Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn.
Title: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things.
Author: Lafcadio Hearn.
Genre: Literature, fiction, short stories, mythology, folklore, horror, ghost stories.
Country: Japan.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1904.
Summary: In this collection of 17 short stories (of which one is an autobiographical non-fiction) and 3 essays, some being a translation or re-telling of traditional Japanese ghost tales and oral folklore, touch upon the essence of the cultural beliefs, practices, superstitions, and fears. In The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi, a gifted blind biwa (lute-player) is summoned by a samurai to play for a prominent assembly several nights in a row, unaware that his hosts are of dark and ghostly origins. Oshidori is a story of a hunter that kills one of a pair of mandarin ducks, and is haunted by its heart-broken mate. The Story of O-Tei is about a young man that loses his promised love on her fifteenth birthday, but is given a seemingly impossible promise on her death-bed that they'll be together again sometimes in this lifetime. Ubazakura is a story of a faithful and noble wet-nurse, who makes the ultimate sacrifice to protect the child under her care. In Diplomacy, a man about to be executed promises his executioners to come back and haunt them, but the clever master asks for proof of the evil intent, with a cunning ulterior motive. Of a Mirror and a Bell describes a woman who puts a spell on a bell before committing suicide, and the symbolic meaning the bell has taken on in the cultural beliefs of the region. In Jikininki, a travelling Zen priest that stays alone in a village with a recently deceased man, discovers the origins of the tradition that forbids anyone to be in the village after midnight following a death. Mijuna is a story of a man who meets a horror while out alone at night. In Rokuro-Kubi, a warrior priest encounters and has to reckon with Rokuro-Kubi, goblins that leave their bodies behind to gather as heads at night and do evil. In A Dead Secret, a priest is summoned to the house when a passed on lady's spirit refuses to move on from her rooms. Yuki-Onna is a tale of a young man that encounters the deadly spirit of winter and lives to tell the tale, but has to keep her secret for fear of bad consequences. In the Story of Aoyagi, a travelling soldier falls in love and weds a mysterious woman he meets living alone with her parents in the woods, but she may not be what she appears to be. Jiu-Roku-Zakura is a story about a cherry blossom tree, and a beautiful sacrifice one man makes to keep it blooming. In The Dream of Akinosuké, a man falls asleep on a field and has a fantastic dream of fantastic adventures in a strange land, and his dream has a surprising origin. Riki-Baka is a story of reincarnation, wherein a young boy with mental deficiencies passes away, and is believed to have been reborn into a wealthier family. Hi-Mawari is an autobiographical story of the author and his friend in their childhood in Wales, have a run-in with a harp-playing vagabond. Hōrai describes the a painting on silk and the beliefs and legends associated with Hōrai by the Chinese during the Qin Dynasty. INSECT STUDIES: Butterflies is an essay that describes myths, beliefs, and legends connected to the butterfly from Chinese and Japanese folklore and histories. Mosquitoes> is the author's ode to the insect, concurrently decrying how annoying but impossible to get rid of they are. Ants is an essay that posits that ants are actually at the top level of ethical and social development, and humanity's possibility of one day reaching that perfection.
My rating: 8/10.
My review:
♥ More than seven hundred years ago, at Dan-no-ura, in the Straits of Shimonoséki, was fought the last battle of the long contest between the Heiké, or Taira clan, and the Genji, or Minamoto clan. There the Heiké perished utterly, with their women and children, and their infant emperor likewise-now remembered as Antoku Tennō. And that sea and shore have been haunted for seven hundred years. ...Elsewhere I told you about the strange crabs found there, called Heiké crabs, which have human faces on their backs, and are said to be the spirits of Heiké warriors. But there are many strange things to be seen and heard along that coast. On dark nights thousands of ghostly fires hover about the beach, or flit above the waves-pale lights which the fishermen call Oni-bi, or demon-fires; and, whenever the winds are up, a sound of great shouting comes from the sea, like a clamor of battle.
In former years the Heiké were much more restless than they now are. They would rise about ships passing in the night, and try to sink them; and at all times they would watch for swimmers, to pull them down. It was in order to appease those dead that the Buddhist temple, Amidaji, was built at Akamagaséki. A cemetery also was made close by, near the beach; and within it were set up monuments inscribed with the names of the drowned emperor and of his great vassals; and Buddhist services were regularly performed there on behalf of the spirits of them. After the temple had been built, and the tombs erected, the Heiké gave less trouble than before; but they continued to do queer things at intervals-proving that they had not found the perfect peace.
♥ On the very next night, Hōïchi was seen to leave the temple; and the servants immediately lighted their lanterns, and followed after him. But it was a rainy night, and very dark; and before the temple-folks could get to the roadway, Hōïchi had disappeared. Evidently he had walked very fast-a strange thing, considering his blindness; for the road was in a bad condition. The men hurried through the streets, making inquiries at every house which Hōïchi was accustomed to visit; but nobody could give them any news of him. At last, as they were returning to the temple by way of the shore, they were startled by the sound of a biwa, furiously played, in the cemetery of the Amidaji. Except for some ghostly fires-such as usually flitted there on dark nights-all was blackness in that direction. But the men at once hastened to the cemetery; and, there, bu the help of their lanterns, they discovered Hōïchi,-sitting alone in the rain before the memorial tomb of Antoku Tennō, making his biwa resound, and loudly chanting the chant of the battle of Dan-no-ura. And behind him, and about him, and everywhere above the tombs, the fires of the dead were burning, like candles. Never before had so great a host of Oni-bi appeared in the sight of mortal man....
♥ Before sundown the priest and his acolyte stripped Hōïchi: then, with their writing-brushes, they traced upon his breast and back, head and face and neck, limbs and hands and feet-even upon the soles of his feet, and upon all parts of his body-the text of the holy sûtra called Hannya-Shin-Kyō. When this had been done, the priest instructed Hōïchi, saying:
"To-night, as soon as I go away, you must seat yourself on the veranda, and wait. You will be called. But, whatever may happen, do not answer, and do not move. Say nothing, and sit still-as if meditating. If you stir, or make any noise, you will be torn asunder. Do not get frightened and do not think of calling for help-because no help could save you. If you do exactly as I tell you, the danger will pass, and you will have nothing more to fear."
..At last the gruff voice muttered close to him:
"Here is the biwa; but of the biwa-player I see-only two ears!...So that explains why he did not answer: he had no mouth to answer with-there is nothing left of him but his ears....Now to my lord those ears I will take-in proof that the august commands have been obeyed so far as was possible."
At that instant Hōïchi felt his ears gripped by fingers of iron, and torn off! Great as the pain was, he gave no cry. The heavy footfalls receded along the veranda-descended into the garden-passed out to the roadway-ceased. From either side of his head, the blind man felt a thick warm trickling; but he dared not lift his hands....
~~The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi.
♥ Suddenly the condemned man cried out to him:
"Honored Sir, the fault for which I have been doomed I did not wittingly commit. It was only my very great stupidity which caused the fault. Having been born stupid, by reason of my Karma, I could not always help making mistakes. But to kill a man for being stupid is wrong-and that wrong will be repaid. So surely as you kill me, so surely shall I be avenged-out of the resentment that you provoke will come the vengeance; and evil will be rendered for evil."...
If any person be killed while feeling strong resentment, the ghost of that person will be able to take vengeance upon the killer. This the samurai knew.
♥ "..Directly ion front of you there is a stepping-stone. After your head has been cut off, try to bite the stepping-stone. If your angry ghost can help you to do that, some of us may be frightened. ... Will you try to bite the stone?"
"I will bite it!" cried the man, in great anger-"I will bite it!-I will bite!"-
There was a flash, a swish, crunching thud: the bound body bowed over the rice sacks-two long blood-jets pumping from the shorn neck-and the head rolled upon the sand. Heavily toward the stepping-stone it rolled: then, suddenly bounding, it caught the upper edge of the stone between its teeth, clung desperately for a moment, and dropped inert.
..For months thereafter, the retainers and the domestics lived in ceaseless fear of ghostly visitation. None of them doubted that the promised vengeance would come; and their constant terror caused them to hear and to see much that did not exist. They become afraid of the sound of the wind in the bamboos-afraid even of the stirring of shadows in the garden. At last, after taking counsel together, they decided to petition their master to have a Ségaki-service performed on behalf of the vengeful spirit.
"Quite unnecessary," the samurai said, when his chief retainer had uttered the general wish. ... "I understand that the desire of a dying man for revenge may be a cause for fear. But in this case there is nothing to fear. ..Oh, the reason is simple enough," declared the samurai, divining the unspoken doubt. "Only the very last intention of that fellow could have been dangerous; and when I challenged him to give me the sign, I diverted his mind from the desire of revenge. He died with the set purpose of biting the stepping-stone; and that purpose he was able to accomplish, but nothing else. All the rest he must have forgotten. ... So you need not feel any further anxiety about the matter."
-And indeed the dead man gave no more trouble. Nothing at all happened.
~~Diplomacy.
♥ She remembered things that her mother had told her about it; and she remembered that it had belonged, not only to her mother but to her mother's mother and grandmother; and she remembered some happy smiles which it had reflected.
♥ -You must know that the last wish or promise of anybody who dies in anger, or performs suicide in anger, is generally supposed to possess a supernatural force.
♥ Now there are queer old Japanese beliefs in the magical efficacy of a certain mental operation implied, though not described, by the verb nazoraëru. The word itself cannot be adequately rendered by an English word; for it is used in relation to many kinds of mimetic magic, as well as in relation to the performance of many religious acts of faith. Common meanings of nazoraëru, according to dictionaries, are "to imitate", "to compare", "to liken"; but the esoteric meaning is to substitute, in imagination, one object or action for another, so as to bring about some magical or miraculous result.
For example: you cannot afford to build a Buddhist temple; you can easily lay a pebble before the image of the Buddha, with the same pious feeling that would prompt you to build a temple if you were rich enough to build one. The merit of so offering the pebble becomes equal, or almost equal, to the merit of erecting a temple. ... You cannot read the six thousand seven hundred and seventy-one volumes of the Buddhist texts; but you can make a revolving library, containing them, turn round, by pushing it like a windlass. And if you push with an earnest wish that you could read the six thousand seven hundred and seventy-one volumes, you will acquire the same merit as the reading of them would enable you to gain. ... So much will perhaps suffice to explain the religious meanings of nazoraëru.
The magical meanings could not all be explained without a great variety of examples; but, for present purposes, the following will serve. If you should make a little man of straw, for the same reason that Sister Helen made a little man of wax-and nail it, with nails not less than five inches long, to some tree in a temple-grove at the Hour of the Ox-and if the person, imaginatively represented by that little straw man should die thereafter in fearful agony-that would illustrate one signification of nazoraëru. ... Or, let us suppose that a robber has entered your house during the night and carried away your variables. If you can discover the footprints of that robber in your garden, and then promptly burn a very large moxa on each of them, the soles of the feet of the robber will become inflamed, and will allow him no rest until he returns, of his own accord, to put himself at your mercy. That is another kind of mimetic magic expressed by the term nazoraëru.
~~Of a Mirror and a Bell.
♥ All then left the house, except the priest, who went to the room were the dead body was lying. The usual offerings had been set before the corpse; and a small Buddhist lamp-tōmyō-was burning. The priest recited the service, and performed the funeral ceremonies-after which he entered into meditation. So meditating he remained through several silent hours; and there was no sound in the deserted village. But, when the hush of the night was at its deepest, there noiselessly entered a Shape, vague and vast; and in the same moment Musō found himself without power to move or speak. He saw that Shape lift the corpse, as with hands, and devour it, more quickly than a cat devours a rat-beginning at the head, and eating everything: the hair and the bones and even the shroud. And the monstrous Thing, having thus consumed the body, turned to the offerings, and ate them also. Then it went away, as mysteriously as it had come.
♥ "A long, long time ago, I was a priest in this desolate region. There was no other priest for many leagues around. So, in that time, the bodies of the mountain-folk who died used to be brought here-sometimes from great distances-in order that I might repeat over them the holy service. But I repeated the service and performed the rites only as a matter of business-I thought only of the food and the clothes that my sacred profession enabled me to gain. And because of this selfish impiety I was reborn, immediately after my death, into the state of a jikininki. Since then I have been obliged to feed upon the corpses of the people who die in this district: every one of them I must devour in the way that you saw last night. ... Now, reverend Sir, let me beseech you to perform a Ségaki-service* for me: help me by your prayers, I entreat you, so that I may be soon able to escape from this horrible state of existence."
No sooner had the hermit uttered this petition than he disappeared; and the hermitage also disappeared at the same instant. And Musō Kokushi found himself kneeling alone in the high grass, beside an ancient and moss-grown tomb, of the form call go-rin-ishi, which seemed to be the tomb of a priest.
*A Ségaki is a special Buddhist service performed on behalf of beings supposed to have entered into the condition of gaki (pretas), or hungry spirits.
~~Jikininki.
♥ On one side of this slope you see an ancient moat, deep and very wide, with high green banks rising up to some palace gardens;-and on the other side of the road extend the long and lofty walls of an imperial palace. Before the era of street-lamps and jinrikishas, this neighbourhood was very lonesome after dark; and belated pedestrians would go miles out of their way rather than mount the Kii-no-kuni-zaka, alone, after sunset.
All because of a Mujina that used to walk there.
♥ Then that O-jochū turned round, and dropped her sleeve, and stroked her face with her hand;-and the man saw that she had no eyes or nose or mouth,-and he screamed and ran away.
♥ .."I saw... I saw a woman-by the moat-and she showed me... Aa I cannot tell you what she showed me!" ...
"Hé! Was it anything like this that she showed you?" cried the soba-man, stroking his own face-which therewith became like unto an Egg. ... And, simultaneously, the light went out.
~~Mujina.
♥ But always, under the koromo of the priest, Kwairyō kept warm within him the heart of the samurai. As in other years he had laughed at peril, so now also he scorned danger; and in all weathers and all seasons he journeyed to preach the good Law in places where no other priest would have dared to go. For that age was an age of violence and disorder; and upon the highways there was no security for the solitary traveler, even if he happened to be a priest.
♥ He had always welcomed discomfort; and even a bare rock was for him a good bed, when nothing better could be found, and the root of a pine-tree an excellent pillow. His body was like iron; and he never troubled himself about dews or rain or frost or snow.
.."What kind of a man can you be, good Sir, that you dare to lie down alone in such a place as this? ... There are haunters about here-many of them. Are you not afraid of Hairy Things?"
"My friend," cheerfully answered Kwairyō, "I am only a wandering priest-a "Cloud-and-Water-Guest", as folks call it: Un-sui-no-ryokaku. And I am not in the least afraid of Hairy Things-if you mean goblin-foxes, or goblin-badgers, or any creatures of that kind. As for lonesome places, I like them: they are suitable for meditation. I am accustomed to sleeping in the open air: and I have learned never to be anxious about my life."
♥ "My friend, I have had occasion to observe that men, prone to folly in their youth, may in after years become very earnest in right living. In the holy sûtras it is written that those strongest in wrong-doing can become, by power of good resolve, the strongest in right-doing. I do not doubt that you have a good heart; and I hope that better fortune will come to you. Tonight I shall recite the sûtras for your sake, and pray that you may obtain the force to overcome the karma of any past errors."
~~Rokuro-Kubi.
♥ Minokichi soon felt charmed by this strange girl; and the more that he looked at her, the handsomer she appeared to be. He asked her whether she was yet betrothed; and she answered, laughingly, that she was free. Then, in her turn, she asked Minokichi whether he was married, or pledged to marry; and he told her that, although he had only a widowed mother to support, the question of an "honorable daughter-in-law" had not yet been considered, and he was very young. ... After these confidences, they walked on for a long time without speaking; but, as the proverb declares. Ki ga aréba, mé mo kuchi hodo ni mono wo iu: "When the wish is there, the eyes can say as much as the mouth."
~~Yuki-Onna.
♥ ..but the charm of the blushing girl still grew upon him. He talked with her, and found that her speech was sweet as her face. Brought up in the mountains she might have been; but, in that case, her parents must at some time have been persons of high degree; for she spoke and moved like a damsel of rank. Suddenly he addressed her with a poem-which was also a question-inspired by the delight in his heart:
"Tadzunétsuru,
Hana ka toté koso,
Hi wo kurasé,
Akénu ni otoru
Akané sasuran?"
[Being on my way to pay a visit, I found that which I took to be a flower: therefore here I spend the day... Why, in the time before dawn, the dawn-blush tint should glow-that, indeed, I know not."]
Without a moment's hesitation, she answered him in these verses:
"Izuru hi no
Honoméku iro wo
Waga sodé ni
Tsutsumaba asu mo
Kimiya tomaran."
["If with my sleeve I hide the faint fair color of the dawning sun-then, perhaps, in the morning my lord will remain."]
♥ Moreover Tomatoda knew that he had acted foolishly-that he had brought about his own misfortune, by entering into a clandestine relation which the code of the military class condemned. There was now but one hope for him-a desperate hope: that Aoyagi might be able and willing to escape and to flee with him. After long reflection, he resolved to try to send her a letter. The attempt would be dangerous, of course: any writing sent to her might find its way to the hands of the daimyō; and to send a love-letter to any inmate of the palace was an unpardonable offense. But he resolved to dare the risk; and, in the form of a Chinese poem, he composed a letter which he endeavored to have conveyed to her. The poem was written with only twenty-eight characters. But with those twenty-eight characters he was able to express all the depth of his passion, and to suggest all the pain of his loss:
Kōshi ō-son gojin wo ou;
Ryokuju namida wo tarété rakin wo hitataru;
Komon hitotabi irité fukaki koto umi no gotoshi;
Koré yori shorō koré rojin.
[Closely, closely the youthful prince now follows after the gem-bright maid;-
The tears of the fair one, falling, have moistened all her robes.
But the august lord, having once become enamored of her-the depth of his longing is like the depth of the sea.
Therefore it is only I that am left forlorn,-only I that am left to wander alone.]
♥ "..My dear husband, our union must have been brought about through some Karma-relation in a former state of existence; and that happy relation, I think, will bring us again together in more than one life to come. But for this present existence of ours, the relation is now ended-we are about to be separated. Repeat for me, I beseech you, the Nembutsu-prayer-because I am dying. ..I am dying!-I do not imagine it;-I know!...And it were needless now, my dear husband, to hide the truth from you any longer: I am not a human being. The soul of a tree is my soul; the heart of a tree is my heart; the sap of the willow is my life. And some one, at this cruel moment, is cutting down my tree; that is why I must die!...Even to weep were now beyond my strength!-quickly, quickly, repeat the Nembutsu for me...quickly!...Ah!"...
..Reaching Echizen, in the course of his pilgrimage, he sought the home of the parents of his beloved. But when he arrived at the lonely place among the hills, where their dwelling had been, he found that the cottage had disappeared. There was nothing to mark even the spot where it had stood, except the stumps of three willows-two old trees and one young tree-that had been cut down long before his arrival.
Beside the stumps of those willow-trees he erected a memorial tomb, inscribed with divers holy texts; and he there performed many Buddhist services on behalf of the spirits of Aoyagi and of her parents.
~~The Story of Aoyagi.
♥ At last there came to him a happy thought: he remembered a way by which the perishing tree might be saved. (It was the sixteenth day of the first month.) Alone he went into his garden, and bowed down before the withered tree, and spoke to it, saying: "Now deign, I beseech you, once more to bloom-because I am going to die in your stead." (For it is believed that one can really give away one's life to another person, or to a creature, or even to a tree, by the favor of the gods-and thus to transfer one's life is expressed by the term migawari ni tatsu, "to act as a substitute".) Then under that tree he spread a white cloth, and divers coverings, and sat down upon the coverings, and performed hari-kiri after the fashion of a samurai. And the ghost of him went into the tree, and made it blossom in that same hour.
And every year it still blooms on the sixteenth day of the first month, in the season of snow.
~~Jin-Roku-Zakura.
♥ And Akinosuké suddenly awoke-under the cedar-tree in his own garden!
For the moment he was stupefied and dazed, But he perceived his two friends still seated near him-drinking and chatting merrily. He stared at them in a bewildered way, and cried aloud: "How strange!"
"Akinosuké must have been dreaming," one of them exclaimed, with a laugh. "What did you see, Akinosuké, that was strange?"
Then Akinosuké told his dream-that dream of three-and-twenty years' sojourn in the realm of Tokoyo, in the island of Raishū-and they were astonished, because he had really slept for no more than a few minutes.
One gōshi said:
"Indeed, you saw strange things. We also saw something strange while you were napping. A little yellow butterfly was fluttering over your face for a moment or two; and we watched it. Then it alighted on the ground beside you, close to the tree; and almost as soon as it alighted there, a big, big ant came out of a hole, and seized it and pulled it down into the hole. Just before you woke up, we saw that very butterfly come out of the hole again, and flutter over your face as before. And then it suddenly disappeared: we do not know where it went."
"Perhaps it was Akinosuké's soul, the fact would not explain his dream."
"The ants might explain it," returned the first speaker. "Ants are queer beings-possibly goblins. ...Anyhow, there is a big ant's nest under tat cedar-tree." ...
..The ground about and beneath the cedar-tree proved to have been excavated, in a most surprising way, by a prodigious colony of ants. The ants had furthermore built inside their excavations; and their tiny constructions of straw, clay, and stems bore an odd resemblance to miniature towns.
~~The Dream of Akinosuké
♥ His name was Riki, signifying Strength; but the people called him Riki-the-Simple, or Riki-the-Fool-"Riki-Baka"-because he had been born into perpetual childhood. For the same reason they were kind to him-even when he set a house on fire by puttting a lighted match to a mosquito-curtain, and clapped his hands for joy to see the blaze.
♥ "When Riki died, his mother wrote his name, 'Riki-Baka', in the palm of his left hand-putting 'Riki' in Chinese character, and 'Baka' in kana. And she repeated many prayers for him-prayers that he might be reborn into some more happy condition.
"Now, about three months ago, in the honorable residence of Nanigashi-Sama, in Kōjimachi, a boy was born with characters on the palm of his left hand; and the characters were quite plain to read-'RIKI-BAKA'!
"So the people of that house knew that the birth must have happened in answer to somebody's prayers; and they caused inquiry to be made everywhere."
.."So she went with them to the temple Zendōji, and showed then Riki's grave; and they took some of the grave-clay away with them, wrapped up in a furoshiki. . . . They gave Riki's mother some money-ten yen." ...
"But what did they want with the clay?" I inquired.
"Well," the old man answered, "you know that it would not do to let the child grow up with that name on his hand. And there is no other means of removing characters that come in that way upon the body of a child: you must rub the skin with clay taken from the grave of the body of the former birth."...
~~Riki-Baka.
♥ On the wooded hill behind the house Robert and I are looking for fairy-rings. Robert is eight years old, comely, and very wise; I am a little more than seven-and I reverence Robert. It is a glowing, glorious August day; and the warm air is filled with sharp, sweet scents of resin.
We do not find any fairy-rings; but we find a great many pine-cones in the high grass. ... I tell Robert the old Welsh story of the man who went to sleep, unawares, inside of a fairy-ring, and disappeared for seven years, and would never eat or speak after his friends had delivered him from the enchantment.
"They eat nothing but the points of needles, you know," says Robert.
"Who?" I ask.
"Goblins," Robert answered.
This revelation leaves me dumb with astonishment and awe. ... But Robert suddenly cries out:
"There is a harper!-he is coming to the house!"
And down the hill we tun to hear the harper. ... But what a harper! Not like the hoary minstrels of the picture-books. A swarthy, sturdy, unkempt vagabond, with black bold eyes under scowling black brows. More like a bricklayer than a bard-and his garments and corduroy!
"Wonder if he is going to sing in Welsh?" murmurs Robert.
I feel too much disappointed to make any remarks. The harper poses his harp-a huge instrument-upon our doorstep, sets all the strings ringing with a sweep of his grimy fingers, clears his throat with a sort of angry growl, and begins:
Believe me, if all those endearing your charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day...
The accent, the attitude, the voice, all fill me with repulsion unutterable-shock me with a new sensation of formidable vulgarity. I want to cry out loud, "You have no right to sing that song!" For I have heard it sung by the lips of the dearest and fairest being in my little world; and that this rude, coarse man should dare to sing it vexes me like a mockery-angers me like an insolence. But only for a moment!...With the utterance of the syllables "to-day", that deep, grim voice suddenly breaks into a quivering tenderness indescribable; then, marvelously changing, it mellows into tones sonorous and rich as the bass of a great organ, while a sensation unlike anything ever felt before takes me by the throat. . . . What witchcraft has he learned? what secret has he found-this scowling man of the road?...Oh! is there anybody else in the whole world who can sing like that?...And the form of the singer flickers and dims;-and the house, and the lawn, and all visible shapes of things tremble and swim before me. Yes instinctively I fear that man-I almost hate him; and I feel myself flushing with anger and shame because of his power to move me thus....
..[Only yesterday, near the village of Takata, I noticed a flower which the Japanese call by nearly the same name as we do: Himawari, "The Sunward-turning"; and over the space of forty years there thrilled back to me the voice of that wandering harper:
As the Sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look that she turned when he rose.
Again I saw the sun-flecked shadows on that far Welsh hill; and Robert for a moment again stood beside me, with his girl's face and his curls of gold. We were looking for fairy-rings. . . . But all that existed of the real Robert must long ago have suffered a sea-change into something rich and strange. . . . Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend....]
~~Hi-Mawari.
♥ Blue vision of depth lost in height-sea and sky interblending through luminous haze. The day is of spring, and the hour morning.
Only sky and sea-one azure enormity. . . . In the fore, ripples are catching a silvery light, and threads of foam are swirling. But a little farther off no motion is visible, nor anything save color: dim warm blue of water widening away to melt into blue of air. Horizon there is none: only distance soaring into space-infinite concavity hollowing before you, and hugely arching above you-the color deepening with the height. But far in the midway-blue there hangs a faint, faint vision of palace towers, with high roofs horned and curved like moons-some shadowing of splendor strange and old, illumined by a sunshine soft as memory.
. . . What I have thus been trying to describe is a kakémono-that is to say, a Japanese painting on silk, suspended to the wall of my alcove; and the name of it is SHINKIRO, which signifies "Mirage". But the shapes of the mirage are unmistakable. Those are the glimmering portals of Hōrai the blest; and those are the moony roofs of the Palace of the Dragon-King; and the fashion of them (thought limned by a Japanese brush of to-day) is the fashion of things Chinese, twenty-one hundred years ago. . . .
♥ Nevertheless there are wonderful things in Hōrai; and the most wonderful of all has not been mentioned by any Chinese writer. I mean the atmosphere of Hōrai. It is an atmosphere peculiar to the place; and, because of it, the sunshine in Hōrai is whiter than any other sunshine-a milky light that never dazzles-astonishingly clear, but very soft. This atmosphere is not of our human period: it is enormously old, so old that I feel afraid when I try to think how old it is; and it is not a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. It is not made of air at all, but of ghost-the substance of quintillions of qintillions of generations of souls blended into one immense translucency-souls of people who thought in ways never resembling our ways. Whatever mortal man inhales that atmosphere, he takes into his blood the thrilling of these spirits; and they change the senses within him-reshaping his notions of Space and Time-so that he can see only as they used to see, and feel only as they used to feel, and think only as they used to think.
..Much of this seeming would be due to the inhalation of that ghostly atmosphere-but not all. For the spell wrought by the dead is only the charm of an Ideal, the glamour of an ancient hope; and something of that hope has found fulfillment in many hearts-in the simple beauty of unselfish lives-in the sweetness of Woman. . . .
-Evil winds from the West are blowing over Hōrai; and the magical atmosphere, alas! is shrinking away before them. It lingers now in patches only, and bands-like those long bright bands of cloud that trail across the landscapes of Japanese painters. Under these shreds of the elfish vapor you still can find Hōrai-but not elsewhere. . . . Remember that Hōrai is also called Shinkirō, which signifies Mirage-the Vision of the Intangible. And the Vision is fading-never again to appear save in pictures and poems and dreams. . . .
~~Hōrai.
♥ Would that I could hope for the luck of that Chinese scholar known to Japanese literature as "Rōsan"! For he was beloved by two spirit-maidens, celestial sisters, who every ten days came to visit him and to tell him stories about butterflies. Now there are marvelous Chinese stories about butterflies-ghostly stories; and I want to know them. But never shall I be able to read Chinese, nor even Japanese; and the little Japanese poetry that I manage, with exceeding difficulty, to translate, contains so many allusions to Chinese stories of butterflies that I am tormented with the torment of Tantalus. . . . And, of course, no spirit-maidens will ever deign to visit so skeptical a person as myself.
I want to know, for example, the whole story of that Chinese maiden whom the butterflies took to be a flower, and followed in multitude-so fragrant and so fair was she. Also I should like to know something more concerning the butterflies of the Emperor Gensō, or Ming Hwang, who made them choose his loves for him. . . . He used to hold wine-parties in his amazing garden; and ladies of exceeding beauty were in attendance, and caged butterflies, set free among them, would fly to the fairest; and then, upon that fairest the Imperial favor was bestowed. But after Gensō Kōtei had seen Yōkihi (whom the Chinese call Yang-Kwei-Fei), he would not suffer the butterflies to choose fore him-which was unlucky, as Yōkihi got him into serious trouble. . . . Again, I should like to know more about the experience of that Chinese scholar, celebrated in Japan under the name of Sōshū, who dreamed that he was a butterfly, and had all the sensations of a butterfly in that dream. For his spirit had really been wandering about in the shape of a butterfly; and, when he awoke, the memories and the feelings of butterfly existence remained so vivid in his mind that he could not act like a human being. . . . Finally I should like to know the text of a certain Chinese official recognition of sundry butterflies as the spirits of an Emperor and of his attendants. . . .
♥ It is possible also that some weird Japanese beliefs about butterflies are of Chinese derivation; but these beliefs might be older than China herself. The most interesting one, I think, is that the soul of a living person may wander about in the form of a butterfly. Some pretty fancies have been evolved out of this belief-such as the notion that if a butterfly enters your guest-room and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. That a butterfly may be the spirit of somebody is not a reason for being afraid of it. Nevertheless there are times when even butterflies can inspire fear by appearing in prodigious numbers.
..However, in the Japanese belief, a butterfly may be the soul of a dead person as well as of a living person. Indeed it is a custom of souls to take butterfly-shape in order to announce the fact of their final departure from the body; and for this reason any butterfly which enters a house ought to be kindly treated.
♥ The taste of Japanese poetry of the epigrammatic sort is a taste that must be slowly acquired; and it is only by degrees, after patient study, that the possibilities of such composition can be fairy estimated. Hasty criticism has declared that to put forward any serious claim on behalf of seventeen-syllable poems "would be absurd". But what, then, of Crashaw's famous line upon the miracle at the marriage feast in Cana?-
Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit.*
Only fourteen syllables-and immortality.
*"The modest nymph beheld her God, and blushed." (Or, in a more familiar rendering: "The modest water saw its God, and blushed.") In this line the double value of the word nympha-used by classical poets both in the meaning of fountain and in that of the divinity of a fountain, or spring-reminds one of that graceful playing with words which Japanese poets practice."
..Owarété mo,
Isoganu furi no
Chōcho kana!
[Ah, the butterfly! Even when chased, it never has the air of being in a hurry.]
..Chō tobu ya-
Kono yo no urami
Naki yō ni!
[How the butterfly sports-just as if there were no enmity (or "envy") in this world!]
Chō tobu ya,
Kono yo ni nozomi
Nai yō mi!
[Ah, the butterfly!-it sports about as if it had nothing more to desire in this present state of existence.]
Nami no hana mi
Tomari kanétaru,
Kochō kana!
[Having found it difficult indeed to perch on the (foam-)blossoms of the waves-alas for the butterfly!]
..Chō wo oü
Kokoro-machitashi
Itsumadémo!
[Would that I might always have the heart (desire) of chasing butterflies!*]
*Literally, "Butterfly-pursuing heart I wish to have always"; i.e., I would that I might always be able to find pleasure in simple things like a happy child.
♥ ..it assumes the form of a disclosure to a butterfly. But it is really a didactic allegory-suggesting the moral significance of a social rise and fall:
"Now, under the sun of spring, the winds are gentle, and flowers pinkly bloom, and grasses are soft, and the hearts of people are glad. Butterflies everywhere flutter joyously: so many persons now compose Chinese verses and Japanese verses about butterflies.
"And this season, O Butterfly, is indeed the season of your bright prosperity: so comely you now are that in the whole world there is nothing more comely. For that reason all other insects admire and envy you-there is not among them even one that does not envy you. Nor do insects alone regard you with envy: men also both envy and admire you. Sōshū of China, in a dream, assumed your shape; Sakoku in Japan, after dying, took your form, and therein made ghostly apparition. Nor is the envy that you inspire shared only by insects and mankind: even things without soul change their form into yours: witness the barley-grass, which turns into a butterfly.
"And therefore you are lifted up with pride, and think to yourself: 'In all this world there is nothing superior to me!' Ah! I can very well guess what is in your heart: you are too much satisfied with your own person. That is why you let yourself be blown thus lightly about by every wind; that is why you never remain still-always, always thinking: 'In the whole world there is no one so fortunate as I.'
"But now try to think a little about your own persona history. It is worth recalling; for there is a vulgar side to it. How a vulgar side? Well, for a considerable time after you were born, you had no such reason for rejoicing in your form. You were then a mere cabbage-insect, a hairy worm; and you were so poor that you could not afford even one robe to cover your nakedness; and your appearance was altogether disgusting. Everybody in those days hated the sight of you. Indeed you had good reason to be ashamed of yourself; and so ashamed you were that you collected old twigs and rubbish to hide in, and you made a hiding-nest, and hung it to a branch-and then everybody cried out at you, 'Raincoat Insect!' (Mino-mushi). And during that period of your life, your sins were grievous. Among the tender green leaves of beautiful cherry-trees you and your fellows assembled, and there made ugliness extraordinary; and the expectant eyes of the people, who came from far away to admire the beauty of those cherry-trees, were hurt by the sight of you. And of things even more hateful than this you were guilty. You knew that poor, poor men and women had been cultivating daikon in their fields,-toiling and toiling under the hot sun till their hearts were filled with bitterness by reason of having to care for that daikon; and you persuaded your companions to go with you, and to gather upon the leaves of that daikon, and on the leaves of other vegetables planted by those poor people. Out of your greediness you ravaged those leaves, and gnawed them into all shapes of ugliness-caring nothing for the trouble of those poor folk. . . . Yes, such a creature you were, and such were your doings.
"And now that you have a comely form, you despise your old comrades, the insects; and, whenever you happen to meet any of them, you pretend not to know them [literally, 'You make an I-don't-know face']. Now you want to have none but wealthy and exalted people for friends. . . . Ah! you have forgotten the old times, have you?
"It is true that many people gave forgotten your past, and are charmed by the sight of your present graceful shape and white wings, and write Chinese verses and Japanese verses about you. The high-born damsel, who could not bear even to look at you in your former shape, now gazes at your with delight, and wants you to perch upon her hairpin, and holds out her dainty fan in the hope that you will light upon it. But this reminds me that there is an ancient Chinese story about you, which is not pretty.
"In the time of the Emperor Gensō, the Imperial Palace contained hundreds and thousands of beautiful ladies-so many, indeed, that it would have been difficult for any man to decide which among them was the loveliest. So all of those beautiful persons were assembled together in one place; and you were set free to fly among them; and it was decreed that the damsel upon who hairpin you perched should be augustly summoned to the Imperial Chamber. In that time there could not be more than one Empress-which was a good law; but, because of you, the Emperor Gensō did great mischief in the land. For your mind is light and frivolous; and although among so many beautiful women there must have been some persons of pure heart, you would look for nothing but beauty, and so betook yourself to the person most beautiful in outwards appearance. Therefore many of the female attendants ceased altogether to think about the right way of women, and began to study how to make themselves appear splendid in the eyes of men. And the end of it was that the Emperor Gensō died a pitiful and painful death-all because of your light and trifling mind. Indeed, your real character can easily be seen from your conduct in other matters. There are trees, for example-such as the evergreen-oak and the pine-whose leaves do not fade and fall, but remain always green; these are trees of firm heart, trees of solid character. But you day that they are still and formal; and you hate the sight of them, and never pay them a visit. Only to the cherry-tree, and the kaido, and the peony, and the yellow rose you go: those you like because they have showy flowers, and you try only to please them. Such conduct, let me assure you, is very unbecoming. Those trees certainly have handsome flowers; but hunger-satisfying fruits they have not; and they are grateful to those only who are fond of luxury and show. And that is just the reason why they are pleased by your fluttering wings and delicate shape; that is why they are kind to you.
"Now, in this spring season, while you sportively dance through the gardens of the wealthy, or hover among the beautiful alleys of cherry-trees in blossom, you say to yourself: 'Nobody in the world has such pleasure as I, or such excellent friends. And, in spite of all that people may say, I most love the peony-and the golden yellow rose is my own darling, and I will obey her every least behest; for that is my pride and my delight.' . . . So you say. But the opulent and elegant season of flowers is very short: soon they will fade and fall. Then, in the time of summer heat, there will be green leaves only; and presently the winds of autumn will blow, when even the leaves themselves will shower down like rain, parari-parari. And your fate will then be as the fate of the unlucky in the proverb, Tanomi ki no shita ni amé furu [Even through the tree on which I relied for shelter the rain leaks down]. For you will seek out your old friend, the root-cutting insect, the grub, and beg him to let you return into your old-time hole; but now having wings, you will not be able to enter the hole because of them, and you will not be able to shelter your body anywhere between heaven and earth, and all the moor-grass will then have withered, and you will not have even one drop of dew with which to moisten your tongue-and there will be nothing left for you to do but to lie down and die. All because of your light and frivolous heart-but, ah! how lamentable an end!" . . .
♥ I had almost forgotten to mention an ancient Japanese dance, called the Butterfly Dance (Kochō-Mai), which used to be performed in the Imperial Palace, by dancers costumed as butterflies. Whether it is danced occasionally nowadays I do not know. It is said to be very difficult to learn. Six dancers are required for the proper performance of it; and they must move in particular figures-obeying traditional rules for every step, pose or gesture-and circling about each other very slowly to the sound of hand-drums and great drums, small flutes and great flutes, and pandean pipes of a form unknown to Western Pan.
~~Butterflies.
♥ In front of a tomb of the humblest class, having no mizutamé, water is placed in cups or other vessels-for the dead must have water. Flowers also must be offered them; and before every tomb you will find a pair of bamboo cups, or other flower-vessels; and these, of course, contain water. There is a well in the cemetery to supply water for the graves. Whenever the tombs are visited by relatives and friends of the dead, fresh water is poured into the tanks and cups. But as an old cemetery of this kind contains thousands of mizutamé, and tens of thousands of flower-vessels, the water in all of these cannot be renewed every day. It becomes stagnant and populous. The deeper tanks seldom get dry-the rainfall at Tōkyō being heavy enough to keep them partly filled during nine months out of twelve.
Well, it is in these tanks and flower-vessels that mine enemies are born: they rise by millions from the water of the dead-and, according to Buddhist doctrine, some of them may be reincarnations of those very dead, condemned by the error of former lives to the condition of Jiki-ketsu-gaki, or blood-drinking pretas. . . . Anyhow the malevolence of the Culex fasciatus would justify the suspicion that some wicked human soul had been compressed into that wailing speck of a body. . . .
..Impossible! To free the city from mosquitoes it would be necessary to demolish the ancient grave-yards-and that would signify the ruin of the Buddhist temples attached to them-and that would mean the disparition of so many charming gardens with their lotus-ponds and Sanskrit-lettered monuments and humpy bridges and holy groves and weirdly smiling Buddhas! So the extermination of the Culex fasciatus would involve the destruction of the poetry of the ancestral cult-surely too great a price to pay!. . .
♥ I should like, when my time comes, to be laid away in some Buddhist graveyard of the ancient kind-so that my ghostly company should be ancient, caring nothing for the fashions and the changes and the disintegrations of Meiji. That old cemetery behind my garden would be a suitable place. Everything there is beautiful with a beauty of exceeding and startling queerness; each tree and stone has been shaped by some old old ideal which no longer exists in any living brain; even the shadows are not of this time and sun, but of a world forgotten, that never knew steam or electricity or magnetism or-kerosene oil! Also in the boom of the big bell there is a quaintness of tone which wakens feelings, so strangely far-away from all the nineteen-century part of me, that the faint blind stirrings of them make me afraid,-deliciously afraid. Never do I hear that billowing peal but I become aware of a striving and a fluttering in the abyssal part of my ghost-a sensation as of memories struggling to reach the light beyond the obscurations of a million million deaths and births. I hope to remain within hearing of that bell. . . . And, considering the possibility of being doomed to the state of a Jiki-ketsu-gaki, I want to have my chance of being reborn in some bamboo flower-cup, or mizutamé, whence I might issue softly, singing my thin and pungent song, to bite some people that I know.
~~Mosquitoes.
♥ This morning sky, after the night's tempest, is a pure and dazzling blue. The air-the delicious air!-is full of sweet resinous odors, shed from the countless pine-boughs broken and strewn by the gale. In the neighboring bamboo-grove I hear the flute-call of the bird that praises the Sūtra of the Lotos; and the land is very still by reason of the south wind. Now the summer, long delayed, is truly with us: butterflies of queer Japanese colors are flickering about; semi are wheezing; wasps are humming; gnats are dancing in the sun; and the ants are busy repairing their damaged habitations. . . . I bethink me of a Japanese poem:
Yuku é naki:
Ari no sumai ya!
Go-getsu amé.
[Now the poor creature has nowhere to go! . . . Alas for the dwellings of the ants in this rain of the fifth month!]
But those big black ants in my garden do not seem to need any sympathy. They have weathered the storm in some unimaginable way, while great trees were being uprooted, and houses blown to fragments, and roads washed out of existence. Yet, before the typhoon, they took no other visible precaution than to block up the gates of their subterranean town. And the spectacle of their triumphant toil to-day impels me to attempt an essay on Ants.
♥ Now I, like that Chinese devotee, must confess myself a very ignorant person, and naturally unable to hear the conversation of ants. But the Fairy of Science sometimes touches my ears and eyes with her wand; and then, for a little time, I am able to hear things inaudible, and to perceive things imperceptible.
♥ For the same reason that it is considered wicked, in sundry circles, to speak of a non-Christian people having produced a civilization ethically superior to our own, certain persons will not be pleased by what I am going to say about ants. But there are men, incomparably wiser than I can ever hope to be, who think about insects and civilizations independently of the blessings of Christianity..
♥ I hope my reader is aware that ants practice horticulture and agriculture; that they are skillful in the cultivation of mushrooms; that they have domesticated (according to present knowledge) five hundred and eighty-four different kinds of animals; that they make tunnels through solid rock; that they know how to provide against atmospheric changes which might endanger the health of their children; and that, for insects, their longevity is exceptional-members of the more highly evolved species living for a considerable number of years.
♥ About two thousand species of ants are already known; and these exhibit, in their social organizations, widely varying degrees of evolution. Certain social phenomena of the greatest biological importance, and of no less importance in their strange relation to the subject of ethics, can be studied to advantage only in the existence of the most highly evolved societies of ants.
♥ The intelligence of the little creature in meeting and overcoming difficulties of a totally new kind, and in adapting itself to conditions entirely foreign to its experience, proves a considerable power of independent thinking. But this at least is certain: that the ant has no individuality capable of being exercised in a purely selfish direction-I am using the word "selfish" in its ordinary acceptation. A greedy ant, a sensual ant, an ant capable of any one of the seven deadly sins, or even of a small venial sin, is unimaginable. Equally unimaginable, of course, a romantic ant, an ideological ant, a poetical ant, or an ant inclined to metaphysical speculations. No human mind could attain to the absolute matter-of-fact quality of the ant-mind; no human being, as now constituted, could cultivate a mental habit so impeccably practical as that of the ant. But this superlatively practical mind is incapable of moral error. It would be difficult, perhaps, to prove that the ant has no religious ideas. But it is certain that such ideas could not be of any use to it. The being incapable of moral weakness is beyond the need of "spiritual guidance".
♥ This world of incessant toil is a more than Vestal world. It is true that males can sometimes be perceived in it; but they appear only at particular seasons, and they have nothing whatever to do with the workers or with the work. None of them would presume to address a worker-except, perhaps, under extraordinary circumstances of common peril. And no worker would think of talking to a male;-for males, in this queer world, are inferior beings, equally incapable of fighting or working, and tolerated only as necessary evils. One special class of females-the Mothers-Elect of the race-do condescend to consort with males, during a very brief period, at particular seasons. But the Mothers-Elect do not work; and they must accept husbands. A worker could not even dream of keeping company with a male-not merely because such association would signify the most frivolous waste of time, nor yet because the worker necessarily regards all males with unspeakable contempt; but because the worker id incapable of wedlock. Some workers, indeed, are capable of parthenogenesis, and give birth to children who never had fathers. As a general rule, however, the worker is truly feminine by her moral instincts only: she has all the tenderness, the patience, and the foresight that we call "maternal"; but her sex has disappeared, like the sex of the Dragon-Maiden in the Buddhist legend.
For defense against creatures of prey, or enemies of the state, the workers are provided with weapons; and they are furthermore protected by a large military force. The warriors are so much bigger than the workers (in some communities, at least) that it is difficult, at first sight, to believe them of the same race. Soldiers one hundred times larger than the workers whom they guard are not uncommon. But all these soldiers are Amazons-or, more correctly speaking, semi-females. They can work sturdily; but being built for fighting and for heavy pulling chiefly, their usefulness is restricted to those directions in which force, rather than skill, is required.
..Of the true females-the Mothers-Elect-there are very few indeed; and these are treated like queens. So constantly and so reverentially are they waited upon that they can seldom have any wishes to express. They are relieved from every care of existence-except the duty of bearing offspring. Night and day they are cared for in every possible manner. They alone are superabundantly and richly fed:-for the sake of the offspring they must eat and drink and repose right royally; and their physiological specialization allows of such indulgence ad libitum. They seldom go out, and never unless attended by a powerful escort; as they cannot be permitted to incur unnecessary fatigue or danger. Probably they have no great desire to go out. Around them revolves the whole activity of the race: all its intelligence and toil and thrift are directed solely toward the well-being of these Mothers and of their children.
But last and least of the race rank the husbands of these Mothers-the necessary Evils-the males. They appear only at a particular season, as I have already observed; and their lives are very short. Some cannot even boast of noble descent, thought destined to royal wedlock; for they are not royal offspring, but virgin-born-parthenogenetic children-and, for that reason especially, inferior beings, the chance result of some mysterious atavism. But of any sort of males the commonwealth tolerates but few-barely enough to serve as husbands for the Mothers-Elect, and these few perish almost as soon as their duty has been done. The meaning of Nature's law, in this extraordinary world, is identical with Ruskin's teaching that life without effort is crime; and since the males are useless as workers of fighters, their existence is of only momentary importance. They are not, indeed, sacrificed-like the Aztec victim chosen for the festival of Tezcatlipoca, and allowed a honeymoon of twenty days before his heart was torn out. But they are scarcely less unfortunate in their high fortune. Imagine youths brought up in the knowledge that they are destined to become royal bridegrooms for a single night-that after their bridal they will have no moral right to live-that marriage, for each and all of them, will signify certain death-and that they cannot even hope to be lamented bu their young widows, who will survive them for a time of many generations. . . .!
♥ By far the most startling discovery in relation to this astonishing civilization of is that of the suppression of sex. In certain advanced forms of ant-life sex totally disappears in the majority of individuals; in nearly all the higher ant-societies sex-life appears to exist only to the extent absolutely needed for the continuance of the species. But the biological fact in itself is much less startling than the ethical suggestion which it offers-for this practical suppression, or regulation, of sex-faculty appears to be voluntary! Voluntary, at least, so far as the species is concerned. It is now believed that these wonderful creatures have learned how to develop, or to arrest the development of, sex in their young by some particular mode of nutrition. They have succeeded in placing under perfect control what is commonly supposed to be the most powerful and unmanageable of instincts. And this rigid restraint of sex-life to within the limits necessary to provide against extinction is but one (though the most amazing) of many vital economies effected by the race. Every capacity for egoistic pleasure-in the common meaning of he word "egoistic"-has been equally repressed through physiological modification. No indulgence of any natural appetite is possible except to that degree in which such indulgence can directly or indirectly benefit the species; even the indispensable requirements of food and sleep being satisfied only to the exact extent necessary for the maintenance of healthy activity. The individual can exist, act, think, only for the communal good; and the commune triumphantly refuses, in so far as cosmic law permits, to let itself be ruled either by Love or Hunger.
♥ Most of us have been brought up in the belief that without some kind of religious creed-some hope of future reward or fear of future punishment-no civilization could exist. We have been taught to think that in the absence of laws based upon moral ideas, and in the absence of an effective police to enforce such laws, nearly everybody would seek only his or her personal advantage, to the disadvantage of everybody else. The strong would then destroy the weak; pity and sympathy would disappear; and the whole social fabric would fall to pieces. . . . These teachings confess the existing imperfection of human nature, and they contain obvious truth. But those who first proclaimed that truth, thousands and thousands of years ago, never imagined a form of social existence in which selfishness would be naturally impossible. It remained for irreligious Nature to furnish us with proof positive that there can exist a society in which the pleasure of active beneficence makes needless the idea of duty,-a society in which instinctive morality can dispense with ethical codes of every sort-a society of which every member is born so absolutely unselfish, and so energetically good, that moral training could signify, even for its youngest, neither more nor less than waste of previous time.
♥ But while the facts of insect-biology suggest so much in regard to the future course of human evolution, do they not also suggest something of largest significance concerning the relation of ethics to cosmic law? Apparently, the highest evolution will not be permitted to creatures capable of what human moral experience has in all eras condemned. Apparently, the highest possible strength is the strength of unselfishness; and power supreme never will be accorded to cruelty or to lust. There may be no gods; but the forces that shape and dissolve all forms of being would seem to be much more exacting than gods. To prove a "dramatic tendency" in the ways of the stars is not possible; but the cosmic process seems nevertheless to affirm the worth of every human system of ethics fundamentally opposed to human egoism.
~~Ants.