Marie Carmichael Stopes - A Journal from Japan

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A JOURNAL FROM JAPAN

A DAILY RECORD OF LIFE
AS SEEN BY A SCIENTIST

BY
MARIE C. STOPES
D.Sc., Ph.D., F.L.S.

LONDON
BLACKIE & SON, Limited , 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C.
GLASGOW AND BOMBAY
1910

Land that mused while the world was striving!
Land that dreamed while the nations fought!
Truth with thy dreamers had forgathered,
Peace, in thine isles enclosed, had taught
Her secret laws of Beauty to thy sons.
Then men spent hours beneath the cherry trees,
Or watched the pointed Iris pierce the ground.
They cultivated Wisdom on their knees
And regulated life in ways profound.
Then thy fair daughters ministered to men,
Subduing and subdued their graceful form.
Dreamland of Beauty, girt by glowing seas!
Thou didst appear unfitted for the storm
That broke upon thee from the lowering West.
Yet thou hast risen and conquered.
Thou dost stand, armed as a modern People
In the front rankand yet I say, alas!
Who could have wished, in waking thou shouldst spurn
The wondrous rightness of thy sheltered past?
To be as others are thou seemst to yearn,
And for mere useful ugliness dost cast
For ever from thee beauties unsurpassed.
True, thou hast beaten them on their own ground,
The Goths and Vandals whom as foes were found,
Yet I would rather see thee still apart
Than soiling thy traditions in the mart.
Wouldst thou not weep if thy sweet cherry tree
Dropped its light blooms to bear the hard rice grains?
O cherry flower of lands! I weep to see
Thy falling blooms. The whole Worlds loss, thy gains.

This daily journal was written primarily because I well knew that time would force the swiftly passing incidents and impressions to blur each other in my memory. Then want of leisure tempted me to send the journal home to friends in place of letters, and the two or three for whom I originally intended it widened the circle by handing it on to many others, until it has, in a way, become public property. Several of those who have read it have asked me to publish it in book form, and although I vowed that I would not add to the already excessive number of books written on Japan, I have decided to publish this just because it was not written with a view to publication. It is this which gives it any claim to attention, and guarantees its veracity. To preserve its character I have stayed my hand where it has often been tempted to change or revise statements which may sometimes seem too hard in the softening light of distance.

Days about which there is no entry were filled with work on my fossils at the University. Many evenings were spent with friends at dinners or dances. Reference to these things has been deleted, for neither the solid work nor the social gaiety is likely to interest any one now.

Personalities (alas, not always irrelevant!) have been eliminated of necessity, but I have not attempted to give the text any literary form which it did not originally possess. The words are exactly those jotted down at the time and place that they profess to be, and therefore mirror, as no rewritten phrases could, the direct impression that that time and place made on me. Japan is changing swiftly, and I saw things from a point of view that differs somewhat from any recorded, so that perhaps these daily impressions may have an interest for those who cannot visit Japan, and in the future for those who prefer facts to fair sounding generalisations and beautifully elaborated theories.

MARIE C. STOPES.
Hampstead , July 1909.

A purely scientific interest in coal mines and the fossils they often contain led me to desire to go to Japan, for purely scientific purposes. My naturally roving instincts warmly supported the scheme, and my love of the East gave the prospect the warmth and colour which only personal delight can lend to any place. The generous interest and help of the Royal Society in my scientific projects made this long and expensive journey possible. The influence of this learned body with our Government and with that of Japan secured me every help and courtesy during my stay in the country, without which no result would have been obtainable. The scientific results, which most fortunately seem to be justifying the expedition, are being published in suitable places; there is no technical science in this journal. It is a record of some of the human experiences through which a scientist goes in search of facts lying beyond everyday human experience.

After the first month in the country, during which it was impossible to travel, as I did, in the wilds without an interpreter, I made it my business to learn enough of the spoken language to go about alone. I also tried to come as close as possible to the Japanese people, although when I look back on my attempts I see how often my impatience with what seemed needless delay, with an unknown code of honour, and with trifling inconveniences in non-essentials, must have acted as a hindrance to free communication with a people so profoundly patient. Yet in many ways I had wonderful opportunities of touching the living reality in the Japanese; opportunities so exceptional that it is to my lasting shame that my stock of patience and sympathy was not always equal to them. It is hard when one is young, and chances to be hungry and tired, to realise that it is not of ones momentary comforts one has to think, but of the vastly greater and deeper purpose that accidentally brought weariness in its train. It is true that from an ordinary standpoint there are many things in Japan which are exasperating to a Westerner, but that was no excuse for me. Let me quote in illustration a small incident that I have ever since regretted. On page you will find the account of my involuntary visit to the courteous principal of a College when I was really bound for a coal mine. This gentleman asked me to give a lecture to his young men, and I refused. It is true that I was really anxious to go directly to that mine, that it would upset my plans if I were to be at all delayed, and that at the moment the disturbance of those plans seemed a serious matter. But, nevertheless, I was the first European woman that many of the people there had seen, and the first scientific woman that any of them had seen or heard of. Their curiosity and interest about me was as natural as my curiosity and interest about their coal mine, but I gratified my own curiosity and not theirs. They may well be led to conclude from the only example in their experience that European scientists are in a hurry, and are selfish and lacking in personal sympathy. It would be practically impossible for them to realise how many other claims had been made on that hasty young scientist who visited them, they would only feel that in place of the human interest and understanding which might have been shown, there was a blank wall of refusal. I tried to explain that Science is a hard taskmaster, but what good are explanations?