JAPANESE PLAYS
AND PLAYFELLOWS

Benkei at Sea. (Nō).

TO

YAKUMO KOIZUMI

AND

LAFCADIO HEARN

POET AND FRIEND
WITH
ADMIRING GRATITUDE

[Pg vii]

PREFACE

I do not pretend to compete in the crowded field ofJapanese sociology with those who have lived morethan six months or less than six weeks in the country.My own stay was limited to half a year. I had, ofcourse, studied the language with native teachers anddevoured the records of foreign travellers. I concludedthat theatrical matters had been less fully describedthan any other: to them, accordingly, I devoted mostattention. But there were other themes on which Ihad been insufficiently informed. Impersonal essaysare, therefore, supplemented by personal reminiscences,for which I claim indulgence. If the first now seem tome too short, the second may seem to others too long.Yet I have tried only to select incidents and characteristicswhich differ strikingly from Western ways.

Austere critics will assuredly resent the excess ofincense burned in these pages in honour of the musumé.But, whether she and they like it or not, she continuesto summarise in her dainty little person much of hercountry’s magic: its picturesqueness, its kindness, itspoliteness. On certain symptoms of anti-foreign feelingI have dwelt at some length, because the obvious witcheryof Japan so often results in the suppression of unpleasant[viii]testimony by those whose own souvenirs are pleasantnessitself. There is certainly no reason why the Japaneseshould exhibit more altruism to other nations than is exhibitedin the reverse case. The apprehensions expressedby such an admirer of the race as Mr. A. B. Mitford,in a recent letter to the Times as to the expediency ofgiving them too free a hand in the solution of the Chineseproblem, however unwelcome to advocates of an Anglo-Japanesealliance, deserve to be well weighed. Neitherpro-Japanese tourist nor anti-Japanese resident can refuseadmiration to the courage and cleverness of thoseHappy Islanders, whose f