never yet known to mortal man!"

Yuko was a servant-maid in a wealthy family at Kinegawa. She had read in
the daily newspaper the account of the attempt on the life of the
Czarevitch during his visit to Japan in 1891. Being an hysterical,
excitable girl, she was apparently wound up to the pitch of temporary
insanity. Leaving her employer's home, she made her way to Kyoto, and
there, buying a razor, she cut her throat opposite the gate of the
Mikado's palace. Hearn writes of the incident as if the girl were a Joan
of Arc, obeying the dictates of the most fervent patriotism. He goes to
the extent of describing the Mikado, "The Son of Heaven," hearing of the
girl's death, and "augustly ceasing to mourn for the crime that had been
committed because of the manifestations of the great love his people
bore him."

Afterwards, Hearn admitted that his enthusiasm was perhaps exaggerated,
for revelations showed that Yuko, in a letter she had left, had spoken
of "a family claim." Under the raw strong light of these commonplace
revelations, he confessed that his little sketch seemed for the moment
much too romantic, and yet the real poetry of the event remained
unlessened--the pure ideal that impelled a girl to take her own life
merely to give proof of the love and loyalty of a nation. No small,
mean, dry facts could ever belittle that large fact.

Let those, however, who say that Hearn did not understand the
enigmatical people amongst whom his lines were cast, read his article on
"Jiu-jitsu" in this same volume. It is headed by a quotation from the
"Tao-Te-King." "Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm
and strong. So is it with all things.... Firmness and strength are the
concomitants of death; softness and weakness are the concomitants of
life. Hence he who relies upon his own strength shall not conquer."
Preaching from this text, Hearn writes a masterly article, showing how
Japan, though apparently adopting western inventions, preserves her own
genius and mode of thought in all vital questions absolutely unchanged.
The essay ends with a significant paragraph, showing how we occidentals,
who have exterminated feebler races by merely over-living them, may be
at last exterminated ourselves by races capable of under-living us, more
self-denying, more fertile, and less expensive for nature to support.
Inheriting, doubtless, our wisdom, adopting our more useful inventions,
continuing the best of our industries--perha