The Athenæum, that wise critic, feels that in this book Hearn "shows himself at his best. He is more subdued," it says, "than is his wont, and indulges less freely in excessive laudation and needless disparagement. The chapters on 'Insect Musicians,' on the 'Literature of the Dead,' and—oddly as it may sound to us—on 'Frogs,' are among the most delightful of all his writings. The keynote of all is struck in the pretty stanza that heads the first of the three:—
Mushi, yo mushi,
Naïté ingwa ga
Tsukuru nara?
(Insect, O insect!
Singing fulfil you
Your fire-life and all life!)
"The translation is ours. The fondness of the Japanese for many kinds of chirping insects, which they keep in little bamboo-cages, is one of the prettiest of the surviving echoes of the past. The plaintive little cry satisfies the curious melancholy that characterizes the reflective moods of the lieges of Mutsu. In the long series of changes that is to end in perfect Buddha-forms, there is hope always, but always tinged with the sadness of vague memories of past pains, and the resigned dread of sorrows to come, one knows not how oft to be repeated ere in 'Nirvâna' all earthly moods are lost. There is a regular trade in these tiny songsters, of the history of which Mr. Hearn tells the pleasant story." (299.)
Hearn leads us to a cemetery in a quaint lonesome garden, and teaches us something about the wonderful texts and inscriptions that are chiselled into the stone of the tombs, or painted on the wooden sotoba, and go to form the important literature of the dead. A suggestive sotoba-text is:—
The Amida-Kyō says: "All who enter into that country enter likewise into that state of virtue from which there can be no turning back."
From the Kaimyō which is engraved on the tomb, we may select:—
Koji—
(Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise, in the Mansion of Luminous Mind.)
Koji—
(Effective-Benevolence-Hearing-with-Pure-Heart-the-Supplications-of-the-Poor,—dwelling in the Mansion of the Virtue of Pity.)
The frog is another favourite of the Japanese. There is one special variety called the Kajika, or true singing-frog of Japan, which is kept as a pet in a little cage. For over a hundred years the frog has been the subject of numerous poems. Many of these little verses are love-poems, for the lovers' trysting-hour is also the hour when the frog-chorus is at its height. Here is a quotation from the Anthology called "Kokinshū," compiled a.d. 905, by the poet Ki-no-Tsurayuki:—
The poetry of Japan has its roots in the human heart, and thence has grown into a multiform utterance. Man in this world, having a thousand million of things to undertake and to complete, has been moved to express his thoughts and his feelings concerning all that he sees and hears. When we hear the uguisu singing among flowers, and the voice of the kawazu which inhabits the waters, what mortal (lit. "who among the living that lives") does not compose poems?
A charming frog poem is:—