Tales of Old Japan
1871
In 1871, a young British diplomat stationed in Japan compiled the first collection of Japanese tales ever published in English. The result is a window into a vanishing world: feudal Japan on the eve of its transformation during the Meiji Restoration. Algernon Mitford witnessed seppuku firsthand, and his account of that ceremony remains one of the most harrowing documents in Western literature on Japan. The centerpiece is the legend of the Forty-Seven Rônins, masterless samurai who spend years planning a bloody revenge for their lord's murder, knowing it will cost them their lives. Beyond the legendary, Mitford gathers ghost stories that prefigure gothic literature's darkest moments, Buddhist sermons that meditate on death, fairy tales where animals speak and rivers weep, and the cryptic plots of Noh plays. This is not sanitized Orientalism: these are stories of honor pushed to madness, loyalty that becomes indistinguishable from obsession, and a culture where suicide is美学 and vengeance is sacred. For readers who loved Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or turn-of-the-century supernatural fiction, this is the real thing: Japan before the world changed it.
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“Take three pints of water, and, having warmed it, add half a teacupful of wine. Put into this mixture a quantity of red-hot iron; allow it to stand for five or six days, when there will be a scum on the top of the mixture, which should then be poured into a small teacup and placed near a fire. When it is warm, powdered gallnuts and iron filings should be added to it, and the whole should be warmed again. The liquid is then painted on to the teeth by means of a soft feather brush, with more powdered gallnuts and iron, and, after several applications, the desired colour will be obtained." The process is said to be a preservative of the teeth,””
— Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Baron Redesdale
“Môshi has said, "There is the third finger. If a man's third or nameless finger be bent, so that he cannot straighten it, although his bent finger may cause him no pain, still if he hears of some one who can cure it, he will think nothing of undertaking a long journey from Shin to So 94 to consult him upon this deformed finger; for he knows it is to be hateful to have a finger unlike those of other men. But he cares not a jot if his heart be different to that of other men; and this is how men disregard the true order of things." Now””
— Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Baron Redesdale
“Therefore I pray you to follow the impulses of your natural heart; place it before you as a teacher, and study its precepts. Your heart is a convenient teacher to employ too:””
— Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Baron Redesdale
“For ever wishing to do this, wishing to see that, wishing to eat rare dishes, wishing to wear fine clothes, you pass a lifetime in fanning the flames which consume you.””
— Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Baron Redesdale
“A guilty man," said the priest, with a smile, "shudders at the rustling of the wind or the chattering of a stork's beak: a murderer's conscience preys upon his mind till he sees what is not.””
— Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Baron Redesdale
“The provision is very inferior to the cities of refuge which were set apart by Moses for the manslayer to flee to from the fury of the avenger. Such as it was, however, it existed, and it is remarkable that Confucius, when consulted on the subject, took no notice of it, but affirmed the duty of blood-revenge in the strongest and most unrestricted terms.””
— Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Baron Redesdale
“If a man thinks only of his own profit, and tries to benefit himself at the expense of others, he will incur the hatred of Heaven.””
— Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Baron Redesdale
