Warriors of Old Japan, and Other Stories

by Yei Theodora Ozaki

In the attempt to describe a character it is wise to begin, if possible, with its distinguishing attribute, the one which will leave its mark on the time, after the popularity of definite achievements may have passed away. So I will say, before going any further into the subject of this sketch, that if I were asked to single out the person who, to-day, most truly apprehends the points of contact and divergence in the thought of East and West, I would name the gentle dark-eyed lady who is the light of an ancient house in the loveliest part of Tokyo, a spot where, as she sits under the great pines of her garden, she can hear the long Pacific rollers breaking on the white beaches of Japan and listen to the wind as it murmurs its haunting songs of other homes in distant lands where she is known and loved. For though Yei Theodora Ozaki is a daughter of the East in heart and soul and parentage, one to whom all the fine ways and thoughts of it come by nature, she is also a child of the West in training, in culture, in the intellectual justice which enables her to discern the greatnesses and smile indulgently at the littlenesses of both.

Her father, Baron Saburo Ozaki, the descendant of a Kyoto samurai family, a member of the House of Peers, and a Privy Councillor, was one of the first Japanese who went to England to study its language and institutions. While there, he made the acquaintance of Miss Bathia Catherine Morrison, and shortly afterwards she became his wife. This lady was the daughter of William Morrison, Esq., a profound scholar and linguist, who would have been more famous had not his attainments, great as they were, been overshadowed by those of his brother, the Rev. Alexander Morrison, whose translations of the works of German philosophers and historians placed much valuable material at the disposal of English readers.

William Morrison's name, however, was known and loved in Japan many years before his little granddaughter Yei (the Illustrious Flower Petal) was born, for he was the instructor of most of the Japanese great men who went to England to learn the ways and speech of modern enlightenment. Prince Mori, Marquis Inouye, Baron Suyematsu, and many others who afterwards rose to eminence, were among his pupils, and when Baron Ozaki became his son-in-law it would have been natural to conclude that Miss Morrison was fairly familiar already with many sides of the complex Japanese character. But the union was not a happy one; and when, several years later, I made her acquaintance, I thought I could divine the reason. She was a charming and intelligent woman, but she was English to the backbone, and it was impossible for her to appreciate or sympathize with anything that was not British. And Saburo Ozaki was as fundamentally Japanese.

Five years after their marriage they separated, by mutual consent; three little girls, of whom Yei Theodora was the second, remained in England with their mother and received a very thorough English education. Mr. Morrison took great interest in O Yei and brought her many books, which she devoured greedily, having inherited all his love of literature and learning. I have often heard her say that whatever ability she possesses in that direction is due to her English grandfather.

She was just sixteen when Baron Ozaki insisted upon her coming out to live with him in Japan, and she gladly complied with his wishes. On meeting her after their long separation, he was delighted with her charm and grace, and pleasantly surprised to find that in appearance she was quite a Japanese maiden, small and slender, with dark eyes, pale complexion, and a mass of glossy black hair. Accustomed to rule as an autocrat over his household, he decreed that henceforth she was to be only Japanese. She was quite willing to please him in this, so far as she could; the pretty picturesque ways of her new home appealed to her artistic instinct, and the traditions and ideals of Japanese life at once claimed her for their own; her mental inheritance responded to them joyfully. But this was not quite enough for her father. His duty, from his point of view, was to arrange a suitable marriage for her as soon as possible; but here he met with an unexpected difficulty. The example of her parents' estrangement had inspired the girl with something like terror of the married state, and she had grown up with the resolve not to run the risk of contracting a like ill-assorted union. In consequence, she found herself in opposition to her father, an impossible situation in a Japanese family, and especially undesirable where there were younger children growing up, as in this case, for Baron Ozaki had married again after his return to his own country. Various other circumstances also combined to make her decide at this time to become independent. Her knowledge of English qualified her to give instruction in that language, and her superior education and well-known social position brought her many pupils in a land where teaching is looked upon as the highest of all professions.

In this way many interesting friendships were formed with Japanese girls, one of whom opened for her the doors of that treasure house of story, the ancient lore and romance of Japan. Here the ardent sensitive mind was in its element. She says: "During those early years I loved the heroes and heroines of my country with passionate and romantic devotion. They were the companions of my solitude, royal and remote, yet near and potential as the white fire of girlhood's idealisms; they peopled my visions with beautiful images, tender and brave and loyal. In those days I was often reproached with being a dreamer, but my dreams were all of fair and noble things. The old stories had taken possession of me: they were a wonder, a joy, an exaltation, though I little imagined that I would ever write them down."

It was during this period of her life that there came a temporary parting of the ways and Europe again claimed O Yei for a time. My husband was the British Minister in Tokyo, and we proposed to Baron Ozaki's daughter that she should come and live with us, acting as my secretary and companion. She accepted, and became not only a dearly loved friend, but an invaluable assistant to me, contributing very materially to the success of my various books on Japan by her profound knowledge of the country and the people. When I returned to Europe she followed me, and remained with us in Italy for about two years. A part of this time she spent in the house of my brother, Marion Crawford, acting as his amanuensis, and cataloguing his great library with such precision and intelligence that he remarked to me, "Miss Ozaki is a very exceptional person. I had not imagined that the work could be so well done."

My brother discerned her literary talent and first suggested to her that she should write and publish the stories of old Japan which she used to tell in the family circle to the delight of old and young. "You have the gifts of imagination and of language," he said to her. "You really ought to lecture on those stories. You would have a great success."

Italy was a revelation to O Yei; her love of colour and romance was satisfied there, and the never-silent music of the South, the gay yet haunting songs of the people, found a ready echo in her sweet voice, her delicate guitar-playing. But her heart had always turned faithfully to her English mother, and when I went to live in London she passed some time there, contributing her first stories and articles to the English magazines. Then she returned to Japan, where the famous educator, Mr. Fukuzawa, had offered her a post in his school.

Of all her varied experiences this was the strangest. The slight shy girl had a class of two hundred young men and boys to instruct and keep in order, but from the crowded classroom she returned to the eeriest and loneliest of dwellings. She says: "I lived in the upper storey of an old Buddhist temple, really enjoying the queerness and out-of-the-worldness of it. Under my windows was a graveyard, where on summer nights I used to look for ghosts; but I had a terrible time with the cold and the draughts and the rats, in winter. Sometimes I was awakened at dawn by the sound of gongs and bells, and would look out of my window to see a funeral procession marshalled in the courtyard." In her spare time she continued to write, and various articles and fairy stories of hers appeared in the "Wide World," the "Girls' Realm," and the "Lady's Realm." At last her health broke down and she gave up her post at the school and devoted herself more closely to literary work, which resulted, in 1903, in the publication of "The Japanese Fairy Book," a work which has now become a classic. At the same time she belonged to several of the societies, patriotic, educational, and charitable, by which the Japanese ladies so quietly yet so efficiently aid the cause of true progress in their country. Indeed it was in the interests of Japanese womanhood that she first took up her pen, resolved to dispel the hopeless misconceptions which existed in regard to it in western minds. To use her own words: "When I was last in England and Europe and found by the questions asked me that very mistaken notions about Japan, and especially about its women, existed generally, I determined if possible to write so as to dispel these wrong conceptions. Hence my stories of Japanese heroines, Aoyagi and Kesa Gozen [in the 'Nineteenth Century'] and Tomaye Gozen, last year ['Lady's Pictorial']. It has been my hope too that the ancient tales and legends, retold in English, may show to the West some of the good old ideals and sentiments for which the Japanese lived and died."