BUSHIDO: A 1900 REVIEW

BUSHIDO: THE SOUL OF JAPAN

 

Recently the name Inazo Nitobé came up in a discussion as well as his famous book “Bushido: The Soul of Japan. His book, published in 1900, is a source not only of information about Japanese history and culture and also a source of controversy, despite it’s almost cult following by many students of Japanese history and martial arts. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a review of his book, from March 1, 1900 which appeared in “City and State” a Philadelphia literary weekly.

Bushido: The Soul of Japan, Inazo Nitobé.

Leeds & Bidle, Philadelphia. Leatherette, 75 cents.

Pierre Loti[i] and John Luther Long[ii] would have us believe that Japanese life and ideals are of the most trivial and unstable character, full of an evanescent charm, but as unreliable as a butterfly or a chrysanthemum. The reports of travelers are at variance, and the consequent confusion of facts makes Dr. Nitobé’s book a useful one to the person who wishes really to understand Japanese ideals. Bushido is the Japanese word for chivalry, and means precepts of knighthood. Dr. Nitobé tells us what these precepts are, and how they affect the moral life of his countrymen. He has answered all the questions which puzzle the foreigner, and has compared each custom explained to some Western custom or way of thinking, and in doing this has made his own position perfectly clear. It is astonishing to see the amount of misconception which a reading of “Bushido” will sweep away.

Dr. Nitobé says in his preface: “Between Lafcadio Hearn and Mrs. Hugh Frazer[iii] on one side, and Sir Earnest Satow[iv] and Professor Chamberlain[v] on the other, it is indeed discouraging to write anything Japanese in English. The only advantage I have over them is that I can assume the attitude of a personal defendant…I have often thought ‘Had I their gift of language, I would present the cause of Japan in more eloquent terms.’ But one who speaks in a borrowed tongue should be thankful to if he can make himself intelligible.”

This preface naturally prepares us for perverted idioms and obscurities, but after a careful reading of “Bushido,” one cannot help but marvel at the ease with which Dr. Nitobé uses English and at his large acquaintance with our literature. It is one thing, as we all know, to be able to read many books, but it is quite a different thing to be able to select the quotation which will aptly express or reinforce our thought. Few writers of the present day are, like Dr. Nitobé, authors of works in two languages besides their own.

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[i] Pierre Loti was a pseudonym of Julien Viauld (January 24, 1850 – June 10, 1923), a French naval officer and novelist. In 1885, while serving in Southeast Asia, he visited Japan and subsequently wrote a novel on Japanese manners, Madame Chrysanthéme, which was a forerunner of Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon. He was regarded as one of the finest descriptive writers of his day.

[ii] John Luther Long (January 1, 1861 – October 31, 1927) was an American lawyer and writer best known for his short story “Madame Butterfly”, which was based on the recollections of his sister, Jennie Correll, who had been to Japan with her husband—a Methodist missionary

[iii] Mary Crawford Fraser (April 8, 1851 – 1922), usually known as Mrs. Hugh Fraser, was a writer noted for her various memoirs and historical novels. As the wife of British diplomat Hugh Fraser, whom she married in 1874, she followed her husband to his postings in Peking, Vienna, Rome, Santiago, and Tokyo. In 1889, her husband Hugh Fraser was posted to Japan as “Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary” (head of the British Legation) to Japan — a diplomatic ranking just below that of full Ambassador, before the establishment of full and equal relations between Britain and Japan which Fraser was, in fact, negotiating. A month before the signing of the final treaty, her husband died suddenly in 1894, leaving her a widow after twenty years of marriage. Still under her married name of Mrs. Hugh Fraser, she was the author of Palladia (1896), The Looms of Time (1898), The Stolen Emperor (1904), The Satanist (1912, with J. I. Stahlmann, the pseudonym of one of her sons, John Crawford Fraser).

[iv] Sir Ernest Mason Satow, GCMG, PC (30 June 1843 – 26 August 1929), was a British scholar, diplomat and Japanologist.

[v] Basil Hall Chamberlain (October 18, 1850 – February 15, 1935) was a professor at Tokyō Imperial University and the foremost British Japanologist present in Japan during the late 19^th century. He was also, for many years, one of Lafcadio Hearn’s closest Western friends and confidants. He wrote some of the first translations of haiku into English, as well as the first English translation of the Kojiki, the oldest existing chronicle of ancient Japan, dating from the early 8^th century. Chamberlain is best remembered for his popular encyclopedic work, Things Japanese (1890).

He arrived in Japan on May 29, 1873 and taught at the Imperial Naval School in Tokyō from 1874 through 1882. His most prestigious position however, was as Professor of Japanese at Tokyō Imperial University, starting in 1886. There he gained his reputation as a student and scholar of Japanese language and literature as well as an authority on the Ainu and Ryukyuan languages of Hokkaidō and Okinawa respectively. Chamberlain’s other works include: The Classical Poetry of the Japanese (1880), A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese (1888), A Practical guide to the Study of Japanese Writing (1905) and (with W. B. Mason) A Handbook for Travelers in Japan.