He never retreated one inch in his fight against all innovations that would make the country the less Japanese or his faith less Buddhistic. More often than not he stood alone and faced the bitter opposition of the progressives. In no one thing did he so prove his unconquerable spirit and his great ideals for his country as the patience with which he endured the ridicule of his opponents. For to a man of the proud and sensitive East, shot and shell are far easier to face than ridicule.
On a certain afternoon I had gone to meet with a committee to discuss a question pertaining to a school regulation, by which the girl students of the city schools would be granted liberty in dress and conduct more equal with the boys. Of course Kishimoto San stood firm against so radical a measure. Another member of the committee asked him if he did not believe in progress. The unbending old man answered sternly:
"Progress—yes. But a progress based on the traditions of our august ancestors, not a progress founded on Western principle, which, if adopted by us unmodified, means that we, with our legions of years behind us, our forefathers descended from the gods, as they were, will be neither wholly East nor West but a something as distorted as a dragon's body with the heads and wings of an eagle. Progress! Have not our misconceptions of progress cost us countless lives and sickening humiliations? Has not the breaking of traditions threatened the very foundations of our homes? Small wonder the foreign nations offer careless insult when we stoop to make monkeys of ourselves and adopt customs and assume a civilization that can no more be grafted on to our nation than cabbage can be grown on plum trees. Take what is needful to strengthen and uplift. Make the highest and best of any land your own standard and live thereby. But remember, in long years ago the divine gods created you Japanese, and to the end of eternity, struggle as you may, as such you cannot escape your destiny!"
As he finished his impassioned speech, a ray of sun fell upon his face, lifted in stern warning to his opponents. He was like a figure of the Past demanding reverence and a hearing from the Present.
For the time he won his point and I was glad, for it was Kishimoto San's last public speech. Soon after he was stricken with a lingering illness.
In previous talks he had neither asked after his granddaughter nor referred to her. But this afternoon, taking advantage of his look of half-pleasure caused by the victory he had won single handed, I took occasion, when offering congratulations, to give him every opportunity to inquire as to Zura and her progress. I was very proud of what I had done with the girl, of the change her affection for Jane and me had accomplished.
Naturally I was anxious to exhibit my handiwork. As well tempt a mountain lion to inspect a piece of beautiful tapestry in the process of weaving.
However tactfully I led up to the subject he walked around it without touching it. To him she was not. Reconciliation was afar off. I said good-by and left. It was this and the speech I had heard in the afternoon that occupied my mind as I wended my way home.
Of course the country must go forward; but it was a pity that, even if progress were not compatible with tradition, it could not be tempered with beauty. Why must the youth of the land adopt those hideous imitations of foreign clothes? The flower-like children wear on their heads the grotesque combinations of muslin and chicken feathers they called hats? There are miles of ancient moats around the city, filled with lotus, the great pink-and-white blossoms giving joy to the eye as its roots gave food for the body. Slowly these stretches of loveliness were being turned into dreary levels of sand for the roadbed of a trolley. Even now the quiet of the city was broken by the clang of the street-car gong. I was taking my first ride that day.
With Kishimoto San's plea for progress of the right kind still ringing in my ears, my eyes fell upon some of the rules for the conduct of the passengers, printed in large type, and hung upon the front door of the car: