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    Kokoro
    Kokoro
    Kokoro
    Ebook295 pages7 hours

    Kokoro

    By Lafcadio Hearn

    4/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A Story with Heart.

    “We owe more to our illusions than to our knowledge” - Natusme, Kokoro

    A collection of 15 essays that examine the inner spiritual life of Japan through the people that make Japan the unique place it is.
    This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it.

    Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes



    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXist Publishing
    Release dateMar 17, 2016
    ISBN9781681951669
    Kokoro
    Author

    Lafcadio Hearn

    Lafcadio Hearn, also called Koizumi Yakumo, was best known for his books about Japan. He wrote several collections of Japanese legends and ghost stories, including Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.

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    Reviews for Kokoro

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    • 5/5
      Natsume Soseki truly made a great novel when he wrote Kokoro. It is the story of a young Japanese college student and his interactions with an old man, whom he calls Sensei. It is a story of the influence of the past, the feelings of loss and regret, and the importance of friendship. Soseki created a very distinct novel and is able to dive deeper into the deeper lessons of life.The novel is broken up into two sections. The first follows the point of view of a young college student. Soseki chronicles his ups and downs as the college student tries to get to know Sensei better, manage his school, and deal with the reality of a dying father. It was a very moving section, but I did not feel very invested into it.What I really got hooked on was the second section. This section is a letter from Sensei to the young college student explaining his past and his pessimistic outlook on life. It's a flashback to his old life, but the fact that it is describing it as a letter years in the future gives it greater clarity and and introspective tone. The tension builds up perfectly through this section and it really is the perfect way to end the novel.Soseki does a wonderful job creating a realistic world with relatable characters. He also does a good job reflecting the world and time period he came from. This book reflects the end of the Meji period, both literally and figuratively. Within the novel itself, the death of Emperor Meji and his general mark a changing point in the story. However, the actions and characteristics of all major characters play out the very drama within themselves. It's a perfect layering that adds depth to the story.I really enjoyed Kokoro. Even though it was a little bit slow at first, I still loved every minute of it by the end.
    • 4/5
      "Kokoro" is Japanese for "heart," or "the essential of things."We have here a deeply sensuous and internal story concerned with a transitional period in Japan when it began to discard traditional Confucian societal guidelines and be increasingly influenced by Western values.The plot circulates around a callow college student and his relationship with a seemingly misogynistic older man who lives an isolated life devoid of companionship except that of his wife and increasingly the young student.Dominating plot is psychological character development based on the feeling of loneliness and self-ostracization due to guilt. Soseki, at the time he wrote this novel, was exploring the fractures in Japanese society at the end of the Meiji period and the influx of Western modes of thinking about social constructs and norms. The overriding theme of loneliness is represented by the student's quest for knowledge from "Sensi" on how to fit into life, to discover a purpose when one is ill at ease, at sea, and a misfit. He is symbolic of the confusion and uncertainty of Japan's future as it leaves traditional Confucian guidelines behind, substituting Western ones that place greater emphasis on individuality rather than filial piety. These aspects are covered in Part I.Part II demonstrates the disruption, chaos, and abandonment of earlier ideals as symbolized by the student's family life. His father is dying of a lingering illness (as is the old Empire: the Emperor dies and a national hero, Gen. Nogi, commits suicide to demonstrate his loyalty to the Old Way). The student vacillates between his own desire to strike out on his own and build a life in Tokyo, separating totally from his rural home and kin and remaining home to care for his soon-to-be widowed mother, demonstrating filial piety. The climax in the novel occurs when he receives a letter from Sensei, so disturbing, that he abandons his dying father to run to his teacher who is already dead by suicide. We understand Soseki's thematic intent.Part III is Sensei's story, a melodramatic epistolary tale of betrayal and self-realization that leads to Sensei's psychological breakdown into a kind of paranoid and permanent depression. Only after meeting the student late in life, who is so much like him when young, yet uncompromisingly different, does Sensei confess in his letter to his only friend that he has found the courage to kill himself because: a) he is no better than those he despises, having exhibited the same behavior; b) he wants to end the agony of his guilt over his youthful betrayal of his friend, "K"; c) he wants to end the self-torture of being unable to believe himself a bad man or to believe himself a good man; d) he can never integrate himself into the New Japan and, so, like the general determines he will remain loyal to the past by not continuing into a future without hope for him.Regarding thematic development and character analysis as an allegory for Japan on the threshold of seismic change, the novel is a masterpiece. But it is not without its faults. As a construction, the three parts are clunky and disunified. The writing is minimalistic but not individualistic so that it's hard to separate Soseki's style/signature as an author from other minimalist Japanese authors, say Kawabata, and the prose lacks an element of ethereal beauty that seems required.However, Kokoro is undeniably a classic work that withstands time (written 100+ years ago) and remains modern because of its subject matter: the relationship and obligations of the individual during a period of cultural reorganization. The novel's timelessness is probably due to the treatment of psychological chaos and shattering, being utterly Japanese and without Freudian or Jungian examination. I am grateful for that.
    • 4/5
      Wonderful novel... never read any lit crit of this, but seems like an allegory for the end of the Meiji era in Japan; the death of the original oligarchy that felled the Tokugawa and ruled the country for 40 years or so... translation is minimalist and gorgeous.
    • 5/5
      This novel is blow-me-away kind of gorgeous. It's my first novel by Natsume Soseki who has been considered to be Japan's finest contemporary novelist. I think that most Japanese fiction, in its simplicity of voice is beautiful, but this story has a grace in a class by itself. It's a story about friendship, love, and betrayal. It's strength lies in the last part of the book in which we hear directly from Sensei, a friend of the university student who narrates the beginning of this book, as Sensei reveals how one important decision he makes during his life causes him unending guilt and deep spiritual pain. I sincerely want to delve into more work by this amazing Japanese writer. I can't believe it took me so long to remove this book from my bookshelf and finally read it. What a treasure!
    • 4/5
      Great book. It was such a simple story but I was kept interested as it slowly unfolded as to the reason the Sensei was so withdrawn and untrusting of others. The ending was very thought provoking as well.
    • 3/5
      I had to read this for a class a few years ago. Very interesting. A Japanese classic.
    • 5/5
      Natsume Soseki truly made a great novel when he wrote Kokoro. It is the story of a young Japanese college student and his interactions with an old man, whom he calls Sensei. It is a story of the influence of the past, the feelings of loss and regret, and the importance of friendship. Soseki created a very distinct novel and is able to dive deeper into the deeper lessons of life.The novel is broken up into two sections. The first follows the point of view of a young college student. Soseki chronicles his ups and downs as the college student tries to get to know Sensei better, manage his school, and deal with the reality of a dying father. It was a very moving section, but I did not feel very invested into it.What I really got hooked on was the second section. This section is a letter from Sensei to the young college student explaining his past and his pessimistic outlook on life. It's a flashback to his old life, but the fact that it is describing it as a letter years in the future gives it greater clarity and and introspective tone. The tension builds up perfectly through this section and it really is the perfect way to end the novel.Soseki does a wonderful job creating a realistic world with relatable characters. He also does a good job reflecting the world and time period he came from. This book reflects the end of the Meji period, both literally and figuratively. Within the novel itself, the death of Emperor Meji and his general mark a changing point in the story. However, the actions and characteristics of all major characters play out the very drama within themselves. It's a perfect layering that adds depth to the story.I really enjoyed Kokoro. Even though it was a little bit slow at first, I still loved every minute of it by the end.
    • 3/5
      Soseki's Kokoro explores the theme of the demise of the traditional Japanese way of life, a theme that seems all but omnipresent in Japanese literature of this period. Kokoro, however, seems to adopt a less damning stance with regards to the demise of the old ways than some other works of Japanese fiction. Soseki doesn't use this book to condone the death of traditional Japanese life by any means, but he does not identify it as something to struggle against either, identifying both virtues and flaws in the old ways.

      Dealing with this book out of order, the second half of this book consists of the life story of a character identified only as Sensei, who inherited from his parents the role of a country nobleman, but who was cheated out of this inheritance and gave up the countryside for a life in Tokyo. There he lives with a mother and daughter, slowly falling in love with the latter, and eventually convincing his friend K to move in with him. K also falls in love with the daughter, in direct contradiction to the values that K had previously espoused, and Sensei uses this hypocrisy and K's inability to abandon his old perspective to intentionally inflict pain, while simultaneously swooping in and becoming engaged to the daughter without his friend's knowledge. K commits suicide, and Sensei lives the rest of his life tormented by his role in the matter.

      The first half of the book deals with how an unnamed narrator befriends Sensei, who has lived an idle life with his wife, slowly withdrawing more and more from society and other people as he finds his guilt growing harder and harder to deal with. The narrator, largely oblivious to all of this, sees Sensei as a great man despite his lack of accomplishments and spends a significant period of time trying to get to know him and emulating his lifestyle. Eventually the narrator must return home after graduating from university to take care of his dying father. His father, a provincial who lives in the country, seems to have inflated expectations compared to what the narrator actually believes he can achieve, and as his condition slowly deteriorates the narrator indulges him in several fictions to ease his passing. Just before his father is apparently going to finally die the narrator receives a letter from Sensei detailing his life (as set out above) and claiming that he will have committed suicide by the time the letter arrives. Distraught, the narrator leaves his father on his deathbed to return to Tokyo and find Sensei.

      It seems very difficult to interpret Sensei as anything other than largely symbolic of the transition of Japanese life from the traditional (country nobleman whose hobbies include things like flower arrangement) to the modern (urban living, attendance at a Western style university, associating with a Westerner at the beach). With this in mind, I took the narrator's interaction with Sensei to be a reflection of Soseki's beliefs about his era's attachment to the old ways of life, which were still viewable but fading every day in early 1900s Japan. The narrator feels an innate affinity for Sensei and his more traditional way of life, but Sensei is largely unable to reciprocate. The narrator would even like to emulate Sensei, but with the economic realities of the day it seems unlikely that the narrator would actually be able to carry those ambitions out. Finally, the fate of Sensei raises the question of whether such emulation is desirable at all. Sensei's ties to the past have seemed to give him nothing but trouble, and his inability to let go of it has tormented him. The traditional aspects of his life have not seemed to give him any special strength with which to deal with the modern world.

      This was my interpretation at least, and it makes Kokoro a much more neutral stance towards modernization than I'm used to seeing in Japanese literature. It's of course possible to interpret the book differently, but the narrator's final actions taken for Sensei's sake seem to be strong evidence that an infatuation with the past leads to more harm than good. Ultimately, however, Kokoro provides little concrete information about the ultimate fates of its characters. We never actually find out happens to the narrator's father, or what the fallout is for the narrator's decision to return to Tokyo. We don't even really know what befalls Sensei, we are merely informed by Sensei of what he claims he's going to do if he has the strength for it. Ultimately, the only thing we are left knowing for sure is that the old era is over. An appropriately open ended message for a Japanese book of that time.

      With all that being said, I didn't love this book. Symbolism aside, you had a story about a couple characters that weren't particularly sympathetic dealing with problems of their own design, and dealing with them poorly. As already stated, we don't even find out how it all plays out, the novel ending before any definitive action is reached. The minimalist prose worked for this book, but it rarely had that beauty in sparseness sometimes captured by minimalist writing (though that might be due to the translation). The characters likewise didn't feel particularly distinct, as the narrator and Sensei were the only ones given depth and they read as very, very similar (though that may well have been intentional on Soseki's part given their symbolic roles). This was one of those books that was more fun to analyze than it was to read by a noticeable margin, while great works pull off both. Give this a try if you're interested in pre-WWII Japanese literature.

      A note on the edition Edwin McClellan translated: the minimalist prose he adopts seems appropriate, but I'm not sure how much faith I have in the translation given the note on page 49 describing go as "a kind of checkers." The use of the word "excited" on page 64 and 65 also seems a bit strange to me, and I suspect the connotation of the original word would be different, but I can't read Japanese well enough to take a stab at an independent interpretation. I'm not saying there's a better translation out there, but if you're thinking of picking up a copy you might want to compare a couple editions online before making your choice.
    • 5/5
      "How can I escape,except through faith,madness or death?"

      Kokoro is an epic melodrama of isolation and self-inflicted guilt. A beautiful heartfelt experience from the exploring friendship between a young graduate student and his mentor(Sensei).Soseki brilliantly unveils an intricate web of egoism,guilt,temptations and loneliness through various anecdotes on Sensei's reclusive living. No wonder Soseki succeeded Lafacdio Hearn as a lecturer in English Literature in the Imperial University(1903).
    • 5/5
      This book changed my life. It was being discarded by my high school library and I scooped it up to read. As a high schooler who felt separated and apart from my classmates, Sensei's quiet acceptance of the narrator and his distant manner attracted me in a powerful way, and as I read I also began to think of him as my own personal Sensei. When I finished the book I felt as if I had been struck, but was not yet old enough to really understand the immensity of this work.I brought Kokoro with me to Japan when I studied abroad. There I struggled again to find connection and meaning in my life, and during a particularly depressing day I sat down and read Kokoro cover to cover. It has been said that when we read we are searching for ourselves. I found myself in Kokoro. The feelings within the novel, and the way they are expressed, resonate with me in a way that no other book has managed. When I feel sad and alone I think of Sensei, and I am not alone anymore.Kokoro is a much more complex novel than what my gushing might suggest. It isn't melodramatic. It isn't overly emotional. It is restrained and intensely introspective. Kokoro spurred my love of Japanese literature, I think it is a terrible shame that more people aren't exposed to this masterpiece. I look for excuses to suggest it to pretty much everyone I meet, and I would certainly suggest it to anyone who is looking for a book representing the finest fiction that the East has to offer.
    • 5/5
      Soseki's "I Am A Cat" seems to get all the attention but this is a far superior work. Perhaps it could be structured better, less arbitrarily, but that's my only (minor) complaint. Both the voice of the narrator and the melancholy surrounding Sensei draw you in to this little world, their private lives. A simple, enthralling tale, very well written (and translated) which shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in Japanese literature.
    • 5/5
      I couldn't put this book down, which is odd, since is has very little plot. The subtle but effective character development really drew me in. There is also a feeling of dread that is felt from the beginning but that gets more and more oppressive and desperate right up to the end. I had to continue reading to find out what happened, but at the same time, deep inside I knew exactly what happened from the start and read on to try to prevent the inevitable. Given the themes of the novel, I assume this was an intentional effect. I also found it amusing that in Part 3, when Sensei was young, I forgot that young Sensei and original narrator were different characters. Again, likely a brilliant ruse by Soseki. I am not familiar enough with Japanese history to appreciate the grander picture of this novel, but on its own, it's still a wonderful read. 4.5 stars
    • 3/5
      Kokoro is a beautifully written story with a deep underlying sadness of a young man who befriends a mysterious mentor with a troubled past, which isn't revealed until after the narrator travel home to care for his dying father. This is a story of relationships and the decisions we make that can forever alter those bonds. This is novel about longing for a past we can't have, even if it causes us so much pain.It's easy to tell that Natsume Soseki was concerned with themes of isolation, especially loneliness resulting from the rapid social changes during the Meiji Period of Japan, when Japan was rapidly adapting technology and the cultural customs of western countries. It's hard for me to relate to, but I think there are some similarities to today with how the internet has changed the dynamics of how people relate to one another. While being more and more connected in every way we are still interfacing with a screen isolated from the outside, creating a new kind of loneliness.There's also a lot to take away from this novel as historic piece of work. One being that no western novel of the same period could ever sustain the kind of avoidance and mystery of the past for so long. By applying to the very traditional Japanese custom of discretion Soseki manages to create an atmosphere of suspense in what amounts to a slow plodding character driven novel. The other is that Meiji Period must have been very hard for much of the older and more traditional Japanese to adjust to. Ever society has a period of immense change in its history, but I get a sense that this was especially traumatic for a society like Japan that had been closed to the outside for long. A very worthwhile look at the affects of the Meiji Period.
    • 4/5
      Late Henry James is Soseki's "Kokoro" in a different time and place, and in vastly less pleasant (but also more interesting!) prose. Therefore, I loved this novel. But many people will not.
    • 4/5
      Japanese author Natsume Suseki, published 1914, Translation by Edwin McClellan. The translator talks about the translation before the story starts. I found this nice and wish more translators comment on their translations. The story starts with a friendship between a young man and an older man. The next part is a letter that the older man writes to the young man. The title means heart or the heart of things or feelings. A theme is isolation. It also looks at changes in Japan and changes in roles of women and generations. There is a exploration of loneliness, isolation, and suicide.
    • 5/5
      Monstrous ending.
    • 5/5
      One of my interesting resources for new books might come as a surprise to some. This occurs when I read a novel with characters who give high praise to a novel they admire. I read a novel by Japanese novelist, Natsume Sōseki based solely on the title, Kafka on the Shore. I loved it and have since read a couple of others. I recently reviewed the latest novel of Haruki Murakami, Men without Women. This novel led me back to Sōseki and, what is purported to be, his masterpiece, . I, too, lavish a ton of praise on Sōseki for this puzzling and interesting novel.The book is divided into three parts. Part One is “Sensi and I,” which tells the story of a young, unnamed college student. One day at the beach, he sees a man who dives into the ocean and swims out of sight. He continues watching until the swimmer returns. The young man sees him twice more, but he never strikes up a conversation. Finally, he introduces himself, but the man, who he has named “SensI,” seems uninterested. Sensi is a Japanese word meaning “teacher.” He asks Sensi, “Would it be all right if I visited you at your home now and then?” Sensi agrees. Sōseki writes, “Often, during my association with Sensi, I was disappointed in this way. Sometimes, Sensi seemed to know that I had been hurt, and sometimes, he seemed not to know. But no matter how often I experienced such trifling disappointments, I never felt any desire to part from Sensi. Indeed, each time I suffered a rebuff, I wished more than ever to push our friendship further” (8). To westerners, this behavior might seem odd at the least, but apparently, not to the Japanese. As time passes, the two men develop a moderately close relationship. Sensi also holds back some information, when the young man questions him. More about this in Part Two and Three.Part Two is “My Parent’s and I.” The young man has managed to complete his degree. His father has developed an unspecified illness, and the young man returns home for an extended period. The father pushes his son to determine the course of his life. Sōseki writes, “‘I must go,’ I said, ‘if I am to find the kind of job that you had in mind for me.’ // I made it seem as though I wished to go to Tokyo merely to realize my father’s hopes for me. // ‘Of course, I want my allowance only until I find a job.’ // Secretly, I felt that there was little chance of my finding a decent position. But my father, who was somewhat removed from the realities of the world outside, firmly believed otherwise. // ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Since it will only be for a short time, I’ll see to it that you get your allowance. But only for a short time, mind. You must become independent as soon as you find employment’” (98). Before the son leaves for Tokyo, he receives a manuscript from Sensi. He begins to read, but it is long and complicated. He saves the reading for a later date.Part Three is “Sensi and His Testament.” The “Testament” is the long manuscript-letter Sensi sent to the young man. In it, Sensi answers the questions the young man had asked during their friendship. Shortly after, Sensi dies. In the letter, he reveals the source of his misanthropy as a way to instruct the young man in his future. This fascinating story of friendship, teaching, learning by the great Japanese writer Kokoro by Netsume Sōseki is a serious philosophical exploration of life and death. 5 stars.--Chiron, 10/13/18
    • 4/5
      Atmospheric. Haunting. Twists.
    • 4/5
      A tale of manners and social morals dealing with love, friendship and betrayal. Told in a measured, undramatic way that could be Henry James in Japan. Strong social codes involving honour and shame have been prevalent in many societies from medieaval Iceland with its sagas to Victorian Britain. Japan is amongst them. The end is inevitable. It is reached an an inexorably slow but fascinating pace. In its way tragic but also satisfactory. There was no other way.
    • 3/5
      "Kokoro" was confusing, unsatisfying, interesting...to say the least. Why did the student seek out Sensei to begin with? I figured the student was gay and felt a physical attraction; quite possibly, that was the case. But for melancholic Sensei (who married the woman of his dreams), how did he benefit by building and maintaining a relationship with the acolyte whom, ultimately, he deemed to be more intimate and trusting than his wife Ojosan? I didn't get it. The student was no hero. He was naive, deeply flawed, and unbalanced. How else to explain his sudden, rash "Remains of the Day decision" to leave his father's deathbed in order to pursue his obsession with Sensei? Possibly we all can relate to the student's feeling, in some form, of profound personal conflict...but, still, he totally flunked out at a critical moment for himself and his family.Sensei's letter was indeed the most engaging part of "Kokoro", as it provided an interesting and compelling back story for how, and under what circumstances, he arrived at his station in life and adopted his overall piss poor, untrusting attitude about himself and others. As described in the letter, the relationship dynamics between Sensei and "K", his erstwhile student peer and friend, were plenty weird. Yet they also were understandable and, to a certain extent, transcended the specific zeitgeist of early 20C Japanese culture. Ultimately, I won't pretend to understand Sensei and the decisions that he made. I also can't comprehend the relationship between Sensei and the student. If these connections were in some way emblematic of early 20C Japanese mores or culture, I simply didn't get them.
    • 3/5
      An insight into the mind of a man «of the past» entering Japanese modernity. This intimate book illustrates the clash between two generations of Japanese men (I emphasize on MEN since this book really sets women apart)... This is a highly philosophical book, not in a theorical way, but in it's capacity of finding a way to explain through a simple voice the change that took place with the end of an «obsolete», or traditional, way of thinking the world (in contradiction to the «modern world») in Japan.I think one needs to have at least minimal knowledge of Japanese history and philosophy to appreciate what this novel is about.Worth rereading, since this book is about a lot more than a simple character's story.

    Book preview

    Kokoro - Lafcadio Hearn

    Questions

    KOKORO

    I AT A RAILWAY STATION

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

    Yesterday a telegram from Fukuoka announced that a desperate criminal captured there would be brought for trial to Kumamoto to-day, on the train due at noon. A Kumamoto policeman had gone to Fukuoka to take the prisoner in charge.

    Four years ago a strong thief entered some house by night in the Street of the Wrestlers, terrified and bound the inmates, and carried away a number of valuable things. Tracked skillfully by the police, he was captured within twenty-four hours,—even before he could dispose of his plunder. But as he was being taken to the police station he burst his bonds, snatched the sword of his captor, killed him, and escaped. Nothing more was heard of him until last week.

    Then a Kumamoto detective, happening to visit the Fukuoka prison, saw among the toilers a face that had been four years photographed upon his brain. Who is that man? he asked the guard. A thief, was the reply,—registered here as Kusabe. The detective walked up to the prisoner and said:—

    "Kusabe is not your name. Nomura Teichi, you are needed in

    Kumamoto for murder." The felon confessed all.

    I went with a great throng of people to witness the arrival at the station. I expected to hear and see anger; I even feared possibilities of violence. The murdered officer had been much liked; his relatives would certainly be among the spectators; and a Kumamoto crowd is not very gentle. I also thought to find many police on duty. My anticipations were wrong.

    The train halted in the usual scene of hurry and noise,—scurry and clatter of passengers wearing geta,—screaming of boys wanting to sell Japanese newspapers and Kumamoto lemonade. Outside the barrier we waited for nearly five minutes. Then, pushed through the wicket by a police-sergeant, the prisoner appeared,—a large wild-looking man, with head bowed down, and arms fastened behind his back. Prisoner and guard both halted in front of the wicket; and the people pressed forward to see—but in silence. Then the officer called 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 murdered man; the child she carried was his son. At a wave of the officer's hand the crowd fell back, so as to leave a clear space about the prisoner and his escort. In that space the woman with the child stood facing the murderer. The hush was of death.

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

    Little one, this is the man who killed your father four years ago. You had not yet been born; you were in your mother's womb. That you have no father to love you now is the doing of this man. Look at him—[here the officer, putting a hand to the prisoner's chin, sternly forced him to lift his eyes]—look well at him, little boy! Do not be afraid. It is painful; but it is your duty. Look at him!

    Over the mother's shoulder the boy gazed with eyes widely open, as in fear; then he began to sob; then tears came; but steadily and obediently he still looked—looked—looked—straight into the cringing face.

    The crowd seemed to have stopped breathing.

    I saw the prisoner's features distort; I saw him suddenly dash himself down upon his knees despite his fetters, and beat his face into the dust, crying out the while in a passion of hoarse remorse that made one's heart shake:—

    Pardon! pardon! pardon me, little one! That I did—not for hate was it done, but in mad fear only, in my desire to escape. Very, very wicked have I been; great unspeakable wrong have I done you! But now for my sin I go to die. I wish to die; I am glad to die! Therefore, O little one, be pitiful!—forgive me!

    The child still cried silently. The officer raised the shaking criminal; the dumb crowd parted left and right to let them by. Then, quite suddenly, the whole multitude began to sob. And as the bronzed guardian passed, I saw what I had never seen before, —what few men ever see,—what I shall probably never see again, —the tears of a Japanese policeman.

    The crowd ebbed, and left me musing on the strange morality of the spectacle. Here was justice unswerving yet compassionate,— forcing knowledge of a crime by the pathetic witness of its simplest result. Here was desperate remorse, praying only for pardon before death. And here was a populace—perhaps the most dangerous in the Empire when angered—comprehending all, touched by all, satisfied with the contrition and the shame, and filled, not with wrath, but only with the great sorrow of the sin,—through simple deep experience of the difficulties of life and the weaknesses of human nature.

    But the most significant, because the most Oriental, fact of the episode was that the appeal to remorse had been made through the criminal's sense of fatherhood,—that potential love of children which is so large a part of the soul of every Japanese.

    There is a story that the most famous of all Japanese robbers, Ishikawa Goemon, once by night entering a house to kill and steal, was charmed by the smile of a baby which reached out hands to him, and that he remained playing with the little creature until all chance of carrying out his purpose was lost.

    It is not hard to believe this story. Every year the police records tell of compassion shown to children by professional criminals. Some months ago a terrible murder case was reported in the local papers,—the slaughter of a household by robbers. Seven persons had been literally hewn to pieces while asleep; but the police discovered a little boy quite unharmed, crying alone in a pool of blood; and they found evidence unmistakable that the men who slew must have taken great care not to hurt the child.

    II THE GENIUS OF JAPANESE CIVILIZATION

    I

    Without losing a single ship or a single battle, Japan has broken down the power of China, made a new Korea, enlarged her own territory, and changed the whole political face of the East. Astonishing as this has seemed politically, it is much more astonishing psychologically; for it represents the result of a vast play of capacities with which the race had never been credited abroad,—capacities of a very high order. The psychologist knows that the so-called adoption of Western civilization within a time of thirty years cannot mean the addition to the Japanese brain of any organs or powers previously absent from it. He knows that it cannot mean any sudden change in the mental or moral character of the race. Such changes are not made in a generation. Transmitted civilization works much more slowly, requiring even hundreds of years to produce certain permanent psychological results.

    It is in this light that Japan appears the most extraordinary country in the world; and the most wonderful thing in the whole episode of her Occidentalization is that the race brain could bear so heavy a shock. Nevertheless, though the fact be unique in human history, what does it really mean? Nothing more than rearrangement of a part of the pre-existing machinery of thought. Even that, for thousands of brave young minds, was death. The adoption of Western civilization was not nearly such an easy matter as un-thinking persons imagined. And it is quite evident that the mental readjustments, effected at a cost which remains to be told, have given good results only along directions in which the race had always shown capacities of special kinds. Thus, the appliances of Western industrial invention have worked admirably in Japanese hands,—have produced excellent results in those crafts at which the nation had been skillful, in other and quainter ways, for ages. There has been no transformation,

    —nothing more than the turning of old abilities into new and larger channels. The scientific professions tell the same story. For certain forms of science, such as medicine, surgery (there are no better surgeons in the world than the Japanese), chemistry, microscopy, the Japanese genius is naturally adapted; and in all these it has done work already heard of round the world. In war and statecraft it has shown wonderful power; but throughout their history the Japanese have been characterized by great military and political capacity. Nothing remarkable has been done, however, in directions foreign to the national genius. In the study, for example, of Western music, Western art, Western literature, time would seem to have been simply wasted(1). These things make appeal extraordinary to emotional life with us; they make no such appeal to Japanese emotional life. Every serious thinker knows that emotional transformation of the individual through education is impossible. To imagine that the emotional character of an Oriental race could be transformed in the short space of thirty years, by the contact of Occidental ideas, is absurd. Emotional life, which is older than intellectual life, and deeper, can no more be altered suddenly by a change of milieu than the surface of a mirror can be changed by passing reflections. All that Japan has been able to do so miraculously well has been done without any self-transformation; and those who imagine her emotionally closer to us to-day than she may have been thirty years ago ignore facts of science which admit of no argument.

    Sympathy is limited by comprehension. We may sympathize to the same degree that we understand. One may imagine that he sympathizes with a Japanese or a Chinese; but the sympathy can never be real to more than a small extent outside of the simplest phases of common emotional life,—those phases in which child and man are at one. The more complex feelings of the Oriental have been composed by combinations of experiences, ancestral and individual, which have had no really precise correspondence in Western life, and which we can therefore not fully know. For converse reasons, the Japanese cannot, even though they would, give Europeans their best sympathy.

    But while it remains impossible for the man of the West to discern the true color of Japanese life, either intellectual or emotional (since the one is woven into the other), it is equally impossible for him to escape the conviction that, compared with his own, it is very small. It is dainty; it holds delicate potentialities of rarest interest and value; but it is otherwise so small that Western life, by contrast with it, seems almost supernatural. For we must judge visible and measurable manifestations. So judging, what a contrast between the emotional and intellectual worlds of West and East! Far less striking that between the frail wooden streets of the Japanese capital and the tremendous solidity of a thoroughfare in Paris or London. When one compares the utterances which West and East have given to their dreams, their aspirations, their sensations,—a Gothic cathedral with a Shinto temple, an opera by Verdi or a trilogy by Wagner with a performance of geisha, a European epic with a Japanese poem,—how incalculable the difference in emotional volume, in imaginative power, in artistic synthesis! True, our music is an essentially modern art; but in looking back through all our past the difference in creative force is scarcely less marked,—not surely in the period of Roman magnificence, of marble amphitheatres and of aqueducts spanning provinces, nor in the Greek period of the divine in sculpture and of the supreme in literature.

    And this leads to the subject of another wonderful fact in the sudden development of Japanese power. Where are the outward material signs of that immense new force she has been showing both in productivity and in war? Nowhere! That which we miss in her emotional and intellectual life is missing also from her industrial and commercial life,—largeness! The land remains what it was before; its face has scarcely been modified by all the changes of Meiji. The miniature railways and telegraph poles, the bridges and tunnels, might almost escape notice in the ancient green of the landscapes. In all the cities, with the exception of the open ports and their little foreign settlements, there exists hardly a street vista suggesting the teaching of Western ideas. You might journey two hundred miles through the interior of the country, looking in vain for large manifestations of the new civilization. In no place do you find commerce exhibiting its ambition in gigantic warehouses, or industry expanding its machinery under acres of roofing. A Japanese city is still, as it was ten centuries ago, little more than a wilderness of wooden sheds,—picturesque, indeed, as paper lanterns are, but scarcely less frail. And there is no great stir and noise anywhere,—no heavy traffic, no booming and rumbling, no furious haste. In Tokyo itself you may enjoy, if you wish, the peace of a country village. This want of visible or audible signs of the new-found force which is now menacing the markets of the West and changing the maps of the far East gives one a queer, I might even say a weird feeling. It is almost the sensation received when, after climbing through miles of silence to reach some Shinto shrine, you find voidness only and solitude,—an elfish, empty little wooden structure, mouldering in shadows a thousand years old. The strength of Japan, like the strength of her ancient faith, needs little material display: both exist where the deepest real power of any great people exists,—in the Race Ghost.

    (1) In one limited sense, Western art has influenced Japanese. literature and drama; but the character of the influence proves the racial difference to which I refer. European plays have been reshaped for the Japanese stage, and European novels rewritten for Japanese readers. But a literal version is rarely attempted; for the original incidents, thoughts, and emotions would be unintelligible to the average reader or playgoer. Plots are adopted; sentiments and incidents are totally transformed. The New Magdalen becomes a Japanese girl who married an Eta. Victor Hugo's Les Miserables becomes a tale of the Japanese civil war; and Enjolras a Japanese student. There have been a few rare exceptions, including the marked success of a literal translation of the Sorrows of Werther.

    II

    As I muse, the remembrance of a great city comes back to me,—a city walled up to the sky and roaring like the sea. The memory of that roar returns first; then the vision defines: a chasm, which is a street, between mountains, which are houses. I am tired, because I have walked many miles between those precipices of masonry, and have trodden no earth,—only slabs of rock,—and have heard nothing but thunder of tumult. Deep below those huge pavements I know there is a cavernous world tremendous: systems underlying systems of ways contrived for water and steam and fire. On either hand tower facades pierced by scores of tiers of windows,—cliffs of architecture shutting out the sun. Above, the pale blue streak of sky is cut by a maze of spidery lines,—an infinite cobweb of electric wires. In that block on the right there dwell nine thousand souls; the tenants of the edifice facing it pay the annual rent of a million dollars. Seven millions scarcely covered the cost of those bulks overshadowing the square beyond,—and there are miles of such. Stairways of steel and cement, of brass and stone, with costliest balustrades, ascend through the decades and double-decades of stories; but no foot treads them. By water-power, by steam, by electricity, men go up and down; the heights are too dizzy, the distances too great, for the use of the limbs. My friend who pays rent of five thousand dollars for his rooms in the fourteenth story of a monstrosity not far off has never trodden his stairway. I am walking for curiosity alone; with a serious purpose I should not walk: the spaces are too broad, the time is too precious, for such slow exertion,—men travel from district to district, from house to office, by steam. Heights are too great for the voice to traverse; orders are given and obeyed by machinery. By electricity far-away doors are opened; with one touch a hundred rooms are lighted or heated.

    And all this enormity is hard, grim, dumb; it is the enormity of mathematical power applied to utilitarian ends of solidity and durability. These leagues of palaces, of warehouses, of business structures, of buildings describable and indescribable, are not beautiful, but sinister. One feels depressed by the mere sensation of the enormous life which created them, life without sympathy; of their prodigious manifestation of power, power with-out pity. They are the architectural utterance of the new industrial age. And there is no halt in the thunder of wheels, in the storming of hoofs and of human feet. To ask a question, one must shout into the ear of the questioned; to see, to understand, to move in that high-pressure medium, needs experience. The unaccustomed feels the sensation of being in a panic, in a tempest, in a cyclone. Yet all this is order.

    The monster streets leap rivers, span sea-ways, with bridges of stone, bridges of steel. Far as the eye can reach, a bewilderment of masts, a web-work of rigging, conceals the shores, which are cliffs of masonry. Trees in a forest stand less thickly, branches in a forest mingle less closely, than the masts and spars of that immeasurable maze. Yet all is order.

    III

    Generally speaking, we construct for endurance, the Japanese for impermanency. Few things for common use are made in Japan with a view to durability. The straw sandals worn out and replaced at each stage of a journey, the robe consisting of a few simple widths loosely stitched together for wearing, and unstitched again for washing, the fresh chopsticks served to each new guest at a hotel, the light shoji frames serving at once for windows and walls, and repapered twice a year; the mattings renewed every autumn,—all these are but random examples of countless small things in daily life that illustrate the national contentment with impermanency.

    What is the story of a common Japanese dwelling? Leaving my home in the morning, I observe, as I pass the corner of the next street crossing mine, some men setting up bamboo poles on a vacant lot there. Returning after five hours' absence, I find on the same lot the skeleton of a two-story house. Next forenoon I see that the walls are nearly finished already,—mud and wattles. By sundown the roof has been completely tiled. On the following morning I observe that the mattings have been put down, and the inside plastering has been finished. In five days the house is completed. This, of course, is a cheap building; a fine one would take much longer to put up and finish. But Japanese cities are for the most part composed of such common buildings. They are as cheap as they are simple.

    I cannot now remember where I first met with the observation that the curve of the Chinese roof might preserve the memory of the nomad tent. The idea haunted me long after I had ungratefully forgotten the book in which I found it; and when I first saw, in Izumo, the singular structure of the old Shinto temples, with queer cross-projections at their gable-ends and upon their roof-ridges, the suggestion of the forgotten essayist about the possible origin of much less ancient forms returned to me with great force. But there is much in Japan besides primitive architectural traditions to indicate a nomadic ancestry for the race. Always and everywhere there is a total absence of what we would call solidity; and the characteristics of impermanence seem to mark almost everything in the exterior life of the people, except, indeed, the immemorial costume of the peasant and the shape of the implements of his toil. Not to dwell upon the fact that even during the comparatively brief period of her written history Japan has had more than sixty capitals, of which the greater number have completely disappeared, it may be broadly stated that every Japanese city is rebuilt within the time of a generation. Some temples and a few colossal fortresses offer exceptions; but, as a general rule, the Japanese city changes its substance, if not its form, in the lifetime of a man. Fires, earth-quakes, and many other causes partly account for this; the chief reason, however, is that houses are not built to last. The common people have no ancestral homes. The dearest spot to all is, not the place of birth, but the place of burial; and there is little that is permanent save the resting-places of the dead and the sites of the ancient shrines.

    The land itself is a land of impermanence. Rivers shift their courses, coasts their outline, plains their level; volcanic peaks heighten or crumble; valleys are blocked by lava-floods or landslides; lakes appear and disappear. Even the matchless shape of Fuji, that snowy miracle which has been the inspiration of artists for centuries, is said to have been slightly changed since my advent to the country; and not a few other mountains have in the same short time taken totally new forms. Only the general lines of the land, the general aspects of its nature, the general character of the seasons, remain fixed. Even the very beauty of the landscapes is largely illusive,—a beauty of shifting colors and moving mists. Only he to whom those landscapes are familiar can know how their mountain vapors make mockery of real changes which have been, and ghostly predictions of other changes yet to be, in the history of the archipelago.

    The gods, indeed, remain,—haunt their homes upon the hills, diffuse a soft religious awe through the twilight of their groves, perhaps because they are without form and substance. Their shrines seldom pass utterly into oblivion, like the dwellings of men. But every Shinto temple is necessarily rebuilt at more or less brief intervals; and the holiest,—the shrine of Ise,—in obedience to immemorial custom, must be demolished every twenty years, and its timbers cut into thousands of tiny charms, which are distributed to pilgrims.

    From Aryan India, through China, came Buddhism, with its vast doctrine of impermanency. The builders of the first Buddhist temples in Japan—architects of another race—built well: witness the Chinese structures at Kamakura that have survived so many centuries, while of the great city which once surrounded them not a trace remains. But the psychical influence of Buddhism could in no land impel minds to the love of material stability. The teaching that the universe is an illusion; that life is but one momentary halt upon an infinite journey; that all attachment to persons, to places, or to things must be fraught with sorrow; that only through suppression of every desire—even the desire of Nirvana itself—can humanity reach the eternal peace, certainly harmonized with the older racial feeling. Though the people never much occupied themselves with the profounder philosophy of the foreign faith, its doctrine of impermanency must, in course of time, have profoundly influenced national character. It explained and consoled; it imparted new capacity to bear all things bravely; it strengthened that patience which is a trait of the race. Even in Japanese art—developed, if not actually created, under

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