The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-11-26
BOOKS OF THE TIME.
GIeanings in Buddha-FieIds, LafcadiO
Hearn's Latest Work.

Hearn's Latest Work.
OF the many books that have been writ
ten about Japan and it's people in the last
ten or twenty years, the most have con-
tanned the superficial views of tourists or
sojourners, and give but little idea Of the
true life and character of the natives. Laf-
cadio Hearn is one of the few to enter into
sympathetic understanding of the race so
alien TO his own. Mr.. Hearn, who is now
lecturer on literature in the Imperial Uni
versity of Japan. has lived for years in that
country and has become so imbued with the
Oriental spirit that he speaks with the in
sight of love of the customs and institutions
and religion. Moreover, he is a true poet,
though he has but little to do with rhyme
or rhythm and this puts him in closer SYM
pathy with the mysticism of the Buddhist
philosophy. In speaking in his new novel
of the Shinto shrines, which are supposed
to be inhabited by ghosts of the dead who
are now gods, he says:
1.-The evidence of the ruins counts for lit
lie; you know there are ever so many real
-ties which can neither be seen nor heard
nor felt, but which exist as forces-tremen-
douS forces Then again, you cannot mock
the conviction of forty millions of people
while that conviction thrills all about you
like the air-while conscious that it is press
ing upon your pSychlcal being just as the
atmosphere presses upon your physical be-
ing As for myself whenever 1 am alone in
the presence Of a Shinto shrine, 1 have the
sensation of being haunted" Again, he
says that to view men or nature with de-
light we must see them through illusions,
to us depends upon the ethical condition
within u.s. Nevertheless, the real and the
unreal are equally Elusive in themselves.
The vulgar and the rare, the. seemingly
transient and the seemingly enduring, are
all alike mere ghoStlineSS. Happiest he who,
from birth to death, sees ever through some
beautiful haze of the Soul-beSt of all that
haze of love-haze of which,, like the ra-
dance of this Orient day, turns common
things to gold"
In a chapter on Dust" he says: 1.-THE
real sorrow and fear of death arise in US
only through slow accumulation of expe-
rience with doubt and PAIN and these little
boys and girls, being Japanese and Bud
dhists will never feel about death just as
you or do. They will find reason to fear
it for somebody else's sake, but not for their
own, because they will learn that they nave
died millions of times already and have for
gotten the trouble of it, much as one for
gets the pain Of successive toothaches. In
the strangely penetrant light of their creed,
teaching the ghostliness of all substance
granite or gOSSamer-juSt as those iately
found X-rays make visible the ghostlineSs
of flesh-this their present Worlo, with It's
bigger mountains and rivers ana rice Helus
will not appear to them much more real
than the mud landscapes which they maze
in childhood. And much more real II prop
ably is not. At which thought l am con-
scious of a sudden soft shock, familar
shock and know myself seized by the luea
of Substance as nonreality.
In discussing Japanese art, Mr.. Hearn
saws that it no longer seems fantastic 10
him Now he finds the pictures always IN
teresting, occasionally beautiful. II am
told" he says that no other European
would say So then 1 must declare all cther
Europeans wrong" Having learned Some
thing of the meaning of japanese craving,
the pictorial attractions of English week.-mrs.
and of American magazines now impress
him as flat coarse and clumsy. lie mus
little pleasure in such engravings, often
thew repel him. "Such work, he declares;
sIesves nothing to the Imagination, ana
usually betrays the effort which 1t cost. a
common Japanese drawing Leaves mucn "
the imagination-nay irresist1bly stimulates
it-and never betrays effort" 49,,
A dream which is given as the Ilnai
chapter is the poets conception or the m :,s
terv Of rebirth "Circle (of individual eXls-
tencel there is none but the great pnantSo I'M
IyhirI Of birth and death. to which by tnelr
own thoughts and deeds. the Ignorant re-
main condemned. But this has It's nelns
n n,.1u in Time: and Time itself is illusion
Whatever may be thought of the religion
and the philosophy he discusses the cna al ~
of Mr. Hearn's picturesque literary style
cannot be denied and is enough 10 egl.e
him Mace among the notable authors OF . xne
dav His publishers are Houghton' Muiiiili
e. Co. Boston. ls. ...