CHAPTER IV
THE LAST STAGE
With methods of work such as those of which the foregoing examples give suggestion, with increasing indifference to the external details of life, and growing concentration of esoteric thought, it was plain that literature and journalism would not suffice to sustain a family of thirteen persons. For Hearn in becoming a Japanese subject had accepted the Japanese duty of maintaining the elder members of the family into which he had been adopted, and his household included the ancestors of his son. He referred to the fact occasionally with amused impatience, but seems never to have really resented or rebelled against the filial duties which to the Western point of view might appear excessive. His eyes, too, began to give warnings that could not be ignored, and with reluctance he yielded to the necessity of earning a larger income by reëntering the Government service as a teacher. Professor Chamberlain again came to his aid and secured for him the position of Professor of English in the Imperial University of Tōkyō, where his salary was large compared to anything he had as yet received, and where he was permitted an admirable liberty as to methods of teaching.
Of his lectures an example is given in the appendix, under the title “Naked Poetry.” This, it is interesting to mention, was taken down in long-hand during its delivering by Teizabur? Inomata, who possesses five manuscript volumes of these records, for Hearn transcribed none of his lectures, delivering them without notes, and had it not been for this astonishing feat by a member of one of his classes all written record of his teaching would have been lost. Mr. Inomata is the Ochiai of the letter given on page 64 of the present volume, and was one of the pupils of the Jinjō-chūgakkō of Matsue. Another of these Matsue pupils was Masanobu Ōtani, whom Hearn assisted to pass through the university by employing him to collect data for many of his books. In the elaborately painstaking manuscript volume of information which Mr. Ōtani sent me to assist in the writing of these volumes, he says:—
“Here I want not to forget to add that I had received from him 12 yen (6 dollars) for my work each month. It was too kind of him that a poor monthly work of mine was paid with the money above mentioned. To speak frankly, however, it was not very easy for me to pass each month with the money through the three years of my university course. I had to pay 2 yen and a half as the monthly fee to the university; to pay 6 or 7 yen for my lodging and eating every month; to buy some necessary text books, and to pay for some meetings inevitable. So I was forced to make some more money beside his favour. Each month I contributed to some newspapers and magazines; I reprinted the four books of Nesfield’s grammar; I published some pamphlets. Thus I could equal the expense of each month, but I need hardly say that it was by his extraordinary favour that I could finish my study in the university. I shall never forget his extreme kindness forever and ever.”
A revelation this, confirmatory of the constant references made by Hearn to the frightful price paid in life and energy by Japan in the endeavour to assimilate a millennium of Western learning in the brief space of half a century.
From these notes by Mr. Ōtani, Mrs. Hearn, and Mr. Inomata it is possible to reconstruct his life in Tōkyō with that minuteness demanded by the professors of the “scientific school” of biography:—
“When he came to the university he immediately entered the lecture room, and at the recreation hour he was always seen in a lonely part of the college garden, smoking, and walking to and fro. No one dared disturb his meditations. He did not mingle with the other professors....
“Very regular and very diligent in his teaching, he was never absent unless ill. His hours of teaching being twelve in the week....