Very truly always,
Lafcadio Hearn.
TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA
Kōbe, February, 1896.
Dear Nishida,—I should have answered your kindest letter before now but for illness,—so I only sent a photo of Kazuo, as I had a cold in my eyes, nose, chest, back; a most atrocious and damnable cold, which rendered any work out of the question.
Mr. Katayama—dear Mr. Katayama—wrote a charming little poem. I am going to have a large copy made of it, and have it mounted as a little kakemono, for a souvenir. I love all these funny little things: they are the real Japan—the humour and the kindness and the grace of it. As for the so-called New Japan,—with its appearance of Occidentalism, and its utter loss of the old poetry and the old courtesy—well, however necessary it may be, it is certainly as much of a moral loss as it is a material advance. I wish I could live somewhere out of the sight and the sound of all that is new.
I had a letter from Ochiai, which I shall answer in a day or so;—for the moment I am behind with all my correspondence. What can be the matter with the lad? He did not tell me the nature of his sickness. I am really sorry for him. Strangely enough, on the very same day, I had a letter from one of the cleverest of the Kumamoto students, who seemed a tower of strength, but who has broken down after a year at the university. Some students I liked have gone mad; numbers have died; numbers have had to give up. The strain is too great because the hardship is too great,—the cold, the poor cheap food, the poor thin clothes. “Hardy” the lads claim to be. So naturally they are—much hardier than Europeans in certain respects. But some knowledge of physiology seems to be needed in Government schools. No man—however strong—can keep hardy while the heavy strain of study is unsupported by good living. I think most of the lads I know who died or went mad would never have even fallen sick if they had had only hard physical labour. Physical labour is not dangerous, but strengthening. And in the Government schools there is no feeling for the lads: everybody has to do the best he can for himself. Those who do get through the mill are not always the best—though they may be the strongest.
Ever, with best regards of all of us,
Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo).