The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 32, June, 1860

Such was the impression of Clarian's Picture, and I felt my blood fairly tingle with recognition of the boy's power.

"It is noble, great," said Mac, in those deep tones that spoke how he was moved, "and men shall call you Artist when it is finished."

Finished! what more did it want? what more could be done to this so perfect composition?

"Ah, Mac," said Clarian, enthusiastically seizing my chum's hands, "such recognition as yours is what I have yearned for, and yet—'tis you who have chiefly mocked me. It shall be finished, Mac, and worthily! Do you not think I have prayed for the inspiration, that I might bestow that final, life-giving touch? Two months ago it was as near complete as it is now,—but not until this very night have I felt the power of it. Now, however, my soul is full of it, and it shall wax into a poem. This is why I sought you, dear friends, to-night; for I am too gloriously happy to be selfish, and I want you to share my happiness with me. Yes, Mac, it has come at last, the warm Promethean fire, and at last I can proclaim, 'Anch' io son pittore!'"

I gazed at the lad as he raised his voice with these last words, and was almost awed by his singular beauty. It seemed almost as if a halo should encircle his brow. There was a delicate rose-flush on his cheek that rivalled in strange loveliness the hectic color of the young mother when her first-born nestles close and fondly to her thrilled bosom, and his eyes glowed with a rare lambent light that touched one with the eloquence of a beautiful dream. Mac eyed him with equal wonder and delight, but said, teasingly,—

"Hey! so you have come at last to the 'true and the living,' have you? Art regenerate? I hope thou hast also undergone that true baphometic fire-baptism, whereof the worthy Diogenes Teufelsdröckh hath discoursed so appetizingly, causing us to long after it, none the less that he hath scrupulously refrained from expounding whatever it is."

"Yes, Mac, the new life dawns upon me,—no Plotinian trance, no somnambulic introspection, but a genuine awakening of the soul to a sense of its own beauty."

"Prodigious! as Dominie Sampson would say. Nay, I am not laughing at you, Clarian," said Mac, pointing to the picture; "there is enough to make me believe in you, though how you achieved it I cannot imagine."

"The means, Mac? Is not that rather my question than yours? We judge ourselves from within; 'others judge us by what we have done,' says Goethe. The means, ha, and the motive? Why will men seek stumblingly after these, when actually their sole concern is with the thing done? So, you two look at me,—I was but pondering,—putting a case;—so far, the means here have been simple and innocent,—my hand, my eye, my brain, my purpose; but—Mac!" added he, suddenly, after a pause, "did you never, in reading Rabelais, feel that somehow there was a profound and reverential symbolism underlying the wild froth of words in which the histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel have come down to us? that in all that olla-podrida of filth, quip, jest, wicked folly, and mad wisdom, was yet hidden, like the pearl in the oyster, a deep and most mystic system of world-philosophy?"

"Anan?" said Mac, looking at the boy curiously.

"For instance, in what the good Curé of Meudon says about the 'herb Pantagruelion',—did the symbolism and esoteric meaning of all that never strike you?"

"Oh, yes," cried Mac, with a singularly significant smile, "I see how it is now. I understand. You are improving, Clarian, rapidly. Hum, wonder what your mother would say, if she knew you were a friend of Panurge's, and did draw such inferences from his wisdom! Yes, mon enfant, I have long felt the profundity of Pantagruelion, not less than the oracular efficacy of Bacbuc. And no one can deny that the thinnest strand of Manila, if not full of mysteries per se, can at least open the way for us to the very innermost crypts, and hence may be styled potentially a very gateway to Eleusinia."

"I do not mean that, Mac,—not the mere mechanical warp and woof of it, to hang beggars and sots with,—but the more potent essence, the inner cosmic power of it, to rouse the soul into grand expansive consciousness, and then to suspend it far above the carks and cares of this weary world, to sew it aloft to some leaf of the Tree of Life, like the nest of Jean Paul's tailor-bird, that it may swing there, above the hum and dust of matter, swayed and sung to sleep by the expanding breath of Infinity! Oh, yes!" cried Clarian, while his cheek glowed warmer, his eye flamed brighter, and his voice flowed on with a rhythmic throb, "oh, yes, I know it all, now! The Idea is awake, and dwells in my soul, at once master there and slave. I leap out of this base Present: I stand panting and glowing before the mighty portals of Infinity, from whose inner masses I see the grand Gods beckoning to me, greeting me as of their kindred, summoning me to take my throne also, which awaits me in their midst. I have burst these narrow bonds of flesh, and my soul shall soar henceforth in the grandeur realized of the Spirit, like a proud falcon just unmewed and flung off in sight of the noblest quarry. Art! what a dull, meaningless sound it was yesterday!—but now, the entombing pyramid of matter is up-heaved, flung off forever, and the Spirit stands erect in her bright Palingenesis, half-intoxicate with the all-pervading sense of her own grand beauty. The tree is rent asunder,—Ariel soars again in his element. Psyche has loosed herself from the fettering contact of Daimon, and lo, now, how daintily she poises on tiptoe, fluttering her wings ere she launches like a star into the wide exhilarant ether! O divine Art! pride, glory, first love of my soul! now, indeed, hast thou exchanged the yoke of dull Saturn and the gloomy caverns of earth for the fair heights of Olympus, and the companionship of Zeus [Greek: Nephelaegeretaes], him at whose nod the heavens display themselves like a many-figured arras, all alive with beauties and significance that the dull eye conjectures not, that the impure, unpurged eye shrinks away from, lest it be seared by the too great splendor! I know it all now. I began gropingly, in surmise, error, darkness; but now my brow catches, ay, and reflects, the calm, pure, effulgent light of Nature's definite day, and I bathe myself in its happy warmth. Erst, I grovelled like a worm, blind and earth-fed: now, I shall speed through very space, winged heel and shoulder, a swift, untiring Hermes, who have drunk of the milk that flows rich in Nature's breasts, and am emancipate forever in the decorous freedom of the beautiful self-conscious spirit! Oh, the glory, oh, the boon of Art, the play-deity! Phoebus no longer drives herds for Admetus, but is grown into Helios, feels in his breast the freer life of the very Hyperion, the walker on high. Ay, ay, smile on, Mac, you and Ned! I shall not quarrel with you for not understanding me; it is only just now that I have learned to understand myself. My Art will reward me; even now, while you doubt, it is already doing so. I tell you, you two, whom I love and honor", cried he, rising to his feet, lifted up, as it were, by the exaltation of his soul, while his voice rose like the gush of a fine-toned flute, "I tell you, moreover, that I am an artist, with a work to do that shall be done, and so done that you two who love me will be the first to salute me Artist, to recognize me, and acknowledge me for what I shall become."

"We do that already, Clarian," said Mac's emphatic voice.

"No," said Clarian, firmly, proudly, like a poet about to kneel that he may receive the laurel crown, "no, you do not know me yet."

And he was right. We did not yet know him.

"That is a boy after my own heart", said Mac, after we had returned to our room. He was standing by the open window, and I at his elbow, both of us thinking of the strange child we had just left, while our eyes took note of the fair night, how the silvery sheen of the moonlight glistened upon the leaves, and sprinkled itself in dappling flecks between the trees on the soft even sward of the campus below. "A boy after my own heart,—and, in spite of all his twaddle, will make an artist. It's in him."

"But did you not think him strangely wild to-night? I never heard him talk so fluently; but it was not the talk of a sane man."

Mac looked at me, laughing long and loud. "Thou dear innocent Ned!" cried he at last, "what a diagnostic thou wouldst make! It was indeed the talk of madness, good chum, and a very pretty madness was it, one that needeth not any Anticyran purgatives to expel it. So thou must not fash thyself about the lad, du liebe dummkopf, for he will come right very speedily. Didst remark not what he said about the 'herb Pantagruelion,' which, in the vulgar, meaneth only hemp? And surely you noted the warm flush of his cheek, the dilatation of his eye, and its phosphorescent glow? Dr. Thorne would soon enough tell you what these things signify. The boy is not crazy, Ned, but drunk,—drunk in the decorous delirium of a Damascene Pacha, propped against a Georgian maid, and fanned by Houris of Bethlehem Judah. He has been reading Monte Cristo, perhaps, or has somehow heard about the Indian Hemp, not the 'utilissima funibus cannabis' of practical Pliny, but Cannabis Indica, wherewith, I believe, Amrou spurred on his Arabs to their miraculous feats of war, when he conquered Egypt and drove Alexandria's Prefect into the sea,—the bhang of amok-running Malays, the haschish of Syria and Cairo. This is what hath made him drunk, and, i' faith, the intoxication does not ill become him. He will be all right in the morning, and all the better for this little brush. And anyhow, Ned, you must not watch the boy too closely, nor interfere with him. Let him 'gang his ain gait.' He comes of another breed than ours, I begin to suspect, and our rough fodder and grooming may not suit his higher blood.—Ach, Himmel! Ned," cried he, laughing, "it pleased me, though, to see how adroitly he contrived to twist that new reading out of the bon homme François. It was quite in the style of St. Augustine, and would have delighted that ex-sophist hugely; for, great as he was, and self-denying as he was, he always had a hankering after the dialectic flesh-pots. How he would have rubbed his hands, when Clarian wanted to persuade us that the herb Pantagruelion was no other than Haschish, the expander of souls!—Hollo! yonder goes the lad now. I wonder what he is up to. See him, Ned, yonder, just coming out of the shadow of North College. How fast he walks! how he is swinging his arms! I'll bet he is repeating poetry. I wonder what the lad is after, anyhow.—There he goes, round the corner of West College,—over the fence. Can he mean to have a game of ball by moonlight?—No,—he's making across the fields; if he had a pitcher with him now, I'd say he was going to the spring in the hollow.—Confound that tree! I've lost him."

I proposed following Clarian, being really uneasy about him, but Mac entered his veto,—

"No, Ned,—there's no need, and—it's none of our business. Children like him have a hundred baby-houses we do not know anything about. He wants a bath in the moonlight, I suppose, and wouldn't thank you for playing Actæon to the naked Diana of his midnight musings. Come, 'tis bedtime; or do you want to finish Sternberg's 'Herr von Mondschein'? It is à propos, and I see your book is opened to the very place."

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

JAPAN

The arrival in this country of an embassy from Japan, the first political delegation ever vouchsafed to a foreign nation by that reticent and jealous people, is now a topic of universal interest. It is well understood, that, by the efforts of the government of the United States, the traditional policy of Japan, which for more than two hundred years forbade all freedom of intercourse with the surrounding world, has been so effectively subverted that its reëstablishment is now impossible. Within eight years the barriers of Japanese seclusion have been removed, and the extreme prejudice against foreign communications almost obliterated. That this has been accomplished with a prudent and just regard for the rights and feelings of this singular race, the appointment of an embassy to the particular government which first successfully invaded its long cherished privacy abundantly proves.

The countries of Japan and China, and everything directly concerning them, have always claimed a peculiar consideration. Their self-imposed isolation, the mystery with which they have sought to surround themselves, the extraordinary habits and character of the people, the evidences of an earlier civilization in China—formerly supposed also to have extended to Japan—than is recorded of any other existing nation, account for the curious attention that has been bestowed upon them. Although now known to be entirely distinct, the Chinese and Japanese, by reason of the similarity of their occupations, customs, religion, written language, dress, and so forth, were for a long time looked upon as kindred races, and esteemed alike. Probably even at this time popular appreciation makes little distinction between the two countries. But since the necessities of commerce have recently compelled a somewhat vigorous interference with their seclusion, we begin to get a clearer understanding of the subject. We find, that, while, on close examination, the imagined attractions of China disappear, those of Japan become only more definite and substantial. The old interest in China is transferred to its worthier neighbor; for, in spite of all Celestial and Flowery preconceptions, it is impossible to view with any sincere interest a nation so palsied, so corrupt, so wretchedly degraded, and so enfeebled by misgovernment, as to be already more than half sunk in decay; while, on the other hand, the real vigor, thrift, and intelligence of Japan, its great and still advancing power, and the rich promise of its future are such as to reward the most attentive study. Its commanding position, its wealth, its commercial resources, and the quick intelligence of its people—not at all inferior to that of the people of the West, although naturally restricted in its development—give to Japan, now that it is about to emerge from its chrysalis condition, and unfold itself to the outer world, an importance far above that of any other Eastern country.

We propose to relate, with necessary brevity, what is most important of the little that is known of this interesting people. All records bearing upon the subject are imperfect, and the best of them are more profuse in speculation and surmise than in solid fact. The information possessed has been drawn bit by bit from the reluctant Japanese. The difficulties of investigation have been almost insurmountable,—no visitor, during two hundred years, having been allowed the slightest freedom of association with the people, or opportunity for travel. With very few exceptions, foreigners have been confined to the extremest limit of the islands, and forbidden even to leave the coast; and in no case has any disposition been shown to satisfy the curious demands of those who have attempted to break through the national reserve.

The origin of the Japanese is still involved in obscurity, and the date of the settlement of the islands is unknown. The boldest theory is, that a tribe proceeded thither directly from the land of Shinar, at the division of the races. In support of this, the purity of the Japanese language, which, in its primitive form, bears very slight affinity to any other tongue, and the evident dissimilarity of the people to those of any other Asiatic country, are adduced. The more general belief is, that the Japanese are an offshoot of the Mongol family, and that their emigration to these islands was at so remote a period that tradition has preserved no recollection of it. The favorite idea, that the first settlements were by Chinese, has long been set aside, except by the Chinese themselves, whose custom is to claim the origin of everything, and who still assume to consider Japan as a sort of province under their dominion. The fact is, that, to the Japanese, a Chinaman is the most worthless and contemptible object in Nature. The Chinese have, however, a fanciful legend in which they find an irresistible argument upon their side of the question. A certain Emperor, they say, seeking to prolong his life, demanded of the court physician an elixir of immortality. The physician modestly declared his ignorance of any such preparation, but, after receiving a significant hint, involving the loss of his head, recollected himself, and acknowledged that an herb of immortality did certainly exist, but that its delicacy was so rare it could be properly culled only by the most chaste hands. He thus succeeded in securing three hundred brave young men, and the same number of virtuous young women, whose twelve hundred chaste hands were at once consecrated to the plucking of the magical plant, which was declared to grow only in the islands of the sea. Once out of the Emperor's reach, all thought of the particular duty in hand was instantly abolished, and superseded by a successful effort to establish a new nation, which in time resolved itself into Japan.

This, although satisfactory to the Chinese, fails to convince less credulous investigators. While the Japanese and Chinese have, perhaps, more common characteristics than can be readily explained with our present knowledge of them, yet no fact is better demonstrated than that they are wholly distinct races. There is an opinion, for which there is reasonable ground, that one of the earliest rulers of Japan was a Chinese invader, who founded the dynasty of the Mikados, or Spiritual Emperors; but, if this were so, it is evident that the conquerors must have mingled with the native inhabitants, and soon lost their identity. This would in a measure account for the prevalence of certain Chinese habits and customs in Japan. The question of Japanese origin remains yet undecided. Its earlier history, previous to the year 660 B.C., is mostly fabulous. There are the usual legends of dignitaries in close relationship with every member of the solar system, who were accustomed to reign an indefinite number of years,—generally some thousands. Beginning with 660 B.C., we have something authentic. At that time a warrior whose name signified "the divine conqueror"—(the supposed Chinese invader)—entered Japan, and assumed the control of its destinies. He called himself "Mikado," and established his court at Miako, in Nipon, the largest of the group of islands, where he built temples and palaces, both spiritual and secular. Claiming to rule by divine right, he exercised the sole functions of the government, which, upon his death, descended to his heir, and thenceforward in direct order of succession. The Mikado, by reason of his superhuman dignities, was invested with a sanctity that gradually became irksome, shutting him out, as it did, from all fellowship with men, and compelling him to forego all familiar intercourse with even the highest nobles around his throne. Consequently arose the custom of abdication at a very early age by the Mikados, in favor of their children, for whom they acted as regents, circulating freely, upon their descent to mere mundane authority, with the rest of the court. By this course, however, the integrity of the government was weakened, and, dissensions arising, the stability of the throne was endangered by the agressions of some of the more powerful princes. In the twelfth century, it happened that a Mikado, particularly alive to the vanities of the world, not only gave up his station to his son, then three years old, but also renounced the labors of the regency, which were intrusted to the infant monarch's grandfather, whose first exercise of power was the immediate imprisonment of the abdicator. This was worse than had been bargained for, and a contest ensued, which terminated in favor of the ex-Mikado, owing to the valor of a young warrior prince named Yoritomo. The prisoner was released, and himself assumed the regency; but from that moment the strength of the Mikados was gone. Yoritomo, having demonstrated that his power was superior to that of the spiritual lord, demanded and obtained the rank and title of "Ziogoon",—General, or General-in-Chief. He at first divided with the Mikado the duties of the government, but by degrees succeeded in concentrating in himself the real supremacy. From him descended the temporal sovereignty of Japan, which has ever since overbalanced the spiritual authority, although the first nominal rank is still accorded to the Mikado.

In the year 1295, the existence of Japan was first announced to the Western world. Marco Polo, returning from his Asiatic travels, related all that he had learned of a vast island lying to the east of China, and even designated its position on his maps. He called it Zipangu, the name he had heard in China. This narration was not received with much credit, and was, until the sixteenth century, generally forgotten. It is a singular fact, that the record left by Marco Polo had a strong influence in deciding the convictions of Christopher Columbus, whose expectation in sailing from Spain was to discover the island spoken of by the Venetian voyager. But the ambition of Columbus was otherwise satisfied, and Japan was not visited by the representatives of any Western nation until the year 1543, or 1545, when a party of Portuguese, among whom was Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, were driven by a storm upon the coast, and forced to take shelter in the province of Bungo, upon the island of Kiu-siu. The account of this visit, given by Pinto, is full of interest, and, notwithstanding the questionable character that clings to his writings, is without doubt correct in almost every particular.

At the time when fortune threw these wanderers upon the Japanese coast, there was disinclination to admit strangers, or to communicate with them in the most liberal manner. They were warmly received, and treated with great consideration. The same friendship appeared to animate both parties. The Portuguese made presents of arms and ammunition to the Japanese, who, with ready skill, soon discovered the methods of manufacturing others for themselves. The Japanese consented that Portuguese commerce should be introduced, and the King of Bungo authorized an annual visit from a Portuguese ship. Thus commercial relations were established, and at the same time a religious mission, led by St. Francis Xavier, was despatched to Japan. The prospects of trade and the new principles of religion were welcomed with equal readiness. The visitors were restricted in no manner whatever. Converts to Christianity were almost without number. When Xavier departed from Japan, in 1551, he left behind him thousands of ardent and enthusiastic professors of his faith, and a religious sentiment that promised speedily to extend its influences throughout the land.

The government openly encouraged the diffusion of Christianity. The Ziogoon Nobanunga, who then reigned, having been importuned by native priests to expel the foreign missionaries, inquired how many different religions there were in Japan. "Thirty-five", was the reply. "Well," said he, "where thirty-five sects can be tolerated, we can easily bear with thirty-six. Leave the strangers in peace". Some of the most powerful princes espoused the Christian religion, and about the year 1584, a mission, consisting of two young Japanese noblemen, attended by two counsellors of less rank, was sent to Rome by the subordinate kings of Bungo and Arima, and the Prince of Omura, in testimony of the devotion of those rulers. The people themselves hastened to the new faith with such zeal as to win the warmest affections of all the missionaries who went among them. Xavier wrote of them, "I know not when to cease, in speaking of the Japanese; they are truly the delight of my heart."

So long as the mild teachings of Xavier and his Jesuit band prevailed, the cause of Christianity advanced and prospered. But their field of labor was soon invaded by multitudes of Dominicans and Franciscans from various Portuguese settlements in Asia. By the persistent exercise of their best faculties for mischief, these friars succeeded without much delay in working irreparable injury where their predecessors had effected so much good. They quarrelled, first among themselves, and then with the Jesuits, until their strifes became the mockery of the people. The native priests of the Siutoo and Buddhist religions took advantage of this state of things to make a bold stand against the spread of the new doctrines. They organized a force in the dominions of Omura, destroyed a Jesuit settlement and church, and marched about in open rebellion against the authority of the Prince. This movement, however, was checked without difficulty, and the insurgents were overthrown in battle. The church was rebuilt at the place now known as Nagasaki, which, an inferior village at that time, soon became the centre of Portuguese commerce, and grew to great importance among Japanese cities. But the friars continued their intrigues and tumults, in spite of the growing contempt shown by the Japanese. Many of the Roman clergy, moreover, assuming too great confidence in their easily gained power, began to defy the usages of the country, and to adopt airs of superiority quite at variance with the notions of the inhabitants upon that subject. At the commencement of this altered condition of affairs, the Ziogoon Nobanunga, who certainly was not unfavorably disposed to the Christians, was assassinated, and his office and rank, after a series of violent struggles, which lasted five years, fell to a man of humble origin, but great talents, named Fide-yosi. This person had in his youth served Nobanunga in the most menial capacity, but, owing partly to his remarkable abilities, and partly to the circumstances which threw the succession into so much confusion, he contrived to place himself, in the year 1587, at the head of the nation. He then married the Mikado's daughter, and assumed the name of Taiko-sama, with a view, perhaps, of dissociating himself as completely as possible, in his exaltation, from the obscure individual Fide-yosi, with whom, otherwise, he might not unnaturally be confounded.