“It is here that we gain some idea of the painstaking study, for infinite capacity for details, the special sympathy and appreciation that formed the solid basis of that wonderful power of vivid portrayal and poetic fancy that have made all of Mr. Hearn’s work unique and delightful. Certainly no one can afford to miss the insight into the very spirit of Japan, which is to be gained from these books. He, more than any other English writer, was fitted to be their prophet, and he nobly began his task, even if he did not have opportunity to complete it.”
| + + | N. Y. Times. 10: 68. F. 4, ‘05. 1010w. |
Hearn, Lafcadio. [Japan.] [**]$2. Macmillan.
The author, an American journalist, son of a Greek mother and an Irish father, took a Japanese name and a Japanese wife and lived the life of a native teacher, in order to interpret sympathetically the Japanese mind and its products to the Western world. Altho frankly devoted to the country, he surpasses her enemies in admiringly laying bare the realities. “One cannot quote, one must read this work. It shows the Japanese under his armor, modern science. The Japanese, outwardly, are ruled by treaties, diplomacy, governments, codes, imperial diet, armies, and battleships—all modern and external. Inwardly they—that is, forty-nine millions of them—are governed by ghosts. The graveyard is the true dictator. It is ever their ‘illustrious ancestors’ who achieve victories.” (Critic).
“Probably three greater errors were never compressed into a single sentence than this from p. 27: ‘The real religion of Japan, the religion still professed in one form or another by the entire nation, is that cult which has been the foundation of all civilized religion and of all civilized society—ancestor-worship.’ The close and frequent points of influence which religion exercised upon politics and morality in Japan can nowhere else be so well studied as here.” E. Buckley.
| + + — | Am. J. Soc. 10: 545. Ja. ‘05. 2460w. |
“Is a classic in science, a wonder of interpretation. It is the product of long years of thought, of keenest perception, of marvellous comprehension. Hearn outdoes the missionaries in dogmatism, exceeds even the hostile propagandist in telling the naked truth. His book is a re-reading of all Japanese history, a sociological appraisement of the value of Japanese civilization, and a warning against intolerant propaganda of any sort whatever.” W. E. Griffis.
| + + + | Critic. 46: 185. F. ‘05. 710w. |
“Both the prose and the poetry of Japanese life are infused into Mr. Hearn’s charming pages. Nobody, so far as we know, has given a better description of the fascination which Japanese life has at first for such as enter into its true spirit, and of its gradual disappearance. The swan-song of a very striking writer.”
| + + | Spec. 94: 54. Ja. 14, ‘05. 530w. |