"What mistaken and bewildered creatures men are! What says the old song? 'Hidden far among the mountains, the tree which seems to be rotten, if its core be yet alive, may be made to bear flowers.' What signifies it if the hand or the foot be deformed? The heart is the important thing. If the heart be awry, what though your skin be fair, your nose aquiline, your hair beautiful? All these strike the eye alone, and are utterly useless. It is as if you were to put horse-dung into a gold-lacquer luncheon-box. This is what is called a fair outside, deceptive appearance.
"There's the scullery-maid been washing out the pots at the kitchen-sink, and the scullion, Chokichi, comes up and says to her, 'You've got a lot of charcoal smut sticking to your nose,' and points out to her the ugly spot. The scullery-maid is delighted to be told of this, and answers, 'Really! whereabouts is it?" Then she twists a towel round her finger, and, bending her head till mouth, and forehead are almost on a level, she squints at her nose, and twiddles away with her fingers as if she were the famous Gotô at work carving the ornaments of a sword-handle. 'I say, Master Chokichi, is it off yet?' 'Not a bit of it. You've smeared it all over your cheeks now.' 'Oh dear! oh dear! where can it be?' And so she uses the water-basin as a looking-glass, and washes her face clean; then she says to herself, 'What a dear boy Chokichi is!' and thinks it necessary, out of gratitude, to give him relishes with his supper by the ladleful, and thanks him over and over again. But if this same Chokichi were to come up to her and say, 'Now, really, how lazy you are! I wish you could manage to be rather less of a shrew,' what do you think the scullery-maid would answer then? Reflect for a moment. 'Drat the boy's impudence! If I were of a bad heart or an angular disposition, should I be here helping him? You go and be hanged! You see if I take the trouble to wash your dirty bedclothes for you any more.' And she gets to be a perfect devil, less only the horns.
"There are other people besides the poor scullery-maid who are in the same way. 'Excuse me, Mr. Gundabei, but the embroidered crest on your dress of ceremony seems to be a little on one side.' Mr. Gundabei proceeds to adjust his dress with great precision. 'Thank you, sir. I am ten million times obliged to you for your care. If ever there should be any matter in which I can be of service to you, I beg that you will do me the favor of letting me know;' and, with a beaming face, he expresses his gratitude. Now for the other side of the picture: 'Really, Mr. Gundabei, you are very foolish; you don't seem to understand at all. I beg you to be of a frank and honest heart: it really makes me quite sad to see a man's heart warped in this way.' What is his answer? He turns his sword in his girdle ready to draw, and plays the devil's tattoo upon the hilt. It looks as if it must end in a fight soon.
"In fact, if you help a man in any thing which has to do with a fault of the body, he takes it very kindly, and sets about mending matters. If any one helps another to rectify a fault of the heart, he has to deal with a man in the dark, who flies in a rage, and does not care to amend. How out of tune all this is! And yet there are men who are bewildered up to this point. Nor is this a special and extraordinary failing. This mistaken perception of the great and the small, of color and of substance, is common to us all—to you and to me.
"Please give me your attention. The form strikes the eye; but the heart strikes not the eye. Therefore, that the heart should be distorted and turned awry causes no pain. This all results from the want of sound judgment; and that is why we can not afford to be careless.
"The master of a certain house calls his servant Chokichi, who sits dozing in the kitchen. 'Here, Chokichi! The guests are all gone. Come and clear away the wine and fish in the back room.'
"Chokichi rubs his eyes, and, with a sulky answer, goes into the back room, and, looking about him, sees all the nice things paraded on the trays and in the bowls. It's wonderful how his drowsiness passes away: no need for any one to hurry him now. His eyes glare with greed, as he says, 'Halloo! here's a lot of tempting things! There's only just one help of that omelet left in the tray. What a hungry lot of guests! What's this? It looks like fish rissoles;' and with this he picks out one, and crams his mouth full, when, on one side, a mess of young cuttle-fish, in a Chinese porcelain bowl, catches his eyes. There the little beauties sit in a circle, like Buddhist priests in religious meditation! 'Oh, goodness! how nice!' and just as he is dipping his finger and thumb in, he hears his master's footstep, and, knowing that he is doing wrong, he crams his prize into the pocket of his sleeve, and stoops down to take away the wine-kettle and cups; and as he does this, out tumbles the cuttle-fish from his sleeve. The master sees it.
"'What's that?'
"Chokichi, pretending not to know what has happened, beats the mats, and keeps on saying, 'Come again the day before yesterday; come again the day before yesterday.' [An incantation used to invite spiders, which are considered unlucky by the superstitious, to come again at the Greek Kalends.]
"But it's no use his trying to persuade his master that the little cuttle-fish are spiders, for they are not the least like them. It's no use hiding things—they are sure to come to light; and so it is with the heart—its purposes will out. If the heart is enraged, the dark veins stand out on the forehead; if the heart is grieved, tears rise to the eyes; if the heart is joyous, dimples appear in the cheeks; if the heart is merry, the face smiles. Thus it is that the face reflects the emotions of the heart. It is not because the eyes are filled with tears that the heart is sad, nor that the veins stand out on the forehead that the heart is enraged. It is the heart which leads the way in every thing. All the important sensations of the heart are apparent in the outward appearance. In the 'Great Learning' of Kôshi it is written, 'The truth of what is within appears upon the surface.' How, then, is the heart a thing which can be hidden? To answer when reproved, to hum tunes when scolded, show a diseased heart; and if this disease be not quickly taken in hand, it will become chronic, and the remedy become difficult. Perhaps the disease may be so virulent that even Giba and Henjaku [two famous Indian physicians] in consultation could not effect a cure. So, before the disease has gained strength, I invite you to the study of the moral essays entitled 'Shingaku' [the "Learning of the Heart">[. If you once arrive at the possession of your heart as it was originally by nature, what an admirable thing that will be! In that case your conscience will point out to you even the slightest wrong bias or selfishness.