CHAPTER XVII
MARRIAGE
"'Marriage may be either a hindrance or help on the path,' the old priest said, 'according to conditions. All depends upon conditions. If the love of wife and child should cause a man to become too much attached to the temporary advantages of this unhappy world, then such love would be a hindrance. But, on the contrary, if the love of wife and child should enable a man to live more purely and more unselfishly than he could do in a state of celibacy, then marriage would be a very great help to him in the Perfect Way. Many are the dangers of marriage for the wise; but for those of little understanding, the dangers of celibacy are greater, and even the illusion of passion may sometimes lead noble natures to the higher knowledge.'"
Hearn's marriage, as his widow told us, took place early in the year of 1891, "23rd of Meiji." That on either side it was one of passionate sentiment is doubtful. Marriages in Japan are generally arranged on the most businesslike footing. By the young Japanese man, it is looked upon as a natural duty that has duly to be performed for the perpetuation of his family. Passion is reserved for unions unsanctioned by social conventions.
Dominated as he was by the idea that his physical deficiencies rendered a union with one of his own nationality out of the question, he yet knew that at his time of life he had to enter into more permanent conditions with the other sex than hitherto, or face a future devoid of settled purpose or stability. His state of health also demanded domestic comfort and feminine care. The only alternative that presented itself to a celibate life was to choose a wife from amongst the people with whom his lines were cast.
From the first moment of his arrival, Hearn had been carried away by enthusiasm for the gentleness, the docility, of the women of Japan. He compares them, much to their advantage, with their American sisters. "In the eternal order of things, which is the highest being, the childish, confiding, sweet Japanese girl, or the occidental Circe women of artificial society, with their enormous power of evil and their limited capacity for good?" In his first letter to Miss Bisland, he writes: "This is a domesticated nature, which loves man and makes itself beautiful for him in a quiet grey and blue way like the Japanese women."
It seems an unromantic statement to make with regard to an artist who has written such exquisite passages on the sentiment that binds a man to a woman, but Hearn, in spite of his intellectual idealism, had from certain points of view a very material outlook. All considerations—even those connected with the deepest emotions that stir the human heart—were secondary to the necessities of his genius and artistic life.