Produced by John Orford
GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN
First Series
by LAFCADIO HEARN
(dedication)
TO THE FRIENDS
WHOSE KINDNESS ALONE RENDERED POSSIBLE
MY SOJOURN IN THE ORIENT,
PAYMASTER MITCHELL McDONALD, U.S.N.
AND
BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN, ESQ.
Emeritus Professor of Philology and Japanese in the
Imperial University of Tokyo
I DEDICATE THESE VOLUMES
IN TOKEN OF
AFFECTION AND GRATITUDE
In the Introduction to his charming Tales of Old Japan, Mr. Mitfordwrote in 1871:
'The books which have been written of late years about Japan have eitherbeen compiled from official records, or have contained the sketchyimpressions of passing travellers. Of the inner life of the Japanese theworld at large knows but little: their religion, their superstitions,their ways of thought, the hidden springs by which they move—all theseare as yet mysteries.'
This invisible life referred to by Mr. Mitford is the Unfamiliar Japanof which I have been able to obtain a few glimpses. The reader may,perhaps, be disappointed by their rarity; for a residence of little morethan four years among the people—even by one who tries to adopt theirhabits and customs—scarcely suffices to enable the foreigner to beginto feel at home in this world of strangeness. None can feel more thanthe author himself how little has been accomplished in these volumes,and how much remains to do.
The popular religious ideas—especially the ideas derived from Buddhismand the curious superstitions touched upon in these sketches are littleshared by the educated classes of New Japan. Except as regards hischaracteristic indifference toward abstract ideas in general andmetaphysical speculation in particular, the Occidentalised Japaneseof to-day stands almost on the intellectual plane of the cultivatedParisian or Bostonian. But he is inclined to treat with undue contemptall conceptions of the supernatural; and toward the great religiousquestions of the hour his attitude is one of perfect apathy. Rarely doeshis university training in modern philosophy impel him to attempt anyindependent study of relations, either sociological or psychological.For him, superstitions are simply superstitions; their relation to theemotional nature of the people interests him not at all. [1] And thisnot only because he thoroughly understands that people, but becausethe class to which he belongs is still unreasoningly, though quitenaturally, ashamed of its older beliefs. Most of us who now callourselves agnostics can recollect the feelings with which, in theperiod of our fresh emancipation from a faith far more irrationalthan Buddhism, we looked back upon the gloomy theology of our fathers.Intellectual Japan has become agnostic within only a few decades; andthe suddenness of this mental revolution sufficiently explains theprincipal, though not perhaps all the causes