KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies ofStrange Things

By Lafcadio Hearn

A Note from the Digitizer

On Japanese Pronunciation

Although simplified, the followinggeneral rules will help the readerunfamiliar with Japanese to come closeenough to Japanese pronunciation.

There are five vowels: a (as in fAther), i(as in machIne), u (as in fOOl), e (as in

fEllow), and o (as in mOle). Althoughcertain vowels become nearly "silent" insome environments, this phenomenoncan be safely ignored for the purpose athand.

Consonants roughly approximate theircorresponding sounds in English,except for r, which is actuallysomewhere between r and l (this is whythe Japanese have troubledistinguishing between English r and l),and f, which is much closer to h.

The spelling "KWAIDAN" is based onpremodern Japanese pronunciation;when Hearn came to Japan, theorthography reflecting this

pronunciation was still in use. Inmodern Japanese the word ispronounced KAIDAN.

There are many ellipses in the text.Hearn often used them in this book;they do not represent omissions by thedigitizer.

Author's original notes are in brackets,those by the digitizer are in parentheses.Diacritical marks in the original areabsent from this digitized version.

KWAIDAN: Stories and Studies ofStrange Things

By Lafcadio Hearn

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-HOICHI OSHIDORI THE STORYOF O-TEI UBAZAKURADIPLOMACY OF A MIRROR ANDA BELL JIKININKI MUJINAROKURO-KUBI A DEAD SECRETYUKI-ONNA THE STORY OFAOYAGI JIU-ROKU-ZAKURA THEDREAM OF AKINOSUKE RIKI-BAKA HI-MAWARI HORAI

INSECT STUDIES

BUTTERFLIES MOSQUITOESANTS

INTRODUCTION

The publication of a new volume ofLafcadio Hearn's exquisite studies ofJapan happens, by a delicate irony, tofall in the very month when the worldis waiting with tense expectation fornews of the latest exploits of Japanesebattleships. Whatever the outcome ofthe present struggle between Russiaand Japan, its significance lies in thefact that a nation of the East, equippedwith Western weapons and girding

itself with Western energy of will, isdeliberately measuring strength againstone of the great powers of theOccident. No one is wise enough toforecast the results of such a conflictupon the civilization of the world. Thebest one can do is to estimate, asintelligently as possible, the nationalcharacteristics of the peoples engaged,basing one's hopes and fears upon thepsychology of the two races rather thanupon purely political and statisticalstudies of the complicated questionsinvolved in the present war. TheRussian people have had literaryspokesmen who for more than ageneration have fascinated theEuropean audience. The Japanese, on

the other hand, have possessed no suchnational and universally recognizedfigures as Turgenieff or Tolstoy. Theyneed an interpreter.

It may be doubted whether any orientalrace has ever had an interpreter giftedwith more perfect insight and sympathythan Lafcadio Hearn has brought to thetranslation of Japan into our occidentalspeech. His long residence in thatcountry, his flexibility of mind, poeticimagination, and wonderfully pellucidstyle have fitted him for the mostdelicate of literary tasks. Hi has seenmarvels, and he has told of them in amarvelous way. There is scarcely anaspect of contemporary Japanese life,

scarcely an element in the social,political, and military questionsinvolved in the present conflict withRussia which is not made clear in oneor another of the books with which hehas charmed American readers.

He characterizes Kwaidan as "storiesand studies of strange things." Ahundred thoughts suggested by thebook might be written down, but mostof them would begin and end with thisfact of strangeness. To read the verynames in the table of contents is likelistening to a Buddhist bell, strucksomewhere far away. Some of his talesare of the long ago, and yet they seemto illumine the very souls and minds of

the little men who are at this hourcrowding the decks of Japan's armoredcruisers. But many of the stories areabout women and children, the lovelymaterials from which the best fairy talesof the world have been woven. Theytoo are strange, these Japanese maidensand wives and keen-eyed, dark-hairedgirls and boys; they are like us and yetnot like us; and the sky and the hillsand the flowers are all different fromours. Yet by a magic of which Mr.Hearn, almost alone amongcontemporary writers, is the master, inthese delicate, transparent, ghostlysketches of a world unreal to us, thereis a haunting sense of spiritual reality.

In a penetrating and beautiful essaycontributed to the "Atlantic Monthly"in February, 1903, by Paul Elmer More,the secret of Mr. Hearn's magic is saidto lie in the fact that in his art is found"the meeting of three ways." "To thereligious instinct of India Buddhism inparticular, which history has engraftedon the aesthetic sense of Japan, Mr.Hearn brings the interpreting spirit ofoccidental science; and these threetraditions are fused by the peculiarsympathies of his mind into one richand novel compound, a compound sorare as to have introduced intoliterature a psychological sensationunknown before." Mr. More's essayreceived the high praise of Mr. Hearn's

recognition and gratitude, and if itwere possible to reprint it here, it wouldprovide a most suggestive introductionto these new stories of old Japan,whose substance is, as Mr. More hassaid, "so strangely mingled together outof the austere dreams of India and thesubtle beauty of Japan and therelentless science of Europe."

March, 1904.

= = = = = = = *** = = = = = = =

Most of the following Kwaidan, orWeird Tales, have been taken from oldJapanese books, such as the Yaso-Kidan, Bukkyo-Hyakkwa-Zensho,

Kokon-Chomonshu, Tama-Sudare, andHyaku-Monogatari. Some of thestories may have had a Chinese origin:the very remarkable "Dream ofAkinosuke," for example, is certainlyfrom a Chinese source. But the story-teller, in every case, has so recoloredand reshaped his borrowing as tonaturalize it... One queer tale, "Yuki-Onna," was told me by a farmer ofChofu, Nishitama-gori, in Musashiprovince, as a legend of his nativevillage. Whether it has ever been writtenin Japanese I do not know; but theextraordinary belief which it recordsused certainly to exist in most parts ofJapan, and in many curious forms... Theincident of "Riki-Baka" was a personal

experience; and I wrote it down almostexactly as it happened, changing only afamily-name mentioned by the Japanesenarrator.

L.H.

Tokyo, Japan, January 20th, 1904.

KWAIDAN

THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-HOICHI

More than seven hundred years ago, atDan-no-ura, in the Straits of

Shimonoseki, was fought the last battleof the long contest between the Heike,or Taira clan, and the Genji, orMinamoto clan. There the Heikeperished utterly, with their women andchildren, and their infant emperorlikewise now remembered as AntokuTenno. And that sea and shore havebeen haunted for seven hundred years...Elsewhere I told you about the strangecrabs found there, called Heike crabs,which have human faces on their backs,and are said to be the spirits of theHeike warriors [1]. But there are manystrange things to be seen and heardalong that coast. On dark nightsthousands of ghostly fires hover aboutthe beach, or flit above the waves, pale

lights which the fishermen call Oni-bi,or demon-fires; and, whenever thewinds are up, a sound of greatshouting comes from that sea, like aclamor of battle.

In former years the Heike were muchmore restless than they now are. Theywould rise about ships passing in thenight, and try to sink them; and at alltimes they would watch for swimmers,to pull them down. It was in order toappease those dead that the Buddhisttemple, Amidaji, was built atAkamagaseki [2]. A cemetery also wasmade close by, near the beach; andwithin it were set up monumentsinscribed with the names of the

drowned emperor and of his greatvassals; and Buddhist services wereregularly performed there, on behalf ofthe spirits of them. After the templehad been built, and the tombs erected,the Heike gave less trouble than before;but they continued to do queer thingsat intervals, proving that they had notfound the perfect peace.

Some centuries ago there lived atAkamagaseki a blind man namedHoichi, who was famed for his skill inrecitation and in playing upon the biwa[3]. From childhood he had beentrained to recite and to play; and whileyet a lad he had surpassed his teachers.As a professional biwa-hoshi he

became famous chiefly by hisrecitations of the history of the Heikeand the Genji; and it is said that whenhe sang the song of the battle of Dan-no-ura "even the goblins [kijin] couldnot refrain from tears."

At the outset of his career, Hoichi wasvery poor; but he found a good friendto help him. The priest of the Amidajiwas fond of poetry and music; and heoften invited Hoichi to the temple, toplay and recite. Afterwards, being muchimpressed by the wonderful skill of thelad, the priest proposed that Hoichishould make the temple his home; andthis offer was gratefully accepted.Hoichi was given a room in the temple-

building; and, in return for food andlodging, he was required only to gratifythe priest with a musical performanceon certain evenings, when otherwisedisengaged.

One summer night the priest was calledaway, to perform a Buddhist service atthe house of a dead parishioner; and hewent there with his acolyte, leavingHoichi alone in the temple. It was a hotnight; and the blind man sought to coolhimself on the verandah before hissleeping-room. The verandahoverlooked a small garden in the rearof the Amidaji. There Hoichi waitedfor the priest's return, and tried torelieve his solitude by practicing upon

his biwa. Midnight passed; and thepriest did not appear. But theatmosphere was still too warm forcomfort within doors; and Hoichiremained outside. At last he heard stepsapproaching from the back gate.Somebody crossed the garden,advanced to the verandah, and halteddirectly in front of him but it was notthe priest. A deep voice called the blindman's name abruptly andunceremoniously, in the manner of asamurai summoning an inferior:

"Hoichi!"

"Hai!" (1) answered the blind man,frightened by the menace in the voice,

"I am blind! I cannot know who calls!"

"There is nothing to fear," the strangerexclaimed, speaking more gently. "I amstopping near this temple, and havebeen sent to you with a message. Mypresent lord, a person of exceedinglyhigh rank, is now staying inAkamagaseki, with many nobleattendants. He wished to view the sceneof the battle of Dan-no-ura; and to-day he visited that place. Having heardof your skill in reciting the story of thebattle, he now desires to hear yourperformance: so you will take yourbiwa and come with me at once to thehouse where the august assembly iswaiting."

In those times, the order of a samuraiwas not to be lightly disobeyed. Hoichidonned his sandals, took his biwa, andwent away with the stranger, whoguided him deftly, but obliged him towalk very fast. The hand that guidedwas iron; and the clank of the warrior'sstride proved him fully armed, probablysome palace-guard on duty. Hoichi'sfirst alarm was over: he began toimagine himself in good luck; for,remembering the retainer's assuranceabout a "person of exceedingly highrank," he thought that the lord whowished to hear the recitation could notbe less than a daimyo of the first class.Presently the samurai halted; and

Hoichi became aware that they hadarrived at a large gateway; and hewondered, for he could not rememberany large gate in that part of the town,except the main gate of the Amidaji."Kaimon!" [4] the samurai called, andthere was a sound of unbarring; andthe twain passed on. They traversed aspace of garden, and halted againbefore some entrance; and the retainercried in a loud voice, "Within there! Ihave brought Hoichi." Then camesounds of feet hurrying, and screenssliding, and rain-doors opening, andvoices of women in converse. By thelanguage of the women Hoichi knewthem to be domestics in some noblehousehold; but he could not imagine to

what place he had been conducted.Little time was allowed him forconjecture. After he had been helped tomount several stone steps, upon the lastof which he was told to leave hissandals, a woman's hand guided himalong interminable reaches of polishedplanking, and round pillared angles toomany to remember, and over widthsamazing of matted floor, into themiddle of some vast apartment. Therehe thought that many great people wereassembled: the sound of the rustlingof silk was like the sound of leaves in aforest. He heard also a great hummingof voices, talking in undertones; andthe speech was the speech of courts.

Hoichi was told to put himself at ease,and he found a kneeling-cushion readyfor him. After having taken his placeupon it, and tuned his instrument, thevoice of a woman whom he divined tobe the Rojo, or matron in charge of thefemale service addressed him, saying,

"It is now required that the history ofthe Heike be recited, to theaccompaniment of the biwa."

Now the entire recital would haverequired a time of many nights:therefore Hoichi ventured a question:

"As the whole of the story is not soontold, what portion is it augustly desired

that I now recite "

The woman's voice made answer:

"Recite the story of the battle at Dan-no-ura, for the pity of it is the mostdeep." [5]

Then Hoichi lifted up his voice, andchanted the chant of the fight on thebitter sea, wonderfully making his biwato sound like the straining of oars andthe rushing of ships, the whirr and thehissing of arrows, the shouting andtrampling of men, the crashing of steelupon helmets, the plunging of slain inthe flood. And to left and right of him,in the pauses of his playing, he could

hear voices murmuring praise: "Howmarvelous an artist!" "Never in ourown province was playing heard likethis!" "Not in all the empire is thereanother singer like Hoichi!" Then freshcourage came to him, and he playedand sang yet better than before; and ahush of wonder deepened about him.But when at last he came to tell the fateof the fair and helpless, the piteousperishing of the women and children,and the death-leap of Nii-no-Ama,with the imperial infant in her arms,then all the listeners uttered togetherone long, long shuddering cry ofanguish; and thereafter they wept andwailed so loudly and so wildly that theblind man was frightened by the

violence and grief that he had made.For much time the sobbing and thewailing continued. But gradually thesounds of lamentation died away; andagain, in the great stillness thatfollowed, Hoichi heard the voice of thewoman whom he supposed to be theRojo.

She said:

"Although we had been assured thatyou were a very skillful player upon thebiwa, and without an equal in recitative,we did not know that any one could beso skillful as you have proved yourselfto-night. Our lord has been pleased tosay that he intends to bestow upon you

a fitting reward. But he desires that youshall perform before him once everynight for the next six nights after whichtime he will probably make his augustreturn-journey. To-morrow night,therefore, you are to come here at thesame hour. The retainer who to-nightconducted you will be sent for you...There is another matter about which Ihave been ordered to inform you. It isrequired that you shall speak to no oneof your visits here, during the time ofour lord's august sojourn atAkamagaseki. As he is travelingincognito, [6] he commands that nomention of these things be made... Youare now free to go back to yourtemple."

After Hoichi had duly expressed histhanks, a woman's hand conducted himto the entrance of the house, where thesame retainer, who had before guidedhim, was waiting to take him home.The retainer led him to the verandah atthe rear of the temple, and there badehim farewell.

It was almost dawn when Hoichireturned; but his absence from thetemple had not been observed, as thepriest, coming back at a very late hour,had supposed him asleep. During theday Hoichi was able to take some rest;and he said nothing about his strangeadventure. In the middle of the

following night the samurai again camefor him, and led him to the augustassembly, where he gave anotherrecitation with the same success thathad attended his previous performance.But during this second visit his absencefrom the temple was accidentallydiscovered; and after his return in themorning he was summoned to thepresence of the priest, who said to him,in a tone of kindly reproach:

"We have been very anxious about you,friend Hoichi. To go out, blind andalone, at so late an hour, is dangerous.Why did you go without telling us Icould have ordered a servant toaccompany you. And where have you

been "

Hoichi answered, evasively,

"Pardon me kind friend! I had to attendto some private business; and I couldnot arrange the matter at any otherhour."

The priest was surprised, rather thanpained, by Hoichi's reticence: he felt itto be unnatural, and suspectedsomething wrong. He feared that theblind lad had been bewitched ordeluded by some evil spirits. He did notask any more questions; but he privatelyinstructed the men-servants of thetemple to keep watch upon Hoichi's

movements, and to follow him in casethat he should again leave the templeafter dark.

On the very next night, Hoichi wasseen to leave the temple; and theservants immediately lighted theirlanterns, and followed after him. But itwas a rainy night, and very dark; andbefore the temple-folks could get to theroadway, Hoichi had disappeared.Evidently he had walked very fast, astrange thing, considering his blindness;for the road was in a bad condition.The men hurried through the streets,making inquiries at every house whichHoichi was accustomed to visit; butnobody could give them any news of

him. At last, as they were returning tothe temple by way of the shore, theywere startled by the sound of a biwa,furiously played, in the cemetery of theAmidaji. Except for some ghostly firessuch as usually flitted there on darknights all was blackness in thatdirection. But the men at once hastenedto the cemetery; and there, by the helpof their lanterns, they discoveredHoichi, sitting alone in the rain beforethe memorial tomb of Antoku Tenno,making his biwa resound, and loudlychanting the chant of the battle ofDan-no-ura. And behind him, andabout him, and everywhere above thetombs, the fires of the dead wereburning, like candles. Never before had

so great a host of Oni-bi appeared inthe sight of mortal man...

"Hoichi San! Hoichi San!" the servantscried, "you are bewitched!... HoichiSan!"

But the blind man did not seem to hear.Strenuously he made his biwa to rattleand ring and clang; more and morewildly he chanted the chant of thebattle of Dan-no-ura. They caughthold of him; they shouted into his ear,

"Hoichi San! Hoichi San! come homewith us at once!"

Reprovingly he spoke to them:

"To interrupt me in such a manner,before this august assembly, will not betolerated."

Whereat, in spite of the weirdness ofthe thing, the servants could not helplaughing. Sure that he had beenbewitched, they now seized him, andpulled him up on his feet, and by mainforce hurried him back to the temple,where he was immediately relieved ofhis wet clothes, by order of the priest.Then the priest insisted upon a fullexplanation of his friend's astonishingbehavior.

Hoichi long hesitated to speak. But at

last, finding that his conduct had reallyalarmed and angered the good priest,he decided to abandon his reserve; andhe related everything that hadhappened from the time of first visitof the samurai.

The priest said:

"Hoichi, my poor friend, you are nowin great danger! How unfortunate thatyou did not tell me all this before! Yourwonderful skill in music has indeedbrought you into strange trouble. Bythis time you must be aware that youhave not been visiting any housewhatever, but have been passing yournights in the cemetery, among the

tombs of the Heike; and it was beforethe memorial-tomb of Antoku Tennothat our people to-night found you,sitting in the rain. All that you havebeen imagining was illusion except thecalling of the dead. By once obeyingthem, you have put yourself in theirpower. If you obey them again, afterwhat has already occurred, they will tearyou in pieces. But they would havedestroyed you, sooner or later, in anyevent... Now I shall not be able toremain with you to-night: I am calledaway to perform another service. But,before I go, it will be necessary toprotect your body by writing holy textsupon it."

Before sundown the priest and hisacolyte stripped Hoichi: then, with theirwriting-brushes, they traced upon hisbreast and back, head and face andneck, limbs and hands and feet, evenupon the soles of his feet, and upon allparts of his body, the text of the holysutra called Hannya-Shin-Kyo. [7]When this had been done, the priestinstructed Hoichi, saying:

"To-night, as soon as I go away, youmust seat yourself on the verandah,and wait. You will be called. But,whatever may happen, do not answer,and do not move. Say nothing and sitstill as if meditating. If you stir, ormake any noise, you will be torn

asunder. Do not get frightened; and donot think of calling for help becauseno help could save you. If you doexactly as I tell you, the danger willpass, and you will have nothing more tofear."

After dark the priest and the acolytewent away; and Hoichi seated himselfon the verandah, according to theinstructions given him. He laid his biwaon the planking beside him, and,assuming the attitude of meditation,remained quite still, taking care not tocough, or to breathe audibly. For hourshe stayed thus.

Then, from the roadway, he heard the

steps coming. They passed the gate,crossed the garden, approached theverandah, stopped directly in front ofhim.

"Hoichi!" the deep voice called. But theblind man held his breath, and satmotionless.

"Hoichi!" grimly called the voice asecond time. Then a third time savagely:

"Hoichi!"

Hoichi remained as still as a stone, andthe voice grumbled:

"No answer! that won't do!... Must see

where the fellow is."...

There was a noise of heavy feetmounting upon the verandah. The feetapproached deliberately, halted besidehim. Then, for long minutes, duringwhich Hoichi felt his whole body shaketo the beating of his heart, there wasdead silence.

At last the gruff voice muttered closeto him:

"Here is the biwa; but of the biwa-player I see only two ears!... So thatexplains why he did not answer: he hadno mouth to answer with there isnothing left of him but his ears... Now

to my lord those ears I will take inproof that the august commands havebeen obeyed, so far as was possible"...

At that instant Hoichi felt his earsgripped by fingers of iron, and tornoff! Great as the pain was, he gave nocry. The heavy footfalls receded alongthe verandah, descended into thegarden, passed out to the roadway,ceased. From either side of his head,the blind man felt a thick warmtrickling; but he dared not lift hishands...

Before sunrise the priest came back. Hehastened at once to the verandah in therear, stepped and slipped upon

something clammy, and uttered a cry ofhorror; for he say, by the light of hislantern, that the clamminess was blood.But he perceived Hoichi sitting there, inthe attitude of meditation with theblood still oozing from his wounds.

"My poor Hoichi!" cried the startledpriest, "what is this ... You have beenhurt "

At the sound of his friend's voice, theblind man felt safe. He burst outsobbing, and tearfully told hisadventure of the night.

"Poor, poor Hoichi!" the priestexclaimed, "all my fault! my very

grievous fault!... Everywhere upon yourbody the holy texts had been writtenexcept upon your ears! I trusted myacolyte to do that part of the work; andit was very, very wrong of me not tohave made sure that he had done it!...Well, the matter cannot now be helped;we can only try to heal your hurts assoon as possible... Cheer up, friend! thedanger is now well over. You will neveragain be troubled by those visitors."

With the aid of a good doctor, Hoichisoon recovered from his injuries. Thestory of his strange adventure spreadfar and wide, and soon made himfamous. Many noble persons went toAkamagaseki to hear him recite; and

large presents of money were given tohim, so that he became a wealthy man...But from the time of his adventure, hewas known only by the appellation ofMimi-nashi-Hoichi: "Hoichi-the-Earless."

OSHIDORI

There was a falconer and hunter,named Sonjo, who lived in the districtcalled Tamura-no-Go, of the provinceof Mutsu. One day he went outhunting, and could not find any game.But on his way home, at a place calledAkanuma, he perceived a pair of

oshidori [1] (mandarin-ducks),swimming together in a river that hewas about to cross. To kill oshidori isnot good; but Sonjo happened to bevery hungry, and he shot at the pair. Hisarrow pierced the male: the femaleescaped into the rushes of the furthershore, and disappeared. Sonjo took thedead bird home, and cooked it.

That night he dreamed a dreary dream.It seemed to him that a beautifulwoman came into his room, and stoodby his pillow, and began to weep. Sobitterly did she weep that Sonjo felt asif his heart were being torn out whilehe listened. And the woman cried tohim: "Why, oh! why did you kill him of

what wrong was he guilty ... AtAkanuma we were so happy together,and you killed him!... What harm did heever do you Do you even know whatyou have done oh! do you know what acruel, what a wicked thing you havedone ... Me too you have killed, for Iwill not live without my husband!...Only to tell you this I came."... Thenagain she wept aloud, so bitterly thatthe voice of her crying pierced into themarrow of the listener's bones; and shesobbed out the words of this poem:

Hi kurureba Sasoeshi mono woAkanuma no Makomo no kure noHitori-ne zo uki!

("At the coming of twilight I invitedhim to return with me ! Now to sleepalone in the shadow of the rushes ofAkanuma ah! what miseryunspeakable!") [2]

And after having uttered these versesshe exclaimed: "Ah, you do not knowyou cannot know what you have done!But to-morrow, when you go toAkanuma, you will see, you will see..."So saying, and weeping very piteously,she went away.

When Sonjo awoke in the morning,this dream remained so vivid in hismind that he was greatly troubled. Heremembered the words: "But to-

morrow, when you go to Akanuma,you will see, you will see." And heresolved to go there at once, that hemight learn whether his dream wasanything more than a dream.

So he went to Akanuma; and there,when he came to the river-bank, he sawthe female oshidori swimming alone. Inthe same moment the bird perceivedSonjo; but, instead of trying to escape,she swam straight towards him, lookingat him the while in a strange fixed way.Then, with her beak, she suddenly toreopen her own body, and died beforethe hunter's eyes...

Sonjo shaved his head, and became a

priest.

THE STORY OF O-TEI

A long time ago, in the town ofNiigata, in the province of Echizen,there lived a man called Nagao Chosei.

Nagao was the son of a physician, andwas educated for his father'sprofession. At an early age he had beenbetrothed to a girl called O-Tei, thedaughter of one of his father's friends;and both families had agreed that thewedding should take place as soon asNagao had finished his studies. But the

health of O-Tei proved to be weak; andin her fifteenth year she was attacked bya fatal consumption. When she becameaware that she must die, she sent forNagao to bid him farewell.

As he knelt at her bedside, she said tohim:

"Nagao-Sama, (1) my betrothed, wewere promised to each other from thetime of our childhood; and we were tohave been married at the end of thisyear. But now I am going to die; thegods know what is best for us. If Iwere able to live for some years longer,I could only continue to be a cause oftrouble and grief for others. With this

frail body, I could not be a good wife;and therefore even to wish to live, foryour sake, would be a very selfish wish.I am quite resigned to die; and I wantyou to promise that you will notgrieve... Besides, I want to tell you that Ithink we shall meet again."...

"Indeed we shall meet again," Nagaoanswered earnestly. "And in that PureLand (2) there will be no pain ofseparation."

"Nay, nay!" she responded softly, "Imeant not the Pure Land. I believe thatwe are destined to meet again in thisworld, although I shall be buried to-morrow."

Nagao looked at her wonderingly, andsaw her smile at his wonder. Shecontinued, in her gentle, dreamy voice,

"Yes, I mean in this world, in your ownpresent life, Nagao-Sama... Providing,indeed, that you wish it. Only, for thisthing to happen, I must again be born agirl, and grow up to womanhood. Soyou would have to wait. Fifteen sixteenyears: that is a long time... But, mypromised husband, you are now onlynineteen years old."...

Eager to soothe her dying moments, heanswered tenderly:

"To wait for you, my betrothed, wereno less a joy than a duty. We arepledged to each other for the time ofseven existences."

"But you doubt " she questioned,watching his face.

"My dear one," he answered, "I doubtwhether I should be able to know youin another body, under another name,unless you can tell me of a sign ortoken."

"That I cannot do," she said. "Only theGods and the Buddhas know how andwhere we shall meet. But I am sure very,very sure that, if you be not unwilling

to receive me, I shall be able to comeback to you... Remember these wordsof mine."...

She ceased to speak; and her eyesclosed. She was dead.

* * *

Nagao had been sincerely attached toO-Tei; and his grief was deep. He had amortuary tablet made, inscribed withher zokumyo; [1] and he placed thetablet in his butsudan, [2] and every dayset offerings before it. He thought agreat deal about the strange things thatO-Tei had said to him just before herdeath; and, in the hope of pleasing her

spirit, he wrote a solemn promise towed her if she could ever return to himin another body. This written promisehe sealed with his seal, and placed inthe butsudan beside the mortuarytablet of O-Tei.

Nevertheless, as Nagao was an onlyson, it was necessary that he shouldmarry. He soon found himself obligedto yield to the wishes of his family, andto accept a wife of his father'schoosing. After his marriage hecontinued to set offerings before thetablet of O-Tei; and he never failed toremember her with affection. But bydegrees her image became dim in hismemory, like a dream that is hard to

recall. And the years went by.

During those years many misfortunescame upon him. He lost his parents bydeath, then his wife and his only child.So that he found himself alone in theworld. He abandoned his desolatehome, and set out upon a long journeyin the hope of forgetting his sorrows.

One day, in the course of his travels, hearrived at Ikao, a mountain-village stillfamed for its thermal springs, and forthe beautiful scenery of itsneighborhood. In the village-inn atwhich he stopped, a young girl came towait upon him; and, at the first sight ofher face, he felt his heart leap as it had

never leaped before. So strangely didshe resemble O-Tei that he pinchedhimself to make sure that he was notdreaming. As she went and came,bringing fire and food, or arranging thechamber of the guest, her every attitudeand motion revived in him somegracious memory of the girl to whomhe had been pledged in his youth. Hespoke to her; and she responded in asoft, clear voice of which the sweetnesssaddened him with a sadness of otherdays.

Then, in great wonder, he questionedher, saying:

"Elder Sister (3), so much do you look

like a person whom I knew long ago,that I was startled when you firstentered this room. Pardon me,therefore, for asking what is your nativeplace, and what is your name "

Immediately, and in the unforgottenvoice of the dead, she thus madeanswer:

"My name is O-Tei; and you are NagaoChosei of Echigo, my promisedhusband. Seventeen years ago, I died inNiigata: then you made in writing apromise to marry me if ever I couldcome back to this world in the body ofa woman; and you sealed that writtenpromise with your seal, and put it in the

butsudan, beside the tablet inscribedwith my name. And therefore I cameback."...

As she uttered these last words, she fellunconscious.

Nagao married her; and the marriagewas a happy one. But at no timeafterwards could she remember whatshe had told him in answer to hisquestion at Ikao: neither could sheremember anything of her previousexistence. The recollection of theformer birth, mysteriously kindled inthe moment of that meeting, had againbecome obscured, and so thereafterremained.

UBAZAKURA

Three hundred years ago, in the villagecalled Asamimura, in the district calledOnsengori, in the province of Iyo,there lived a good man named Tokubei.This Tokubei was the richest person inthe district, and the muraosa, orheadman, of the village. In mostmatters he was fortunate; but hereached the age of forty withoutknowing the happiness of becoming afather. Therefore he and his wife, in theaffliction of their childlessness,addressed many prayers to the divinity

Fudo Myo O, who had a famoustemple, called Saihoji, in Asamimura.

At last their prayers were heard: thewife of Tokubei gave birth to adaughter. The child was very pretty; andshe received the name of Tsuyu. As themother's milk was deficient, a milk-nurse, called O-Sode, was hired for thelittle one.

O-Tsuyu grew up to be a very beautifulgirl; but at the age of fifteen she fellsick, and the doctors thought that shewas going to die. In that time the nurseO-Sode, who loved O-Tsuyu with areal mother's love, went to the templeSaihoji, and fervently prayed to Fudo-

Sama on behalf of the girl. Every day,for twenty-one days, she went to thetemple and prayed; and at the end ofthat time, O-Tsuyu suddenly andcompletely recovered.

Then there was great rejoicing in thehouse of Tokubei; and he gave a feastto all his friends in celebration of thehappy event. But on the night of thefeast the nurse O-Sode was suddenlytaken ill; and on the followingmorning, the doctor, who had beensummoned to attend her, announcedthat she was dying.

Then the family, in great sorrow,gathered about her bed, to bid her

farewell. But she said to them:

"It is time that I should tell yousomething which you do not know. Myprayer has been heard. I besoughtFudo-Sama that I might be permittedto die in the place of O-Tsuyu; and thisgreat favor has been granted me.Therefore you must not grieve aboutmy death... But I have one request tomake. I promised Fudo-Sama that Iwould have a cherry-tree planted in thegarden of Saihoji, for a thank-offeringand a commemoration. Now I shall notbe able myself to plant the tree there:so I must beg that you will fulfill thatvow for me... Good-bye, dear friends;and remember that I was happy to die

for O-Tsuyu's sake."

After the funeral of O-Sode, a youngcherry-tree, the finest that could befound, was planted in the garden ofSaihoji by the parents of O-Tsuyu. Thetree grew and flourished; and on thesixteenth day of the second month ofthe following year, the anniversary ofO-Sode's death, it blossomed in awonderful way. So it continued toblossom for two hundred and fifty-four years, always upon the sixteenthday of the second month; and itsflowers, pink and white, were like thenipples of a woman's breasts, bedewedwith milk. And the people called itUbazakura, the Cherry-tree of the

Milk-Nurse.

DIPLOMACY

It had been ordered that the executionshould take place in the garden of theyashiki (1). So the man was taken there,and made to kneel down in a widesanded space crossed by a line of tobi-ishi, or stepping-stones, such as youmay still see in Japanese landscape-gardens. His arms were bound behindhim. Retainers brought water inbuckets, and rice-bags filled withpebbles; and they packed the rice-bagsround the kneeling man, so wedging

him in that he could not move. Themaster came, and observed thearrangements. He found themsatisfactory, and made no remarks.

Suddenly the condemned man criedout to him:

"Honored Sir, the fault for which Ihave been doomed I did not wittinglycommit. It was only my very greatstupidity which caused the fault.Having been born stupid, by reason ofmy Karma, I could not always helpmaking mistakes. But to kill a man forbeing stupid is wrong, and that wrongwill be repaid. So surely as you kill me,so surely shall I be avenged; out of the

resentment that you provoke will comethe vengeance; and evil will be renderedfor evil."...

If any person be killed while feelingstrong resentment, the ghost of thatperson will be able to take vengeanceupon the killer. This the samurai knew.He replied very gently, almostcaressingly:

"We shall allow you to frighten us asmuch as you please after you are dead.But it is difficult to believe that youmean what you say. Will you try to giveus some sign of your great resentmentafter your head has been cut off "

"Assuredly I will," answered the man.

"Very well," said the samurai, drawinghis long sword; "I am now going to cutoff your head. Directly in front of youthere is a stepping-stone. After yourhead has been cut off, try to bite thestepping-stone. If your angry ghost canhelp you to do that, some of us may befrightened... Will you try to bite thestone "

"I will bite it!" cried the man, in greatanger, "I will bite it! I will bite"

There was a flash, a swish, a crunchingthud: the bound body bowed over therice sacks, two long blood-jets pumping

from the shorn neck; and the headrolled upon the sand. Heavily towardthe stepping-stone it rolled: then,suddenly bounding, it caught the upperedge of the stone between its teeth,clung desperately for a moment, anddropped inert.

None spoke; but the retainers stared inhorror at their master. He seemed to bequite unconcerned. He merely held outhis sword to the nearest attendant, who,with a wooden dipper, poured waterover the blade from haft to point, andthen carefully wiped the steel severaltimes with sheets of soft paper... Andthus ended the ceremonial part of theincident.

For months thereafter, the retainers andthe domestics lived in ceaseless fear ofghostly visitation. None of themdoubted that the promised vengeancewould come; and their constant terrorcaused them to hear and to see muchthat did not exist. They became afraidof the sound of the wind in thebamboos, afraid even of the stirring ofshadows in the garden. At last, aftertaking counsel together, they decided topetition their master to have a Segaki-service (2) performed on behalf of thevengeful spirit.

"Quite unnecessary," the samurai said,when his chief retainer had uttered the

general wish... "I understand that thedesire of a dying man for revenge maybe a cause for fear. But in this case thereis nothing to fear."

The retainer looked at his masterbeseechingly, but hesitated to ask thereason of the alarming confidence.

"Oh, the reason is simple enough,"declared the samurai, divining theunspoken doubt. "Only the very lastintention of the fellow could have beendangerous; and when I challenged himto give me the sign, I diverted his mindfrom the desire of revenge. He diedwith the set purpose of biting thestepping-stone; and that purpose he

was able to accomplish, but nothingelse. All the rest he must haveforgotten... So you need not feel anyfurther anxiety about the matter."

And indeed the dead man gave nomore trouble. Nothing at all happened.

OF A MIRROR AND A BELL

Eight centuries ago, the priests ofMugenyama, in the province of Totomi(1), wanted a big bell for their temple;and they asked the women of theirparish to help them by contributing oldbronze mirrors for bell-metal.

[Even to-day, in the courts of certainJapanese temples, you may see heaps ofold bronze mirrors contributed forsuch a purpose. The largest collectionof this kind that I ever saw was in thecourt of a temple of the Jodo sect, atHakata, in Kyushu: the mirrors hadbeen given for the making of a bronzestatue of Amida, thirty-three feet high.]

There was at that time a young woman,a farmer's wife, living at Mugenyama,who presented her mirror to thetemple, to be used for bell-metal. Butafterwards she much regretted hermirror. She remembered things that hermother had told her about it; and she

remembered that it had belonged, notonly to her mother but to her mother'smother and grandmother; and sheremembered some happy smiles whichit had reflected. Of course, if she couldhave offered the priests a certain sumof money in place of the mirror, shecould have asked them to give back herheirloom. But she had not the moneynecessary. Whenever she went to thetemple, she saw her mirror lying in thecourt-yard, behind a railing, amonghundreds of other mirrors heapedthere together. She knew it by the Sho-Chiku-Bai in relief on the back of it,those three fortunate emblems of Pine,Bamboo, and Plumflower, whichdelighted her baby-eyes when her

mother first showed her the mirror. Shelonged for some chance to steal themirror, and hide it, that she mightthereafter treasure it always. But thechance did not come; and she becamevery unhappy, felt as if she hadfoolishly given away a part of her life.She thought about the old saying that amirror is the Soul of a Woman (asaying mystically expressed, by theChinese character for Soul, upon thebacks of many bronze mirrors), andshe feared that it was true in weirderways than she had before imagined. Butshe could not dare to speak of her painto anybody.

Now, when all the mirrors contributed

for the Mugenyama bell had been sentto the foundry, the bell-foundersdiscovered that there was one mirroramong them which would not melt.Again and again they tried to melt it;but it resisted all their efforts. Evidentlythe woman who had given that mirrorto the temple must have regretted thegiving. She had not presented heroffering with all her heart; andtherefore her selfish soul, remainingattached to the mirror, kept it hard andcold in the midst of the furnace.

Of course everybody heard of thematter, and everybody soon knewwhose mirror it was that would notmelt. And because of this public

exposure of her secret fault, the poorwoman became very much ashamedand very angry. And as she could notbear the shame, she drowned herself,after having written a farewell lettercontaining these words:

"When I am dead, it will not bedifficult to melt the mirror and to castthe bell. But, to the person who breaksthat bell by ringing it, great wealth willbe given by the ghost of me."

You must know that the last wish orpromise of anybody who dies in anger,or performs suicide in anger, isgenerally supposed to possess asupernatural force. After the dead

woman's mirror had been melted, andthe bell had been successfully cast,people remembered the words of thatletter. They felt sure that the spirit ofthe writer would give wealth to thebreaker of the bell; and, as soon as thebell had been suspended in the courtof the temple, they went in multitudeto ring it. With all their might and mainthey swung the ringing-beam; but thebell proved to be a good bell, and itbravely withstood their assaults.Nevertheless, the people were not easilydiscouraged. Day after day, at all hours,they continued to ring the bellfuriously, caring nothing whatever forthe protests of the priests. So theringing became an affliction; and the

priests could not endure it; and theygot rid of the bell by rolling it downthe hill into a swamp. The swamp wasdeep, and swallowed it up, and that wasthe end of the bell. Only its legendremains; and in that legend it is calledthe Mugen-Kane, or Bell of Mugen.

* * *

Now there are queer old Japanesebeliefs in the magical efficacy of acertain mental operation implied,though not described, by the verbnazoraeru. The word itself cannot beadequately rendered by any Englishword; for it is used in relation to manykinds of mimetic magic, as well as in

relation to the performance of manyreligious acts of faith. Commonmeanings of nazoraeru, according todictionaries, are "to imitate," "tocompare," "to liken;" but the esotericmeaning is to substitute, in imagination,one object or action for another, so asto bring about some magical ormiraculous result.

For example: you cannot afford tobuild a Buddhist temple; but you caneasily lay a pebble before the image ofthe Buddha, with the same piousfeeling that would prompt you to builda temple if you were rich enough tobuild one. The merit of so offering thepebble becomes equal, or almost equal,

to the merit of erecting a temple... Youcannot read the six thousand sevenhundred and seventy-one volumes ofthe Buddhist texts; but you can make arevolving library, containing them, turnround, by pushing it like a windlass.And if you push with an earnest wishthat you could read the six thousandseven hundred and seventy-onevolumes, you will acquire the samemerit has the reading of them wouldenable you to gain... So much willperhaps suffice to explain the religiousmeanings of nazoraeru.

The magical meanings could not all beexplained without a great variety ofexamples; but, for present purposes, the

following will serve. If you shouldmake a little man of straw, for the samereason that Sister Helen made a littleman of wax, and nail it, with nails notless than five inches long, to some treein a temple-grove at the Hour of theOx (2), and if the person, imaginativelyrepresented by that little straw man,should die thereafter in atrociousagony, that would illustrate onesignification of nazoraeru... Or, let ussuppose that a robber has entered yourhouse during the night, and carriedaway your valuables. If you candiscover the footprints of that robberin your garden, and then promptlyburn a very large moxa on each ofthem, the soles of the feet of the

robber will become inflamed, and willallow him no rest until he returns, ofhis own accord, to put himself at yourmercy. That is another kind of mimeticmagic expressed by the term nazoraeru.And a third kind is illustrated byvarious legends of the Mugen-Kane.

After the bell had been rolled into theswamp, there was, of course, no morechance of ringing it in such wise as tobreak it. But persons who regretted thisloss of opportunity would strike andbreak objects imaginatively substitutedfor the bell, thus hoping to please thespirit of the owner of the mirror thathad made so much trouble. One ofthese persons was a woman called

Umegae, famed in Japanese legendbecause of her relation to KajiwaraKagesue, a warrior of the Heike clan.While the pair were traveling together,Kajiwara one day found himself ingreat straits for want of money; andUmegae, remembering the tradition ofthe Bell of Mugen, took a basin ofbronze, and, mentally representing it tobe the bell, beat upon it until she brokeit, crying out, at the same time, for threehundred pieces of gold. A guest of theinn where the pair were stopping madeinquiry as to the cause of the bangingand the crying, and, on learning thestory of the trouble, actually presentedUmegae with three hundred ryo (3) ingold. Afterwards a song was made

about Umegae's basin of bronze; andthat song is sung by dancing girls evento this day:

Umegae no chozubachi tataite O-kanega deru naraba Mina San mi-uke woSore tanomimasu

["If, by striking upon the wash-basinof Umegae, I could make honorablemoney come to me, then would Inegotiate for the freedom of all mygirl-comrades."]

After this happening, the fame of theMugen-Kane became great; and manypeople followed the example ofUmegae, thereby hoping to emulate her

luck. Among these folk was a dissolutefarmer who lived near Mugenyama, ont he bank of the Oigawa. Havingwasted his substance in riotous living,this farmer made for himself, out ofthe mud in his garden, a clay-model ofthe Mugen-Kane; and he beat the clay-bell, and broke it, crying out the whilefor great wealth.

Then, out of the ground before him,rose up the figure of a white-robedwoman, with long loose-flowing hair,holding a covered jar. And the womansaid: "I have come to answer yourfervent prayer as it deserves to beanswered. Take, therefore, this jar." Sosaying, she put the jar into his hands,

and disappeared.

Into his house the happy man rushed,to tell his wife the good news. He setdown in front of her the covered jar,which was heavy, and they opened ittogether. And they found that it wasfilled, up to the very brim, with...

But no! I really cannot tell you withwhat it was filled.

JIKININKI

Once, when Muso Kokushi, a priest ofthe Zen sect, was journeying alone

through the province of Mino (1), helost his way in a mountain-districtwhere there was nobody to direct him.For a long time he wandered abouthelplessly; and he was beginning todespair of finding shelter for the night,when he perceived, on the top of a hilllighted by the last rays of the sun, oneof those little hermitages, called anjitsu,which are built for solitary priests. Itseemed to be in ruinous condition; buthe hastened to it eagerly, and found thatit was inhabited by an aged priest, fromwhom he begged the favor of a night'slodging. This the old man harshlyrefused; but he directed Muso to acertain hamlet, in the valley adjoiningwhere lodging and food could be

obtained.

Muso found his way to the hamlet,which consisted of less than a dozenfarm-cottages; and he was kindlyreceived at the dwelling of theheadman. Forty or fifty persons wereassembled in the principal apartment, atthe moment of Muso's arrival; but hewas shown into a small separate room,where he was promptly supplied withfood and bedding. Being very tired, helay down to rest at an early hour; but alittle before midnight he was rousedfrom sleep by a sound of loud weepingin the next apartment. Presently thesliding-screens were gently pushedapart; and a young man, carrying a

lighted lantern, entered the room,respectfully saluted him, and said:

"Reverend Sir, it is my painful duty totell you that I am now the responsiblehead of this house. Yesterday I wasonly the eldest son. But when you camehere, tired as you were, we did not wishthat you should feel embarrassed in anyway: therefore we did not tell you thatfather had died only a few hoursbefore. The people whom you saw inthe next room are the inhabitants ofthis village: they all assembled here topay their last respects to the dead; andnow they are going to another village,about three miles off, for by ourcustom, no one of us may remain in

this village during the night after adeath has taken place. We make theproper offerings and prayers; then wego away, leaving the corpse alone.Strange things always happen in thehouse where a corpse has thus beenleft: so we think that it will be better foryou to come away with us. We can findyou good lodging in the other village.But perhaps, as you are a priest, youhave no fear of demons or evil spirits;and, if you are not afraid of being leftalone with the body, you will be verywelcome to the use of this poor house.However, I must tell you that nobody,except a priest, would dare to remainhere tonight."

Muso made answer:

"For your kind intention and yourgenerous hospitality and am deeplygrateful. But I am sorry that you didnot tell me of your father's death whenI came; for, though I was a little tired, Icertainly was not so tired that I shouldhave found difficulty in doing my dutyas a priest. Had you told me, I couldhave performed the service before yourdeparture. As it is, I shall perform theservice after you have gone away; and Ishall stay by the body until morning. Ido not know what you mean by yourwords about the danger of staying herealone; but I am not afraid of ghosts ordemons: therefore please to feel no

anxiety on my account."

The young man appeared to be rejoicedby these assurances, and expressed hisgratitude in fitting words. Then theother members of the family, and thefolk assembled in the adjoining room,having been told of the priest's kindpromises, came to thank him, afterwhich the master of the house said:

"Now, reverend Sir, much as we regretto leave you alone, we must bid youfarewell. By the rule of our village,none of us can stay here after midnight.We beg, kind Sir, that you will takeevery care of your honorable body,while we are unable to attend upon

you. And if you happen to hear or seeanything strange during our absence,please tell us of the matter when wereturn in the morning."

All then left the house, except thepriest, who went to the room where thedead body was lying. The usualofferings had been set before thecorpse; and a small Buddhist lamptomyo was burning. The priest recitedthe service, and performed the funeralceremonies, after which he entered intomeditation. So meditating he remainedthrough several silent hours; and therewas no sound in the deserted village.But, when the hush of the night was atits deepest, there noiselessly entered a

Shape, vague and vast; and in the samemoment Muso found himself withoutpower to move or speak. He saw thatShape lift the corpse, as with hands,devour it, more quickly than a catdevours a rat, beginning at the head,and eating everything: the hair and thebones and even the shroud. And themonstrous Thing, having thusconsumed the body, turned to theofferings, and ate them also. Then itwent away, as mysteriously as it hadcome.

When the villagers returned nextmorning, they found the priest awaitingthem at the door of the headman'sdwelling. All in turn saluted him; and

when they had entered, and lookedabout the room, no one expressed anysurprise at the disappearance of thedead body and the offerings. But themaster of the house said to Muso:

"Reverent Sir, you have probably seenunpleasant things during the night: allof us were anxious about you. But nowwe are very happy to find you alive andunharmed. Gladly we would havestayed with you, if it had been possible.But the law of our village, as I told youlast evening, obliges us to quit ourhouses after a death has taken place,and to leave the corpse alone.Whenever this law has been broken,heretofore, some great misfortune has

followed. Whenever it is obeyed, wefind that the corpse and the offeringsdisappear during our absence. Perhapsyou have seen the cause."

Then Muso told of the dim and awfulShape that had entered the death-chamber to devour the body and theofferings. No person seemed to besurprised by his narration; and themaster of the house observed:

"What you have told us, reverend Sir,agrees with what has been said aboutthis matter from ancient time."

Muso then inquired:

"Does not the priest on the hillsometimes perform the funeral servicefor your dead "

"What priest " the young man asked.

"The priest who yesterday eveningdirected me to this village," answeredMuso. "I called at his anjitsu on the hillyonder. He refused me lodging, buttold me the way here."

The listeners looked at each other, as inastonishment; and, after a moment ofsilence, the master of the house said:

"Reverend Sir, there is no priest andthere is no anjitsu on the hill. For the

time of many generations there has notbeen any resident-priest in thisneighborhood."

Muso said nothing more on thesubject; for it was evident that his kindhosts supposed him to have beendeluded by some goblin. But afterhaving bidden them farewell, andobtained all necessary information as tohis road, he determined to look againfor the hermitage on the hill, and so toascertain whether he had really beendeceived. He found the anjitsu withoutany difficulty; and, this time, its agedoccupant invited him to enter. When hehad done so, the hermit humbly boweddown before him, exclaiming: "Ah! I

am ashamed! I am very much ashamed!I am exceedingly ashamed!"

"You need not be ashamed for havingrefused me shelter," said Muso. "Youdirected me to the village yonder, whereI was very kindly treated; and I thankyou for that favor.

"I can give no man shelter," the reclusemade answer; and it is not for therefusal that I am ashamed. I amashamed only that you should haveseen me in my real shape, for it was Iwho devoured the corpse and theofferings last night before your eyes...Know, reverend Sir, that I am ajikininki, [1] an eater of human flesh.

Have pity upon me, and suffer me toconfess the secret fault by which Ibecame reduced to this condition.

"A long, long time ago, I was a priest inthis desolate region. There was no otherpriest for many leagues around. So, inthat time, the bodies of the mountain-folk who died used to be brought here,sometimes from great distances, inorder that I might repeat over them theholy service. But I repeated the serviceand performed the rites only as a matterof business; I thought only of the foodand the clothes that my sacredprofession enabled me to gain. Andbecause of this selfish impiety I wasreborn, immediately after my death,

into the state of a jikininki. Since then Ihave been obliged to feed upon thecorpses of the people who die in thisdistrict: every one of them I mustdevour in the way that you saw lastnight... Now, reverend Sir, let mebeseech you to perform a Segaki-service [2] for me: help me by yourprayers, I entreat you, so that I may besoon able to escape from this horriblestate of existence"...

No sooner had the hermit uttered thispetition than he disappeared; and thehermitage also disappeared at the sameinstant. And Muso Kokushi foundhimself kneeling alone in the highgrass, beside an ancient and moss-

grown tomb of the form called go-rin-ishi, [3] which seemed to be the tombof a priest.

MUJINA

On the Akasaka Road, in Tokyo, thereis a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka,which means the Slope of the Provinceof Kii. I do not know why it is calledthe Slope of the Province of Kii. Onone side of this slope you see anancient moat, deep and very wide, withhigh green banks rising up to someplace of gardens; and on the other sideof the road extend the long and lofty

walls of an imperial palace. Before theera of street-lamps and jinrikishas, thisneighborhood was very lonesome afterdark; and belated pedestrians would gomiles out of their way rather thanmount the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, alone,after sunset.

All because of a Mujina that used towalk there. (1)

The last man who saw the Mujina wasan old merchant of the Kyobashiquarter, who died about thirty yearsago. This is the story, as he told it:

One night, at a late hour, he washurrying up the Kii-no-kuni-zaka,

when he perceived a woman crouchingby the moat, all alone, and weepingbitterly. Fearing that she intended todrown herself, he stopped to offer herany assistance or consolation in hispower. She appeared to be a slight andgraceful person, handsomely dressed;and her hair was arranged like that of ayoung girl of good family. "O-jochu,"[1] he exclaimed, approaching her, "O-jochu, do not cry like that!... Tell mewhat the trouble is; and if there be anyway to help you, I shall be glad to helpyou." (He really meant what he said; forhe was a very kind man.) But shecontinued to weep, hiding her facefrom him with one of her long sleeves."O-jochu," he said again, as gently as he

could, "please, please listen to me!...This is no place for a young lady atnight! Do not cry, I implore you! onlytell me how I may be of some help toyou!" Slowly she rose up, but turnedher back to him, and continued tomoan and sob behind her sleeve. Helaid his hand lightly upon her shoulder,and pleaded: "O-jochu! O-jochu! O-jochu!... Listen to me, just for one littlemoment!... O-jochu! O-jochu!"... Thenthat O-jochu turned around, anddropped her sleeve, and stroked herface with her hand; and the man sawthat she had no eyes or nose or mouth,and he screamed and ran away. (2)

Up Kii-no-kuni-zaka he ran and ran;

and all was black and empty beforehim. On and on he ran, never daring tolook back; and at last he saw a lantern,so far away that it looked like the gleamof a firefly; and he made for it. Itproved to be only the lantern of anitinerant soba-seller, [2] who had setdown his stand by the road-side; butany light and any humancompanionship was good after thatexperience; and he flung himself downat the feet of the soba-seller, crying out,"Ah! aa!! aa!!!"...

"Kore! kore!" (3) roughly exclaimed thesoba-man. "Here! what is the matterwith you Anybody hurt you "

"No nobody hurt me," panted theother, "only... Ah! aa!"

" Only scared you " queried thepeddler, unsympathetically. "Robbers "

"Not robbers, not robbers," gasped theterrified man... "I saw... I saw a womanby the moat; and she showed me... Ah!I cannot tell you what she showedme!"...

"He! (4) Was it anything like THIS thatshe showed you " cried the soba-man,stroking his own face which therewithbecame like unto an Egg... And,simultaneously, the light went out.

ROKURO-KUBI

Nearly five hundred years ago there wasa samurai, named Isogai HeidazaemonTaketsura, in the service of the LordKikuji, of Kyushu. This Isogai hadinherited, from many warlike ancestors,a natural aptitude for military exercises,and extraordinary strength. While yet aboy he had surpassed his teachers in theart of swordsmanship, in archery, andin the use of the spear, and haddisplayed all the capacities of a daringand skillful soldier. Afterwards, in thetime of the Eikyo [1] war, he sodistinguished himself that high honors

were bestowed upon him. But whenthe house of Kikuji came to ruin,Isogai found himself without a master.He might then easily have obtainedservice under another daimyo; but as hehad never sought distinction for hisown sake alone, and as his heartremained true to his former lord, hepreferred to give up the world. So hecut off his hair, and became a travelingpriest, taking the Buddhist name ofKwairyo.

But always, under the koromo [2] ofthe priest, Kwairyo kept warm withinhim the heart of the samurai. As inother years he had laughed at peril, sonow also he scorned danger; and in all

weathers and all seasons he journeyedto preach the good Law in places whereno other priest would have dared to go.For that age was an age of violence anddisorder; and upon the highways therewas no security for the solitary traveler,even if he happened to be a priest.

In the course of his first long journey,Kwairyo had occasion to visit theprovince of Kai. (1) One evening, as hewas traveling through the mountains ofthat province, darkness overcame himin a very lonesome district, leaguesaway from any village. So he resignedhimself to pass the night under thestars; and having found a suitablegrassy spot, by the roadside, he lay

down there, and prepared to sleep. Hehad always welcomed discomfort; andeven a bare rock was for him a goodbed, when nothing better could befound, and the root of a pine-tree anexcellent pillow. His body was iron; andhe never troubled himself about dewsor rain or frost or snow.

Scarcely had he lain down when a mancame along the road, carrying an axeand a great bundle of chopped wood.This woodcutter halted on seeingKwairyo lying down, and, after amoment of silent observation, said tohim in a tone of great surprise:

"What kind of a man can you be, good

Sir, that you dare to lie down alone insuch a place as this ... There arehaunters about here, many of them.Are you not afraid of Hairy Things "

"My friend," cheerfully answeredKwairyo, "I am only a wandering priest,a 'Cloud-and-Water-Guest,' as folks callit: Unsui-no-ryokaku. (2) And I am notin the least afraid of Hairy Things, ifyou mean goblin-foxes, or goblin-badgers, or any creatures of that kind.As for lonesome places, I like them:they are suitable for meditation. I amaccustomed to sleeping in the open air:and I have learned never to be anxiousabout my life."

"You must be indeed a brave man, SirPriest," the peasant responded, "to liedown here! This place has a bad name,a very bad name. But, as the proverbhas it, Kunshi ayayuki ni chikayorazu['The superior man does not needlesslyexpose himself to peril']; and I mustassure you, Sir, that it is very dangerousto sleep here. Therefore, although myhouse is only a wretched thatched hut,let me beg of you to come home withme at once. In the way of food, I havenothing to offer you; but there is a roofat least, and you can sleep under itwithout risk."

He spoke earnestly; and Kwairyo, likingthe kindly tone of the man, accepted

this modest offer. The woodcutterguided him along a narrow path,leading up from the main road throughmountain-forest. It was a rough anddangerous path, sometimes skirtingprecipices, sometimes offering nothingbut a network of slippery roots for thefoot to rest upon, sometimes windingover or between masses of jagged rock.But at last Kwairyo found himselfupon a cleared space at the top of ahill, with a full moon shining overhead;and he saw before him a small thatchedcottage, cheerfully lighted from within.The woodcutter led him to a shed atthe back of the house, whither waterhad been conducted, through bamboo-pipes, from some neighboring stream;

and the two men washed their feet.Beyond the shed was a vegetablegarden, and a grove of cedars andbamboos; and beyond the treesappeared the glimmer of a cascade,pouring from some loftier height, andswaying in the moonshine like a longwhite robe.

As Kwairyo entered the cottage with hisguide, he perceived four persons menand women warming their hands at alittle fire kindled in the ro [3] of theprinciple apartment. They bowed lowto the priest, and greeted him in themost respectful manner. Kwairyowondered that persons so poor, anddwelling in such a solitude, should be

aware of the polite forms of greeting."These are good people," he thought tohimself; "and they must have beentaught by some one well acquaintedwith the rules of propriety." Thenturning to his host, the aruji, or house-master, as the others called him,Kwairyo said:

"From the kindness of your speech,and from the very polite welcome givenme by your household, I imagine thatyou have not always been a woodcutter.Perhaps you formerly belonged to oneof the upper classes "

Smiling, the woodcutter answered:

"Sir, you are not mistaken. Thoughnow living as you find me, I was once aperson of some distinction. My story isthe story of a ruined life ruined by myown fault. I used to be in the service ofa daimyo; and my rank in that servicewas not inconsiderable. But I lovedwomen and wine too well; and underthe influence of passion I actedwickedly. My selfishness brought aboutthe ruin of our house, and caused thedeath of many persons. Retributionfollowed me; and I long remained afugitive in the land. Now I often praythat I may be able to make someatonement for the evil which I did, andto reestablish the ancestral home. But Ifear that I shall never find any way of

so doing. Nevertheless, I try toovercome the karma of my errors bysincere repentance, and by helping asafar as I can, those who areunfortunate."

Kwairyo was pleased by thisannouncement of good resolve; and hesaid to the aruji:

"My friend, I have had occasion toobserve that man, prone to folly in theiryouth, may in after years become veryearnest in right living. In the holy sutrasit is written that those strongest inwrong-doing can become, by power ofgood resolve, the strongest in right-doing. I do not doubt that you have a

good heart; and I hope that betterfortune will come to you. To-night Ishall recite the sutras for your sake, andpray that you may obtain the force toovercome the karma of any pasterrors."

With these assurances, Kwairyo badethe aruji good-night; and his hostshowed him to a very small side-room,where a bed had been made ready.Then all went to sleep except the priest,who began to read the sutras by thelight of a paper lantern. Until a latehour he continued to read and pray:then he opened a little window in hislittle sleeping-room, to take a last lookat the landscape before lying down. The

night was beautiful: there was no cloudin the sky: there was no wind; and thestrong moonlight threw down sharpblack shadows of foliage, and glitteredon the dews of the garden. Shrillingsof crickets and bell-insects (3) made amusical tumult; and the sound of theneighboring cascade deepened with thenight. Kwairyo felt thirsty as he listenedto the noise of the water; and,remembering the bamboo aqueduct atthe rear of the house, he thought thathe could go there and get a drinkwithout disturbing the sleepinghousehold. Very gently he pushed apartthe sliding-screens that separated hisroom from the main apartment; and hesaw, by the light of the lantern, five

recumbent bodies without heads!

For one instant he stood bewildered,imagining a crime. But in anothermoment he perceived that there was noblood, and that the headless necks didnot look as if they had been cut. Thenhe thought to himself: "Either this is anillusion made by goblins, or I havebeen lured into the dwelling of aRokuro-Kubi... (4) In the bookSoshinki (5) it is written that if onefind the body of a Rokuro-Kubiwithout its head, and remove the bodyto another place, the head will never beable to join itself again to the neck.And the book further says that whenthe head comes back and finds that its

body has been moved, it will strikeitself upon the floor three times,bounding like a ball, and will pant as ingreat fear, and presently die. Now, ifthese be Rokuro-Kubi, they mean meno good; so I shall be justified infollowing the instructions of thebook."...

He seized the body of the aruji by thefeet, pulled it to the window, andpushed it out. Then he went to theback-door, which he found barred; andhe surmised that the heads had madetheir exit through the smoke-hole in theroof, which had been left open. Gentlyunbarring the door, he made his way tothe garden, and proceeded with all

possible caution to the grove beyond it.He heard voices talking in the grove;and he went in the direction of thevoices, stealing from shadow toshadow, until he reached a goodhiding-place. Then, from behind atrunk, he caught sight of the heads, allfive of them, flitting about, andchatting as they flitted. They wereeating worms and insects which theyfound on the ground or among thetrees. Presently the head of the arujistopped eating and said:

"Ah, that traveling priest who came to-night! how fat all his body is! When weshall have eaten him, our bellies will bewell filled... I was foolish to talk to him

as I did; it only set him to reciting thesutras on behalf of my soul! To gonear him while he is reciting would bedifficult; and we cannot touch him solong as he is praying. But as it is nownearly morning, perhaps he has gone tosleep... Some one of you go to thehouse and see what the fellow isdoing."

Another head the head of a youngwoman immediately rose up and flittedto the house, lightly as a bat. After afew minutes it came back, and cried outhuskily, in a tone of great alarm:

"That traveling priest is not in thehouse; he is gone! But that is not the

worst of the matter. He has taken thebody of our aruji; and I do not knowwhere he has put it."

At this announcement the head of thearuji distinctly visible in the moonlightassumed a frightful aspect: its eyesopened monstrously; its hair stood upbristling; and its teeth gnashed. Then acry burst from its lips; and weepingtears of rage it exclaimed:

"Since my body has been moved, torejoin it is not possible! Then I mustdie!... And all through the work of thatpriest! Before I die I will get at thatpriest! I will tear him! I will devourhim!... AND THERE HE IS behind

that tree! hiding behind that tree! Seehim! the fat coward!"...

In the same moment the head of thearuji, followed by the other four heads,sprang at Kwairyo. But the strong priesthad already armed himself by pluckingup a young tree; and with that tree hestruck the heads as they came, knockingthem from him with tremendousblows. Four of them fled away. But thehead of the aruji, though batteredagain and again, desperately continuedto bound at the priest, and at lastcaught him by the left sleeve of hisrobe. Kwairyo, however, as quicklygripped the head by its topknot, andrepeatedly struck it. It did not release its

hold; but it uttered a long moan, andthereafter ceased to struggle. It wasdead. But its teeth still held the sleeve;and, for all his great strength, Kwairyocould not force open the jaws.

With the head still hanging to his sleevehe went back to the house, and therecaught sight of the other four Rokuro-Kubi squatting together, with theirbruised and bleeding heads reunited totheir bodies. But when they perceivedhim at the back-door all screamed,"The priest! the priest!" and fled,through the other doorway, out into thewoods.

Eastward the sky was brightening; day

was about to dawn; and Kwairyo knewthat the power of the goblins waslimited to the hours of darkness. Helooked at the head clinging to hissleeve, its face all fouled with bloodand foam and clay; and he laughedaloud as he thought to himself: "What amiyage! [4] the head of a goblin!" Afterwhich he gathered together his fewbelongings, and leisurely descended themountain to continue his journey.

Right on he journeyed, until he came toSuwa in Shinano; (6) and into the mainstreet of Suwa he solemnly strode, withthe head dangling at his elbow. Thenwoman fainted, and children screamedand ran away; and there was a great

crowding and clamoring until the torite(as the police in those days were called)seized the priest, and took him to jail.For they supposed the head to be thehead of a murdered man who, in themoment of being killed, had caught themurderer's sleeve in his teeth. As theKwairyo, he only smiled and saidnothing when they questioned him. So,after having passed a night in prison, hewas brought before the magistrates ofthe district. Then he was ordered toexplain how he, a priest, had beenfound with the head of a man fastenedto his sleeve, and why he had daredthus shamelessly to parade his crime inthe sight of people.

Kwairyo laughed long and loudly atthese questions; and then he said:

"Sirs, I did not fasten the head to mysleeve: it fastened itself there muchagainst my will. And I have notcommitted any crime. For this is not thehead of a man; it is the head of agoblin; and, if I caused the death ofthe goblin, I did not do so by anyshedding of blood, but simply bytaking the precautions necessary toassure my own safety."... And heproceeded to relate the whole of theadventure, bursting into another heartylaugh as he told of his encounter withthe five heads.

But the magistrates did not laugh. Theyjudged him to be a hardened criminal,and his story an insult to theirintelligence. Therefore, without furtherquestioning, they decided to order hisimmediate execution, all of them exceptone, a very old man. This aged officerhad made no remark during the trial;but, after having heard the opinion ofhis colleagues, he rose up, and said:

"Let us first examine the head carefully;for this, I think, has not yet been done.If the priest has spoken truth, the headitself should bear witness for him...Bring the head here!"

So the head, still holding in its teeth the

koromo that had been stripped fromKwairyo's shoulders, was put before thejudges. The old man turned it roundand round, carefully examined it, anddiscovered, on the nape of its neck,several strange red characters. He calledthe attention of his colleagues to these,and also bad them observe that theedges of the neck nowhere presentedthe appearance of having been cut byany weapon. On the contrary, the lineof leverance was smooth as the line atwhich a falling leaf detaches itself fromthe stem... Then said the elder:

"I am quite sure that the priest told usnothing but the truth. This is the headof a Rokuro-Kubi. In the book Nan-

ho-i-butsu-shi it is written that certainred characters can always be foundupon the nape of the neck of a realRokuro-Kubi. There are the characters:you can see for yourselves that theyhave not been painted. Moreover, it iswell known that such goblins havebeen dwelling in the mountains of theprovince of Kai from very ancienttime... But you, Sir," he exclaimed,turning to Kwairyo, "what sort ofsturdy priest may you be Certainly youhave given proof of a courage that fewpriests possess; and you have the air ofa soldier rather than a priest. Perhapsyou once belonged to the samurai-class"

"You have guessed rightly, Sir,"Kwairyo responded. "Before becominga priest, I long followed the professionof arms; and in those days I neverfeared man or devil. My name then wasIsogai Heidazaemon Taketsura ofKyushu: there may be some among youwho remember it."

At the mention of that name, amurmur of admiration filled the court-room.; for there were many presentwho remembered it. And Kwairyoimmediately found himself amongfriends instead of judges, friendsanxious to prove their admiration byfraternal kindness. With honor theyescorted him to the residence of the

daimyo, who welcomed him, andfeasted him, and made him a handsomepresent before allowing him to depart.When Kwairyo left Suwa, he was ashappy as any priest is permitted to be inthis transitory world. As for the head,he took it with him, jocosely insistingthat he intended it for a miyage.

And now it only remains to tell whatbecame of the head.

A day or two after leaving Suwa,Kwairyo met with a robber, whostopped him in a lonesome place, andbade him strip. Kwairyo at onceremoved his koromo, and offered it tothe robber, who then first perceived

what was hanging to the sleeve. Thoughbrave, the highwayman was startled: hedropped the garment, and sprang back.Then he cried out: "You! what kind ofa priest are you Why, you are a worseman than I am! It is true that I havekilled people; but I never walked aboutwith anybody's head fastened to mysleeve... Well, Sir priest, I suppose weare of the same calling; and I must saythat I admire you!... Now that headwould be of use to me: I could frightenpeople with it. Will you sell it You canhave my robe in exchange for yourkoromo; and I will give you five ryo forthe head."

Kwairyo answered:

"I shall let you have the head and therobe if you insist; but I must tell youthat this is not the head of a man. It isa goblin's head. So, if you buy it, andhave any trouble in consequence, pleaseto remember that you were notdeceived by me."

"What a nice priest you are!" exclaimedthe robber. "You kill men, and jestabout it!... But I am really in earnest.Here is my robe; and here is the money;and let me have the head... What is theuse of joking "

"Take the thing," said Kwairyo. "I wasnot joking. The only joke if there be

any joke at all is that you are foolenough to pay good money for agoblin's head." And Kwairyo, loudlylaughing, went upon his way.

Thus the robber got the head and thekoromo; and for some time he playedgoblin-priest upon the highways. But,reaching the neighborhood of Suwa,he there leaned the true story of thehead; and he then became afraid thatthe spirit of the Rokuro-Kubi mightgive him trouble. So he made up hismind to take back the head to the placefrom which it had come, and to bury itwith its body. He found his way to thelonely cottage in the mountains of Kai;but nobody was there, and he could

not discover the body. Therefore heburied the head by itself, in the grovebehind the cottage; and he had atombstone set up over the grave; andhe caused a Segaki-service to beperformed on behalf of the spirit ofthe Rokuro-Kubi. And that tombstoneknown as the Tombstone of theRokuro-Kubi may be seen (at least sothe Japanese story-teller declares) evenunto this day.

A DEAD SECRET

A long time ago, in the province ofTamba (1), there lived a rich merchant

named Inamuraya Gensuke. He had adaughter called O-Sono. As she wasvery clever and pretty, he thought itwould be a pity to let her grow up withonly such teaching as the country-teachers could give her: so he sent her,in care of some trusty attendants, toKyoto, that she might be trained in thepolite accomplishments taught to theladies of the capital. After she had thusbeen educated, she was married to afriend of her father's family a merchantnamed Nagaraya; and she lived happilywith him for nearly four years. Theyhad one child, a But O-Sono fell ill anddied, in the fourth year after hermarriage.

On the night after the funeral of O-Sono, her little son said that hismamma had come back, and was in theroom upstairs. She had smiled at him,but would not talk to him: so hebecame afraid, and ran away. Thensome of the family went upstairs to theroom which had been O-Sono's; andthey were startled to see, by the light ofa small lamp which had been kindledbefore a shrine in that room, the figureof the dead mother. She appeared as ifstanding in front of a tansu, or chestof drawers, that still contained herornaments and her wearing-apparel.Her head and shoulders could be verydistinctly seen; but from the waistdownwards the figure thinned into

invisibility; it was like an imperfectreflection of her, and transparent as ashadow on water.

Then the folk were afraid, and left theroom. Below they consulted together;and the mother of O-Sono's husbandsaid: "A woman is fond of her smallthings; and O-Sono was much attachedto her belongings. Perhaps she hascome back to look at them. Many deadpersons will do that, unless the thingsbe given to the parish-temple. If wepresent O-Sono's robes and girdles tothe temple, her spirit will probably findrest."

It was agreed that this should be done

as soon as possible. So on thefollowing morning the drawers wereemptied; and all of O-Sono'sornaments and dresses were taken tothe temple. But she came back the nextnight, and looked at the tansu as before.And she came back also on the nightfollowing, and the night after that, andevery night; and the house became ahouse of fear.

The mother of O-Sono's husband thenwent to the parish-temple, and told thechief priest all that had happened, andasked for ghostly counsel. The templewas a Zen temple; and the head-priestwas a learned old man, known asDaigen Osho. He said: "There must be

something about which she is anxious,in or near that tansu." "But we emptiedall the drawers," replied the woman;"there is nothing in the tansu." "Well,"said Daigen Osho, "to-night I shall goto your house, and keep watch in thatroom, and see what can be done. Youmust give orders that no person shallenter the room while I am watching,unless I call."

After sundown, Daigen Osho went tothe house, and found the room madeready for him. He remained there alone,reading the sutras; and nothingappeared until after the Hour of theRat. [1] Then the figure of O-Sonosuddenly outlined itself in front of the

tansu. Her face had a wistful look; andshe kept her eyes fixed upon the tansu.

The priest uttered the holy formulaprescribed in such cases, and then,addressing the figure by the kaimyo [2]of O-Sono, said: "I have come here inorder to help you. Perhaps in that tansuthere is something about which youhave reason to feel anxious. Shall I tryto find it for you " The shadowappeared to give assent by a slightmotion of the head; and the priest,rising, opened the top drawer. It wasempty. Successively he opened thesecond, the third, and the fourthdrawer; he searched carefully behindthem and beneath them; he carefully

examined the interior of the chest. Hefound nothing. But the figure remainedgazing as wistfully as before. "What canshe want " thought the priest. Suddenlyit occurred to him that there might besomething hidden under the paper withwhich the drawers were lined. Heremoved the lining of the first drawer:nothing! He removed the lining of thesecond and third drawers: still nothing.But under the lining of the lowermostdrawer he found a letter. "Is this thething about which you have beentroubled " he asked. The shadow ofthe woman turned toward him, herfaint gaze fixed upon the letter. "Shall Iburn it for you " he asked. She bowedbefore him. "It shall be burned in the

temple this very morning," hepromised; "and no one shall read it,except myself." The figure smiled andvanished.

Dawn was breaking as the priestdescended the stairs, to find the familywaiting anxiously below. "Do not beanxious," he said to them: "She will notappear again." And she never did.

The letter was burned. It was a love-letter written to O-Sono in the time ofher studies at Kyoto. But the priestalone knew what was in it; and thesecret died with him.

YUKI-ONNA

In a village of Musashi Province (1),there lived two woodcutters: Mosakuand Minokichi. At the time of which Iam speaking, Mosaku was an old man;and Minokichi, his apprentice, was alad of eighteen years. Every day theywent together to a forest situated aboutfive miles from their village. On the wayto that forest there is a wide river tocross; and there is a ferry-boat. Severaltimes a bridge was built where the ferryis; but the bridge was each time carriedaway by a flood. No common bridgecan resist the current there when theriver rises.

Mosaku and Minokichi were on theirway home, one very cold evening, whena great snowstorm overtook them.They reached the ferry; and they foundthat the boatman had gone away,leaving his boat on the other side ofthe river. It was no day for swimming;and the woodcutters took shelter in theferryman's hut, thinking themselveslucky to find any shelter at all. Therewas no brazier in the hut, nor any placein which to make a fire: it was only atwo-mat [1] hut, with a single door, butno window. Mosaku and Minokichifastened the door, and lay down to rest,with their straw rain-coats over them.At first they did not feel very cold; and

they thought that the storm wouldsoon be over.

The old man almost immediately fellasleep; but the boy, Minokichi, layawake a long time, listening to theawful wind, and the continual slashingof the snow against the door. The riverwas roaring; and the hut swayed andcreaked like a junk at sea. It was aterrible storm; and the air was everymoment becoming colder; andMinokichi shivered under his rain-coat.But at last, in spite of the cold, he toofell asleep.

He was awakened by a showering ofsnow in his face. The door of the hut

had been forced open; and, by thesnow-light (yuki-akari), he saw awoman in the room, a woman all inwhite. She was bending above Mosaku,and blowing her breath upon him; andher breath was like a bright whitesmoke. Almost in the same moment sheturned to Minokichi, and stooped overhim. He tried to cry out, but found thathe could not utter any sound. Thewhite woman bent down over him,lower and lower, until her face almosttouched him; and he saw that she wasvery beautiful, though her eyes madehim afraid. For a little time shecontinued to look at him; then shesmiled, and she whispered: "I intendedto treat you like the other man. But I

cannot help feeling some pity for you,because you are so young... You are apretty boy, Minokichi; and I will nothurt you now. But, if you ever tellanybody even your own mother aboutwhat you have seen this night, I shallknow it; and then I will kill you...Remember what I say!"

With these words, she turned from him,and passed through the doorway. Thenhe found himself able to move; and hesprang up, and looked out. But thewoman was nowhere to be seen; andthe snow was driving furiously into thehut. Minokichi closed the door, andsecured it by fixing several billets ofwood against it. He wondered if the

wind had blown it open; he thoughtthat he might have been only dreaming,and might have mistaken the gleam ofthe snow-light in the doorway for thefigure of a white woman: but he couldnot be sure. He called to Mosaku, andwas frightened because the old man didnot answer. He put out his hand in thedark, and touched Mosaku's face, andfound that it was ice! Mosaku was starkand dead...

By dawn the storm was over; and whenthe ferryman returned to his station, alittle after sunrise, he found Minokichilying senseless beside the frozen bodyof Mosaku. Minokichi was promptlycared for, and soon came to himself;

but he remained a long time ill from theeffects of the cold of that terriblenight. He had been greatly frightenedalso by the old man's death; but he saidnothing about the vision of the womanin white. As soon as he got well again,he returned to his calling, going aloneevery morning to the forest, andcoming back at nightfall with hisbundles of wood, which his motherhelped him to sell.

One evening, in the winter of thefollowing year, as he was on his wayhome, he overtook a girl whohappened to be traveling by the sameroad. She was a tall, slim girl, verygood-looking; and she answered

Minokichi's greeting in a voice aspleasant to the ear as the voice of asong-bird. Then he walked beside her;and they began to talk. The girl saidthat her name was O-Yuki [2]; that shehad lately lost both of her parents; andthat she was going to Yedo (2), whereshe happened to have some poorrelations, who might help her to find asituation as a servant. Minokichi soonfelt charmed by this strange girl; andthe more that he looked at her, thehandsomer she appeared to be. Heasked her whether she was yetbetrothed; and she answered,laughingly, that she was free. Then, inher turn, she asked Minokichi whetherhe was married, or pledge to marry; and

he told her that, although he had only awidowed mother to support, thequestion of an "honorable daughter-in-law" had not yet been considered, as hewas very young... After theseconfidences, they walked on for a longwhile without speaking; but, as theproverb declares, Ki ga areba, me mokuchi hodo ni mono wo iu: "When thewish is there, the eyes can say as muchas the mouth." By the time they reachedthe village, they had become very muchpleased with each other; and thenMinokichi asked O-Yuki to rest awhileat his house. After some shy hesitation,she went there with him; and hismother made her welcome, andprepared a warm meal for her. O-Yuki

behaved so nicely that Minokichi'smother took a sudden fancy to her, andpersuaded her to delay her journey toYedo. And the natural end of thematter was that Yuki never went toYedo at all. She remained in the house,as an "honorable daughter-in-law."

O-Yuki proved a very good daughter-in-law. When Minokichi's mother cameto die, some five years later, her lastwords were words of affection andpraise for the wife of her son. And O-Yuki bore Minokichi ten children, boysand girls, handsome children all ofthem, and very fair of skin.

The country-folk thought O-Yuki a

wonderful person, by nature differentfrom themselves. Most of the peasant-women age early; but O-Yuki, even afterhaving become the mother of tenchildren, looked as young and fresh ason the day when she had first come tothe village.

One night, after the children had goneto sleep, O-Yuki was sewing by the lightof a paper lamp; and Minokichi,watching her, said:

"To see you sewing there, with the lighton your face, makes me think of astrange thing that happened when I wasa lad of eighteen. I then saw somebodyas beautiful and white as you are now

indeed, she was very like you."...

Without lifting her eyes from her work,O-Yuki responded:

"Tell me about her... Where did you seeher "

Then Minokichi told her about theterrible night in the ferryman's hut, andabout the White Woman that hadstooped above him, smiling andwhispering, and about the silent deathof old Mosaku. And he said:

"Asleep or awake, that was the onlytime that I saw a being as beautiful asyou. Of course, she was not a human

being; and I was afraid of her, verymuch afraid, but she was so white!...Indeed, I have never been sure whetherit was a dream that I saw, or the Womanof the Snow."...

O-Yuki flung down her sewing, andarose, and bowed above Minokichiwhere he sat, and shrieked into his face:

"It was I I I! Yuki it was! And I toldyou then that I would kill you if youever said one work about it!... But forthose children asleep there, I would killyou this moment! And now you hadbetter take very, very good care ofthem; for if ever they have reason tocomplain of you, I will treat you as you

deserve!"...

Even as she screamed, her voice becamethin, like a crying of wind; then shemelted into a bright white mist thatspired to the roof-beams, andshuddered away through the smoke-hold... Never again was she seen.

THE STORY OF AOYAGI

In the era of Bummei [1469-1486]there was a young samurai calledTomotada in the service ofHatakeyama Yoshimune, the Lord ofNoto (1). Tomotada was a native of

Echizen (2); but at an early age he hadbeen taken, as page, into the palace ofthe daimyo of Noto, and had beeneducated, under the supervision of thatprince, for the profession of arms. Ashe grew up, he proved himself both agood scholar and a good soldier, andcontinued to enjoy the favor of hisprince. Being gifted with an amiablecharacter, a winning address, and a veryhandsome person, he was admired andmuch liked by his samurai-comrades.

When Tomotada was about twentyyears old, he was sent upon a privatemission to Hosokawa Masamoto, thegreat daimyo of Kyoto, a kinsman ofHatakeyama Yoshimune. Having been

ordered to journey through Echizen,the youth requested and obtainedpermission to pay a visit, on the way, tohis widowed mother.

It was the coldest period of the yearwhen he started; and, though mountedupon a powerful horse, he foundhimself obliged to proceed slowly. Theroad which he followed passed througha mountain-district where thesettlements were few and far between;and on the second day of his journey,after a weary ride of hours, he wasdismayed to find that he could notreached his intended halting-place untillate in the night. He had reason to beanxious; for a heavy snowstorm came

on, with an intensely cold wind; andthe horse showed signs of exhaustion.But in that trying moment, Tomotadaunexpectedly perceived the thatchedroom of a cottage on the summit of anear hill, where willow-trees weregrowing. With difficulty he urged histired animal to the dwelling; and heloudly knocked upon the storm-doors,which had been closed against thewind. An old woman opened them,and cried out compassionately at thesight of the handsome stranger: "Ah,how pitiful! a young gentlemantraveling alone in such weather!...Deign, young master, to enter."

Tomotada dismounted, and after

leading his horse to a shed in the rear,entered the cottage, where he saw anold man and a girl warming themselvesby a fire of bamboo splints. Theyrespectfully invited him to approachthe fire; and the old folks thenproceeded to warm some rice-wine,and to prepare food for the traveler,whom they ventured to question inregard to his journey. Meanwhile theyoung girl disappeared behind a screen.Tomotada had observed, withastonishment, that she was extremelybeautiful, though her attire was of themost wretched kind, and her long,loose hair in disorder. He wonderedthat so handsome a girl should beliving in such a miserable and lonesome

place.

The old man said to him:

"Honored Sir, the next village is far;and the snow is falling thickly. Thewind is piercing; and the road is verybad. Therefore, to proceed further thisnight would probably be dangerous.Although this hovel is unworthy ofyour presence, and although we havenot any comfort to offer, perhaps itwere safer to remain to-night under thismiserable roof... We would take goodcare of your horse."

Tomotada accepted this humbleproposal, secretly glad of the chance

thus afforded him to see more of theyoung girl. Presently a coarse but amplemeal was set before him; and the girlcame from behind the screen, to servethe wine. She was now reclad, in arough but cleanly robe of homespun;and her long, loose hair had been neatlycombed and smoothed. As she bentforward to fill his cup, Tomotada wasamazed to perceive that she wasincomparably more beautiful than anywoman whom he had ever before seen;and there was a grace about her everymotion that astonished him. But theelders began to apologize for her,saying: "Sir, our daughter, Aoyagi, [1]has been brought up here in themountains, almost alone; and she

knows nothing of gentle service. Wepray that you will pardon her stupidityand her ignorance." Tomotadaprotested that he deemed himself luckyto be waited upon by so comely amaiden. He could not turn his eyesaway from her though he saw that hisadmiring gaze made her blush; and heleft the wine and food untasted beforehim. The mother said: "Kind Sir, wevery much hope that you will try to eatand to drink a little, though ourpeasant-fare is of the worst, as youmust have been chilled by that piercingwind." Then, to please the old folks,Tomotada ate and drank as he could;but the charm of the blushing girl stillgrew upon him. He talked with her,

and found that her speech was sweet asher face. Brought up in the mountainsas she might have been; but, in thatcase, her parents must at some timebeen persons of high degree; for shespoke and moved like a damsel ofrank. Suddenly he addressed her with apoem which was also a questioninspired by the delight in his heart:

"Tadzunetsuru, Hana ka tote koso, Hiwo kurase, Akenu ni otoru Akanesasuran "

["Being on my way to pay a visit, Ifound that which I took to be a flower:therefore here I spend the day... Why, inthe time before dawn, the dawn-blush

tint should glow that, indeed, I knownot."] [2]

Without a moment's hesitation, sheanswered him in these verses:

"Izuru hi no Honomeku iro wo Wagasode ni Tsutsumaba asu mo Kimiyatomaran."

["If with my sleeve I hid the faint faircolor of the dawning sun, then,perhaps, in the morning my lord willremain."] [3]

Then Tomotada knew that she acceptedhis admiration; and he was scarcely lesssurprised by the art with which she had

uttered her feelings in verse, thandelighted by the assurance which theverses conveyed. He was now certainthat in all this world he could not hopeto meet, much less to win, a girl morebeautiful and witty than this rusticmaid before him; and a voice in hisheart seemed to cry out urgently, "Takethe luck that the gods have put in yourway!" In short he was bewitchedbewitched to such a degree that,without further preliminary, he askedthe old people to give him theirdaughter in marriage, telling them, atthe same time, his name and lineage,and his rank in the train of the Lord ofNoto.

They bowed down before him, withmany exclamations of gratefulastonishment. But, after some momentsof apparent hesitation, the fatherreplied:

"Honored master, you are a person ofhigh position, and likely to rise to stillhigher things. Too great is the favor thatyou deign to offer us; indeed, the depthof our gratitude therefor is not to bespoken or measured. But this girl ofours, being a stupid country-girl ofvulgar birth, with no training orteaching of any sort, it would beimproper to let her become the wife ofa noble samurai. Even to speak of sucha matter is not right... But, since you

find the girl to your liking, and havecondescended to pardon her peasant-manners and to overlook her greatrudeness, we do gladly present her toyou, for an humble handmaid. Deign,therefore, to act hereafter in her regardaccording to your august pleasure."

Ere morning the storm had passed; andday broke through a cloudless east.Even if the sleeve of Aoyagi hid fromher lover's eyes the rose-blush of thatdawn, he could no longer tarry. Butneither could he resign himself to partwith the girl; and, when everything hadbeen prepared for his journey, he thusaddressed her parents:

"Though it may seem thankless to askfor more than I have already received, Imust again beg you to give me yourdaughter for wife. It would be difficultfor me to separate from her now; andas she is willing to accompany me, ifyou permit, I can take her with me asshe is. If you will give her to me, I shallever cherish you as parents... And, inthe meantime, please to accept thispoor acknowledgment of your kindesthospitality."

So saying, he placed before his humblehost a purse of gold ryo. But the oldman, after many prostrations, gentlypushed back the gift, and said:

"Kind master, the gold would be of nouse to us; and you will probably haveneed of it during your long, coldjourney. Here we buy nothing; and wecould not spend so much money uponourselves, even if we wished... As forthe girl, we have already bestowed heras a free gift; she belongs to you:therefore it is not necessary to ask ourleave to take her away. Already she hastold us that she hopes to accompanyyou, and to remain your servant for aslong as you may be willing to endureher presence. We are only too happy toknow that you deign to accept her; andwe pray that you will not troubleyourself on our account. In this placewe could not provide her with proper

clothing, much less with a dowry.Moreover, being old, we should in anyevent have to separate from her beforelong. Therefore it is very fortunate thatyou should be willing to take her withyou now."

It was in vain that Tomotada tried topersuade the old people to accept apresent: he found that they carednothing for money. But he saw thatthey were really anxious to trust theirdaughter's fate to his hands; and hetherefore decided to take her with him.So he placed her upon his horse, andbade the old folks farewell for the timebeing, with many sincere expressionsof gratitude.

"Honored Sir," the father made answer,"it is we, and not you, who have reasonfor gratitude. We are sure that you willbe kind to our girl; and we have nofears for her sake."...

[Here, in the Japanese original, there is aqueer break in the natural course of thenarration, which therefrom remainscuriously inconsistent. Nothing furtheris said about the mother of Tomotada,or about the parents of Aoyagi, orabout the daimyo of Noto. Evidentlythe writer wearied of his work at thispoint, and hurried the story, verycarelessly, to its startling end. I am notable to supply his omissions, or to

repair his faults of construction; but Imust venture to put in a fewexplanatory details, without which therest of the tale would not holdtogether... It appears that Tomotadarashly took Aoyagi with him to Kyoto,and so got into trouble; but we are notinformed as to where the couple livedafterwards.]

...Now a samurai was not allowed tomarry without the consent of his lord;and Tomotada could not expect toobtain this sanction before his missionhad been accomplished. He had reason,under such circumstances, to fear thatthe beauty of Aoyagi might attractdangerous attention, and that means

might be devised of taking her awayfrom him. In Kyoto he therefore triedto keep her hidden from curious eyes.But a retainer of Lord Hosokawa oneday caught sight of Aoyagi, discoveredher relation to Tomotada, and reportedthe matter to the daimyo. Thereuponthe daimyo a young prince, and fondof pretty faces gave orders that the girlshould be brought to the place; and shewas taken thither at once, withoutceremony.

Tomotada sorrowed unspeakably; buthe knew himself powerless. He wasonly an humble messenger in theservice of a far-off daimyo; and for thetime being he was at the mercy of a

much more powerful daimyo, whosewishes were not to be questioned.Moreover Tomotada knew that he hadacted foolishly, that he had broughtabout his own misfortune, by enteringinto a clandestine relation which thecode of the military class condemned.There was now but one hope for him, adesperate hope: that Aoyagi might beable and willing to escape and to fleewith him. After long reflection, heresolved to try to send her a letter. Theattempt would be dangerous, of course:any writing sent to her might find itsway to the hands of the daimyo; and tosend a love-letter to any inmate of theplace was an unpardonable offense. Buthe resolved to dare the risk; and, in the

form of a Chinese poem, he composeda letter which he endeavored to haveconveyed to her. The poem was writtenwith only twenty-eight characters. Butwith those twenty-eight characters hewas about to express all the depth ofhis passion, and to suggest all the painof his loss: [4]

Koshi o-son gojin wo ou; Ryokujunamida wo tarete rakin wo hitataru;Komon hitotabi irite fukaki koto umino gotoshi; Kore yori shoro kore rojin

[Closely, closely the youthful princenow follows after the gem-bright maid;

The tears of the fair one, falling, have

moistened all her robes.

But the august lord, having onebecome enamored of her the depth ofhis longing is like the depth of the sea.

Therefore it is only I that am leftforlorn, only I that am left to wanderalong.]

On the evening of the day after thispoem had been sent, Tomotada wassummoned to appear before the LordHosokawa. The youth at oncesuspected that his confidence had beenbetrayed; and he could not hope, if hisletter had been seen by the daimyo, toescape the severest penalty. "Now he

will order my death," thoughtTomotada; "but I do not care to liveunless Aoyagi be restored to me.Besides, if the death-sentence bepassed, I can at least try to killHosokawa." He slipped his swords intohis girdle, and hastened to the palace.

On entering the presence-room he sawthe Lord Hosokawa seated upon thedais, surrounded by samurai of highrank, in caps and robes of ceremony.All were silent as statues; and whileTomotada advanced to make obeisance,the hush seemed to his sinister andheavy, like the stillness before a storm.But Hosokawa suddenly descendedfrom the dais, and, while taking the

youth by the arm, began to repeat thewords of the poem: "Koshi o-son gojinwo ou."... And Tomotada, looking up,saw kindly tears in the prince's eyes.

Then said Hosokawa:

"Because you love each other so much,I have taken it upon myself toauthorize your marriage, in lieu of mykinsman, the Lord of Noto; and yourwedding shall now be celebrated beforeme. The guests are assembled; the giftsare ready."

At a signal from the lord, the sliding-screens concealing a further apartmentwere pushed open; and Tomotada saw

there many dignitaries of the court,assembled for the ceremony, andAoyagi awaiting him in brides' apparel...Thus was she given back to him; andthe wedding was joyous and splendid;and precious gifts were made to theyoung couple by the prince, and by themembers of his household.

* * *

For five happy years, after that wedding,Tomotada and Aoyagi dwelt together.But one morning Aoyagi, while talkingwith her husband about somehousehold matter, suddenly uttered agreat cry of pain, and then became verywhite and still. After a few moments

she said, in a feeble voice: "Pardon mefor thus rudely crying out but the paidwas so sudden!... My dear husband, ourunion must have been brought aboutthrough some Karma-relation in aformer state of existence; and thathappy relation, I think, will bring usagain together in more than one life tocome. But for this present existence ofours, the relation is now ended; we areabout to be separated. Repeat for me, Ibeseech you, the Nembutsu-prayer,because I am dying."

"Oh! what strange wild fancies!" criedthe startled husband, "you are only alittle unwell, my dear one!... lie downfor a while, and rest; and the sickness

will pass."...

"No, no!" she responded "I am dying! Ido not imagine it; I know!... And itwere needless now, my dear husband,to hide the truth from you any longer: Iam not a human being. The soul of atree is my soul; the heart of a tree is myheart; the sap of the willow is my life.And some one, at this cruel moment, iscutting down my tree; that is why Imust die!... Even to weep were nowbeyond my strength! quickly, quicklyrepeat the Nembutsu for me... quickly!...Ah!..."

With another cry of pain she turnedaside her beautiful head, and tried to

hide her face behind her sleeve. Butalmost in the same moment her wholeform appeared to collapse in thestrangest way, and to sank down, down,down level with the floor. Tomotadahad spring to support her; but therewas nothing to support! There lay onthe matting only the empty robes of thefair creature and the ornaments that shehad worn in her hair: the body hadceased to exist...

Tomotada shaved his head, took theBuddhist vows, and became an itinerantpriest. He traveled through all theprovinces of the empire; and, at holyplaces which he visited, he offered upprayers for the soul of Aoyagi.

Reaching Echizen, in the course of hispilgrimage, he sought the home of theparents of his beloved. But when hearrived at the lonely place among thehills, where their dwelling had been, hefound that the cottage had disappeared.There was nothing to mark even thespot where it had stood, except thestumps of three willows two old treesand one young tree that had been cutdown long before his arrival.

Beside the stumps of those willow-trees he erected a memorial tomb,inscribed with divers holy texts; and hethere performed many Buddhistservices on behalf of the spirits ofAoyagi and of her parents.

JIU-ROKU-ZAKURA

In Wakegori, a district of the provinceof Iyo (1), there is a very ancient andfamous cherry-tree, called Jiu-roku-zakura, or "the Cherry-tree of theSixteenth Day," because it blooms everyyear upon the sixteenth day of the firstmonth (by the old lunar calendar), andonly upon that day. Thus the time of itsflowering is the Period of Great Cold,though the natural habit of a cherry-tree is to wait for the spring seasonbefore venturing to blossom. But theJiu-roku-zakura blossoms with a life

that is not or, at least, that was notoriginally its own. There is the ghost ofa man in that tree.

He was a samurai of Iyo; and the treegrew in his garden; and it used toflower at the usual time, that is to say,about the end of March or thebeginning of April. He had playedunder that tree when he was a child;and his parents and grandparents andancestors had hung to its blossomingbranches, season after season for morethan a hundred years, bright strips ofcolored paper inscribed with poems ofpraise. He himself became very old,outliving all his children; and there wasnothing in the world left for him to live

except that tree. And lo! in the summerof a certain year, the tree withered anddied!

Exceedingly the old man sorrowed forhis tree. Then kind neighbors found forhim a young and beautiful cherry-tree,and planted it in his garden, hopingthus to comfort him. And he thankedthem, and pretended to be glad. Butreally his heart was full of pain; for hehad loved the old tree so well thatnothing could have consoled him forthe loss of it.

At last there came to him a happythought: he remembered a way bywhich the perishing tree might be

saved. (It was the sixteenth day of thefirst month.) Along he went into hisgarden, and bowed down before thewithered tree, and spoke to it, saying:"Now deign, I beseech you, once moreto bloom, because I am going to die inyour stead." (For it is believed that onecan really give away one's life to anotherperson, or to a creature or even to atree, by the favor of the gods; and thusto transfer one's life is expressed by theterm migawari ni tatsu, "to act as asubstitute.") Then under that tree hespread a white cloth, and diverscoverings, and sat down upon thecoverings, and performed hara-kiri afterthe fashion of a samurai. And theghost of him went into the tree, and

made it blossom in that same hour.

And every year it still blooms on thesixteenth day of the first month, in theseason of snow.

THE DREAM OF AKINOSUKE

In the district called Toichi of YamatoProvince, (1) there used to live a goshinamed Miyata Akinosuke... [Here Imust tell you that in Japanese feudaltimes there was a privileged class ofsoldier-farmers, free-holders,corresponding to the class of yeomenin England; and these were called

goshi.]

In Akinosuke's garden there was a greatand ancient cedar-tree, under which hewas wont to rest on sultry days. Onevery warm afternoon he was sittingunder this tree with two of his friends,fellow-goshi, chatting and drinkingwine, when he felt all of a sudden verydrowsy, so drowsy that he begged hisfriends to excuse him for taking a napin their presence. Then he lay down atthe foot of the tree, and dreamed thisdream:

He thought that as he was lying there inhis garden, he saw a procession, like thetrain of some great daimyo descending

a hill near by, and that he got up tolook at it. A very grand procession itproved to be, more imposing thananything of the kind which he had everseen before; and it was advancingtoward his dwelling. He observed in thevan of it a number of young menrichly appareled, who were drawing agreat lacquered palace-carriage, orgosho-guruma, hung with bright bluesilk. When the procession arrivedwithin a short distance of the house ithalted; and a richly dressed manevidently a person of rank advancedfrom it, approached Akinosuke, bowedto him profoundly, and then said:

"Honored Sir, you see before you a

kerai [vassal] of the Kokuo of Tokoyo.[1] My master, the King, commands meto greet you in his august name, and toplace myself wholly at your disposal.He also bids me inform you that heaugustly desires your presence at thepalace. Be therefore pleasedimmediately to enter this honorablecarriage, which he has sent for yourconveyance."

Upon hearing these words Akinosukewanted to make some fitting reply; buthe was too much astonished andembarrassed for speech; and in thesame moment his will seemed to meltaway from him, so that he could onlydo as the kerai bade him. He entered

the carriage; the kerai took a placebeside him, and made a signal; thedrawers, seizing the silken ropes, turnedthe great vehicle southward; and thejourney began.

In a very short time, to Akinosuke'samazement, the carriage stopped infront of a huge two-storied gateway(romon), of a Chinese style, which hehad never before seen. Here the keraidismounted, saying, "I go to announcethe honorable arrival," and hedisappeared. After some little waiting,Akinosuke saw two noble-lookingmen, wearing robes of purple silk andhigh caps of the form indicating loftyrank, come from the gateway. These,

after having respectfully saluted him,helped him to descend from thecarriage, and led him through the greatgate and across a vast garden, to theentrance of a palace whose frontappeared to extend, west and east, to adistance of miles. Akinosuke was thenshown into a reception-room ofwonderful size and splendor. Hisguides conducted him to the place ofhonor, and respectfully seatedthemselves apart; while serving-maids,in costume of ceremony, broughtrefreshments. When Akinosuke hadpartaken of the refreshments, the twopurple-robed attendants bowed lowbefore him, and addressed him in thefollowing words, each speaking

alternately, according to the etiquette ofcourts:

"It is now our honorable duty toinform you... as to the reason of yourhaving been summoned hither... Ourmaster, the King, augustly desires thatyou become his son-in-law;... and it ishis wish and command that you shallwed this very day... the August Princess,his maiden-daughter... We shall soonconduct you to the presence-chamber...where His Augustness even now iswaiting to receive you... But it will benecessary that we first invest you... withthe appropriate garments ofceremony." [2]

Having thus spoken, the attendantsrose together, and proceeded to analcove containing a great chest of goldlacquer. They opened the chest, andtook from it various roes and girdles ofrich material, and a kamuri, or regalheaddress. With these they attiredAkinosuke as befitted a princelybridegroom; and he was thenconducted to the presence-room, wherehe saw the Kokuo of Tokoyo seatedupon the daiza, [3] wearing a high blackcap of state, and robed in robes ofyellow silk. Before the daiza, to left andright, a multitude of dignitaries sat inrank, motionless and splendid asimages in a temple; and Akinosuke,advancing into their midst, saluted the

king with the triple prostration ofusage. The king greeted him withgracious words, and then said:

"You have already been informed as tothe reason of your having beensummoned to Our presence. We havedecided that you shall become theadopted husband of Our onlydaughter; and the wedding ceremonyshall now be performed."

As the king finished speaking, a soundof joyful music was heard; and a longtrain of beautiful court ladies advancedfrom behind a curtain to conductAkinosuke to the room in which hebride awaited him.

The room was immense; but it couldscarcely contain the multitude of guestsassembled to witness the weddingceremony. All bowed down beforeAkinosuke as he took his place, facingthe King's daughter, on the kneeling-cushion prepared for him. As a maidenof heaven the bride appeared to be;and her robes were beautiful as asummer sky. And the marriage wasperformed amid great rejoicing.

Afterwards the pair were conducted toa suite of apartments that had beenprepared for them in another portionof the palace; and there they receivedthe congratulations of many noble

persons, and wedding gifts beyondcounting.

Some days later Akinosuke was againsummoned to the throne-room. Onthis occasion he was received evenmore graciously than before; and theKing said to him:

"In the southwestern part of Ourdominion there is an island calledRaishu. We have now appointed youGovernor of that island. You will findthe people loyal and docile; but theirlaws have not yet been brought intoproper accord with the laws of Tokoyo;and their customs have not beenproperly regulated. We entrust you with

the duty of improving their socialcondition as far as may be possible; andWe desire that you shall rule them withkindness and wisdom. All preparationsnecessary for your journey to Raishuhave already been made."

So Akinosuke and his bride departedfrom the palace of Tokoyo,accompanied to the shore by a greatescort of nobles and officials; and theyembarked upon a ship of stateprovided by the king. And withfavoring winds they safety sailed toRaishu, and found the good people ofthat island assembled upon the beachto welcome them.

Akinosuke entered at once upon hisnew duties; and they did not prove tobe hard. During the first three years ofhis governorship he was occupiedchiefly with the framing and theenactment of laws; but he had wisecounselors to help him, and he neverfound the work unpleasant. When itwas all finished, he had no active dutiesto perform, beyond attending the ritesand ceremonies ordained by ancientcustom. The country was so healthyand so fertile that sickness and wantwere unknown; and the people were sogood that no laws were ever broken.And Akinosuke dwelt and ruled inRaishu for twenty years more, makingin all twenty-three years of sojourn,

during which no shadow of sorrowtraversed his life.

But in the twenty-fourth year of hisgovernorship, a great misfortune cameupon him; for his wife, who had bornehim seven children, five boys and twogirls, fell sick and died. She was buried,with high pomp, on the summit of abeautiful hill in the district ofHanryoko; and a monument,exceedingly splendid, was placed uponher grave. But Akinosuke felt suchgrief at her death that he no longercared to live.

Now when the legal period ofmourning was over, there came to

Raishu, from the Tokoyo palace, ashisha, or royal messenger. The shishadelivered to Akinosuke a message ofcondolence, and then said to him:

"These are the words which our augustmaster, the King of Tokoyo, commandsthat I repeat to you: 'We will now sendyou back to your own people andcountry. As for the seven children, theyare the grandsons and granddaughtersof the King, and shall be fitly cared for.Do not, therefore, allow you mind tobe troubled concerning them.'"

On receiving this mandate, Akinosukesubmissively prepared for his departure.When all his affairs had been settled,

and the ceremony of bidding farewellto his counselors and trusted officialshad been concluded, he was escortedwith much honor to the port. There heembarked upon the ship sent for him;and the ship sailed out into the bluesea, under the blue sky; and the shapeof the island of Raishu itself turnedblue, and then turned grey, and thenvanished forever... And Akinosukesuddenly awoke under the cedar-tree inhis own garden!

For a moment he was stupefied anddazed. But he perceived his two friendsstill seated near him, drinking andchatting merrily. He stared at them in abewildered way, and cried aloud,

"How strange!"

"Akinosuke must have been dreaming,"one of them exclaimed, with a laugh."What did you see, Akinosuke, that wasstrange "

Then Akinosuke told his dream, thatdream of three-and-twenty years'sojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in theisland of Raishu; and they wereastonished, because he had really sleptfor no more than a few minutes.

One goshi said:

"Indeed, you saw strange things. We

also saw something strange while youwere napping. A little yellow butterflywas fluttering over your face for amoment or two; and we watched it.Then it alighted on the ground besideyou, close to the tree; and almost assoon as it alighted there, a big, big antcame out of a hole and seized it andpulling it down into the hole. Justbefore you woke up, we saw that verybutterfly come out of the hole again,and flutter over your face as before.And then it suddenly disappeared: wedo not know where it went."

"Perhaps it was Akinosuke's soul," theother goshi said; "certainly I thought Isaw it fly into his mouth... But, even if

that butterfly was Akinosuke's soul, thefact would not explain his dream."

"The ants might explain it," returnedthe first speaker. "Ants are queer beingspossibly goblins... Anyhow, there is abig ant's nest under that cedar-tree."...

"Let us look!" cried Akinosuke, greatlymoved by this suggestion. And he wentfor a spade.

The ground about and beneath thecedar-tree proved to have beenexcavated, in a most surprising way, by aprodigious colony of ants. The antshad furthermore built inside theirexcavations; and their tiny

constructions of straw, clay, and stemsbore an odd resemblance to miniaturetowns. In the middle of a structureconsiderably larger than the rest therewas a marvelous swarming of smallants around the body of one very bigant, which had yellowish wings and along black head.

"Why, there is the King of my dream!"cried Akinosuke; "and there is thepalace of Tokoyo!... Howextraordinary!... Raishu ought to liesomewhere southwest of it to the leftof that big root... Yes! here it is!... Howvery strange! Now I am sure that I canfind the mountain of Hanryoko, andthe grave of the princess."...

In the wreck of the nest he searchedand searched, and at last discovered atiny mound, on the top of which wasfixed a water-worn pebble, in shaperesembling a Buddhist monument.Underneath it he found embedded inclay the dead body of a female ant.

RIKI-BAKA

His name was Riki, signifying Strength;but the people called him Riki-the-Simple, or Riki-the-Fool, "Riki-Baka,"because he had been born intoperpetual childhood. For the same

reason they were kind to him, evenwhen he set a house on fire by puttinga lighted match to a mosquito-curtain,and clapped his hands for joy to see theblaze. At sixteen years he was a tall,strong lad; but in mind he remainedalways at the happy age of two, andtherefore continued to play with verysmall children. The bigger children ofthe neighborhood, from four to sevenyears old, did not care to play with him,because he could not learn their songsand games. His favorite toy was abroomstick, which he used as a hobby-horse; and for hours at a time he wouldride on that broomstick, up and downthe slope in front of my house, withamazing peals of laughter. But at last he

became troublesome by reason of hisnoise; and I had to tell him that hemust find another playground. Hebowed submissively, and then went off,sorrowfully trailing his broomstickbehind him. Gentle at all times, andperfectly harmless if allowed no chanceto play with fire, he seldom gaveanybody cause for complaint. Hisrelation to the life of our street wasscarcely more than that of a dog or achicken; and when he finallydisappeared, I did not miss him.Months and months passed by beforeanything happened to remind me ofRiki.

"What has become of Riki " I then

asked the old woodcutter who suppliesour neighborhood with fuel. Iremembered that Riki had often helpedhim to carry his bundles.

"Riki-Baka " answered the old man."Ah, Riki is dead poor fellow!... Yes, hedied nearly a year ago, very suddenly;the doctors said that he had somedisease of the brain. And there is astrange story now about that poor Riki.

"When Riki died, his mother wrote hisname, 'Riki-Baka,' in the palm of hisleft hand, putting 'Riki' in the Chinesecharacter, and 'Baka' in kana (1). Andshe repeated many prayers for him,prayers that he might be reborn into

some more happy condition.

"Now, about three months ago, in thehonorable residence of Nanigashi-Sama (2), in Kojimachi (3), a boy wasborn with characters on the palm ofhis left hand; and the characters werequite plain to read, 'RIKI-BAKA'!

"So the people of that house knew thatthe birth must have happened inanswer to somebody's prayer; and theycaused inquiry to be made everywhere.At least a vegetable-seller brought wordto them that there used to be a simplelad, called Riki-Baka, living in theUshigome quarter, and that he had diedduring the last autumn; and they sent

two men-servants to look for themother of Riki.

"Those servants found the mother ofRiki, and told her what had happened;and she was glad exceedingly for thatNanigashi house is a very rich andfamous house. But the servants saidthat the family of Nanigashi-Sama werevery angry about the word 'Baka' on thechild's hand. 'And where is your Rikiburied ' the servants asked. 'He isburied in the cemetery of Zendoji,' shetold them. 'Please to give us some ofthe clay of his grave,' they requested.

"So she went with them to the templeZendoji, and showed them Riki's grave;

and they took some of the grave-clayaway with them, wrapped up in afuroshiki [1].... They gave Riki's mothersome money, ten yen."... (4)

"But what did they want with that clay" I inquired.

"Well," the old man answered, "youknow that it would not do to let thechild grow up with that name on hishand. And there is no other means ofremoving characters that come in thatway upon the body of a child: youmust rub the skin with clay taken fromthe grave of the body of the formerbirth."...

HI-MAWARI

On the wooded hill behind the houseRobert and I are looking for fairy-rings.Robert is eight years old, comely, andvery wise; I am a little more than seven,and I reverence Robert. It is a glowingglorious August day; and the warm airis filled with sharp sweet scents ofresin.

We do not find any fairy-rings; but wefind a great many pine-cones in thehigh grass... I tell Robert the old Welshstory of the man who went to sleep,unawares, inside a fairy-ring, and so

disappeared for seven years, and wouldnever eat or speak after his friends haddelivered him from the enchantment.

"They eat nothing but the points ofneedles, you know," says Robert.

"Who " I ask.

"Goblins," Robert answers.

This revelation leaves me dumb withastonishment and awe... But Robertsuddenly cries out:

"There is a Harper! he is coming to thehouse!"

And down the hill we run to hear theharper... But what a harper! Not like thehoary minstrels of the picture-books. Aswarthy, sturdy, unkempt vagabond,with black bold eyes under scowlingblack brows. More like a bricklayer thana bard, and his garments are corduroy!

"Wonder if he is going to sing in Welsh" murmurs Robert.

I feel too much disappointed to makeany remarks. The harper poses his harpa huge instrument upon our doorstep,sets all the strong ringing with a sweepof his grimy fingers, clears his throatwith a sort of angry growl, and begins,

Believe me, if all those endearing youngcharms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day...

The accent, the attitude, the voice, allfill me with repulsion unutterable,shock me with a new sensation offormidable vulgarity. I want to cry outloud, "You have no right to sing thatsong!" For I have heard it sung by thelips of the dearest and fairest being inmy little world; and that this rude,coarse man should are to sing it vexesme like a mockery, angers me like aninsolence. But only for a moment!...With the utterance of the syllables "to-day," that deep, grim voice suddenlybreaks into a quivering tenderness

indescribable; then, marvelouslychanging, it mellows into tonessonorous and rich as the bass of a greatorgan, while a sensation unlikeanything ever felt before takes me bythe throat... What witchcraft has helearned what secret has he found thisscowling man of the road ... Oh! isthere anybody else in the whole worldwho can sing like that ... And the formof the singer flickers and dims; and thehouse, and the lawn, and all visibleshapes of things tremble and swimbefore me. Yet instinctively I fear thatman; I almost hate him; and I feelmyself flushing with anger and shamebecause of his power to move methus...

"He made you cry," Robertcompassionately observes, to myfurther confusion, as the harper stridesaway, richer by a gift of sixpence takenwithout thanks... "But I think he mustbe a gipsy. Gipsies are bad people andthey are wizards... Let us go back to thewood."

We climb again to the pines, and theresquat down upon the sun-flecked grass,and look over town and sea. But we donot play as before: the spell of thewizard is strong upon us both..."Perhaps he is a goblin," I venture atlast, "or a fairy " "No," says Robert,"only a gipsy. But that is nearly as bad.

They steal children, you know."...

"What shall we do if he comes up here" I gasp, in sudden terror at thelonesomeness of our situation.

"Oh, he wouldn't dare," answers Robert"not by daylight, you know."...

[Only yesterday, near the village ofTakata, I noticed a flower which theJapanese call by nearly the same nameas we do: Himawari, "The Sunward-turning;" and over the space of fortyyears there thrilled back to me the voiceof that wandering harper,

As the Sunflower turns on her god,

when he sets, The same look that sheturned when he rose.

Again I saw the sun-flecked shadowson that far Welsh hill; and Robert for amoment again stood beside me, withhis girl's face and his curls of gold. Wewere looking for fairy-rings... But allthat existed of the real Robert mustlong ago have suffered a sea-changeinto something rich and strange...Greater love hath no man than this, thata man lay down his life for his friend...]

HORAI

Blue vision of depth lost in height, seaand sky interblending throughluminous haze. The day is of spring,and the hour morning.

Only sky and sea, one azure enormity...In the fore, ripples are catching a silverylight, and threads of foam are swirling.But a little further off no motion isvisible, nor anything save color: dimwarm blue of water widening away tomelt into blue of air. Horizon there isnone: only distance soaring into space,infinite concavity hollowing beforeyou, and hugely arching above you, thecolor deepening with the height. But farin the midway-blue there hangs a faint,faint vision of palace towers, with high

roofs horned and curved like moons,some shadowing of splendor strangeand old, illumined by a sunshine soft asmemory.

...What I have thus been trying todescribe is a kakemono, that is to say, aJapanese painting on silk, suspended tothe wall of my alcove; and the name ofit is Shinkiro, which signifies "Mirage."But the shapes of the mirage areunmistakable. Those are the glimmeringportals of Horai the blest; and thoseare the moony roofs of the Palace ofthe Dragon-King; and the fashion ofthem (though limned by a Japanesebrush of to-day) is the fashion ofthings Chinese, twenty-one hundred

years ago...

Thus much is told of the place in theChinese books of that time:

In Horai there is neither death nor pain;and there is no winter. The flowers inthat place never fade, and the fruitsnever fail; and if a man taste of thosefruits even but once, he can never againfeel thirst or hunger. In Horai grow theenchanted plants So-rin-shi, and Riku-go-aoi, and Ban-kon-to, which heal allmanner of sickness; and there growsalso the magical grass Yo-shin-shi, thatquickens the dead; and the magicalgrass is watered by a fairy water ofwhich a single drink confers perpetual

youth. The people of Horai eat theirrice out of very, very small bowls; butthe rice never diminishes within thosebowls, however much of it be eaten,until the eater desires no more. And thepeople of Horai drink their wine outof very, very small cups; but no mancan empty one of those cups, howeverstoutly he may drink, until there comesupon him the pleasant drowsiness ofintoxication.

All this and more is told in the legendsof the time of the Shin dynasty. Butthat the people who wrote down thoselegends ever saw Horai, even in amirage, is not believable. For really thereare no enchanted fruits which leave the

eater forever satisfied, nor any magicalgrass which revives the dead, nor anyfountain of fairy water, nor any bowlswhich never lack rice, nor any cupswhich never lack wine. It is not truethat sorrow and death never enterHorai; neither is it true that there is notany winter. The winter in Horai is cold;and winds then bite to the bone; andthe heaping of snow is monstrous onthe roofs of the Dragon-King.

Nevertheless there are wonderful thingsin Horai; and the most wonderful of allhas not been mentioned by any Chinesewriter. I mean the atmosphere ofHorai. It is an atmosphere peculiar tothe place; and, because of it, the

sunshine in Horai is whiter than anyother sunshine, a milky light that neverdazzles, astonishingly clear, but verysoft. This atmosphere is not of ourhuman period: it is enormously old, soold that I feel afraid when I try to thinkhow old it is; and it is not a mixture ofnitrogen and oxygen. It is not made ofair at all, but of ghost, the substance ofquintillions of quintillions ofgenerations of souls blended into oneimmense translucency, souls of peoplewho thought in ways never resemblingour ways. Whatever mortal man inhalesthat atmosphere, he takes into hisblood the thrilling of these spirits; andthey change the sense within him,reshaping his notions of Space and

Time, so that he can see only as theyused to see, and feel only as they usedto feel, and think only as they used tothink. Soft as sleep are these changes ofsense; and Horai, discerned acrossthem, might thus be described:

Because in Horai there is no knowledgeof great evil, the hearts of the peoplenever grow old. And, by reason ofbeing always young in heart, the peopleof Horai smile from birth until deathexcept when the Gods send sorrowamong them; and faces then are veileduntil the sorrow goes away. All folk inHorai love and trust each other, as if allwere members of a single household;and the speech of the women is like

birdsong, because the hearts of themare light as the souls of birds; and theswaying of the sleeves of the maidensat play seems a flutter of wide, softwings. In Horai nothing is hidden butgrief, because there is no reason forshame; and nothing is locked away,because there could not be any theft;and by night as well as by day all doorsremain unbarred, because there is noreason for fear. And because the peopleare fairies though mortal all things inHorai, except the Palace of the Dragon-King, are small and quaint and queer;and these fairy-folk do really eat theirrice out of very, very small bowls, anddrink their wine out of very, very smallcups...

Much of this seeming would be due tothe inhalation of that ghostlyatmosphere but not all. For the spellwrought by the dead is only the charmof an Ideal, the glamour of an ancienthope; and something of that hope hasfound fulfillment in many hearts, in thesimple beauty of unselfish lives, in thesweetness of Woman...

Evil winds from the West are blowingover Horai; and the magicalatmosphere, alas! is shrinking awaybefore them. It lingers now in patchesonly, and bands, like those long brightbands of cloud that train across thelandscapes of Japanese painters. Under

these shreds of the elfish vapor youstill can find Horai but noteverywhere... Remember that Horai isalso called Shinkiro, which signifiesMirage, the Vision of the Intangible.And the Vision is fading, never again toappear save in pictures and poems anddreams...

INSECT STUDIES

BUTTERFLIES

I

Would that I could hope for the luck

of that Chinese scholar known toJapanese literature as "Rosan"! For hewas beloved by two spirit-maidens,celestial sisters, who every ten dayscame to visit him and to tell him storiesabout butterflies. Now there aremarvelous Chinese stories aboutbutterflies ghostly stories; and I want toknow them. But never shall I be able toread Chinese, nor even Japanese; andthe little Japanese poetry that I manage,with exceeding difficulty, to translate,contains so many allusions to Chinesestories of butterflies that I amtormented with the torment ofTantalus... And, of course, no spirit-maidens will even deign to visit soskeptical a person as myself.

I want to know, for example, the wholestory of that Chinese maiden whomthe butterflies took to be a flower, andfollowed in multitude, so fragrant andso fair was she. Also I should like toknow something more concerning thebutterflies of the Emperor Genso, orMing Hwang, who made them choosehis loves for him... He used to holdwine-parties in his amazing garden; andladies of exceeding beauty were inattendance; and caged butterflies, sefree among them, would fly to thefairest; and then, upon that fairest theImperial favor was bestowed. But afterGenso Kotei had seen Yokihi (whomthe Chinese call Yang-Kwei-Fei), he

would not suffer the butterflies tochoose for him, which was unlucky, asYokihi got him into serious trouble...Again, I should like to know moreabout the experience of that Chinesescholar, celebrated in Japan under thename Soshu, who dreamed that he wasa butterfly, and had all the sensationsof a butterfly in that dream. For hisspirit had really been wandering aboutin the shape of a butterfly; and, whenhe awoke, the memories and thefeelings of butterfly existence remainedso vivid in his mind that he could notact like a human being... Finally Ishould like to know the text of acertain Chinese official recognition ofsundry butterflies as the spirits of an

Emperor and of his attendants...

Most of the Japanese literature aboutbutterflies, excepting some poetry,appears to be of Chinese origin; andeven that old national aesthetic feelingon the subject, which found suchdelightful expression in Japanese artand song and custom, may have beenfirst developed under Chinese teaching.Chinese precedent doubtless explainswhy Japanese poets and painters choseso often for their geimyo, orprofessional appellations, such namesas Chomu ("Butterfly-Dream)," Icho("Solitary Butterfly)," etc. And even tothis day such geimyo as Chohana("Butterfly-Blossom"), Chokichi

("Butterfly-Luck"), or Chonosuke("Butterfly-Help"), are affected bydancing-girls. Besides artistic nameshaving reference to butterflies, there arestill in use real personal names (yobina)of this kind, such as Kocho, or Cho,meaning "Butterfly." They are borne bywomen only, as a rule, though there aresome strange exceptions... And here Imay mention that, in the province ofMutsu, there still exists the curious oldcustom of calling the youngestdaughter in a family Tekona, whichquaint word, obsolete elsewhere,signifies in Mutsu dialect a butterfly. Inclassic time this word signified also abeautiful woman...

It is possible also that some weirdJapanese beliefs about butterflies are ofChinese derivation; but these beliefsmight be older than China herself. Themost interesting one, I think, is that thesoul of a living person may wanderabout in the form of a butterfly. Somepretty fancies have been evolved out ofthis belief, such as the notion that if abutterfly enters your guest-room andperches behind the bamboo screen, theperson whom you most love is comingto see you. That a butterfly may be thespirit of somebody is not a reason forbeing afraid of it. Nevertheless thereare times when even butterflies caninspire fear by appearing in prodigiousnumbers; and Japanese history records

such an event. When Taira-no-Masakado was secretly preparing for hisfamous revolt, there appeared in Kyotoso vast a swarm of butterflies that thepeople were frightened, thinking theapparition to be a portent of comingevil... Perhaps those butterflies weresupposed to be the spirits of thethousands doomed to perish in battle,and agitated on the eve of war by somemysterious premonition of death.

However, in Japanese belief, a butterflymay be the soul of a dead person aswell as of a living person. Indeed it is acustom of souls to take butterfly-shapein order to announce the fact of theirfinal departure from the body; and for

this reason any butterfly which enters ahouse ought to be kindly treated.

To this belief, and to queer fanciesconnected with it, there are manyallusions in popular drama. Forexample, there is a well-known playcalled Tonde-deru-Kocho-no-Kanzashi; or, "The Flying Hairpin ofKocho." Kocho is a beautiful personwho kills herself because of falseaccusations and cruel treatment. Herwould-be avenger long seeks in vain forthe author of the wrong. But at last thedead woman's hairpin turns into abutterfly, and serves as a guide tovengeance by hovering above the placewhere the villain is hiding.

Of course those big paper butterflies(o-cho and me-cho) which figure atweddings must not be thought of ashaving any ghostly signification. Asemblems they only express the joy ofliving union, and the hope that thenewly married couple may pass throughlife together as a pair of butterflies flitlightly through some pleasant garden,now hovering upward, now downward,but never widely separating.

II

A small selection of hokku (1) onbutterflies will help to illustrateJapanese interest in the aesthetic side of

the subject. Some are pictures only, tinycolor-sketches made with seventeensyllables; some are nothing more thanpretty fancies, or graceful suggestions;but the reader will find variety.Probably he will not care much for theverses in themselves. The taste forJapanese poetry of the epigrammaticsort is a taste that must be slowlyacquired; and it is only by degrees, afterpatient study, that the possibilities ofsuch composition can be fairlyestimated. Hasty criticism has declaredthat to put forward any serious claimon behalf of seventeen-syllable poems"would be absurd." But what, then, ofCrashaw's famous line upon the miracleat the marriage feast in Cana

Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit.[1]

Only fourteen syllables andimmortality. Now with seventeenJapanese syllables things quite aswonderful indeed, much morewonderful have been done, not once ortwice, but probably a thousand times...However, there is nothing wonderful inthe following hokku, which have beenselected for more than literary reasons:

Nugi-kakuru [2] Haori sugata noKocho kana!

[Like a haori being taken off that is the

shape of a butterfly!]

Torisashi no Sao no jama suru Kochokana!

[Ah, the butterfly keeps getting in theway of the bird-catcher's pole! [3]]

Tsurigane ni Tomarite nemuru Kochokana!

[Perched upon the temple-bell, thebutterfly sleeps:]

Neru-uchi mo Asobu-yume wo yaKusa no cho!

[Even while sleeping, its dream is of

play ah, the butterfly of the grass! [4]

Oki, oki yo! Waga tomo ni sen, Neru-kocho!

[Wake up! wake up! I will make thee mycomrade, thou sleeping butterfly. [5]]

Kago no tori Cho wo urayamu Metsukikana!

[Ah, the sad expression in the eyes ofthat caged bird! envying the butterfly!]

Cho tonde Kaze naki hi to mo Miezariki!

[Even though it did not appear to be a

windy day, [6] the fluttering of thebutterflies !]

Rakkwa eda ni Kaeru to mireba Kochokana!

[When I saw the fallen flower return tothe branch lo! it was only a butterfly![7]]

Chiru-hana ni Karusa arasou Kochokana!

[How the butterfly strives to competein lightness with the falling flowers! [8]]

Chocho ya! Onna no michi no Ato yasaki!

[See that butterfly on the woman's path,now fluttering behind her, now before!]

Chocho ya! Hana-nusubito woTsukete-yuku!

[Ha! the butterfly! it is following theperson who stole the flowers!]

Aki no cho Tomo nakereba ya; Hito nitsuku

[Poor autumn butterfly! when leftwithout a comrade (of its own race), itfollows after man (or "a person")!]

Owarete mo, Isoganu furi no Chocho

kana!

[Ah, the butterfly! Even when chased, itnever has the air of being in a hurry.]

Cho wa mina Jiu-shichi-hachi noSugata kana!

[As for butterflies, they all have theappearance of being about seventeenor eighteen years old.[9]]

Cho tobu ya Kono yo no urami Nakiyo ni!

[How the butterfly sports, just as ifthere were no enmity (or "envy") in thisworld!]

Cho tobu ya, Kono yo ni nozomi Naiyo ni!

[Ah, the butterfly! it sports about as ifit had nothing more to desire in thispresent state of existence.]

Nami no hana ni Tomari kanetaru,Kocho kana!

[Having found it difficult indeed toperch upon the (foam-) blossoms ofthe waves, alas for the butterfly!]

Mutsumashi ya! Umare-kawareba Nobeno cho. [10]

[If (in our next existence) we be borninto the state of butterflies upon themoor, then perchance we may be happytogether!]

Nadeshiko ni Chocho shiroshi Tare nokon [11]

[On the pink-flower there is a whitebutterfly: whose spirit, I wonder ]

Ichi-nichi no Tsuma to miekeri Chofutatsu.

[The one-day wife has at last appeared apair of butterflies!]

Kite wa mau, Futari shidzuka no

Kocho kana!

[Approaching they dance; but when thetwo meet at last they are very quiet, thebutterflies!]

Cho wo ou Kokoro-mochitashiItsumademo!

[Would that I might always have theheart (desire) of chasing butterflies![12]]

* * *

Besides these specimens of poetryabout butterflies, I have one queerexample to offer of Japanese prose

literature on the same topic. Theoriginal, of which I have attemptedonly a free translation, can be found inthe curious old book Mushi-Isame("Insect-Admonitions"); and it assumesthe form of a discourse to a butterfly.But it is really a didactic allegory,suggesting the moral significance of asocial rise and fall:

"Now, under the sun of spring, thewinds are gentle, and flowers pinklybloom, and grasses are soft, and thehearts of people are glad. Butterflieseverywhere flutter joyously: so manypersons now compose Chinese versesand Japanese verses about butterflies.

"And this season, O Butterfly, is indeedthe season of your bright prosperity: socomely you now are that in the wholeworld there is nothing more comely.For that reason all other insects admireand envy you; there is not among themeven one that does not envy you. Nordo insects alone regard you with envy:men also both envy and admire you.Soshu of China, in a dream, assumedyour shape; Sakoku of Japan, afterdying, took your form, and thereinmade ghostly apparition. Nor is theenvy that you inspire shared only byinsects and mankind: even thingswithout soul change their form intoyours; witness the barley-grass, whichturns into a butterfly. [13]

"And therefore you are lifted up withpride, and think to yourself: 'In all thisworld there is nothing superior to me!'Ah! I can very well guess what is inyour heart: you are too much satisfiedwith your own person. That is why youlet yourself be blown thus lightly aboutby every wind; that is why you neverremain still, always, always thinking, 'Inthe whole world there is no one sofortunate as I.'

"But now try to think a little aboutyour own personal history. It is worthrecalling; for there is a vulgar side to it.How a vulgar side Well, for aconsiderable time after you were born,

you had no such reason for rejoicing inyour form. You were then a merecabbage-insect, a hairy worm; and youwere so poor that you could not affordeven one robe to cover your nakedness;and your appearance was altogetherdisgusting. Everybody in those dayshated the sight of you. Indeed you hadgood reason to be ashamed of yourself;and so ashamed you were that youcollected old twigs and rubbish to hidein, and you made a hiding-nest, andhung it to a branch, and theneverybody cried out to you, 'RaincoatInsect!' (Mino-mushi.) [14] And duringthat period of your life, your sins weregrievous. Among the tender greenleaves of beautiful cherry-trees you and

your fellows assembled, and there madeugliness extraordinary; and theexpectant eyes of the people, who camefrom far away to admire the beauty ofthose cherry-trees, were hurt by thesight of you. And of things even morehateful than this you were guilty. Youknew that poor, poor men and womenhad been cultivating daikon (2) in theirfields, toiling under the hot sun till theirhearts were filled with bitterness byreason of having to care for thatdaikon; and you persuaded yourcompanions to go with you, and togather upon the leaves of that daikon,and on the leaves of other vegetablesplanted by those poor people. Out ofyour greediness you ravaged those

leaves, and gnawed them into all shapesof ugliness, caring nothing for thetrouble of those poor folk... Yes, such acreature you were, and such were yourdoings.

"And now that you have a comelyform, you despise your old comrades,the insects; and, whenever you happento meet any of them, you pretend notto know them [literally, 'You make an I-don't-know face']. Now you want tohave none but wealthy and exaltedpeople for friends... Ah! You haveforgotten the old times, have you

"It is true that many people haveforgotten your past, and are charmed

by the sight of your present gracefulshape and white wings, and writeChinese verses and Japanese versesabout you. The high-born damsel, whocould not bear even to look at you inyour former shape, now gazes at youwith delight, and wants you to perchupon her hairpin, and holds out herdainty fan in the hope that you willlight upon it. But this reminds me thatthere is an ancient Chinese story aboutyou, which is not pretty.

"In the time of the Emperor Genso,the Imperial Palace contained hundredsand thousands of beautiful ladies, somany, indeed, that it would have beendifficult for any man to decide which

among them was the loveliest. So all ofthose beautiful persons were assembledtogether in one place; and you were setfree to fly among them; and it wasdecreed that the damsel upon whosehairpin you perched should be augustlysummoned to the Imperial Chamber.In that time there could not be morethan one Empress which was a goodlaw; but, because of you, the EmperorGenso did great mischief in the land.For your mind is light and frivolous;and although among so many beautifulwomen there must have been somepersons of pure heart, you would lookfor nothing but beauty, and so betookyourself to the person most beautifulin outward appearance. Therefore many

of the female attendants ceasedaltogether to think about the right wayof women, and began to study how tomake themselves appear splendid in theeyes of men. And the end of it wasthat the Emperor Genso died a pitifuland painful death all because of yourlight and trifling mind. Indeed, yourreal character can easily be seen fromyour conduct in other matters. Thereare trees, for example, such as theevergreen-oak and the pine, whoseleaves do not fade and fall, but remainalways green; these are trees of firmheart, trees of solid character. But yousay that they are stiff and formal; andyou hate the sight of them, and neverpay them a visit. Only to the cherry-

tree, and the kaido [15], and the peony,and the yellow rose you go: those youlike because they have showy flowers,and you try only to please them. Suchconduct, let me assure you, is veryunbecoming. Those trees certainly havehandsome flowers; but hunger-satisfying fruits they have not; and theyare grateful to those only who are fondof luxury and show. And that is justthe reason why they are pleased by yourfluttering wings and delicate shape; thatis why they are kind to you.

"Now, in this spring season, while yousportively dance through the gardensof the wealthy, or hover among thebeautiful alleys of cherry-trees in

blossom, you say to yourself: 'Nobodyin the world has such pleasure as I, orsuch excellent friends. And, in spite ofall that people may say, I most love thepeony, and the golden yellow rose is myown darling, and I will obey her everyleast behest; for that is my pride and mydelight.'... So you say. But the opulentand elegant season of flowers is veryshort: soon they will fade and fall.Then, in the time of summer heat,there will be green leaves only; andpresently the winds of autumn willblow, when even the leaves themselveswill shower down like rain, parari-parari. And your fate will then be as thefate of the unlucky in the proverb,Tanomi ki no shita ni ame furu [Even

through the tree upon which I reliedfor shelter the rain leaks down]. Foryou will seek out your old friend, theroot-cutting insect, the grub, and beghim to let you return into your old-timehole; but now having wings, you willnot be able to enter the hole because ofthem, and you will not be able toshelter your body anywhere betweenheaven and earth, and all the moor-grass will then have withered, and youwill not have even one drop of dewwith which to moisten your tongue,and there will be nothing left for you todo but to lie down and die. All becauseof your light and frivolous heart but,ah! how lamentable an end!"...

III

Most of the Japanese stories aboutbutterflies appear, as I have said, to beof Chinese origin. But I have onewhich is probably indigenous; and itseems to me worth telling for thebenefit of persons who believe there isno "romantic love" in the Far East.

Behind the cemetery of the temple ofSozanji, in the suburbs of the capital,there long stood a solitary cottage,occupied by an old man namedTakahama. He was liked in theneighborhood, by reason of hisamiable ways; but almost everybodysupposed him to be a little mad. Unless

a man take the Buddhist vows, he isexpected to marry, and to bring up afamily. But Takahama did not belong tothe religious life; and he could not bepersuaded to marry. Neither had heever been known to enter into a love-relation with any woman. For morethan fifty years he had lived entirelyalone.

One summer he fell sick, and knew thathe had not long to live. He then sentfor his sister-in-law, a widow, and forher only son, a lad of about twentyyears old, to whom he was muchattached. Both promptly came, and didwhatever they could to soothe the oldman's last hours.

One sultry afternoon, while the widowand her son were watching at hisbedside, Takahama fell asleep. At thesame moment a very large whitebutterfly entered the room, andperched upon the sick man's pillow.The nephew drove it away with a fan;but it returned immediately to thepillow, and was again driven away, onlyto come back a third time. Then thenephew chased it into the garden, andacross the garden, through an opengate, into the cemetery of theneighboring temple. But it continued toflutter before him as if unwilling to bedriven further, and acted so queerly thathe began to wonder whether it was

really a butterfly, or a ma [16]. He againchased it, and followed it far into thecemetery, until he saw it fly against atomb, a woman's tomb. There itunaccountably disappeared; and hesearched for it in vain. He thenexamined the monument. It bore thepersonal name "Akiko," (3) togetherwith an unfamiliar family name, and aninscription stating that Akiko had diedat the age of eighteen. Apparently thetomb had been erected about fifty yearspreviously: moss had begun to gatherupon it. But it had been well cared for:there were fresh flowers before it; andthe water-tank had recently been filled.

On returning to the sick room, the

young man was shocked by theannouncement that his uncle hadceased to breathe. Death had come tothe sleeper painlessly; and the dead facesmiled.

The young man told his mother ofwhat he had seen in the cemetery.

"Ah!" exclaimed the widow, "then itmust have been Akiko!"...

"But who was Akiko, mother " thenephew asked.

The widow answered:

"When your good uncle was young he

was betrothed to a charming girl calledAkiko, the daughter of a neighbor.Akiko died of consumption, only alittle before the day appointed for thewedding; and her promised husbandsorrowed greatly. After Akiko had beenburied, he made a vow never to marry;and he built this little house beside thecemetery, so that he might be alwaysnear her grave. All this happened morethan fifty years ago. And every day ofthose fifty years winter and summeralike your uncle went to the cemetery,and prayed at the grave, and swept thetomb, and set offerings before it. But hedid not like to have any mention madeof the matter; and he never spoke ofit... So, at last, Akiko came for him: the

white butterfly was her soul."

IV

I had almost forgotten to mention anancient Japanese dance, called theButterfly Dance (Kocho-Mai), whichused to be performed in the ImperialPalace, by dancers costumed asbutterflies. Whether it is dancedoccasionally nowadays I do not know.It is said to be very difficult to learn.Six dancers are required for the properperformance of it; and they must movein particular figures, obeying traditionalrules for ever step, pose, or gesture, andcircling about each other very slowly tothe sound of hand-drums and great

drums, small flutes and great flutes, andpandean pipes of a form unknown toWestern Pan.

MOSQUITOES

With a view to self-protection I havebeen reading Dr. Howard's book,"Mosquitoes." I am persecuted bymosquitoes. There are several species inmy neighborhood; but only one ofthem is a serious torment, a tiny needlything, all silver-speckled and silver-streaked. The puncture of it is sharp asan electric burn; and the mere hum ofit has a lancinating quality of tone

which foretells the quality of the painabout to come, much in the same waythat a particular smell suggests aparticular taste. I find that thismosquito much resembles the creaturewhich Dr. Howard calls Stegomyiafasciata, or Culex fasciatus: and that itshabits are the same as those of theStegomyia. For example, it is diurnalrather than nocturnal and becomesmost troublesome in the afternoon.And I have discovered that it comesfrom the Buddhist cemetery, a very oldcemetery, in the rear of my garden.

Dr. Howard's book declares that, inorder to rid a neighborhood ofmosquitoes, it is only necessary to pour

a little petroleum, or kerosene oil, intothe stagnant water where they breed.Once a week the oil should be used, "atthe rate of once ounce for every fifteensquare feet of water-surface, and aproportionate quantity for any lesssurface." ...But please to consider theconditions in my neighborhood!

I have said that my tormentors comefrom the Buddhist cemetery. Beforenearly every tomb in that old cemeterythere is a water-receptacle, or cistern,called mizutame. In the majority ofcases this mizutame is simply an oblongcavity chiseled in the broad pedestalsupporting the monument; but beforetombs of a costly kind, having no

pedestal-tank, a larger separate tank isplaced, cut out of a single block ofstone, and decorated with a family crest,or with symbolic carvings. In front of atomb of the humblest class, having nomizutame, water is placed in cups orother vessels, for the dead must havewater. Flowers also must be offered tothem; and before every tomb you willfind a pair of bamboo cups, or otherflower-vessels; and these, of course,contain water. There is a well in thecemetery to supply water for the graves.Whenever the tombs are visited byrelatives and friends of the dead, freshwater is poured into the tanks and cups.But as an old cemetery of this kindcontains thousands of mizutame, and

tens of thousands of flower-vessels thewater in all of these cannot be renewedevery day. It becomes stagnant andpopulous. The deeper tanks seldom getdry; the rainfall at Tokyo being heavyenough to keep them partly filledduring nine months out of the twelve.

Well, it is in these tanks and flower-vessels that mine enemies are born: theyrise by millions from the water of thedead; and, according to Buddhistdoctrine, some of them may bereincarnations of those very dead,condemned by the error of formerlives to the condition of Jiki-ketsu-gaki, or blood-drinking pretas...Anyhow the malevolence of the Culex

fasciatus would justify the suspicionthat some wicked human soul had beencompressed into that wailing speck of abody...

Now, to return to the subject ofkerosene-oil, you can exterminate themosquitoes of any locality by coveringwith a film of kerosene all stagnantwater surfaces therein. The larvae dieon rising to breathe; and the adultfemales perish when they approach thewater to launch their rafts of eggs. AndI read, in Dr. Howard's book, that theactual cost of freeing from mosquitoesone American town of fifty thousandinhabitants, does not exceed threehundred dollars!...

I wonder what would be said if thecity-government of Tokyo which isaggressively scientific and progressivewere suddenly to command that allwater-surfaces in the Buddhistcemeteries should be covered, at regularintervals, with a film of kerosene oil!How could the religion which prohibitsthe taking of any life even of invisiblelife yield to such a mandate Would filialpiety even dream of consenting to obeysuch an order And then to think of thecost, in labor and time, of puttingkerosene oil, every seven days, into themillions of mizutame, and the tens ofmillions of bamboo flower-cups, in theTokyo graveyards!... Impossible! To free

the city from mosquitoes it would benecessary to demolish the ancientgraveyards; and that would signify theruin of the Buddhist temples attachedto them; and that would mean thedisparition of so many charminggardens, with their lotus-ponds andSanscrit-lettered monuments andhumpy bridges and holy groves andweirdly-smiling Buddhas! So theextermination of the Culex fasciatuswould involve the destruction of thepoetry of the ancestral cult, surely toogreat a price to pay!...

Besides, I should like, when my timecomes, to be laid away in someBuddhist graveyard of the ancient kind,

so that my ghostly company should beancient, caring nothing for the fashionsand the changes and the disintegrationsof Meiji (1). That old cemetery behindmy garden would be a suitable place.Everything there is beautiful with abeauty of exceeding and startlingqueerness; each tree and stone has beenshaped by some old, old ideal which nolonger exists in any living brain; eventhe shadows are not of this time andsun, but of a world forgotten, thatnever knew steam or electricity ormagnetism or kerosene oil! Also in theboom of the big bell there is aquaintness of tone which wakensfeelings, so strangely far-away from allthe nineteenth-century part of me, that

the faint blind stirrings of them makeme afraid, deliciously afraid. Never do Ihear that billowing peal but I becomeaware of a striving and a fluttering inthe abyssal part of my ghost, asensation as of memories struggling toreach the light beyond the obscurationsof a million million deaths and births. Ihope to remain within hearing of thatbell... And, considering the possibilityof being doomed to the state of a Jiki-ketsu-gaki, I want to have my chanceof being reborn in some bambooflower-cup, or mizutame, whence Imight issue softly, singing my thin andpungent song, to bite some people thatI know.

ANTS

I

This morning sky, after the night'stempest, is a pure and dazzling blue.The air the delicious air! is full of sweetresinous odors, shed from the countlesspine-boughs broken and strewn by thegale. In the neighboring bamboo-groveI hear the flute-call of the bird thatpraises the Sutra of the Lotos; and theland is very still by reason of the southwind. Now the summer, long delayed,is truly with us: butterflies of queerJapanese colors are flickering about;

semi (1) are wheezing; wasps arehumming; gnats are dancing in the sun;and the ants are busy repairing theirdamaged habitations... I bethink me ofa Japanese poem:

Yuku e naki: Ari no sumai ya! Go-getsuame.

[Now the poor creature has nowhere togo!... Alas for the dwellings of the antsin this rain of the fifth month!]

But those big black ants in my gardendo not seem to need any sympathy.They have weathered the storm in someunimaginable way, while great treeswere being uprooted, and houses

blown to fragments, and roads washedout of existence. Yet, before thetyphoon, they took no other visibleprecaution than to block up the gatesof their subterranean town. And thespectacle of their triumphant toil to-day impels me to attempt an essay onAnts.

I should have like to preface mydisquisitions with something from theold Japanese literature, somethingemotional or metaphysical. But all thatmy Japanese friends were able to findfor me on the subject, excepting someverses of little worth, was Chinese. ThisChinese material consisted chiefly ofstrange stories; and one of them seems

to me worth quoting, faute de mieux.

*

In the province of Taishu, in China,there was a pious man who, every day,during many years, fervently worshipeda certain goddess. One morning, whilehe was engaged in his devotions, abeautiful woman, wearing a yellowrobe, came into his chamber and stoodbefore him. He, greatly surprised, askedher what she wanted, and why she hadentered unannounced. She answered: "Iam not a woman: I am the goddesswhom you have so long and sofaithfully worshiped; and I have nowcome to prove to you that your

devotion has not been in vain... Are youacquainted with the language of Ants "The worshiper replied: "I am only alow-born and ignorant person, not ascholar; and even of the language ofsuperior men I know nothing." Atthese words the goddess smiled, anddrew from her bosom a little box,shaped like an incense box. She openedthe box, dipped a finger into it, andtook therefrom some kind of ointmentwith which she anointed the ears of theman. "Now," she said to him, "try tofind some Ants, and when you find any,stoop down, and listen carefully to theirtalk. You will be able to understand it;and you will hear of something to youradvantage... Only remember that you

must not frighten or vex the Ants."Then the goddess vanished away.

The man immediately went out to lookfor some Ants. He had scarcely crossedthe threshold of his door when heperceived two Ants upon a stonesupporting one of the house-pillars.He stooped over them, and listened;and he was astonished to find that hecould hear them talking, and couldunderstand what they said. "Let us tryto find a warmer place," proposed oneof the Ants. "Why a warmer place "asked the other; "what is the matterwith this place " "It is too damp andcold below," said the first Ant; "there isa big treasure buried here; and the

sunshine cannot warm the groundabout it." Then the two Ants went awaytogether, and the listener ran for aspade.

By digging in the neighborhood of thepillar, he soon found a number of largejars full of gold coin. The discovery ofthis treasure made him a very rich man.

Afterwards he often tried to listen tothe conversation of Ants. But he wasnever again able to hear them speak.The ointment of the goddess hadopened his ears to their mysteriouslanguage for only a single day.

*

Now I, like that Chinese devotee, mustconfess myself a very ignorant person,and naturally unable to hear theconversation of Ants. But the Fairy ofScience sometimes touches my ears andeyes with her wand; and then, for a littletime, I am able to hear things inaudible,and to perceive things imperceptible.

II

For the same reason that it isconsidered wicked, in sundry circles, tospeak of a non-Christian people havingproduced a civilization ethicallysuperior to our own, certain personswill not be pleased by what I am going

to say about ants. But there are men,incomparably wiser than I can everhope to be, who think about insectsand civilizations independently of theblessings of Christianity; and I findencouragement in the new CambridgeNatural History, which contains thefollowing remarks by Professor DavidSharp, concerning ants:

"Observation has revealed the mostremarkable phenomena in the lives ofthese insects. Indeed we can scarcelyavoid the conclusion that they haveacquired, in many respects, the art ofliving together in societies moreperfectly than our own species has; andthat they have anticipated us in the

acquisition of some of the industriesand arts that greatly facilitate sociallife."

I suppose that a few well-informedpersons will dispute this plainstatement by a trained specialist. Thecontemporary man of science is not aptto become sentimental about ants orbees; but he will not hesitate toacknowledge that, in regard to socialevolution, these insects appear to haveadvanced "beyond man." Mr. HerbertSpencer, whom nobody will chargewith romantic tendencies, goesconsiderably further than ProfessorSharp; showing us that ants are, in avery real sense, ethically as well as

economically in advance of humanity,their lives being entirely devoted toaltruistic ends. Indeed, Professor Sharpsomewhat needlessly qualifies his praiseof the ant with this cautiousobservation:

"The competence of the ant is not likethat of man. It is devoted to the welfareof the species rather than to that of theindividual, which is, as it were,sacrificed or specialized for the benefitof the community."

The obvious implication, that anysocial state, in which the improvementof the individual is sacrificed to thecommon welfare, leaves much to be

desired, is probably correct, from theactual human standpoint. For man isyet imperfectly evolved; and humansociety has much to gain from hisfurther individualization. But in regardto social insects the implied criticism isopen to question. "The improvementof the individual," says HerbertSpencer, "consists in the better fittingof him for social cooperation; and this,being conducive to social prosperity, isconducive to the maintenance of therace." In other words, the value of theindividual can be only in relation to thesociety; and this granted, whether thesacrifice of the individual for the sakeof that society be good or evil mustdepend upon what the society might

gain or lose through a furtherindividualization of its members... Butas we shall presently see, the conditionsof ant-society that most deserve ourattention are the ethical conditions; andthese are beyond human criticism, sincethey realize that ideal of moralevolution described by Mr. Spencer as"a state in which egoism and altruismare so conciliated that the one mergesinto the other." That is to say, a state inwhich the only possible pleasure is thepleasure of unselfish action. Or, againto quote Mr. Spencer, the activities ofthe insect-society are "activities whichpostpone individual well-being socompletely to the well-being of thecommunity that individual life appears

to be attended to only just so far as isnecessary to make possible dueattention to social life,... the individualtaking only just such food and justsuch rest as are needful to maintain itsvigor."

III

I hope my reader is aware that antspractise horticulture and agriculture;that they are skillful in the cultivationof mushrooms; that they havedomesticated (according to presentknowledge) five hundred and eighty-four different kinds of animals; thatthey make tunnels through solid rock;that they know how to provide against

atmospheric changes which mightendanger the health of their children;and that, for insects, their longevity isexceptional, members of the morehighly evolved species living for aconsiderable number of years.

But it is not especially of these mattersthat I wish to speak. What I want totalk about is the awful propriety, theterrible morality, of the ant [1]. Ourmost appalling ideals of conduct fallshort of the ethics of the ant, asprogress is reckoned in time, bynothing less than millions of years!...When I say "the ant," I mean thehighest type of ant, not, of course, theentire ant-family. About two thousand

species of ants are already known; andthese exhibit, in their socialorganizations, widely varying degreesof evolution. Certain socialphenomena of the greatest biologicalimportance, and of no less importancein their strange relation to the subjectof ethics, can be studied to advantageonly in the existence of the most highlyevolved societies of ants.

After all that has been written of lateyears about the probable value ofrelative experience in the long life ofthe ant, I suppose that few personswould venture to deny individualcharacter to the ant. The intelligence ofthe little creature in meeting and

overcoming difficulties of a totally newkind, and in adapting itself toconditions entirely foreign to itsexperience, proves a considerablepower of independent thinking. Butthis at least is certain: that the ant hasno individuality capable of beingexercised in a purely selfish direction; Iam using the word "selfish" in itsordinary acceptation. A greedy ant, asensual ant, an ant capable of any oneof the seven deadly sins, or even of asmall venial sin, is unimaginable.Equally unimaginable, of course, aromantic ant, an ideological ant, apoetical ant, or an ant inclined tometaphysical speculations. No humanmind could attain to the absolute

matter-of-fact quality of the ant-mind;no human being, as now constituted,could cultivate a mental habit soimpeccably practical as that of the ant.But this superlatively practical mind isincapable of moral error. It would bedifficult, perhaps, to prove that the anthas no religious ideas. But it is certainthat such ideas could not be of any useto it. The being incapable of moralweakness is beyond the need of"spiritual guidance."

Only in a vague way can we conceivethe character of ant-society, and thenature of ant-morality; and to do eventhis we must try to imagine some yetimpossible state of human society and

human morals. Let us, then, imagine aworld full of people incessantly andfuriously working, all of whom seem tobe women. No one of these womencould be persuaded or deluded intotaking a single atom of food more thanis needful to maintain her strength; andno one of them ever sleeps a secondlonger than is necessary to keep hernervous system in good working-order.And all of them are so peculiarlyconstituted that the least unnecessaryindulgence would result in somederangement of function.

The work daily performed by thesefemale laborers comprises road-making,bridge-building, timber-cutting,

architectural construction ofnumberless kinds, horticulture andagriculture, the feeding and shelteringof a hundred varieties of domesticanimals, the manufacture of sundrychemical products, the storage andconservation of countless food-stuffs,and the care of the children of the race.All this labor is done for thecommonwealth no citizen of which iscapable even of thinking about"property," except as a res publica; andthe sole object of the commonwealth isthe nurture and training of its young,nearly all of whom are girls. The periodof infancy is long: the children remainfor a great while, not only helpless, butshapeless, and withal so delicate that

they must be very carefully guardedagainst the least change of temperature.Fortunately their nurses understand thelaws of health: each thoroughly knowsall that she ought to know in regard toventilation, disinfection, drainage,moisture, and the danger of germs,germs being as visible, perhaps, to hermyopic sight as they become to ourown eyes under the microscope.Indeed, all matters of hygiene are sowell comprehended that no nurse evermakes a mistake about the sanitaryconditions of her neighborhood.

In spite of this perpetual labor noworker remains unkempt: each isscrupulously neat, making her toilet

many times a day. But as every worker isborn with the most beautiful of combsand brushes attached to her wrists, notime is wasted in the toilet-room.Besides keeping themselves strictlyclean, the workers must also keep theirhouses and gardens in faultless order,for the sake of the children. Nothingless than an earthquake, an eruption, aninundation, or a desperate war, isallowed to interrupt the daily routineof dusting, sweeping, scrubbing, anddisinfecting.

IV

Now for stranger facts:

This world of incessant toil is a morethan Vestal world. It is true that malescan sometimes be perceived in it; butthey appear only at particular seasons,and they have nothing whatever to dowith the workers or with the work.None of them would presume toaddress a worker, except, perhaps,under extraordinary circumstances ofcommon peril. And no worker wouldthink of talking to a male; for males, inthis queer world, are inferior beings,equally incapable of fighting orworking, and tolerated only asnecessary evils. One special class offemales, the Mothers-Elect of the race,do condescend to consort with males,during a very brief period, at particular

seasons. But the Mothers-Elect do notwork; and they most accept husbands.A worker could not even dream ofkeeping company with a male, notmerely because such association wouldsignify the most frivolous waste oftime, nor yet because the workernecessarily regards all males withunspeakable contempt; but because theworker is incapable of wedlock. Someworkers, indeed, are capable ofparthenogenesis, and give birth tochildren who never had fathers. As ageneral rule, however, the worker istruly feminine by her moral instinctsonly: she has all the tenderness, thepatience, and the foresight that we call"maternal;" but her sex has

disappeared, like the sex of theDragon-Maiden in the Buddhistlegend.

For defense against creatures of prey,or enemies of the state, the workers areprovided with weapons; and they arefurthermore protected by a largemilitary force. The warriors are somuch bigger than the workers (in somecommunities, at least) that it is difficult,at first sight, to believe them of thesame race. Soldiers one hundred timeslarger than the workers whom theyguard are not uncommon. But all thesesoldiers are Amazons, or, morecorrectly speaking, semi-females. Theycan work sturdily; but being built for

fighting and for heavy pulling chiefly,their usefulness is restricted to thosedirections in which force, rather thanskill, is required.

[Why females, rather than males, shouldhave been evolutionally specialized intosoldiery and laborers may not be nearlyso simple a question as it appears. I amvery sure of not being able to answer it.But natural economy may have decidedthe matter. In many forms of life, thefemale greatly exceeds the male in bulkand in energy; perhaps, in this case, thelarger reserve of life-force possessedoriginally by the complete female couldbe more rapidly and effectively utilizedfor the development of a special

fighting-caste. All energies which, in thefertile female, would be expended inthe giving of life seem here to havebeen diverted to the evolution ofaggressive power, or working-capacity.]

Of the true females, the Mothers-Elect,there are very few indeed; and these aretreated like queens. So constantly andso reverentially are they waited uponthat they can seldom have any wishes toexpress. They are relieved from everycare of existence, except the duty ofbearing offspring. Night and day theyare cared for in every possible manner.They alone are superabundantly andrichly fed: for the sake of the offspringthey must eat and drink and repose

right royally; and their physiologicalspecialization allows of suchindulgence ad libitum. They seldom goout, and never unless attended by apowerful escort; as they cannot bepermitted to incur unnecessary fatigueor danger. Probably they have no greatdesire to go out. Around them revolvesthe whole activity of the race: all itsintelligence and toil and thrift aredirected solely toward the well-being ofthese Mothers and of their children.

But last and least of the race rank thehusbands of these Mothers, thenecessary Evils, the males. They appearonly at a particular season, as I havealready observed; and their lives are

very short. Some cannot even boast ofnoble descent, though destined to royalwedlock; for they are not royaloffspring, but virgin-born,parthenogenetic children, and, for thatreason especially, inferior beings, thechance results of some mysteriousatavism. But of any sort of males thecommonwealth tolerates but few, barelyenough to serve as husbands for theMothers-Elect, and these few perishalmost as soon as their duty has beendone. The meaning of Nature's law, inthis extraordinary world, is identicalwith Ruskin's teaching that life withouteffort is crime; and since the males areuseless as workers or fighters, theirexistence is of only momentary

importance. They are not, indeed,sacrificed, like the Aztec victim chosenfor the festival of Tezcatlipoca, andallowed a honeymoon of twenty daysbefore his heart was torn out. But theyare scarcely less unfortunate in theirhigh fortune. Imagine youths broughtup in the knowledge that they aredestined to become royal bridegroomsfor a single night, that after their bridalthey will have no moral right to live,that marriage, for each and all of them,will signify certain death, and that theycannot even hope to be lamented bytheir young widows, who will survivethem for a time of many generations...!

V

But all the foregoing is no more than aproem to the real "Romance of theInsect-World."

By far the most startling discovery inrelation to this astonishing civilizationis that of the suppression of sex. Incertain advanced forms of ant-life sextotally disappears in the majority ofindividuals; in nearly all the higher ant-societies sex-life appears to exist only tothe extent absolutely needed for thecontinuance of the species. But thebiological fact in itself is much lessstartling than the ethical suggestionwhich it offers; for this practicalsuppression, or regulation, of sex-

faculty appears to be voluntary!Voluntary, at least, so far as the speciesis concerned. It is now believed thatthey wonderful creatures have learnedhow to develop, or to arrest thedevelopment, of sex in their young, bysome particular mode of nutrition.They have succeeded in placing underperfect control what is commonlysupposed to be the most powerful andunmanageable of instincts. And thisrigid restraint of sex-life to within thelimits necessary to provide againstextinction is but one (though the mostamazing) of many vital economieseffected by the race. Every capacity foregoistic pleasure in the commonmeaning of the word "egoistic" has

been equally repressed throughphysiological modification. Noindulgence of any natural appetite ispossible except to that degree in whichsuch indulgence can directly orindirectly benefit the species; even theindispensable requirements of foodand sleep being satisfied only to theexact extent necessary for themaintenance of healthy activity. Theindividual can exist, act, think, only forthe communal good; and the communetriumphantly refuses, in so far ascosmic law permits, to let itself beruled either by Love or Hunger.

Most of us have been brought up inthe belief that without some kind of

religious creed some hope of futurereward or fear of future punishmentno civilization could exist. We havebeen taught to think that in the absenceof laws based upon moral ideas, and inthe absence of an effective police toenforce such laws, nearly everybodywould seek only his or her personaladvantage, to the disadvantage ofeverybody else. The strong would thendestroy the weak; pity and sympathywould disappear; and the whole socialfabric would fall to pieces... Theseteachings confess the existingimperfection of human nature; andthey contain obvious truth. But thosewho first proclaimed that truth,thousands and thousands of years ago,

never imagined a form of socialexistence in which selfishness would benaturally impossible. It remained forirreligious Nature to furnish us withproof positive that there can exist asociety in which the pleasure of activebeneficence makes needless the idea ofduty, a society in which instinctivemorality can dispense with ethicalcodes of every sort, a society of whichevery member is born so absolutelyunselfish, and so energetically good,that moral training could signify, evenfor its youngest, neither more nor lessthan waste of precious time.

To the Evolutionist such factsnecessarily suggest that the value of our

moral idealism is but temporary; andthat something better than virtue, betterthan kindness, better than self-denial, inthe present human meaning of thoseterms, might, under certain conditions,eventually replace them. He findshimself obliged to face the questionwhether a world without moral notionsmight not be morally better than aworld in which conduct is regulated bysuch notions. He must even askhimself whether the existence ofreligious commandments, moral laws,and ethical standards among ourselvesdoes not prove us still in a veryprimitive stage of social evolution. Andthese questions naturally lead up toanother: Will humanity ever be able, on

this planet, to reach an ethicalcondition beyond all its ideals, acondition in which everything that wenow call evil will have been atrophiedout of existence, and everything thatwe call virtue have been transmutedinto instinct; a state of altruism inwhich ethical concepts and codes willhave become as useless as they wouldbe, even now, in the societies of thehigher ants.

The giants of modern thought havegiven some attention to this question;and the greatest among them hasanswered it partly in the affirmative.Herbert Spencer has expressed hisbelief that humanity will arrive at some

state of civilization ethicallycomparable with that of the ant:

"If we have, in lower orders ofcreatures, cases in which the nature isconstitutionally so modified thataltruistic activities have become onewith egoistic activities, there is anirresistible implication that a parallelidentification will, under parallelconditions, take place among humanbeings. Social insects furnish us withinstances completely to the point, andinstances showing us, indeed, to what amarvelous degree the life of theindividual may be absorbed insubserving the lives of otherindividuals... Neither the ant nor the

bee can be supposed to have a sense ofduty, in the acceptation we give to thatword; nor can it be supposed that it iscontinually undergoing self-sacrifice, inthe ordinary acceptation of that word...[The facts] show us that it is within thepossibilities of organization to producea nature which shall be just as energeticin the pursuit of altruistic ends, as is inother cases shown in the pursuit ofegoistic ends; and they show that, insuch cases, these altruistic ends arepursued in pursuing ends which, ontheir other face, are egoistic. For thesatisfaction of the needs of theorganization, these actions, conduciveto the welfare of others, must becarried on...

. . . . . . . .

"So far from its being true that theremust go on, throughout all the future, acondition in which self-regard is to becontinually subjected by the regard forothers, it will, contrari-wise, be the casethat a regard for others will eventuallybecome so large a source of pleasure asto overgrow the pleasure which isderivable from direct egoisticgratification... Eventually, then, therewill come also a state in which egoismand altruism are so conciliated that theone merges in the other."

VI

Of course the foregoing predictiondoes not imply that human nature willever undergo such physiological changeas would be represented by structuralspecializations comparable to those bywhich the various castes of insectsocieties are differentiated. We are notbidden to imagine a future state ofhumanity in which the active majoritywould consist of semi-female workersand Amazons toiling for an inactiveminority of selected Mothers. Even inhis chapter, "Human Population in theFuture," Mr. Spencer has attempted nodetailed statement of the physicalmodifications inevitable to theproduction of higher moral types,

though his general statement in regardto a perfected nervous system, and agreat diminution of human fertility,suggests that such moral evolutionwould signify a very considerableamount of physical change. If it belegitimate to believe in a futurehumanity to which the pleasure ofmutual beneficence will represent thewhole joy of life, would it not also belegitimate to imagine othertransformations, physical and moral,which the facts of insect-biology haveproved to be within the range ofevolutional possibility ... I do not know.I most worshipfully reverence HerbertSpencer as the greatest philosopherwho has yet appeared in this world; and

I should be very sorry to write downanything contrary to his teaching, insuch wise that the reader could imagineit to have been inspired by SyntheticPhilosophy. For the ensuing reflections,I alone am responsible; and if I err, letthe sin be upon my own head.

I suppose that the moraltransformations predicted by Mr.Spencer, could be effected only withthe aid of physiological change, and ata terrible cost. Those ethical conditionsmanifested by insect-societies can havebeen reached only through effortdesperately sustained for millions ofyears against the most atrociousnecessities. Necessities equally merciless

may have to be met and masteredeventually by the human race. Mr.Spencer has shown that the time of thegreatest possible human suffering is yetto come, and that it will be concomitantwith the period of the greatest possiblepressure of population. Among otherresults of that long stress, I understandthat there will be a vast increase inhuman intelligence and sympathy; andthat this increases of intelligence will beeffected at the cost of human fertility.But this decline in reproductive powerwill not, we are told, be sufficient toassure the very highest of socialconditions: it will only relieve thatpressure of population which has beenthe main cause of human suffering.

The state of perfect social equilibriumwill be approached, but never quitereached, by mankind

Unless there be discovered some meansof solving economic problems, just associal insects have solved them, by thesuppression of sex-life.

Supposing that such a discovery weremade, and that the human race shoulddecide to arrest the development of sixin the majority of its young, so as toeffect a transferrence of those forces,now demanded by sex-life to thedevelopment of higher activities, mightnot the result be an eventual state ofpolymorphism, like that of ants And,

in such event, might not the ComingRace be indeed represented in its highertypes, through feminine rather thanmasculine evolution, by a majority ofbeings of neither sex

Considering how many persons, evennow, through merely unselfish (not tospeak of religious) motives, sentencethemselves to celibacy, it should notappear improbably that a more highlyevolved humanity would cheerfullysacrifice a large proportion of its sex-life for the common weal, particular lyin view of certain advantages to begained. Not the least of suchadvantages always supposing thatmankind were able to control sex-life

after the natural manner of the antswould be a prodigious increase oflongevity. The higher types of ahumanity superior to sex might be ableto realize the dream of life for athousand years.

Already we find lives too short for thework we have to do; and with theconstantly accelerating progress ofdiscovery, and the never-ceasingexpansion of knowledge, we shallcertainly find more and more reason toregret, as time goes on, the brevity ofexistence. That Science will everdiscover the Elixir of the Alchemists'hope is extremely unlikely. The CosmicPowers will not allow us to cheat them.

For every advantage which they yield usthe full price must be paid: nothing fornothing is the everlasting law. Perhapsthe price of long life will prove to bethe price that the ants have paid for it.Perhaps, upon some elder planet, thatprice has already been paid, and thepower to produce offspring restrictedto a caste morphologicallydifferentiated, in unimaginable ways,from the rest of the species...

VII

But while the facts of insect-biologysuggest so much in regard to the futurecourse of human evolution, do theynot also suggest something of largest

significance concerning the relation ofethics to cosmic law Apparently, thehighest evolution will not be permittedto creatures capable of what humanmoral experience has in all areascondemned. Apparently, the highestpossible strength is the strength ofunselfishness; and power supremenever will be accorded to cruelty or tolust. There may be no gods; but theforces that shape and dissolve all formsof being would seem to be much moreexacting than gods. To prove a"dramatic tendency" in the ways of thestars is not possible; but the cosmicprocess seems nevertheless to affirmthe worth of every human system ofethics fundamentally opposed to

human egoism.

---------------------------

Notes

THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-HOICHI

[1] See my Kotto, for a description ofthese curious crabs.

[2] Or, Shimonoseki. The town is alsoknown by the name of Bakkan.

[3] The biwa, a kind of four-stringedlute, is chiefly used in musical recitative.Formerly the professional minstrels

who recited the Heike-Monogatari, andother tragical histories, were calledbiwa-hoshi, or "lute-priests." The originof this appellation is not clear; but it ispossible that it may have beensuggested by the fact that "lute-priests"as well as blind shampooers, had theirheads shaven, like Buddhist priests. Thebiwa is played with a kind of plectrum,called bachi, usually made of horn.

(1) A response to show that one hasheard and is listening attentively.

[4] A respectful term, signifying theopening of a gate. It was used bysamurai when calling to the guards onduty at a lord's gate for admission.

[5] Or the phrase might be rendered,"for the pity of that part is thedeepest." The Japanese word for pity inthe original text is "aware."

[6] "Traveling incognito" is at least themeaning of the original phrase,"making a disguised august-journey"(shinobi no go-ryoko).

[7] The Smaller Pragna-Paramita-Hridaya-Sutra is thus called in Japanese.Both the smaller and larger sutras calledPragna-Paramita ("TranscendentWisdom") have been translated by thelate Professor Max Muller, and can befound in volume xlix. of the Sacred

Books of the East ("BuddhistMahayana Sutras"). Apropos of themagical use of the text, as described inthis story, it is worth remarking that thesubject of the sutra is the Doctrine ofthe Emptiness of Forms, that is to say,of the unreal character of allphenomena or noumena... "Form isemptiness; and emptiness is form.Emptiness is not different from form;form is not different from emptiness.What is form that is emptiness. What isemptiness that is form... Perception,name, concept, and knowledge, are alsoemptiness... There is no eye, ear, nose,tongue, body, and mind... But when theenvelopment of consciousness hasbeen annihilated, then he [the seeker]

becomes free from all fear, and beyondthe reach of change, enjoying finalNirvana."

OSHIDORI

[1] From ancient time, in the Far East,these birds have been regarded asemblems of conjugal affection.

[2] There is a pathetic double meaningin the third verse; for the syllablescomposing the proper name Akanuma("Red Marsh") may also be read asakanu-ma, signifying "the time of ourinseparable (or delightful) relation." Sothe poem can also be thus rendered:"When the day began to fail, I had

invited him to accompany me...! Now,after the time of that happy relation,what misery for the one who mustslumber alone in the shadow of therushes!" The makomo is a short oflarge rush, used for making baskets.

THE STORY OF O-TEI

(1) "-sama" is a polite suffix attached topersonal names.

(2) A Buddhist term commonly used tosignify a kind of heaven.

[1] The Buddhist term zokumyo("profane name") signifies the personalname, borne during life, in

contradistinction to the kaimyo ("sila-name") or homyo ("Law-name") givenafter death, religious posthumousappellations inscribed upon the tomb,and upon the mortuary tablet in theparish-temple. For some account ofthese, see my paper entitled, "TheLiterature of the Dead," in Exotics andRetrospectives.

[2] Buddhist household shrine.

(3) Direct translation of a Japaneseform of address used toward young,unmarried women.

DIPLOMACY

(1) The spacious house and grounds ofa wealthy person is thus called.

(2) A Buddhist service for the dead.

OF A MIRROR AND A BELL

(1) Part of present-day ShizuokaPrefecture.

(2) The two-hour period between 1 AMand 3 AM.

(3) A monetary unit.

JIKININKI

(1) The southern part of present-day

Gifu Prefecture.

[1] Literally, a man-eating goblin. TheJapanese narrator gives also the Sanscritterm, "Rakshasa;" but this word is quiteas vague as jikininki, since there aremany kinds of Rakshasas. Apparentlythe word jikininki signifies here one ofthe Baramon-Rasetsu-Gaki, formingthe twenty-sixth class of pretasenumerated in the old Buddhist books.

[2] A Segaki-service is a specialBuddhist service performed on behalfof beings supposed to have enteredinto the condition of gaki (pretas), orhungry spirits. For a brief account ofsuch a service, see my Japanese

Miscellany.

[3] Literally, "five-circle [or five-zone]stone." A funeral monument consistingof five parts superimposed, each of adifferent form, symbolizing the fivemystic elements: Ether, Air, Fire, Water,Earth.

MUJINA

(1) A kind of badger. Certain animalswere thought to be able to transformthemselves and cause mischief forhumans.

[1] O-jochu ("honorable damsel"), apolite form of address used in

speaking to a young lady whom onedoes not know.

(2) An apparition with a smooth, totallyfeatureless face, called a "nopperabo," isa stock part of the Japanese pantheonof ghosts and demons.

[2] Soba is a preparation of buckwheat,somewhat resembling vermicelli.

(3) An exclamation of annoyed alarm.

(4) Well!

ROKURO-KUBI

[1] The period of Eikyo lasted from

1429 to 1441.

[2] The upper robe of a Buddhist priestis thus called.

(1) Present-day Yamanashi Prefecture.

(2) A term for itinerant priests.

[3] A sort of little fireplace, contrivedin the floor of a room, is thusdescribed. The ro is usually a squareshallow cavity, lined with metal andhalf-filled with ashes, in which charcoalis lighted.

(3) Direct translation of "suzumushi," akind of cricket with a distinctive chirp

like a tiny bell, whence the name.

(4) Now a rokuro-kubi is ordinarilyconceived as a goblin whose neckstretches out to great lengths, but whichnevertheless always remains attached toits body.

(5) A Chinese collection of stories onthe supernatural.

[4] A present made to friends or to thehousehold on returning from a journeyis thus called. Ordinarily, of course, themiyage consists of somethingproduced in the locality to which thejourney has been made: this is the pointof Kwairyo's jest.

(6) Present-day Nagano Prefecture.

A DEAD SECRET

(1) On the present-day map, Tambacorresponds roughly to the central areaof Kyoto Prefecture and part ofHyogo Prefecture.

[1] The Hour of the Rat (Ne-no-Koku), according to the old Japanesemethod of reckoning time, was the firsthour. It corresponded to the timebetween our midnight and two o'clockin the morning; for the ancient Japanesehours were each equal to two modernhours.

[2] Kaimyo, the posthumous Buddhistname, or religious name, given to thedead. Strictly speaking, the meaning ofthe work is sila-name. (See my paperentitled, "The Literature of the Dead"in Exotics and Retrospectives.)

YUKI-ONNA

(1) An ancient province whoseboundaries took in most of present-day Tokyo, and parts of Saitama andKanagawa prefectures.

[1] That is to say, with a floor-surfaceof about six feet square.

[2] This name, signifying "Snow," is notuncommon. On the subject ofJapanese female names, see my paper inthe volume entitled Shadowings.

(2) Also spelled Edo, the former nameof Tokyo.

THE STORY OF AOYAGI

(1) An ancient province correspondingto the northern part of present-dayIshikawa Prefecture.

(2) An ancient province correspondingto the eastern part of present-dayFukui Prefecture.

[1] The name signifies "Green Willow;"though rarely met with, it is still in use.

[2] The poem may be read in two ways;several of the phrases having a doublemeaning. But the art of its constructionwould need considerable space toexplain, and could scarcely interest theWestern reader. The meaning whichTomotada desired to convey might bethus expressed: "While journeying tovisit my mother, I met with a beinglovely as a flower; and for the sake ofthat lovely person, I am passing the dayhere... Fair one, wherefore that dawn-like blush before the hour of dawn canit mean that you love me "

[3] Another reading is possible; but thisone gives the signification of theanswer intended.

[4] So the Japanese story-teller wouldhave us believe, although the versesseem commonplace in translation. Ihave tried to give only their generalmeaning: an effective literal translationwould require some scholarship.

JIU-ROKU-ZAKURA

(1) Present-day Ehime Prefecture.

THE DREAM OF AKINOSUKE

(1) Present-day Nara Prefecture.

[1] This name "Tokoyo" is indefinite.According to circumstances it maysignify any unknown country, or thatundiscovered country from whosebourn no traveler returns, or thatFairyland of far-eastern fable, theRealm of Horai. The term "Kokuo"means the ruler of a country, thereforea king. The original phrase, Tokoyo noKokuo, might be rendered here as "theRuler of Horai," or "the King ofFairyland."

[2] The last phrase, according to oldcustom, had to be uttered by bothattendants at the same time. All theseceremonial observances can still be

studied on the Japanese stage.

[3] This was the name given to theestrade, or dais, upon which a feudalprince or ruler sat in state. The termliterally signifies "great seat."

RIKI-BAKA

(1) Kana: the Japanese phoneticalphabet.

(2) "So-and-so": appellation used byHearn in place of the real name.

(3) A section of Tokyo.

[1] A square piece of cotton-goods, or

other woven material, used as a wrapperin which to carry small packages.

(4) Ten yen is nothing now, but was aformidable sum then.

INSECT STUDIES

BUTTERFLIES

(1) Haiku.

[1] "The modest nymph beheld herGod, and blushed." (Or, in a morefamiliar rendering: "The modest watersaw its God, and blushed.") In this line

the double value of the word nymphaused by classical poets both in themeaning of fountain and in that of thedivinity of a fountain, or springreminds one of that graceful playingwith words which Japanese poetspractice.

[2] More usually written nugi-kakeru,which means either "to take off andhang up," or "to begin to take off," asin the above poem. More loosely, butmore effectively, the verses might thusbe rendered: "Like a woman slippingoff her haori that is the appearance ofa butterfly." One must have seen theJapanese garment described, toappreciate the comparison. The haori is

a silk upper-dress, a kind of sleevedcloak, worn by both sexes; but thepoem suggests a woman's haori, whichis usually of richer color or material.The sleeves are wide; and the lining isusually of brightly-colored silk, oftenbeautifully variegated. In taking off thehaori, the brilliant lining is displayed,and at such an instant the flutteringsplendor might well be likened to theappearance of a butterfly in motion.

[3] The bird-catcher's pole is smearedwith bird-lime; and the verses suggestthat the insect is preventing the manfrom using his pole, by persistentlygetting in the way of it, as the birdsmight take warning from seeing the

butterfly limed. Jama suru means "tohinder" or "prevent."

[4] Even while it is resting, the wings ofthe butterfly may be seen to quiver atmoments, as if the creature weredreaming of flight.

[5] A little poem by Basho, greatest ofall Japanese composers of hokku. Theverses are intended to suggest thejoyous feeling of spring-time.

[6] Literally, "a windless day;" but twonegatives in Japanese poetry do notnecessarily imply an affirmative, as inEnglish. The meaning is, that althoughthere is no wind, the fluttering motion

of the butterflies suggests, to the eyesat least, that a strong breeze is playing.

[7] Alluding to the Buddhist proverb:Rakkwa eda ni kaerazu; ha-kyo futatabiterasazu ("The fallen flower returns notto the branch; the broken mirror neveragain reflects.") So says the proverb yetit seemed to me that I saw a fallenflower return to the branch... No: it wasonly a butterfly.

[8] Alluding probably to the lightfluttering motion of falling cherry-petals.

[9] That is to say, the grace of theirmotion makes one think of the grace

of young girls, daintily costumed, inrobes with long fluttering sleeves... Andold Japanese proverb declares that evena devil is pretty at eighteen: Oni mo jiu-hachi azami no hana: "Even a devil ateighteen, flower-of-the-thistle."

[10] Or perhaps the verses might bemore effectively rendered thus: "Happytogether, do you say Yes if we shouldbe reborn as field-butterflies in somefuture life: then we might accord!" Thispoem was composed by the celebratedpoet Issa, on the occasion of divorcinghis wife.

[11] Or, Tare no tama [Digitizer's note:Hearn's note calls attention to an

alternative reading of the ideogram for"spirit" or "soul."]

[12] Literally, "Butterfly-pursing heart Iwish to have always;" i.e., I would that Imight always be able to find pleasure insimple things, like a happy child.

[13] An old popular error, probablyimported from China.

[14] A name suggested by theresemblance of the larva's artificialcovering to the mino, or straw-raincoat,worn by Japanese peasants. I am notsure whether the dictionary rendering,"basket-worm," is quite correct; but thelarva commonly called minomushi does

really construct for itself somethingmuch like the covering of the basket-worm.

(2) A very large, white radish. "Daikon"literally means "big root."

[15] Pyrus spectabilis.

[16] An evil spirit.

(3) A common female name.

MOSQUITOES

(1) Meiji: The period in which Hearnwrote this book. It lasted from 1868 to1912, and was a time when Japan

plunged head-first into Western-stylemodernization. By the "fashions andthe changes and the disintegrations ofMeiji" Hearn is lamenting that thisprocess of modernization wasdestroying some of the good things intraditional Japanese culture.

ANTS

(1) Cicadas.

[1] An interesting fact in thisconnection is that the Japanese wordfor ant, ari, is represented by anideograph formed of the character for"insect" combined with the charactersignifying "moral rectitude," "propriety"

(giri). So the Chinese character actuallymeans "The Propriety-Insect."

THE END