by them, and who believes in them so strongly, as Mr. Lafcadio Hearn.

Canon Tristram's Rambles in Japan is a very pleasantly written book of travel, with a large number of very attractive illustrations of Japanese landscape, temples, and life, from sketches and photographs by Mr. Edward Whymper. Canon Tristram is as frankly delighted as any other traveller with the beauty of Japanese scenery—above all, of the famous "Inland Sea," land-locked between the main island of Hondo and the southern island of Krishii and Shikoku—and with the gracefully courteous manners and exquisite artistic taste of the Japanese people. The care and sympathy with which Canon Tristram studies nature appear very frequently, and his remarks, in particular on the similarities and differences between the birds of Japan and England, are full of interest to all country-bred readers. One of the main objects of his visit to Japan was to acquaint himself thoroughly with the position of missionary work there, and especially that of the Church Missionary Society. The facts he gives with regard to the number and character of the converts at Osaka, " the Manchester of Japan," and in the island of Kr-Ishii itself, appear to justify a very much more cheerful view both of the prospects of Christian missions in Japan, and of their present effect on the moral position of those on whom they are brought to bear, than that set forth, characteristically enough, by Mr. Lafcadio Hearn.