From My Japanese Diary

I.

July 25. Three extraordinary visits have been made to my house this week.

The first was that of the professional well-cleaners. For once every year all wells must be emptied and cleansed, lest the God of Wells — Suijin-Sama — be wroth. On this occasion I learned some things relating to Japanese wells and the tutelar deity of them, who has two names, being also called Mizuhanome-no-mikoto.

Suijin-Sama protects all wells, keeping their water sweet and cool, provided that house-owners observe his laws of cleanliness, which are rigid. To those who break them sickness comes, and death. Rarely the god manifests himself, taking the form of a serpent. I have never seen any temple dedicated to him. But once each month a Shintō priest visits the homes of pious families having wells, and he repeats certain ancient prayers to the Well-God, and plants nobori — little paper flags, which are symbols — at the edge of the well. After the well has been cleaned, also, this is done. Then the first bucket of the new water must be drawn up by a man; for if a woman first draw water, the well will always thereafter remain muddy.

The god has little servants to help him in his work. These are the small fishes the Japanese call funa.¹ One or two funa are kept in every well, to clear the water of larvæ. When a well is cleaned, great care is taken of the little fish. It was on the occasion of the coming of the well-cleaners that I first learned of the existence of a pair of funa in my own well. They were placed in a tub of cool water while the well was refilling, and thereafter were replunged into their solitude.

The water of my well is clear and icecold. But now I can never drink of it without a thought of those small white lives circling always in darkness, and startled through untold years by the descent of plashing buckets.

The second curious visit was that of the district firemen, in full costume, with their hand-engines. According to ancient custom, they make a round of all their district once a year during the dry spell, and throw water over the hot roofs, and receive some small perquisite from each wealthy householder. There is a belief that when it has not rained for a long time roofs may be ignited by the mere heat of the sun. The firemen played with their hose upon my roofs, trees, and garden, producing considerable refreshment, and in return I bestowed on them wherewith to buy saké.

The third visit was that of a deputation of children asking for some help to celebrate fittingly the festival of Jizō, who has a shrine on the other side of the street, exactly opposite my house. I was very glad to contribute to their fund, for I love the gentle god, and I knew the festival would be delightful. Early next morning, I saw that the shrine had already been decked with flowers and votive lanterns. A new bib had been put about Jizō’s neck, and a Buddhist repast set before him. Later on, carpenters constructed a dancing-platform in the temple court for the children to dance upon, and before sundown the toy-sellers had erected and stocked a small street of booths inside the precincts. After dark I went out into a great glory of lantern fires to see the children dance, and I found, perched before my gate, an enormous dragonfly more than three feet long. It was a token of the children’s gratitude for the little help I had given them,—a kazari, a decoration. I was startled for the moment by the realism of the thing, but upon close examination I discovered that the body was a pine branch wrapped with colored paper, the four wings were four fire-shovels, and the gleaming head was a little teapot. The whole was lighted by a candle so placed as to make extraordinary shadows, which formed part of the design. It was a wonderful instance of art sense working without a speck of artistic material, yet it was all the labor of a poor little child only eight years old !

II.

July 30. The next house to mine, on the south side, a low, dingy Structure, is that of a dyer. You can always tell where a Japanese dyer is by the long pieces of silk or cotton stretched between bamboo poles before his door to dry in the sun, — broad bands of rich azure, of purple, of rose, pale blue, pearl gray. Yesterday my neighbor coaxed me to pay the family a visit, and, after having been led through the front part of their little dwelling, I was surprised to find myself looking from a rear veranda at a garden worthy of some old Kyōtō palace. There was a dainty landscape in miniature, and a pond of clear water peopled by goldfish having wonderfully compound tails.

When I had enjoyed this spectacle awhile, the dyer led me to a small room fitted up as a Buddhist chapel. Though everything had had to be made on a reduced scale, I did not remember to have seen a more artistic display in any temple. He told me it had cost him about fifteen hundred yen. I could not understand how that sum could have sufficed. There were three elaborately carven altars. a triple blaze of gold lacquer work ; a number of charming Buddhist images, many exquisite vessels, an ebony reading-desk, a mokugyō,² two fine bells, — in short, all the paraphernalia of a temple in miniature. My host had studied at a Buddhist temple in his youth, and knew the sutras, of which he had all that are used by the Jōdo sect. He told me that he could celebrate any of the ordinary services. Daily, at a fixed hour, the whole family assembled in the chapel for prayers, and he generally read the Kyō for them. But on extraordinary occasions a Buddhist priest from the neighboring temple would come to officiate.

He told me a queer story about robbers. Dyers are peculiarly liable to be visited by robbers ; partly by reason of the value of the silks entrusted to them, and also because the business is known to be lucrative. One evening the family were robbed. The master was out of the city; his old mother, his wife, and a female servant were the only persons in the house at the time. Three men, having their faces masked and carrying long swords, entered the door. One asked the servant whether any of the apprentices were still in the building, and she, hoping to frighten the invaders away, answered that the young men were all still at work. But the robbers were not disturbed by this assurance. One posted himself at the entrance, the other two strode into the sleeping-apartment. The women started up in alarm, and the wife asked, “Why do you wish to kill us ? ” He who seemed to be the leader answered, “ We do not wish to kill you ; we want money only. But if we do not get it, then it will be this, ” striking his sword into the matting. The old mother said, “ Be so kind as not to frighten my daughter-in-law, and I will give you whatever money there is in the house, But you ought to know there cannot be much, as my son has gone to Kyōtō.” She handed them the money drawer and her own purse. There were just twentyseven yen and eighty-four sen. Tire head robber counted it, and said, quite gently, “ We do not want to frighten you. We know you are a very devout believer in Buddhism, and we think you would not tell a lie. Is this all? ” “ Yes, it is all,” she answered. “ I am, as you say. a believer in the teaching of the Buddha, and if you come to rob me now. I believe it is only because I myself, in some former life, once robbed you. This is my punishment for that fault, and so, instead of wishing to deceive you, I feel grateful at this opportunity to atone for the wrong which I did to you in my previous state of existence.”The robber laughed, and said, “ You are a good old woman, and we believe you. If you were poor, we would not rob you at all. Now we only want a couple of kimono and this,” laying his hand on a very fine silk overdress. The old woman replied,

All my son’s kimono I can give you, but I beg you will not take that, for it does not belong to my son, and was confided to us only for dyeing. What is ours I can give, but I cannot give what belongs to another.” “ That is quite right,” approved the robber, “ and we shall not take it.”

After receiving a few robes, the robbers said good-night, very politely, but ordered the women not to look after them. The old servant was still near the door. As the chief robber passed her, he said, “You told us a lie, — so take this,” and struck her senseless. None of the robbers were ever caught.

III.

August 29. When a body has been burned, according to the funeral rites of certain Buddhist sects, search is made among the ashes for a little bone called the Hotoke-San, or “ Lord Buddha,” popularly supposed to be a little bone of the throat. What bone it really is I do not know, never having had a chance to examine such a relic.

According to the shape of this little bone when found after the burning, the future condition of the dead maybe predicted. Should the next state to which the soul is destined be one of happiness, the bone will have the form of a small image of Buddha. But if the next birth is to be unhappy, then the bone will have either an ugly shape, or no shape at all.

A little boy, the son of a neighboring tobacconist, died the night before last, and to-day the corpse was burned. The little bone left over from the burning was discovered to have the form of three Buddhas, —San-Tai, — which may have afforded some spiritual consolation to the bereaved parents.³

IV.

September 13. The old man who used to supply me with pipestems died yesterday. (A Japanese pipe, you must know, consists of three pieces, usually, — a metal bowl large enough to hold a pea, a metal mouthpiece, and a bamboo stem which is renewed at regular intervals.) He used to stain his pipestems very prettily : some looked like porcupine quills, and some like cylinders of snakeskin. He lived in a queer narrow little street at the verge of the city. I know the street, because in it there is a famous statue of Jizō called Shiroko-Jizō, — “ White-Child-Jizō,” — which I once went to see. They whiten its face, like the face of a dancing-girl, for some reason which I have never been able to find out.

The old man had a daughter, O-Masu, about whom a story is told. O-Masu is still alive. She has been a happy wife for many years; but she is dumb. Long ago, an angry mob sacked and destroyed the dwelling and the storehouses of a rice speculator in the city. His money, including a quantify of gold coin (koban), was scattered through the street. The rioters — rude, honest peasants — did not want it: they wished to destroy, not to steal. But O-Masu’s father, the same evening, picked up a koban from the mud, and took it home. Later on a neighbor denounced him, and secured his arrest. The judge before whom he was summoned tried to obtain certain evidence by cross - questioning O-Masu, then a shy girl of fifteen. She felt that if she continued to answer she would be made, in spite of herself, to give testimony unfavorable to her father ; that she was in the presence of a trained inquisitor, capable, without effort, of forcing her to acknowledge everything she knew. She ceased to speak, and a stream of blood gushed from her mouth. She had silenced herself forever by simply biting off her tongue. Her father was acquitted. A merchant who admired the act demanded her in marriage, and supported her father in his old age.

V.

October 10. There is said to be one day — only one — in the life of a child during which it can remember and speak of its former birth.

On the very day that it becomes exactly two years old, the child is taken by its mother into the most quiet part of the house, and is placed in a mi, or ricewinnowing basket. The child sits down in the mi. Then the mother says, calling the child by name, “ Omae no zensé wa, nande adukane ? — lute, jōran.” Then the child always answers in one word. For some mysterious reason, no more lengthy reply is ever given. Often the answer is so enigmatic that some priest or fortune-teller must be asked to interpret it. For instance, yesterday, the little son of a coppersmith living near us answered only “ Umé ” to the magical question. Now umé might mean a plum-flower, a plum, or a girl’s name, “ Flower-of-the-Plum.” Could it mean that the boy remembered having been a girl ? Or that he had been a plum-tree ? “ Souls of men do not enter plum-trees,” said a neighbor. A fortune-teller this morning declared, on being questioned about the riddle, that the boy had probably been a scholar, poet, or statesman, because the plum-tree is the symbol of Tenjin, patron of scholars, statesmen, and men of letters.

VI.

November 17. An astonishing book might be written about those things in Japanese life which no foreigner can understand. Such a book should include the study of certain rare but very terrible results of anger.

As a national rule, the Japanese seldom allow themselves to show anger. Even among the common classes, any serious menace is apt to take the form of a smiling assurance that your favor shall be remembered, and that its recipient is grateful. (Do not suppose, however, that this is ironical, in our sense of the word; it is only euphemistic, ugly things not being called by their real names.) But this smiling assurance may possibly mean death. When vengeance comes, it comes unexpectedly. Neither distance nor time, within the empire, can offer any obstacles to the avenger who can walk fifty miles a day, whose whole baggage can be tied up in a very small towel, and whose patience is almost infinite. He may choose a knife, but is much more likely to use a sword, — a Japanese sword. This, in Japanese hands, is the deadliest of weapons, and the killing of ten or twelve persons by one angry man may occupy less than a minute. It does not often happen that the murderer thinks of trying to escape. Ancient custom requires that, having taken another life, he should take his own; wherefore to fall into the hands of the police would be to disgrace his name. He has made his preparations beforehand, written his letters, arranged for his funeral, perhaps — as in one appalling instance last year — even chiseled his own tombstone. Having fully accomplished his revenge, he kills himself.

There has just occurred, not far from the city, at the village called Sugikamimura, one of those tragedies which are difficult to understand. The chief actors were, Narumatsu Ichirō, a young shopkeeper ; his wife, O-Noto, twenty years of age, to whom he had been married only a year; and O-Noto’s maternal uncle, one Sugimoto Kasaku, a man of violent temper, who had once been in prison. The tragedy was in four acts.

ACT I. Scene: Interior of public bathhouse. Sugimoto Kasaku in the bath. Enter Narumatsu Ichirō, who strips, gets into the smoking water without noticing his relative, and cries out, —

“ Aa! as if one should be in Jigoku, so hot this water is ! ”

(The word “Jigoku ” signifies the Buddhist hell, but, in common parlance, it also signifies a prison, this time an unfortunate coincidence.)

Kasaku (terribly angry). “ A raw baby, you, to seek a hard quarrel! What do you not like ? ”

Ichirō (surprised and alarmed, but rallying angrily against the tone of Kasaku). “ Nay ! What ? That I said need not by you be explained. Though I said the water was hot, your help to make it hotter was not asked.”

Kasaku (now dangerous). “ Though, for my own fault, not once, but twice in the hell of prison I had been, what should there be wonderful in it ? Either an idiot child or a low scoundrel you must be! ”

(Each eyes the other for a spring, but each hesitates, although things no Japanese should suffer himself to sag have been said. They are too evenly matched, the old and the young.)

Kasaku (growing cooler as Ichirō becomes angrier). “A child, a raw child, to quarrel with me! What should a baby do with a wife ? Your wife is my blood, mine. — the blood of the man from hell! Give her hack to my house.”

Ichirō (desperately, now fully assured Kasaku is physically the better man). “ Return my wife! You say to return her ? Right quickly shall she be returned, — at once! ”

So far everything is clear enough. Then Ichirō hurries home, caresses his wife, assures her of his love, tells her all, and sends her, not to Kasaku’s house, but to that of her brother. Two days later, a little after dark, O-Noto is called to the door by her husband, and the two disappear in the night.

ACT II. Night scene. House of Kasaku closed ; light appears through chinks of sliding shutters. Shadow of a woman approaches. Sound of knocking. Shutters slide back.

Wife of Kasaku (recognizing O-Noto). “Aa! aa! Joyful it is to see you! Deign to enter, and some honorable tea to take.”

O-Noto (speaking very sweetly). “ Thanks indeed. But where is Kasaku San ? ”

Wife of Kasaku. “ To the other village he has gone, but must soon return. Deign to come in and wait for him.”

O-Noto (still more sweetly). “ Very great thanks. A little, and I come. But first I must tell my brother.”

(Bows, and slips off into the darkness, arid becomes a shadow again, which joins another shadow. The two shadows remain motionless.)

ACT III. Scene: Bank of a river at night: fringed by pines. Silhouette of the house of Kasaku far away. O-Noto and Ichirō under the trees : Ichirō with a lantern. Both have white towels tightly bound round their heads ; their robes are girded well up, and their sleeves caught back with tasuki cords, to leave the arms free. Each carries a long sword.

It is the hour, as the Japanese most expressively say, “when the sound of the river is loudest.” There is no other sound, but a long occasional humming of wind in the needles of the pines; for it is late autumn, and the frogs are silent. The two shadows do not speak, and the sound of the river grows louder.

Suddenly there is the noise of a plash far off,—somebody crossing the shallow stream; then an echo of wooden sandals, irregular, staggering, the footsteps of a drunkard, comming nearer and nearer. The drunkard lifts up his voice; it is Kasaku’s voice. He sings,

— a song of love and wine.

Immediately the two shadows start toward the singer at a run ; a noiseless flitting, for their feet are shod with waraji. Kasaku still sings. Suddenly a loose stone turns under his feet; he twists his ankle, and utters a growl of anger. Almost in the same instant a lantern is held close to his face. Perhaps for thirty seconds it remains there. No one speaks. The yellow light shows three strangely inexpressive masks rather than visages. Kasaku sobers at once, recognizing the faces, remembering the incident of the bath-house, and seeing the swords. But he is not afraid, and presently bursts into a mocking laugh.

“ Hé! hé ! The Ichirō pair ! And so you take me, too, for a baby ? What are you doing with such things in your hands ? Let me show you how to use them.”

But Ichirō, who has dropped the lantern, suddenly delivers, with the full swing of both hands, a sword-slash that nearly severs Kasaku’s right arm from the shoulder ; and as the victim staggers, the sword of the woman cleaves through his left shoulder. He falls with one fearful cry, “Hitogoroshi ! ” which means “ murder.” But he does not cry again. For ten whole minutes the swords are busy with him. The lantern, still glowing, lights the ghastliness. Two belated pedestrians approach, hear, see, drop their wooden sandals from their feet, and flee back into the darkness without a word. Ichirō and O-Noto sit down by the lantern to take breath, for the work was hard.

The son of Kasaku, a boy of fourteen, comes running to find his father. He had heard the song, then the cry, but, though so young, he is not afraid. The two Suffer him to approach. As he nears O-Noto, the woman seizes him, flings him down, twists his slender arms under her knees, and clutches the sword. But Ichirō, still panting, cries, “ No ! no ! Not the boy ! He did us no wrong ! ” O-Noto releases him. He is too stupefied to move. She slaps his face terribly, crying, “ Go ! ” He runs, not daring to shriek.

Ichirō and O-Noto leave the chopped mass, walk to the house of Kasaku, and call loudly. There is no reply ; only the pathetic, crouching silence of women and children waiting death. But they are bidden not to fear. Then Ichirō cries,—

“ Honorable funeral prepare ! Kasaku, by my hand, is now dead ! ”

“And by mine! ” shrills O-Noto. Then the footsteps recede.

ACT IV. Scene: Interior of Ichirō’s house. Three persons kneeling in the guest-room: Ichirō, his wife, and an aged woman, who is weeping.

Ichirō. “ And now, mother, to leave you alone in this world, though you have no other son, is indeed an evil thing. I can only pray your forgiveness. But my uncle will always care for you, and to his house you must go at once, since it is time we two should die. No common, vulgar death shall we have, but an elegant, splendid death, — Rippana! And you must not see it. Now go.”

She passes away, with a wail. The doors are solidly barred behind her. All is ready,

O-Noto thrusts the point of the sword into her throat. But she still struggles. With a last kind word Ichirō ends her pain by a stroke that severs the head. And then ?

Then he takes his writing-box, prepares the inkstone, grinds some ink, chooses a good brush, and, on carefully selected paper, composes five poems, of which this is the last: —

Then he cuts his own throat perfectly well.

Now, it was clearly shown, during the official investigation of these facts, that Ichirō and his wife had been universally liked, and had been from their childhood noted for amiability.

The scientific problem of the origin of the Japanese has never yet been solved. But sometimes it seems to me that those who argue in favor of a partly Malay origin have some psychological evidence in their favor. Under the submissive sweetness of the gentlest Japanese woman — a sweetness of which the Occidental can scarcely form any idea — there exist possibilities of hardness absolutely inconceivable without ocular evidence. A thousand times she can forgive, can sacrifice herself in a thousand ways unutter ably touching; but let one particular soulnerve be stung, and fire shall forgive sooner than she. Then there may suddenly appear in that frail-seeming woman an incredible courage, an appalling, measured, tireless purpose of honest vengeance. Under all the amazing self-control and patience of the man there exists an adamantine something very dangerous to reach. Touch it wantonly, and there car be no pardon. But resentment is not likely to be excited by any mere hazard. Motives are keenly judged. Any error can be forgiven; deliberate malice, never.

In the house of any rich family the guest is likely to be shown some of the heirlooms. Among these are almost sure to be certain articles belonging to those elaborate tea ceremonies peculiar to Japan. A pretty little box, perhaps, will be set before you. Opening it, you see only a beautiful silk bag, closed with a silk running-cord decked with tiny tassels. Very soft and choice the silk is, and elaborately figured. What marvel can be hidden under such a covering ? You open the bag, and see within another bag, of a different quality of silk, but very fine. Open that, and lo, a third, which contains a fourth, which contains a fifth, which contains a sixth, which contains a seventh bag, which contains the strangest, roughest, hardest vessel of Chinese clay that you ever beheld. Yet it is not only curious, but precious; it may be more than a thousand years old.

Even thus have centuries of the highest social culture wrapped the Japanese character about with many priceless soft coverings of courtesy, of delicacy, of patience, of sweetness, of moral sentiment. But underneath these charming multiple coverings there remains the primitive clay, hard as iron, kneaded perhaps with all the mettle of the Mongol and all the dangerous suppleness of the Malay.

VII.

December 28. Beyond the high fence inclosing my garden in the rear rise the thatched roofs of some very small houses occupied by families of the poorest class. From one of these little dwellings there continually issues a sound of groaning,— the deep groaning of a man in pain. I have heard it for more than a week, both night and day, but latterly the sounds have been growing longer and louder, as if every breath were an agony. “ Somebody there is very sick,” says Manyemon, my old interpreter, with an expression of extreme sympathy.

The sounds have begun to make me nervous. I reply, rather brutally, “ I think it would be better for all concerned if that somebody were dead.”

Manyemon makes three times a quick, sudden gesture with both hands, as if to throw off the influence of my wicked words, mutters a little Buddhist prayer, and leaves me with a look of reproach. Then, conscience-stricken, I send a servant to inquire if the sick person has a doctor, and whether any aid can be given. Presently the servant returns with the information that a doctor is regularly attending the sufferer, and that nothing else can be done.

I notice, however, that, in spite of his cobwebby gestures, Manyemon’s patient nerves have also become affected by those sounds. He has even confessed that he wants to stay in the little front room, near the street, so as to be away from them as far as possible. I can neither write nor read. My study being in the extreme rear, the groaning is there almost as audible as if the sick man were in the room itself. There is always in such utterances of suffering a certain ghastly timbre by which the intensity of the suffering can be estimated ; and I keep asking myself, How can it be possible for the human being making those sounds by which I am tortured, to endure much longer ?

It is a positive relief, later in the morning, to hear the moaning drowned by the beating of a little Buddhist drum in the sick man’s room, and the chanting of the Namu myō ho renge kyō by a multitude of voices. Evidently there is a gathering of priests and relatives in the house. Somebody is going to die.” Manyemon says. And he also repeats the holy words of praise to the Lotos of the Good Law.

The chanting and the tapping of the drum continue for several hours. As they cease, the groaning is heard again.

Every breath a groan ! Toward evening it grows worse — horrible. Then it suddenly stops. There is a dead silence of minutes. And then we hear a passionate burst of weeping, — the weeping of a woman, — and voices calling a name.

Ah! somebody is dead ! ” Manyemon says.

We hold council. Manyemon has found out that the people are miserably poor; and I, because my conscience smites me, propose to send them the amount of the funeral expenses, a very small sum. Manyemon thinks I wish to do this out of pure benevolence, and says pretty things. We send the servant with a kind message, and instructions to learn, if possible, the history of the dead man. I cannot help suspecting some sort of tragedy ; and a Japanese tragedy is generally interesting.

December 29. As I had surmised, the story of the dead man was worth learning. The family consisted of four, — the father and mother, both very old and feeble, and two sons. It was the eldest son, a man of thirty-four, who had died. He had been sick for seven years. The younger brother, a kurumaya, had been the sole support of the whole family. He had no vehicle of his own, but hired one, paying five sen a day for the use of it. Though strong and a swift runner, he could earn little: there is in these days too much competition for the business to be profitable. It taxed all his powers to support his parents and his ailing brother; nor could he have done it without unfailing self-denial. He never indulged himself even to the extent of a cup of saké; he remained unmarried ; he lived only for his filial and fraternal duty.

This was the story of the dead brother : When about twenty-five years of age, and following the occupation of a fish-seller, he had fallen in love with a pretty servant at an inn. The girl returned his affection. They pledged themselves to each other. But difficulties arose in the way of their marriage. The girl was pretty enough to have attracted the attention of a man of some wealth, who demanded her hand in the customary way. She disliked him ; but the conditions he was able to offer decided her parents in his favor. Despairing of union, the two lovers resolved to perform jōshi. Somewhere or other they met at night, renewed their pledge in wine, and bade farewell to the world. The young man then killed his sweetheart with one blow of a sword, and immediately afterward cut his own throat with the same weapon. But people rushed into the room before he had expired, took away the sword, sent for the police, and summoned a military surgeon from the garrison. The would-be suicide was removed to the hospital, skillfully nursed back to health, and after some months of convalescence was put on trial for murder.

What sentence was passed I could not fully learn. In those days, Japanese judges used a good deal of personal discretion when dealing with emotional crime ; and their exercise of pity had not yet been restricted by codes framed upon Western models. Perhaps in this case they thought that to have survived a jōshi was in itself a severe punishment. Public opinion is less merciful, in such instances, than law. After a certain term of imprisonment the miserable man was allowed to return to his family, but was placed under perpetual police surveillance. The people shrank from him. He made the mistake of living on. Only his parents and brother remained to him.

And soon he became a victim of unspeakable physical suffering ; yet he clung to life.

The old wound in his throat, although treated at the time as skillfully as circumstances permitted, began to cause terrible pain. After its apparent healing, some slow cancerous growth began to spread from it, reaching into the breathing passages above and below where the sword-blade had passed. The surgeon’s knife, the torture of the cautery, could only delay the end. But the man lingered through seven years of continually increasing agony. There are dark beliefs about the results of betraying the dead. — of breaking the mutual promise to travel together to the Meido. Men said that the hand of the murdered girl always reopened the wound, — undid by night all that the surgeon could accomplish by day. For at night the pain invariably increased, becoming most terrible at the precise hour of the attempted shinjū.

Meanwhile, through abstemiousness and extraordinary self-denial, the family found means to pay for medicines, for attendance, and for more nourishing food than they themselves ever indulged in. They prolonged by all possible means the life that was their shame, their poverty, their burden. And now that death has taken away that burden, they weep !

Perhaps all of us learn to love that which we train ourselves to make sacrifices for. whatever pain it may cause. Indeed, the question might be asked whether we do not love most that which causes us most pain.

Lafcadio Hearn.