Lafcadio Hearn..
TO BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN
Matsue, August, 1891.
Dear Professor Chamberlain,—Having reached a spot where I can write upon something better than a matted floor, I find three most pleasant letters from you. The whole of the questions in them I cannot answer to-night, but will do so presently, when I obtain the full information.
However, as to cats’ tails I can answer at once. Izumo cats—(and I was under the impression until recently that all Japanese cats were alike)—are generally born with long tails. But there is a belief that any cat whose tail is not cut off in kittenhood, will become an obake or a nekomata, and there are weird stories about cats with long tails dancing at night, with towels tied round their heads. There are stories about petted cats eating their mistress and then assuming the form, features, and voice of the victim. Of course you know the Buddhist tradition that no cat can enter paradise. The cat and the snake alone wept not for the death of Buddha. Cats are unpopular in Izumo, but in Hōki I saw that they seemed to exist under more favourable conditions. The real reason for the unpopularity of the cat is its powers of mischief in a Japanese house;—it tears the tatami, the karakami, the shōji, scratches the woodwork, and insists upon carrying its food into the best room to eat it upon the floor. I am a great lover of cats, having “raised,” as the Americans say, more than fifty;—but I could not gratify my desire to have a cat here. The creature proved too mischievous, and wanted always to eat my uguisu.
The oscillation of one’s thoughts concerning the Japanese—the swaying you describe—is and has for some time been mine also.
There are times when they seem so small! And then again, although they never seem large, there is a vastness behind them,—a past of indefinite complexity and marvel,—an amazing power of absorbing and assimilating,—which forces one to suspect some power in the race so different from our own that one cannot understand that power. And as you say, whatever doubts or vexations one has in Japan, it is only necessary to ask one’s self:—“Well, who are the best people to live with?” For it is a question whether the intellectual pleasures of social life abroad are not more than dearly bought at the cost of social pettinesses which do not seem to exist in Japan at all.
Would you be horrified to learn that I have become passionately fond of daikon,—not the fresh but the strong ancient pickled daikon? But then the European Stilton cheese, or Limburger, is surely quite as queer. I have become what they call here a jōgo,—and find that a love of sake creates a total change in all one’s eating habits and tastes. All the sweet things the geko likes, I cannot bear when taking sake. By the way, what a huge world of etiquette, art, taste, custom, has been developed by sake. An article upon sake,—its social rules,—its vessels,—its physiological effects,—in short the whole romance and charm of a Japanese banquet, ought to be written by somebody. I hope to write one some day, but I am still learning.
As to Dr. Tylor and the anthropological institute. If he should want any paper that I could furnish, I would be glad and consider myself honoured to please him. As for your question about the o fuda, why, I should think it no small pleasure to be mentioned merely as one of your workers and friends. Though the little I have been able to send does not seem to me to deserve your kindest words, it is making me very happy to have been able to please you at all. Whatever I can write or send, make always any use of you please.
About “seeing Japan from a distance,”—I envy you your coming chance. I could not finish my book on the West Indies until I saw the magical island again through regret, as through a summer haze,—and under circumstances which left me perfectly free to think, which the soporific air of the tropics makes difficult. (Still the book is not what it ought to be, for I was refused all reasonable help, and wrote most of it upon a half-empty stomach, or with my blood full of fever.) But to think of Japan in an English atmosphere will be a delicious experience for you after so long an absence. I should not be surprised should the experience result in the creation of something which would please your own feelings as an author better than any other work you have made. Of course it is at the time one is best pleased that one does one’s real best in the artistic line.