Out of the East by Lafcadio Hearn Read Free Book Online

sadness are only temporary things. Why does he study hard? No matter how great a scholar he may become, what is there left of him when he is dead? Only bones."
    Miyakawa was the merriest and wittiest in his class; and the contrast between his joyous character and his words seemed to me almost startling. But such swift glooms of thought—especially since Meiji—not unfrequently make apparition in quite young Oriental minds. They are fugitive as shadows of summer clouds; they mean less than they would signify in Western adolescence ; and the Japanese lives not by thought, nor by emotion, but by duty. Still, they are not haunters to encourage.
    "I think," said I, "a much better subject for you all would be the Sky: the sensations which the sky creates in us when we look at it on such a day as this. See how wonderful it is!"
    It was blue to the edge of the world, with never a floss of cloud. There were no vapors in the horizon; and very far peaks, invisible on most days, now massed into the glorious light, seemingly diaphanous.
    Then Kumashiro, looking up to the mighty arching, uttered with reverence the ancient Chinese words:—
    "What thought is so high as It is? What mind is so wide?"
    "To-day," I said, "is beautiful as any summer day could be,—only that the leaves are falling, and the semi are gone."
    "Do you like semi, teacher?" asked Mori.
    "It gives me great pleasure to hear them," I answered. "We have no such cicadae in the West."
    "Human life is compared to the life of a semi," said Orito,—" utsuzemi no yo. Brief as the song of the semi all human joy is, and youth. Men come for a season and go, as do the semi."
    "There are no semi now," said Yasukochi; "perhaps the teacher thinks it is sad."
    "I do not think it sad," observed Noguchi. "They hinder us from study. I hate the sound they make. When we hear that sound in summer, and are tired, it adds fatigue to fatigue so that we fall asleep. If we try to read or write, or even think, when we hear that sound we have no more courage to do anything. Then we wish that all those insects were dead."
    Perhaps you like the dragon-flies," I suggested. "They are flashing all around us; but they make no sound."
    "Every Japanese likes dragon-flies," said Kumashiro. "Japan, you know, is called Akitsusu, which means the Country of the Dragon-fly."
    We talked about different kinds of dragon-flies; and they told me of one I had never seen,—the Sh ō ro-tombo, or "Ghost dragonfly," said to have some strange relation to the dead. Also they spoke of the Yamma—a very large kind of dragon-fly, and related that in certain old songs the samurai were called Yamma, because the long hair of a young warrior used to be tied up into a knot in the shape of a dragon-fly.
    A bugle sounded; and the voice of the military officer rang out,—
    "Atsumar E!" (fall in!) But the young men lingered an instant to ask,—
    "Well, what shall it be, teacher?—that which is most difficult to understand?" "No," I said, "the Sky." And all that day the beauty of the Chinese utterance haunted me, filled me like an exaltation :—
    "What thought is so high as It is? What mind is so wide?"
    V
    There is one instance in which the relation between teachcrs and students is not formal at all,—one precious survival of the mutual love of other days in the old Samurai Schools. By all the aged Professor of Chinese is reverenced; and his influence over the young men is very great. With a word he could calm any outburst of anger; with a smile he could quicken any generous impulse. For he represents to the lads their ideal of all that was brave, true, noble, in the elder life,—the Soul of Old Japan.
    His name, signifying "Moon-of-Autumn," is famous in his own land. A little book has been published about him, containing his portrait. He was once a samurai of high rank belonging to the great clan of Aidzu. He rose early to positions of trust and influence. He has been a leader of