We feel the
misdeeds of our country with so little fervour, for we are not witnesses
to the suffering they cause; but when we see them wake an active horror
in our fellow-man, when we see a neighbour prefer to lie in prison
rather than be so much as passively implicated in their perpetration,
even the dullest of us will begin to realise them with a quicker pulse. Not far from twenty years later, when Captain John Brown was taken at
Harper's Ferry, Thoreau was the first to come forward in his defence. The committees wrote to him unanimously that his action was premature. "I did not send to you for advice," said he, "but to announce that I was
to speak." I have used the word "defence"; in truth he did not seek to
defend him, even declared it would be better for the good cause that he
should die; but he praised his action as I think Brown would have liked
to hear it praised. Thus this singularly eccentric and independent mind, wedded to a
character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own
path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part
gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a
subaltern attitude, into the field of political history. NOTE.--For many facts in the above essay, among which I may mention
   the incident of the squirrel, I am indebted to "Thoreau: His Life and
   Aims," by H. A. Page, _i.e._, as is well known, Dr Japp. V

YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO


The name at the head of this page is probably unknown to the English
reader, and yet I think it should become a household word like that of
Garibaldi or John Brown. Some day soon, we may expect to hear more fully
the details of Yoshida's history, and the degree of his influence in the
transformation of Japan; even now there must be Englishmen acquainted
with the subject, and perhaps the appearance of this sketch may elicit
something more complete and exact. I wish to say that I am not, rightly
speaking, the author of the present paper: I tell the story on the
authority of an intelligent Japanese gentleman, Mr. Taiso Masaki, who
told it me with an emotion that does honour to his heart; and though I
have taken some pains, and sent my notes to him to be corrected, this
can be no more than an imperfect outline. Yoshida-Torajiro was son to the hereditary military instructor of the
house of Choshu. The name you are to pronounce with an equality of
accent on the different syllables, almost as in French, the vowels as in
Italian, but the consonants in the English manner--except the _j_, which
has the French sound, or, as it has been cleverly proposed to write it,
the sound of _zh_. Yoshida was very learned in Chinese letters, or, as
we might say, in the classics, and in his father's subject;
fortification was among his favourite studies, and he was a poet from
his boyhood. He was born to a lively and intelligent patriotism; the
condition of Japan was his great concern; and while he projected a
better future, he lost no opportunity of improving his knowledge of her
present state. With this end he was continually travelling in his youth,
going on foot and sometimes with three days' provisions on his back, in
the brave, self-helpful manner of all heroes. He kept a full diary while
he was thus upon his journeys, but it is feared that these notes have
been destroyed. If their value were in any respect such as we have
reason to expect from the man's character, this would be a loss not easy
to exaggerate. It is still wonderful to the Japanese how far he
contrived to push these explorations; a cultured gentleman of that land
and period would leave a complimentary poem where-ever he had been
hospitably entertained; and a friend of Mr. Masaki, who was likewise a
great wanderer, has found such traces of Yoshida's passage in very
remote regions of Japan. Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is
thought necessary; but Yoshida considered otherwise, and he studied the
miseries of his fellow-countrymen with as much attention and research as
though he had been going to write a book, instead of merely to propose a
remedy. To a man of his intensity and singleness, there is no question
but that this survey was melancholy in the extreme. His dissatisfaction
is proved by the eagerness with which he threw himself into the cause of
reform; and what would have discouraged another braced Yoshida for his
task. As he professed the theory of arms, it was firstly the defences of
Japan that occupied his mind. The external feebleness of that country
was then illustrated by the manners of overriding barbarians, and the
visits of big barbarian warships: she was a country beleaguered. Thus
the patriotism of Yoshida took a form which may be said to have defeated
itself: he had it upon him to keep out these all-powerful foreigners,
whom it is now one of his chief merits to have helped to introduce; but
a man who follows his own virtuous heart will be always found in the end
to have been fighting for the best. One thing leads naturally to another
in an awakened mind, and that with an upward progress from effect to
cause. The power and knowledge of these foreigners were things
inseparable; by envying them their military strength, Yoshida came to
envy them their culture; from the desire to equal them in the first,
sprang his desire to share with them in the second; and thus he is found
treating in the same book of a new scheme to strengthen the defences of
Kioto and of the establishment, in the same city, of a university of
foreign teachers. He hoped, perhaps, to get the good of other lands
without their evil; to enable Japan to profit by the knowledge of the
barbarians, and still keep her inviolate with her own arts and virtues. But whatever was the precise nature of his hope, the means by which it
was to be accomplished were both difficult and obvious. Some one with
eyes and understanding must break through the official cordon, escape
into the new world, and study this other civilisation on the spot. And
who could be better suited for the business? It was not without danger,
but he was without fear. It needed preparation and insight; and what had
he done since he was a child but prepare himself with the best culture
of Japan, and acquire in his excursions the power and habit of
observing? He was but twenty-two, and already all this was clear in his mind, when
news reached Choshu that Commodore Perry was lying near to Yeddo. Here,
then, was the patriot's opportunity. Among the Samurai of Choshu, and in
particular among the councillors of the Daimio, his general culture, his
views, which the enlightened were eager to accept, and, above all, the
prophetic charm, the radiant persuasion of the man, had gained him many
and sincere disciples. He had thus a strong influence at the provincial
Court; and so he obtained leave to quit the district, and, by way of a
pretext, a privilege to follow his profession in Yeddo.