Sayōnara! Across the waters echoes the cry, Manzai, Manzai! (Ten thousand years to you! ten thousand years!). Hearn is leaving. He is going far away. His pupils write expressing their sorrow and regret. He sends them a letter thanking them for their gift of a beautiful sword, and in a loving farewell says:—
May you always keep fresh within your hearts those impulses of generosity and kindliness and loyalty which I have learned to know so well, and of which your gift will ever remain for me the graceful symbol!
And a symbol not only of your affection and loyalty as students to teachers, but of that other beautiful sense of duty expressed, when so many of you wrote down for me, as your dearest wish, the desire to die for His Imperial Majesty, your Emperor. That wish is holy: it means perhaps more than you know, or can know, until you shall have become much older and wiser. This is an era of great and rapid change; and it is probable that many of you, as you grow up, will not be able to believe everything that your fathers believed before you, though I sincerely trust you will at least continue always to respect the faith, even as you still respect the memory, of your ancestors. But however much the life of New Japan may change about you, however much your own thoughts may change with the times, never suffer that noble wish you expressed to me to pass away from your souls. Keep it burning there, clear and pure as the flame of the little lamp that glows before your household shrine.
Out of the East[31] (8), followed "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." The charm of the first impression is waning.
[ [31] Copyright, 1895, by Lafcadio Hearn; and published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
In a letter Hearn writes:—
Every day, it strikes me more and more how little I shall ever know of the Japanese. I have been working hard at a new book, which is now half finished, and consists of philosophical sketches chiefly. It will be a very different book from the "Glimpses," and will show you how much the Japanese world has changed for me. I imagine that sympathy and friendship are almost impossible for any foreigner to obtain,—because of the amazing difference in the psychology of the two races. We only guess at each other without understanding.
In another letter, speaking of the title for this book, he continues:—
It was suggested only by the motto of the Oriental Society, "Ex Oriente lux." ... The simpler the title, and the vaguer—in my case—the better: the vagueness touches curiosity. Besides, the book is a vague thing.
The Academy, writing of "Out of the East," says:—
"Each book marks a longer step towards the Buddhist mysticism, wherein we have lost our poet. 'The Stone Buddha,' in the first mentioned book, is a dreamy dialogue between the wisdom of the West; Science, with her theories of evolution, revolution and dissolution; Buddhism, with its re-birth on re-rebirth; and Nirvâna at the end. This thing also is vanity. As there can be no end, so there can be no beginning; even Time is an illusion, and there is nothing new beneath a hundred million suns." (286.)