Hirado

“ Having at length received the emperor’s presents for the king of England, being ten byōbu [screen] or “large pictures to hang a chamber with,” they proceeded the same day to Fushimi and the next to Ōsaka, where they reëmbarked in the galley which had been waiting for them, and returned to Hirado, having spent just three months on the tour.
Captain Saris found that, during his absence, seven of his crew had run away to Nagasaki, where they had complained to the Portuguese of having been used more like dogs than men. ”

“ In fact, one of these boats belonged to the Portuguese, and was manned by “new Christians,” who had mistaken the ships of Captain Saris for the annual Portuguese carac. Finding their mistake, no entreaty could prevail upon them to stay; but two of the other boats, for thirty dollars each in money, and rice for food, agreed to pilot the ship to Hirado, by the pilot’s reckoning some thirty leagues to the north, and the [Pg 210] boatmen coming on board began to assist in working the vessel, showing themselves not less handy than the English sailors. ”

“ The king of Arima was also very friendly; he gave the missionaries an establishment, first at Yokoseura, and, after that city had been burned by the bonzes, at a port of his called Kuchinotsu, on the southern coast of the southwestern peninsula of Shimo. The prince of Ōmura, a dependency of Arima, and the prince of the island of Tanegashima, the same at which Pinto had first landed, then a dependency of Hirado, were both among the converts, and exceedingly zealous to induce their subjects to follow their example ”

“ Even to the shogun himself he never yielded in the smallest degree, and by the majority of those under him he was cordially detested. The records say that on one occasion, when remonstrated with by his friend, the daimyo of Hirado, who warned him that his hardness and severity might involve him in trouble, Masatoshi replied, "I thank you for your advice, but so long as I am endeavouring to reform the country, I have no time to think of myself."
It is easy to understand that a man of such methods had enemies sufficiently numerous and sufficiently resolute to compass his death. ”

“ Kunda was kept awake by her sorrow; Hira by the mingled happiness and trouble of her thoughts. But whatever her thoughts were she did not give them words—they remained hidden.
Oh, Hira! Hira! you have not an evil countenance, you too are young; why this vice in your heart? Why did the Creator betray her? Because the Creator betrayed her, does she therefore wish to betray others? If Hira were in Surja Mukhi's place, would she be so deceitful? Hira says "No!" But sitting in Hira's place she speaks as Hira. People say all evil that occurs is brought about by the wicked. ”

“ We should have to recognize our obligations to the past in a very solemn way. Now, with the man of the Far East, the constant presence of the dead has been a matter of conviction for thousands of years: he speaks to them daily; he tries to give them happiness; and, unless a professional criminal he never quite forgets his duty towards them. No one, says Hirata, who constantly discharges that duty, will ever be disrespectful to the gods or to his living parents. "Such a man will also be loyal to his friends, and kind and gentle with his wife and children ”

“ To this general rule Japanese mythology presents no exception. The son of Ninigi-no-Mikoto is said to have lived five hundred and eighty years at his palace of Takachiho; but that, remarks Hirata, "was a short life compared with the lives of those who lived before him." Thereafter men's bodies declined in force; life gradually became shorter and shorter; yet in spite of all degeneration the Japanese still show traces of their divine origin. After death they enter into a higher divine condition, without, however, abandoning this world .... Such were Hirata's views. ”

“ Hirata wrote: "There exists no hard and fast line between the Age of the Gods and the present age—and there exists no justification whatever for drawing one, as the Nihongi does." Of course this position involved the doctrine of a divine descent for the whole race,—inasmuch as, according to the old mythology, the first Japanese were all descendants of gods,—and that doctrine Hirata boldly accepted. All the Japanese, he averred, were of divine origin, and for that reason superior to the people of all other countries. ”

“ For what reward should I incur ill-fame? For what gain should I give up my independence? If a young woman falls into your hands, you will not let her go. If I were to give you my worship, you would accept it; but to-morrow you would forget me, or, if you remembered, it would be to jest over my words with your companions. Why, then, should I become subject to you? Should the day come when you can love me, I will be your devoted servant."
In this manner Debendra discovered Hira's affection for himself. ”

“ Hira's eyes shone yet more brilliantly. For a few moments she forgot self, forgot Debendra's position and her own. She thought, "He is the husband, I am the wife; the Creator, making us for each other, designed long ago to bring us together, that we might both enjoy happiness." The thoughts of the infatuated Hira found expression in speech. Debendra discovered from her half-spoken words that she had given her heart to him. ”

“ Hira said to herself: "Now what shall I do? Since the Creator has given me the opportunity, why should I lose it through my own fault? On the one side, if I take Kunda home to the Dattas, Kamal will give me the necklace, and the Grihini also will give me something. Shall I spare the Babu? On the other hand, if I give Kunda to Debendra Babu, I shall get a large sum of money at once. But I can't do that. Why does Debendra think Kunda so beautiful? If I had good food, dressed well, took my ease like a fine lady in a picture, I could be the same. ”

“ Hirata, in short, wants to turn the tables on the Buddhists, and, in revenge for their giving the Shinto deities a subordinate place in their theological system, proposes to make Buddha a sort of inferior Kami.
Hirata believed in the immortality of the soul, and takes pains to prove that Confucius did so also. "If the dead are non-existent," he argues, "what meaning can there be in the worship of ancestors, and how shall we account for the undoubted fact that dead men send curses upon those who have injured them while alive?" ”

“ Most of the crew who worked in overalls, with bodies bared above the waist, black and grimy to the tousled hair now matted with sweat, laid carelessly about as in death from convulsions. In some cases they were in such a position that the fierce light from the cracks in the furnace doors gave their faces a weird, deathly appearance, and after noting this, I glanced at Hiram and saw that he, too, had succumbed, his head resting heavily against the supporting bulkhead. ”

“ And, by reason of being always young in heart, the people of Hōrai smile from birth until death—except when the Gods send sorrow among them; and faces then are veiled until the sorrow goes away. All folk in Hōrai love and trust each other, as if all were members of a single household;—and the speech of the women is like birdsong, because the hearts of them are light as the souls of birds;—and the swaying of the sleeves of the maidens at play seems a flutter of wide, soft wings. ”

“ When Hira became capable the old woman gave up service, built herself a house out of her savings, and dwelt in Govindpur. Hira entered the service of the Datta family. She was then about twenty [105] years of age, younger than most of the other servants, but in intelligence and in mental qualities their superior. Hira had been known in Govindpur from childhood as a widow, but no one had ever heard anything of her husband, neither had any one heard of any stain upon her character. She was something of a shrew. She dressed and adorned herself as one whose husband is living. ”

“ Hirata says that the worship of the Gods is the source of Government—nay, it is Government. The same word miya (august-house) was in common use both for shrines and palaces. There was, however, a beginning of a differentiation of sacred and secular functions. The Mikado delegated some of his religious duties to the Nakatomi House, and, as we shall see, other religious duties were hereditary in other families. Thus a Sun-worship Be, or hereditary corporation, was established in 577. ”

“ She felt that in daily work her mind would be distracted, and she would be able to forget this unfortunate passion which stung like the bite of a scorpion. Thus when Nagendra, leaving Kunda Nandini at Govindpur, was about to set forth, Hira, on the strength of past service, begged to be re-engaged, and Nagendra consented. There was another cause for Hira's resolve to resume service. In her greed for money, anticipating that Kunda would become the favourite of Nagendra, she had taken pains to bring her under her own sway. ”

“ It is worth while to correct some of the other mistakes of Mr. Hearn, before giving the narrative of a recent visit to Hiro-mura, where we were the guests of the present head of the Hamaguchi family. These mistakes, indeed, do not at all detract from the nobility of the hero’s action, nor greatly mar the writer’s reputation for picturing graphically a certain aspect of the spiritual life and character of the Japanese. ”

“ Liano, accompanied by a Dominican friar, landed in Satsuma, where he met with Solis, the Spaniard from Peru, still busy with his ship-building enterprise, and in no very good humor with the Portuguese and the Jesuits. To confer with Harada, the envoys proceeded to Nagasaki, which city they left again without any communication with the Portuguese merchants, or the missionaries; and, accompanied by Harada, and his Japanese friend, Hasegawa, they hastened to the northern coast of Shimo, where the emperor then was. ”

“ There had been no time to rouse either the neighbors, or the rest of the family.
If he did not overcome these flames—and well he knew it—Mother Atterson would arise in the morning to see all her goodly timber scorched, perhaps ruined!
“I must beat it out—beat it out!” thought Hiram, and the repetition of the words thrummed an accompaniment upon the drums of his ears as he thrashed away with a madman's strength.
For no sane person would have tackled such a hopeless task. ”

“ Hiram stood, his arms hanging at his side, his lower jaw drooping, his eye shuttling from face to face evasively.
“Kind o’ makes you drop your tail, Hime—that, eh?” jeered Amazeen from his place in the crowd.
As Hiram still drooped there, Uncle Buck ran his cane into the fallen hat, lifted it with a deft toss, ran his elbow around its nap, and set it on Hiram’s head, standing on tip-toe to do it.
The man never moved or blinked.
“There’s your plug hat, Hime,” he said. “It fell off, and pride goeth before a fall.” ”

“ Many people are over head and ears in trouble, yet you cry incessantly over one sorrow. If you had as much to bear as I have, you would have destroyed yourself before this time."
Suicide! this disastrous word struck heavily on the ear of Kunda; shuddering, she sat down. During the night she had frequently contemplated this step, and these words from Hira's mouth seemed to confirm her purpose.
Hira continued: "Now hear what my troubles are. I also loved a man more than my own life. He was not my husband, but why should I hide my sin from my mistress? it is better to confess it plainly." ”

“ The modern worship of him as (with his wife) a deity of love and wedlock also recognizes a beneficent aspect of his nature. Hirata explains this contradiction by the theory that he is beneficent when his nigi-tama (gentle spirit) is in the ascendant, and malignant when his ara-tama (rough-spirit) gets the upper hand, as in the leading case of Jekyll and Hyde, reported by R. L. Stevenson. The female deity of Yomi, Sasura-hime, is called by Hirata a waki-dama (side spirit, or double) of Susa no wo, forming with him a dual divinity, as in the case of the Wind-Gods. ”

“ At the sound of the lifted latch and of Hiram’s entrance he turned his head, and when Hiram saw his face he stood suddenly still as though turned to stone. The face, marvelously altered and changed as it was, was the face of his stepbrother, Levi West. He was not dead; he had come home again. For a time not a sound broke the dead, unbroken silence excepting the crackling of the blaze in the fireplace and the sharp ticking of the tall clock in the corner. ”

“ For Hiram Strong was a country boy, born and bred, and the town stifled him. Besides, he had begun to see that his two years in Crawberry had been wasted.
“As a hustler after fortune in the city I am not a howling success,” mused Hiram. “Somehow, I'm cramped down yonder,” and he glanced back at the squalid brick houses below him, the smoky roofs, and the ugly factory chimneys.
“And I declare,” he pursued, reflectively, “I don't believe I can stand Old Dan Dwight much longer. Dan, Junior, is bad enough—when he is around the store; but the boss would drive a fellow to death.” ”

“ How did you first make love to her?"
"There is no difficulty in that. From my friendship with Tara Charan, I asked him to introduce me to his wife. He did so, and from that time I have loved her." [124]
"After that what happened?" asked Hira.
"After that, because of your mistress's anger, I did not see Kunda for many days. Then I entered the house as a Boisnavi. The girl is very timid, she will not speak; but the way in which I coaxed her to-day is sure to take effect. Why should it not succeed? Am I not Debendra? Learn well, oh lover! the art of winning hearts!" ”