Lafcadio Hearn.
TO SENTARŌ NISHIDA
Kumamoto, August, 1893.
Dear Nishida,—I got your kind letter,—and the money,—and the ballads; for all of which a thousand thanks. I feel you have been very, very kind in all this, even while you were sick: so that my poor thanks signify little of what I really feel towards you. It has given me much pleasure to hear of your being better; but I am disappointed at your being unable to travel,—very much disappointed, as I fear I will not be able to leave Kumamoto again this vacation....
I see that, as regards Kyūshū compared with Tōkyō, you take the moral aspect of the question, while I have possibly been ruled too much by the artistic side. I cannot fully understand the moral side, of course: I can only perceive that the Kyūshū students are allowed to dress as simply as possible,— are encouraged to be frugal and frank, and rough in their sports,—and are generally said to be extremely independent and what you call katai, isn’t it? But whether they are really any better than Matsue students, I don’t know. Certainly they have no pleasures to soften their minds. There is nothing to see, and nowhere to go. And Kyōto is the most delightful city in the whole of Japan. However, I suppose it has also temptations for students of a dangerous sort....
I had no luck with Kumagae Masayoshi, and was obliged to send the boy back to Oki, after he had worried and made unhappy everybody in the house. He was an extraordinarily clever boy,—both at school, and at everything he undertook,—extremely skilful with his hands, and almost diabolically intelligent. But he had no affection at all, and seemed to be naturally very cruel and cunning. He was strictly honest, and trustworthy,—for all that. But his character was supremely selfish and malignant. He made nasty songs about people, and sang them, and gave us the impression of being a small devil.
I am trying to do some literary work. Your ballad of Shuntoku-maru proved quite useful to me in the course of an essay I wrote on the difficulty experienced by Japanese in understanding a certain class of English poetry and fiction. It revealed a popular conception of things,—that ballad, which I took for an illustration, in showing the total unlikeness of Western to Oriental society—especially in the family relation; the absence of flirting and kissing and woman-worship which we have in the West. Indeed I think the great difficulty of mutual comprehension between the Japanese and the English is chiefly due to the predominance of a feminine idea in our language, our art, and our whole conception of Nature. Therefore the Oriental can see aspects of Nature to which we remain blind....
Lafcadio Hearn.