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- 7. DAVID W. PLATH The After Hours Modern Japan and the Search for Enjoyment UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES 1 Ç 6 4
- 8. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, ENGLAND © 1 9 6 4 BY DAVID W. PLATH LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 6 4 - 1 6 1 3 3 DESIGNED BY JANE HART PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- 9. One day we shall win back Ait, that is to say the pleasure of life; win back Art again to OUT daily labour. W I L L I A M M O R R I S
- 11. Acknowledgments A novel can be written in seclusion; an ethnography can only grow from the midst of life. I have put the words to paper; I was able to do so only through the efforts of a supporting cast as great as that for a television documen- tary. My debts to them are many and ramified, but the chief one is to those unheadlined backers whose behind-the-scenes support has been continuous—to Lyn, Mark, and Gail. Dr. Akanuma Shigeyoshi took my family and me into his household in Ariake in 1959 and i960 He protected us, directed us, cared for our health, and all the while gave us a living example of the Japanese gentleman-poet in its finest vii
- 12. form. His wife, nurse, neighbors, and kinsmen were patient and considerate of the whims of unpredictable and inquisi- tive outlanders. Throughout Anchiku, people opened their doors and their hearts to us. Professor Kôhara Yukinari of the Anthropology Section, Shinshu University, Matsumoto, was a faithful advisor and companion. He has continued to help since my departure, and it was he who persuaded Mr. Yanagisawa Takeshi to prepare the illustrations for the book. The other members of the Anthropology Section, and especially Professors Suzuki Makoto and Morimoto Iwatarô, provided introductions and aid of sometimes unusual sorts. Mochizuki Kan'ichi, a his- tory student in Shinshu, was my aide-de-camp and chief interviewer for many months; we were joined at times by another Shinshu student, Yamamoto Katsumi. Many friends and colleagues in Tokyo furnished those personal introductions which are essential to successful field- work in Japan, and through conversation and consultation they greatly broadened my understanding of things Japanese. I cannot list them all, but I cannot omit the names of Professors Gamô Masao, Hoshino Akira, Hori Ichiro, Izumi Sei'ichi, Morioka Kiyomi, Sofue Takao, Takahashi Tôichi, and Yasuda Saburô. I am also grateful to two students who helped me process my field materials and who gave me many clues as to how to make sense of them, Kawada Junzô and Noguchi Takenori. My family and I owe special thanks to Ezra F. Vogel, his wife Susan and son David—colleagues and family com- panions before, during, and since our stay in Japan. The fieldwork was made possible by a Foreign Area Training Fellowship from the Ford Foundation. The Foun- dation also supported me in 1961 while I wrote my dis- sertation ("The Strung and the Unstrung: Holidays in Japanese Life," Harvard University, 1962), from which sev- viii
- 13. eral sections of this book derive. A grant from the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, allowed me to begin work on the book in the after hours of the summer of 1962. An author is rarely best fitted to judge his own precious prose. I am grateful that my colleagues Delmer Brown, Dell Hymes, and Robert Murphy were willing to take on the obligations of criticizing parts of the manuscript. Sections of this book appeared first in different form in essays and articles. I thank the publishers for permission to include materials from the following: Asahi Shimbun-sha, Tokyo, for "Land of the Rising Sun- day," Japan Quarterly 7:3 (July-September, i960). Cross Continent Co., Ltd., Tokyo, for "Overworked Japan and the Holiday Demiurge," Today's Japan 5:8 (August i960). Institute of International Studies, University of Cali- fornia, Berkeley, for "Will Success Spoil the Japanese?" Asian Survey 1:9 (November, 1961). Association for Asian Studies, for "The Enjoyment of Daily Living: Some Japanese Popular Views," Journal of Asian Studies 22:3 (May, 1963). D.W.P.
- 15. Contents 1 Introduction and Approach 1 2 Under the Eaves J 3 3 New Forms, New Turns, New Terms 33 4 Work and the Framework 68 5 The After Hours 95 6 And the Search for Enjoyment 124 7 The Brighter Life 162 8 Between Arcadia and Utopia 190 Notes 197 Index 217 xi
- 17. 1. Introduction and Approach It is hard to put into words just what is involved in the fact that the combined democratic and industrial revolutions have made both workers of us all and aristocrats of us all. LYNN WHITE, JR. I
- 18. A Cultural "Opposing Self' The modern Japanese are not easy to capture in an image. In our mind's eye we have seen them in many figures and many masks. We have seen them as peasants and poets; we have seen them as vanquished; and some- times we have seen them as victors. Often we have seen them as sophisticated teachers come to bring us the art and wisdom of Zen. But most of all we have seen them as precocious pupils who spelled down the rest of the non-West in the contest for modernization. Theirs has been the unique story of the native who apprenticed himself in the Western workshop and left bearing the secrets of journeyman success. But precociousness is no pure blessing: the adept must face sooner the problems of maturity. No people in to- day's world is secure in its provincial heritage, and none can escape our common mandate to know ourselves as partakers of a transformed human condition. As the first modernized people outside the West—and having be- come so largely after the manner of the West—the Japa- nese feel in an especially acute way the dilemmas as well as the delights of this new world environment. My image is of the Japanese in this guise. I look at them not as apprentices but as journeyman bearers of Western skills now obliged to redefine themselves to themselves in a transformed Eastern world. My question is not—What did the Japanese do in order to modern- ize? Abler hands have dealt with that already, many times over. My question is—What has modernization done to the Japanese? How has it changed their efforts to maintain a meaningful, worthwhile way of living? There is an obvious sense in which men always have sought for enjoyment, but what is happening to the 2
- 19. search for enjoyment in a Japan made over by the fac- tory, the city, the ballot box, and the eye of television? The issue is not, of course, unique to Japan. W e rec- ognize it as pandemic in every civilization like our own that has been reshaped by the democratic and industrial revolutions. No such civilization can any longer be neatly divided into two parts, the one of working masses fit for Marx's pity, the other of leisured classes fit for Veblen's censure. For, as industrial techniques have greatly ex- panded the supply of Disraeli's "two civilizers of men"— increased means and increased leisure, at the same time democratic vistas have greatly increased the demand. All of us have become, simultaneously, workers and aristo- crats. Before this prospect we may stand gloomy with Marx or joyful with Whitman (I suppose most of us are ambivalent), but in any case we are not likely to deny that the condition is puzzling. And neither the ideo- logues nor the Utopians of the past provide us with prompt solutions. The West has been assaying this condition for more than a century. Out of this effort have come ideas and concepts that today are common coinage for intellectual exchange and sometimes even for the vernacular market- ing of ideas. Alienation of labor, anomie, escape from freedom, lonely crowd, organization man—all these have the smooth surface of familiar usage. But this exchange has been taking place for the most part within the bounds of the Western tradition. The very words we adopt for articulating our insights and foresights are curbed by the limits that inhere in our Indo-European linguistic ap- paratus. One way to surmount these limits is to take advantage of the comparative perspective afforded by another civi- lization, a sort of cultural "opposing self," to use a term 3
- 20. Lionel Trilling coined for another purpose. At times the opposing self has been modernized and close at hand. Engels and de Tocqueville are the type cases: Engels asking what industrialization had done to the working classes in England, de Tocqueville asking what democ- racy had done to that new man, the American. Here the danger is that the opposing self may be so modern and familiar as to shed little contrast. At times the opposing self has been an anthropological other, an exotic, non- literate, nonindustrial, nonpopulous people. Here the danger lies in a temptation to assume that if different cultures figuratively "choose" from the "whole arc" of human variation, then all choices are equally possible; we merely have to put our wills to it and we can become Apollonian or Dionysian. At still other times the oppos- ing self has been even more distant and ethereal, as in the arcadias of some timeless Orient or the Utopias of a placeless Erewhon. And here the danger is strongest of all that hunger for reason and harmony will blind us to the unreason and disharmony of ordinary human affairs. Modern Japan as an opposing self does not quite fit into any of these categories. It is not so Western as de Tocqueville's America, yet so like it that "non-Western" is a useless adjective. It is much too vast, literate, and industrial to be thought primitive. And it is more real than arcadia or utopia. It is no more, but no less, than living modern mankind in a Japanese visage. This is its special virtue. Japan so seen holds a touch of irony. This is because Japan has been one of our prized specimens of arcadia ever since Marco Polo told Europe of the fabulous riches of the isles of Zipangu. Is it an accident, for example, that Japan is the only "real" country to figure in the subheadings of Gulliver's Travels? (Part III: A Voyage 4
- 21. to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan). Japanese resoluteness in rejecting the West for two and a half centuries only helped whet the vision. We still are reluctant to part with it, although the real- ities of contact in the modern century have brought some birth-control measures to bear upon the spawning of books on "Life in Lotus-Land." We still marry Japa- nese brides in fiction as well as increasingly in fact. But now the spouse is not Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysan- thème, a submissive, sloe-eyed geisha. It is James Mich- ener's Hana-ogi (in Sayonara), who portrays Western roles in a girls' opera, and with whom the course of love is anything but smooth. I have no quarrel with those who prefer an arcadian Japan. It too is a form of reality. Possibly for some soul- thirsty Americans a garbled and fragmentary Japan of Zen and ikebana is more needful than a Japan of noi- some, reeking reality. After all, our era probably knows more about the Hellenic world than did the men of the Renaissance, who were historically much closer; yet we seem to draw far less inspiration from it than they did. I only state my standpoint. I find as much enchantment in, and even more to be learned from, a Japanese oppos- ing self seen with both eyes open. The Search for Enjoyment If it is difficult to say just what industry and democracy involve for the human condition, it is disastrous to try to say too much. The ethnographer sees industry and democracy as great complexes of cultural traits. Industry implies not only new techniques, it implies new ties be- tween producer and consumer, and as well new gospels of efficiency and progress. Democracy implies not only 5
- 22. new voting methods, it implies new ties between leader and lead, and new faith that masses can be taught to make meaningful choices. These trait complexes need not congrue with the parochial cults of industry and de- mocracy we know in the West. Perhaps our very labels carry unconscious traces of invidium: that industry and democracy were first made manifest in Western dress is no guarantee that they will appear elsewhere in the same form—even to the extent they have in Japan. Yet too often this is taken for granted. I limit myself to one aspect of these many implica- tions. It is an aspect that draws increasing attention in our day, for it is a microcosm of the wider issue. It can readily be circumscribed, though not readily trapped in a definition. It goes by several names, but I prefer the more neutral phrase "search for enjoyment." I do this to avoid intrusive connotations. "Pursuit of happiness," for example, is a phrase of classic pedigree. But "pursuit" suggests a self-conscious idealization and an almost des- perate striving after specific goals; it is too rigid for the commonplace affairs I have in mind. "Contemporary hedonism" is a term favored by Georges Friedmann and some Continental sociologists. But while I am not sure what hédonisme means to a Frenchman I do know that its Anglo cognate hints too strongly of what Don Mar- quis expresses in a rolling line as "red rum ruin revolt and rapine." "Pleasure" could almost substitute for en- joyment. I avoid the word only because it brings to mind Freud's "pleasure principle" and his annoying habit— his grandchildren are beginning to cure themselves of it —of implying that all lust is in some ultimate way organic. American critics and observers often write of "mass lei- sure." This term compares favorably with Lynn White's 6
- 23. "all workers, all aristocrats," and like it recognizes the downfall of a once useful Veblennian dichotomy. But the notion of mass leisure also is muddled by differences of interpretation. To some people the term is self-contra- dictory: to them leisure is capital-letter Culture, the re- finement and cultivation that is possible only for the few. To others the term is bogus, since even the wealthiest nation today can put its hands into pockets of poverty among its masses. To some, mass leisure means trash, tinselization, tailfins, and genius suborned by mobocracy; to others mass leisure spells the dissipation of craftsman- ship and the decay of the dignity of human labor. It is worth adding that many Japanese who write about the issue also reject stronger-sounding terms such as kairaku ("pleasure," "hedonism") and follow the lead of Kato Hidetoshi in using the milder kaiteki ("delight," "enjoyment"). The After Hours Leisure is used as an antonym for work, and is often equated with free time or recreation or self-cultivation. My title points in this direction, toward these "after" hours, but I want to make clear that I am not rejecting work as simple oppression and unfreedom. The familiar dichotomy of work and leisure is at best misleading and a partial truth. On the one hand, it tempts us to stand narrowly with the squares, proclaiming that work is the essential purpose of living; on the other hand, to stand narrowly with the beats, asserting that life is creative lei- sure or it is nothing. Western thinking has been partial to the squares. We are obliged to justify our actions in terms of eco- nomic production. The administrator and the artist 7
- 24. alike are criticized for not handling their affairs in a tough-minded, businesslike way. The bias appears in social theory as well as in popular thinking. Economics long ago won itself Carlyle's label as the dismal science. In psychiatry that Victorian square from Vienna more or less equated reality itself with the reality of the workaday world, arguing that the man who does not work loses his sense of reality and is condemned to wallow in fantasy. Again, in most theories of social evo- lution, changes in the productive apparatus are assumed to have necessary priority. And even the functional analysts of social organization can be overheard suggest- ing that "instrumental" activities are "more" functional than others. They see recreation as a social safety valve, a necessary concession to animal weakness, but other- wise practically irrelevant. The researcher who proposes to speak seriously of enjoyment—I speak from experi- ence—often encounters the fidgety tolerance once re- served for those who would propose to speak seriously of sex. To be sure there has been a bohemian and humanistic resistance movement holding out against the majority. But this too has often been weakened by extreme state- ments that tend to reject the dilemmas of work in their entirety. Among anthropologists this stance is perhaps best seen in Edward Sapir, as he writes (in "Culture, Genuine and Spurious"): "The great cultural fallacy of industrialism, as developed up to the present time, is that in harnessing machines to our uses it has not known how to avoid the harnessing of the majority of mankind to its machines," so that our daily work has become "a desert patch of merely economic effort in the whole of life." Another difficulty with the work-leisure dichotomy is 8
- 25. that it applies directly to only a fraction of the popula- tion. In looking to the archetypal modern man on the assembly line, it overlooks that majority of the popula- tion who are immature, retired, invalided, unemployed, or working as housewives. Rather few of them have the blessed simplicity of a time clock that tells them when they are supposed to be in a state of work and when at leisure. Of course, the dichotomy contains an important measure of truth, but "work" probably is not as useful a term for it as is the colloquial notion of a "job." That is, some sort of task mandate, some position in the social sun, continues to define our station in life and continues to be one of life's major enjoyments. At any rate for Americans retirement and unemployment prove to be more devastating for mental than for material reasons. Lacking a job, one is likely to drift, inwardly as well as outwardly. Most people do have some sort of job, even if it is not on an assembly line. Any such pro- longed expenditure of effort—even of effort so enjoyable as writing a book—takes its toll in foregone alternatives. To the extent that this is so, nearly all of us recognize after hours during which we search for enjoyments that will help restore a sense of "completeness" and well- being. The Approach I take it as my job in these pages to offer an interpretive report. It is too soon to comb the Japanese after hours with fine-toothed theory; I prefer to depict the Japanese scene in such a way that it will be useful as a cultural opposing self. In doing so I pay homage to those who have strived to help the West understand the Japanese encounter with modernity, from Basil Hall Chamber- 9
- 26. lain and Lafcadio Hearn in the nineteenth century to scholars in many fields today. I also recognize what I owe to my mentors. And though I have borrowed ideas from many of them, I have been overwhelmingly in- fluenced by the cultural anthropology of Clyde Kluck- hohn, the social psychology of David Riesman, and the in- sights into Japanese life imparted to me by John Pelzel. By training I am an ethnographer, by temperament an eclectic. Both traits have influenced my methods of study and my selections of data. As an ethnographer I am partial to direct participation in—and observation of —ongoing human activities. I am, to use Milton Singer's phrasing, less attracted to the study of "texts" than to the study of "contexts." And although at times I write of modern Japan as a whole, the bulk of what I say applies primarily to a region in Honshu Island where I lived and studied in 1959 and i960. As an eclectic I prefer to draw from many sources. So in addition to field materials the reader will encounter selections from opinion surveys, scholarly monographs, weekly maga- zines, the minutes of a young wives' club, and even from newspaper clippings that were collected for me by a Tokyo news service. After all, although fieldwork is the ethnographer's time-honored way of gaining informa- tion (and some types of information can be obtained in no other way), it has obvious limits in the study of modern civilizations. What is typical of one community need not be typical of the region; what is typical of the region may be atypical for the nation. But on the other hand, to flee into the sociologist's sanctuary, the "strati- fied random sample," is to miss the richness of the on- going scene. I know of no formula that guarantees that one can escape these extremes. One has to play by ear, and I claim to have done no more. 10
- 27. Then there is the problem of great versus little tradi- tions. For in a society where all are workers and all are aristocrats it becomes difficult to sort out what is capital- letter Culture from what is commonplace, lower-case culture. "Popular culture" is not always lowbrow; "ver- nacular culture" is participated in by all persons, to some extent. Here I lean toward the lower case. The reader seeking materials on the classical Japanese great tradition will be disappointed. I think it true that this great tradi- tion is virtually unstudied as a mode of social relations, even though its art forms and philosophical postulates have long been under scrutiny. But, because of time and resources (and perhaps because of personal predilec- tions), I did not attempt such an investigation. I am also convinced that the more commonplace affairs of Japanese life continue to be seriously underreported in the West, despite the interest in Japan shown by the media of mass communications. I have tried to be selective and apposite. In this I have followed the advice of Chamberlain, introducing his delightful little dictionary of Things Japanese: "The old and the new will be found cheek by jowl. What will not be found is padding; for padding is unpardonable in any book on Japan, where the material is so plentiful that the chief difficulty is to know what to omit." I am writing mostly for the nonspecialist. I expect that my reader may have been to Japan; surely knows people who have; and at the very least has a few notions about the land and its people. But I expect no familiarity with the Japanese language, and wherever possible I have trans- lated from Japanese sources, out of a feeling that even poor translations will convey some Japanese flavor. The original sources are cited in Notes (p. 197 ff.), which also suggest further readings. Japanese personal names 11
- 28. are given according to Japanese usage: first the patro- nym, then the individual name. To further the flavor of Japaneseness I have eschewed the usual photographs of sullen natives scowling at the ethnographer's camera, in favor of drawings by Mr. Yanagisawa Takeshi. A few remarks on Mr. Yanagisawa and the illustrations are given in the Notes. I also have tried to compensate for my feelings, such as I know them. Not to hide them; rather to prevent them from becoming obtrusive. Having struggled to understand the Japanese I find myself sympathetically involved with them. At the same time, as a native Amer- ican I find myself annoyed by such of their traits and tendencies as run across the grain of my Illinois up- bringing. And romantic stirrings at times prompt me to idolize the Japan of the Tokugawa period (1603-1868) at the expense of the Japan of today. I cannot claim the deep-rooted feeling for things Japanese which is the native's by birthright. But I do believe that years of study and participation have made it possible for me to escape many of the genuine, but misleading, impressions which fog the casual traveler's vision. My Japanese friends will tell me where I have erred, and so for that matter may my Western readers. For both can see what I cannot—the self and the face behind these words. 12
- 29. 2. Under the Eaves Ine no kake toriharawarete harewataru to ne ni yuki no mivuru konogoro. As the rice-racks TAIBI . , are stored away, and the sky clears off, on the far peaks see the snow these days! 13
- 30. The Roof of Japan The mountains that girdle the center of Honshu Island are sometimes still called the Hida Range. But the aver- age Japanese today knows them only by the East-West binomial Nihon Arupusu, the Japan Alps. The term is credited to the British missionary Walter Weston, al- though others seem to have used it before he did. Weston tramped the range for two decades, over the turn of the century, and devoted two books to his journeys. In recent years grateful innkeepers and tour- ist bureaus have enshrined the Reverend Weston in a plaque at Kamikochi, where they annually stage a festi- val to preserve his memory. The Northern Range of the Alps reaches directly southward from the Japan Sea for nearly a hundred miles. It has some forty peaks above 8,000 feet, snow- clad half the year and more. East of the range for its southernmost forty miles at a i,6oo-foot elevation is the basin of the Anchiku region. The basin is narrow and tear-drop shaped, ten to fifteen miles wide at its southern end, tapering gradually to the north. Today it is home to 400,000 Japanese, who earn their livelihood from fruit and cereal crops and from a panoply of light in- dustries and services. The Alps dominate the basin. They set the tenor of its life today, much as in the past. Rugged masters, they keep a jealous company. Most of the time they give ample water for the paddies and for hydroelectric power. But sometimes they catch typhoon-borne rains and dump them onto the plain in flash floods. In a few hours these debris-choked torrents can spoil acres of paddy and wipe away years of patient work on dikes and bridges. Riverbeds in the plain are as much as a 14
- 31. half mile wide, dry and stony most of the year, useful only to gravel diggers. In earlier generations the people of the plain looked to the Alps for timber and game. But since Weston's time Anchiku people have increasingly been looking to the mountains as the source of an even more lucrative and perhaps less expendable revenue animal, the vaca- tioner. In winter there are skiing and skating, in summer hiking, climbing, camping. In all seasons the hot springs resorts that rim the basin are open. Diesel express trains bring the region within easy weekending distance both from the Tokyo-Yokohama megalopolis to the east and from Nagoya to the south. A scenic highway is being bulldozed into the Alps from the center of the basin. And there has been talk of opening a helicopter sight- seeing service to some of the peaks. Vacationing is not new to Anchiku, although its forms have changed with the changing times. The region has always been a hinterland, but at the same time always closely linked with the central cities since the founding of the Japanese state in the sixth century A.D. For a while in the eighth century the basin harbored the capitol of Shinano province (approximately present-day Nagano Prefecture). In the eyes of Kyoto courtiers the region must have appeared as a kind of exotic but safe tramontane. Here one could escape the pressures of the capitol, enjoy the alpine prospect, bathe in the hot springs, and yet not be too near the barbarous tribes on the northern frontier. One of the first times the region is mentioned in court records is under an entry for 710 when the Temmu emperor sent retainers to Yamabe Springs on the east side of the valley. The emperor, apparently unwell, planned to recuperate there but died en route. Generations of poets have left their 15
- 32. tributes to the scenery, and the "blue blue skies of Shinano" have long been in the repertoire of classical allusion. As the discerning eye can read from a man's face the outlines of his history, so it can read from the face of a land the outlines of its becoming. Prehistoric settlers in Anchiku seem to have clung to the uplands; the lower basin presumably was uninhabitable marshland. At any rate, although Anchiku is rich in artifacts from all major periods in Japanese prehistory, most of these have been recovered from the slopes and from hillside caves. By the early centuries of our era, settlers were moving down the alluvial fans and onto the valley floor itself. Place names suggest this, and so do the dozens of bur- ial mounds characteristic of the protohistoric period (often called the Tomb period) which dot the entire basin. Men of early historic times (seventh to twelfth cen- turies) wrote their passing on the land in several ways. They cut roads along the foot of the hills, and many of these roads still are used. Every few miles they built forts to defend these roads, and the remains of many of these forts are easy to find. They built temples along the roads, and a few of these have escaped not only time but the ravages of a temple-burning fever that fell upon Anchiku in the anti-Buddhist years after 1868. They organized a circuit of traveling fairs, and the names of some of these periodic marketplaces sur- vive as hamlet names today (e.g., Tokaichi, "tenth-day market"). The feudal period (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries) saw the raising of more formidable fortifications, includ- ing the beginnings of the castle town of Matsumoto. Although sovereignty changed hands several times, 16
- 33. Anchiku was peaceful until the middle of the sixteenth century. In the decade of the 1550's the forces of Takeda Shingen marched in from the southeast, from Kai (now Yamanashi Prefecture). They destroyed Anchiku's forts, and they slew or drove off many of its people. (Even the oldest families in the basin today cannot trace their ancestry beyond this period.) Driven from their do- main, the Ogasawara lord and his household allied themselves with the up-and-coming Tokugawa Ieyasu. With his aid they were able to retake Matsumoto in 1582. And in 1585 Ogasawara Sadayoshi ordered the building of the castle whose keep and moats still form the nucleus of Matsumoto City. Anchiku was a microcosm of Japanese development in the Tokugawa era (1600-1868). Except for a famine in the 1830's, it prospered. Except for a peasant uprising in 1686 (twenty leaders were tried and slain), it was pacific. The Matsumoto lords adopted the general Toku- gawa administrative plan: samurai were ordered to live at the foot of the castle, all other persons were for- bidden to bear arms. Households were organized into mutual surveillance groups. Christianity was outlawed, and detailed sumptuary edicts were issued. District ad- ministrative offices were established at several points linked by a network of roads. These roads no longer hugged the hills but struck directly across the valley floor with only minor concessions to terrain. Posthouses and milestones were erected at regular intervals (a few can be seen today). Commerce with neighboring domains grew steadily, and the castle soon was sur- rounded by large merchant quarters. In the middle of the eighteenth century the townsmen class was only a fraction more numerous than the samurai class. By the end of the era it outnumbered the samurai twofold. 17
- 34. After 1868 Anchiku swiftly joined the world of mo- dernity. But to see these changes we must move closer. Let us look first at Matsumoto, then at a rural com- munity. The Social Summit As the Alps dominate the basin geographically, so Matsumoto City dominates it socially. Though geo- graphically on the eastern fringe, politically Matsumoto was the center of the region by the eighth century, and the passage of time did little to dim its importance. Indeed its importance has risen along with the trend to- ward urban-industrial concentration that marks Japan's modern century. From i860 to i960 its population in- creased more than fivefold. This is well above the general national increase (threefold), although well below the increase in the great metropolises such as Tokyo (ten- fold). Today Matsumoto is an urban sprawl with some 80,000 residents. In census reports it is credited with 150,000, but nearly half of these live in former rural communities amalgamated under the city administra- tion in the late 1950's. The traveler who detrains in Matsumoto today with- out benefit of a city map is likely to be consumed by one emotion: bewilderment. He encounters a railway station that is sizable but undistinguished. Second story win- dows afford him only a limited view consisting of the station plaza, a fan of streets, and fragments of the city's upper architecture. He sees a plaza that is a collage of paving brick, billboards, and power poles. Buses in red- yellow-blue uniforms are at right dress across the front of it. Taxis in various hues scoot around them with civilian casualness. A trolley car of 1920 vintage makes 18
- 35. incredible rumbles as it threads around the plaza and shuffles off down the center of the one wide street. Across the plaza the traveler sees a community of bus stops, restaurants, coffee houses, newsstands, sou- venir shops, and advertisements for hot springs. Beyond, he can discern only a few structures that draw attention by rising above the general rooftop level. In all direc- tions, but especially to south and west, he sees thickets of factory and bathhouse chimneys. To the north on the distant upslope are bright rows of concrete apart- ments and the blue-white monolith of the university hospital. Nearer to the eye are the upper floors of de- partment stores. In the middle distance he can glimpse a part of the new city hall, and the peak of the Ogasa- wara castle keep. And atop the hills east of the city he can make out the transmitting poles of two television stations. If he is an ethnographer the traveler is likely to wonder whether any of these would qualify as the city's master institution—whether any of these structures would provide him with a masterkey to understanding what really matters most in Matsumoto's world, the sun around which all other institutions are planetary. And if he is a conscientious ethnographer he will stop to record an impression that modern Matsumoto is as pluralistic as modern Madison, Wisconsin, and that a whole handful of institutions are contending for priority. This was not true of Matsumoto in the Tokugawa period. Then it had, like most Japanese castle towns of its day, a symmetry that was, however fearful, easily framed by mortal eye. One cannot always read directly from the lines of a town plan the lines of its social order, yet the two rarely seem far divergent. And perhaps the quickest way to understand how Matsumoto has been 19
- 36. transformed by modernity is to see how its castle-town plan came by turns to be accommodated, outgrown, and finally rejected. The earlier Matsumoto had an unmistakable single center and source of being. This was the fiefdom castle, with a five-story keep that overlooked the entire town but was cushioned from its vulgar incursions by a triple series of moats. Between the moats nearest the castle lived the samurai and their families; farther out, the lesser footmen and retainers. Streets were oriented to the cardinal points of the compass and were spaced at regular intervals. Within the walls they were wider than without, and they were lined with more imposing houses. The only major threat, and that a relatively dis- organized one, came from the hustle and color of the merchant quarters. With the improved roads of the eighteenth century, brokerage trade began to centralize in Matsumoto. A brisk trade developed particularly between Matsumoto and Nagoya. Matsumoto brokers bought up Anchiku hemp, paper, tobacco, and medic- inal herbs and dispatched them to Nagoya. Nagoya brokers repaid with pottery, hardware, tea, salt, and dried fish. One guide for travelers to Zenkoji—a nation- ally popular pilgrimage center in Nagano City—remarks that Matsumoto daily dispatched a thousand loaded pack horses and took delivery of another thousand. The main road approached the castle directly from the south but was turned away at the outer moat. It passed around the castle to the east, then continued north on its way to Zenkoji. Lesser roads radiated into all parts of the basin. Shops and inns lined these roads, and the majority of Matsumoto's retail stores today are in the same locations. Store fronts were low and narrow 20
- 37. and plain, in accord with sumptuary regulations. But one suspects that in their inner quarters and gardens, hidden from the street, wealthier merchants indulged in splendor with relative impunity. In the townsmen's quarters were the theaters and pleasure houses, and it is likely that more than one samurai crossed the moats in disguise, bent on sampling forbidden fruits. Temples and shrines were, generally speaking, on the edges of the town, as though to ward off hopefully the elements, or in any case the rustics beyond. Along with the rest of the nation, Matsumoto saw many changes in the first dozen years after the Meiji restoration. But seen against the town plan these changes seem to be less revolutionary than evolutionary, matters of descent with modifications. The fiefdom adminis- tration was renamed a prefectural administration and continued much as before. Then in 1871 Matsumoto became the capital of newly created Chikuma Prefec- ture, an amalgam of Anchiku with several neighboring fiefs. But when the administrative offices were gutted by fire in 1876 the former fiefs were parceled out, and Anchiku has since then been a part of Nagano Prefec- ture. All this had relatively little direct effect upon the face of the town, but there were other marks of the newborn nation. A post office was opened, and soon telegraph wires were strung from Nagano City. There was a district court, a newspaper company, and a branch of the national bank. Silk and cocoon brokerages be- gan to appear in numbers as overseas markets opened. Christian missionaries were seen in the streets. And a primary school of Western style—copied from a build- ing in Tokyo which had been copied from a school in Boston—was erected, replete with a Victorian turret, just outside the south castle gate. 21
- 38. Only in the third Meiji decade did the inroads of industrial technology begin to sketch the shape of a new kind of city. A net of electric wires was thrown across the city in 1899, and was joined a decade later by an- other of telephone lines. What official reports called "workshops with machines" sprung up in all parts of town. And in 1901 on the southeastern edge of town the Katakura Corporation opened a vast modern spinning mill—an industrial castle whose size and pretensions began to rival those of the old political castle. Soon there were still other contenders. Railway lines came through from Nagano City and Tokyo in 1902; and from Nagoya in 1911; a branch was built up the center of the valley to Omachi in 1916. The Matsumoto ter- minal was located a half mile southwest of the castle and off from the major shopping streets. Expectably enough, commerce and industry began to move in its direction. And at the same time the railway made it possible for people in many parts of Anchiku to com- mute to the new factories and to the new higher schools being opened during these years. By the end of the Meiji era the castle had lost its hegemony. In sheer height and architectural harmony perhaps it still out- classed any other Matsumoto structure. But commerce, industry, education, and transportation all were moving in other directions. The Taisho period (1912-1925) was a time of pros- perity, on the whole, and a time when the new classes of white and blue collar workers developed a modern style of city living. Water and gas mains were laid throughout Matsumoto. Concrete and stucco façades began to replace the drab, recessed fronts of the nine- teenth-century shops. Vaudeville halls were converted to movie theaters. Suburban housing tracts were opened. 22
- 39. A trolley line was run to Asama Springs, on the north- eastern edge of town, and another line straight across the valley to where the Atsusa River emerges from the Alps. Vacationers from the coastal cities began to be seen in large numbers, and near the station plaza there grew a new town of hotels and restaurants. And motor- buses and trucks brought almost every corner of Anchiku within a half day's travel. Good years continued through the 1920's and into the 1930's. The prefectural government built an impres- sive athletic ground on the northern upslope, and the national government created a vast public park up in the Alps. But the worldwide depression of the 'thirties slowed development to a crawl and sent the silk market into a tailspin. The growth of militarism in the nation was reflected in Matsumoto in the building of an army barracks and, later, of military factories. Thought con- trol and indoctrination were fostered not only in the schools but also in the form of a "public hall"—built next to a monument commemorating the Meiji em- peror's visit to the city—with its affiliated youth clubs and neighborhood watch-and-ward societies. The United States Army Air Forces apparently did not regard Matsumoto as a major target during the war. This is not entirely a blessing, for a number of the bombed-out cities have been rebuilt with wide boule- vards capable of bearing mass motor traffic. Matsumoto finds itself caught in a web of streets designed for pedes- trians and pack horses. Traffic is bumper-to-bumper on most main thoroughfares during much of the day. A bypass highway is being built to siphon off the worst of the through traffic; but herculean efforts within the city have so far sufficed only to widen part of one main street. 23
- 40. In the early postwar years there was a severe housing shortage, made worse by a heavy influx of returnees from the former colonies. Government-sponsored apart- ment projects and housing tracts by the dozen have been opened all around the city, increasing its areal sprawl by perhaps as much as a third. Under Occupation in- fluence, the militarist indoctrination and surveillance groups were abolished. The "public hall" (kokaido) was renamed "people's hall" (kominkan), its mat floor- ing was replaced with chairs, and it was given the task of adult education and the spreading of democratic ideals. The lower schools were converted to a 6-3-3 American-style system, and several new buildings were erected. When the new prefectural university was or- ganized in 1949, three of its colleges were awarded to Matsumoto. The school of education and the schools of law and literature took over the campus of the prewar national high school. The school of medicine fell heir to the army barracks. With the rising prosperity of the decade, new build- ings are rising throughout Matsumoto: supermarkets, department stores, hotels, factories, apartments. There is an imposing city auditorium on the south side and a seven-story city hall on the east rim of the second moat, overshadowing the five-story castle. Sadayoshi's former stronghold is now preserved as an official national treas- ure, and its grounds are a public park. His town plan now is Matsumoto's sorrow, but at least his castle serves as a tourist attraction. It was rebuilt in the early fifties when it showed signs of tumbling. A new gatehouse was added (copied from one in Nagoya) in i960. And in 1959 there was a fillip to its history as it momentarily became the site of a national scandal. A newspaper reporter discovered that a group of local politicians, 24
- 41. apparently bored with meeting at their usual run of Matsumoto and Asama inns, had persuaded the care- taker to look the other way while they invaded the castle for an evening of boozing fellowship. The Vanishing Village Fifteen miles up the valley from Matsumoto is a station stop called Ariake. From the station a gravel-topped prefectural highway angles west across the Nakabusa River and into the foothills. It threads through the former Ariake village, winds around the south slopes of the conical peak of the same name ("Shinano's Mount Fuji") and ends at a small hot spring. From late June until September the road is under a cloud of dust, as an almost endless procession of taxis and buses carries vacationers from the station to the hot spring, which also is a gateway for Alpine hiking. Weston, having had reports of "an enchanted valley penetrating into the recesses of the main chain of the Northern Alps," passed this way by rickshaw and on foot in August, 1912. He pronounced the Nakabusa Valley "of surpassing loveliness, each turn of the winding glen more romantic than the last," and praised the hot spring and local hospitality. His one complaint was against "the boorish behavior of some lads of the rougher student class" whose offense seems to have been that they enjoyed singing in the baths late at night. "In this respect," added Weston, "they differ seriously from those ancient Greeks whom in so many ways they otherwise resemble, for the Athenians con- sidered noisy singing in public baths a special sign of boorishness." The rest of the year, traffic on the prefectural high- 25
- 42. way is much lighter. However, there continue to be morning and evening rushes of bikes and motorbikes ridden by Ariake residents who commute to schools, offices, and workshops in several basin towns. Rush hour is as much a part of the present-day Anchiku rural scene as are its acres upon acres of ripening rice and mul- berry. Mechanization and improved crop techniques have made the Anchiku farmer as much a technical specialist as his American counterpart—and rice yields per acre have nearly doubled since the war. Urbaniza- tion and industrialization have opened a Pandora's box of new occupations—and all major basin towns are within an hour and a half's travel. Most Ariake residents will tell you they are farmers. But less than a quarter of them make their livelihood solely from farming, and the combinations of farming with different kinds of wage work are so varied as to defy generalization. The typical holding can adequately be worked by one or two able-bodied adults. Outside help is needed only during the critical spring days when rice is transplanted from seed beds to main fields. Children are expected to devote their time to their schoolwork. It is perhaps most com- mon for the head of a household to manage the farm, with his wife's assistance. Adult sons and daughters will take up work in the towns. Nevertheless it is not un- usual for household heads also to find other employ- ment, especially during the winter months (the Anchiku growing season is 150 days). And if he can secure a permanent position in town, the household head may delegate day-to-day farm tasks to his wife while he com- mutes to work and helps in the fields on his days off. In short, Ariake has an urban hustle that belies its rural vistas. There are still arcadian touches, but it is a noisy arcadia most of the year. The dawn comes 26
- 43. up as on an infantry skirmish, with automatic scare- crows (carbide guns) booming on all sides. During the daytime, heavy traffic rumbles along the prefectural highway, motor tricycles bounce on the byways, power cultivators sputter from the paddies, and radios blare from the farmyards. In the evening cool, public address systems from half a dozen directions compete for at- tention as they broadcast popular music and advertise the night's meetings at their respective hamlet people's halls. The district cuts an irregular swath about four miles wide, from the center of the valley to the top of the Alps. It is bounded on the west by the Alpine divide; on the other three sides by the Karasu and Nakabusa rivers. The western two-thirds of the district is moun- tainous national park and forest, inhabited only during the summer months. Permanent residents are all situ- ated in the eastern third, in the valley. The lower half of the valley section slants very gently eastward but the upper half is a steep and stony alluvium. In some places there are stone fences reminiscent of New Eng- land. Most of the soil is porous granitic sand. To de- velop good paddy, the farmer must often carry in less porous topsoils, sometimes from a considerable dis- tance. One folk explanation for the place name is that the sandy paths reflect brightly on moonlit nights (ariake, literally "having light," but also "daybreak"). However this does not account for Mount Ariake, which was named long ago, and from which the village took its name in the nineteenth century. Even today about half the cultivated area is given over to dry-field crops such as wheat, beans, mulberry, and vegetables. However, irrigation water is abundant in most parts of the district; with the silk market continuing to de- 27
- 44. cline, Ariake farmers have been rapidly converting dry fields to paddy. Matsumoto's modern history has been one of con- tinuing diversification; Ariake's has been one first of centralization then of gradual dispersion. For eighty years Ariake was a corporate village. In 1874 adminis- trative convenience created it out of seven Tokugawa hamlets; in 1955 administrative convenience reduced it to being a district of Hotaka Town. In the Tokugawa period the district contained seven hamlets, with an estimated total population of two thousand persons. Each hamlet had a fair degree of self-sufficiency, although it marketed some cash crops through the Matsumoto brokerage channels. It had also a fair degree of self-government, reinforced by control over communal lands and woods, although it was an- swerable to the Matsumoto lord for failure to keep the peace or forward annual taxes. One hamlet was under the Hotaka magistrate to the south, the others under the Matsukawa magistrate to the north. Meiji leaders held a conscious policy of coaxing loyal- ties away from the hamlets onto the newly created ad- ministrative villages. First, they put local administration and record keeping into the hands of an elected mayor and council. Hamlet boundaries were redrawn by ad- ministrative decision; and although the hamlets retained some functions (and, until 1946, their common lands), their officers tended to become unpaid assistants to the village council. Second, a village-wide tutelary shrine was established, and by definition all residents became its supporters. Third, public primary schools were or- ganized at the village level, in the correct (for Japan) expectation that those who had attended the same school would later find hamlet loyalties heavily counter- 28
- 45. balanced by loyalties to village-wide classmates. Applied to Ariake, these policies had by the turn of the century resulted in a new cluster of buildings near the center of the valley section of the village—a primary school, post office, village office, fire station, and a handful of stores. In the twentieth century this has become the commer- cial center of the village. Its nearest rivals are all across the river and along the railway. Today it has more than two dozen stores and workshops, a police box, producers' cooperative, dentist's office, and forestry field office all strung out along the prefectural highway and a cross- road. And it still is known as Schoolville (Gakko- machi), although the school was torn down in the late 1940's and a larger one built a mile up the road. The village tutelary is still further distant, in the foot- hills near where the Nakabusa debouches onto the plain. Villagers in the Tokugawa period were by no means immune from the lure of the cities. But after the turn of the century modern transportation and telecommuni- cations began to bring the city close to hand, and the newly developed village loyalties began to disappear. In Ariake the favored few who were able to attend the higher schools in Matsumoto in the Meiji era were obliged to live in the city. There were horsedrawn stages, but the trip consumed more than three hours. However, commuting began to be possible after the railway was built during the First World War, and in 1925 bus service began between Schoolville and the station. Then, too, factories were rising not only in Matsumoto but closer at hand in Toyoshina, Hotaka, and Omachi. And in the early 'twenties the Washinton (i.e., "Washington") Corporation built a shoe factory in the southeast corner of the village and began to employ some 150 hands. Village electrification began 29
- 46. after 1911, when a hydroelectric generating plant was erected in the foothills along the Nakabusa River. And the post office installed a switchboard and forty tele- phones in 1919. Unused land, however stony, was still available; and the silk market continued to climb. By 1925 Ariake's population had grown to double what it had been a century earlier, during a period when Japan's rural population in general was at a standstill. In the slump years of the 1930'$ the Ariake popula- tion leveled at slightly below its 1925 peak. A small artillery training camp was opened along the Karasu River; and the government fostered public halls and youth groups and producers' cooperatives here as else- where. One ambitious landlord attempted to stimulate the production of shantung, but with middling results. Since the war, changes have been many and continu- ous. Immediately after the war the official population was swelled more than a thousand by evacuees from the bombed cities and by returnees from the former colonies. Paupers camped in the dry riverbeds. How- ever, as economic conditions improved, the bulk of the returnees went elsewhere. By i960 the population had dropped back to slightly above the 1925 peak. From 1946 to 1950 the village was in the turmoil of the land reform program. Landlordism had not been so severe an issue in Ariake as in many villages. Less than ten per cent of the arable land in the village in 1946 was owned by absentee landlords; and only two landlords, both resident, had holdings of more than twenty acres. Nevertheless some 710 acres changed hands during the reforms. In 1946 only 27 per cent of Ariake farmers were independent (i.e. nonrenting); by 1950 the proportion had increased to 70 per cent. Here as elsewhere in Japan the reforms seem on the 30
- 47. whole to have genuinely spurred productivity. The trend has been further encouraged by the (now independent) producers' cooperatives, which have energetically urged rational crop management and diversification. Many Ariake families have begun to raise poultry and pigs and sheep for sale, and a few have begun to experiment with beef cattle and milch cows. One Nagoya dairy has put up milk collection sheds along the prefectural highway. In 1946 one part of the artillery ground was opened as a development project for returnees. And in 1958 the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau sent in bulldozers and planners, and began a model reclamation project using the remainder of the old camp. Paddies were laid out in neat rectangular blocks large enough for efficient use of power cultivators. Concrete irrigation canals were installed. And communal tool sheds were provided, so that families entering the project moved into city-style houses, complete with tile kitchens and running water. At the same time, the rest of Ariake banded together to sink a well and lay pipes that would bring running water to the older houses in the district too. In 1949 the central government established a boys' reform school on the edge of the foothills, taking over a building that had been used as a private school during the war, and before that as a resort. "The hill where the bell sounds," a radio drama about the boys' school, in the mid-1950's brought a moment of nationwide attention, which Ariake people still vividly remember. Postwar administrators have been dealing with the villages much as their grandfathers did with the ham- lets. Loyalties and administrative functions are being shifted to larger amalgamated townships, much as in the West. The Ariake administration was abolished in 31
- 48. 1955J a n d, apart from tax registers, all Ariake records are now compiled by the Hotaka town office. Similarly the (now compulsory) middle school is a town-wide middle school, although Ariake does retain its primary school. However, Meiji and postwar policies diverge on one point: the postwar leaders have left untouched the shrines, which now are constitutionally separate from the state. Schoolville today has neither school nor village ad- ministration, but it continues to grow commercially. There is a new post office and fire station, and several new shops: druggist, watchmaker, gasoline station. And the producers' cooperative has begun to invade the old village office for use as a meeting hall. 32
- 49. 3. New Forms, New Turns, New Terms In modern civilization the making of new forms of man takes new turns, which may demand new terms for their description. ROBERT REDFIELD
- 50. The scene set, we call in performers. W e introduce three ways of living in modern Anchiku. People guide themselves by ideologies and Utopias, they do not ordinarily "live" them. They live most im- mediately within a landscape of everyday constraints and possibilities. Within these they evolve a more or less orderly,' more or less meaningful, more or less satisfying way of life. The landscape is dominated by daily work and by family ties. One need not be a philosophical materialist in order to recognize the extent to which (borrowing the words of Joseph Schumpeter) "it is our daily work which forms our minds, and that it is our location within the productive process which determines our outlook on things—or the sides of things we see— and the social elbowroom at the command of each of us." Likewise one need not be a family sociologist to recognize the extent to which we are checked and at the same time balanced by those with whom we daily eat, sleep, and commune. So we must speak not only of the new forms of "man" in modern civilization but also of the new forms of family living. W e might call them family cultures or subcultures. But since we are going to deal with the over-all manner or mode, it will be simplest to speak of family styles. The term style calls our attention to format rather than substance. It directs us to the manner of singing rather than the song. It asks us to look for motifs, to see them bound together in related sets, and to recognize how the resulting effect is colored by general qualities. Three stylistic traditions of family living stand out in Japan's recent centuries. They are those of the managers, the countrymen, and the merchants. Other traditions are visible but not numerically preponderant: examples are those of the artist and intellectual, the pariah, the 34
- 51. laborer, or the elite. Behind the modern manifestations of each of these styles one can readily find Tokugawa roots (scratch a salaryman, find a samurai). Indeed we must never lose sight of these. What follows is not meant as a history of these styles, but it is meant as an indication of continuity within change. All of them are new men, but all of them have a traditional side as well. The Salaryman The salaryman, the Japanese version of white-collar worker, is a samurai reincarnate. A knight of modern capitalism, he resembles the Tokugawa knight official on many points. Simple comparisons tend to overstate the case, but the points of similarity and difference are worth attending. Samurai and salaryman alike profess long-term alle- giance to an establishment, and both receive in return long-term job security with a dependable, periodic sti- pend. Both commute daily to the office; both have fixed hours of labor and fixed holidays. Both are im- plicated in factional disputes among their peers and seniors in the establishment. Each is the cynosure of his social order. And both reside in "choice" locations. There are also important differences. The salaryman is, as the samurai was not, equal before the law with his fellowmen: he wears no swords. Samurai were officials; some salarymen are too, but many more are employed in commercial corporations. The samurai ordinarily in- herited his status; the salaryman must achieve his, prov- ing his fitness by earning a college degree and passing the company's entrance examination. Historically, too, the tie is close. After 1868 the first 35
- 52. generation of modern bureaucrats and industrial man- agers had to be recruited, not surprisingly, for the most part from disestablished samurai. This changeover from topknot to top hat (which should not be overstressed, for many samurai had been employed in managerial tasks) is expressive of the government-led tenor of Japan's early modernization. But by the turn of the twentieth century the retread samurai was beginning to step aside for a new form of man, a "Voltairean Japanese," as Chamberlain called him at the time, the product of the modern university. The new man won himself a new term, a term created in Japanized Eng- lish, sarariiman. As Japanese industry and bureaucracy have grown during the past half century, so have their "knowledge workers," the salarymen. Today the salaryman makes up perhaps as much as a fifth of the Japanese labor force— although an exact count is impossible. His style of life is a target of nationwide envy and youthful ambition, and it is widely imitated. In the Tokugawa period the "Five Breaks" (go sekku), five annual holidays favored by the samurai, grew popular among townsmen and peasants. In the modern era the Weekly Holiday Sys- tem, which rapidly became part of the salaryman style, is copied by merchants and even by farmers. Apprentices and salesgirls now demand a six-day or five-and-one- half day working week. And perhaps most telling of all is the instituting—at places in Anchiku as elsewhere— of what is called a "farmers' salary system." Under this system, the farmer takes the bulk of his income from annual crop sales and deposits it with the treasurer of the local producers' cooperative. The treasurer repays the money in monthly installments, as a "salary." Advo- cates say that the system encourages thrift, and monthly 36
- 53. budgeting, and of course it provides the cooperative with added short-term working capital. One Ariake farmer was oversimple in his social arithmetic but per- haps accurate in his emotional arithmetic when he remarked to me, "These days half of the Japanese are salarymen, and the other half are trying to live as if they were." There are abundant parallels with the American scene. Indeed, in reading Japanese commentaries on the salaryman one often suspects that C. Wright Mills is being quoted without credit. Certainly many phrases may be taken from White Collar and applied directly to the salaryman: his Kafka-like alienation from his work, his felt disjunction of effort and enjoyment, his political voicelessness, his need to sell not only his labor but also his personality, and so on. The salaryman is a key figure for understanding the modern social con- figuration. As Mills writes, "By their rise to numerical importance, the white-collar people have upset the nineteenth-century expectation that society would be divided between entrepreneurs and wage workers. By their mass way of life, they have transformed the tang and feel of the American experience. They carry, in a most revealing way, many of those psychological themes that characterize our epoch, and, in one way or another, every general theory of the main drift has had to take account of them." The Firm Framework When the salaryman's style of living is viewed in con- trast to those of the farmer and the merchant, these features stand out: Of the three the salaryman is finan- cially the most stable but, at the same time, the least 37
- 54. independent. The establishment shelters him against any major income fluctuations—up as well as down, however—but demands of him what is often called a "lifetime commitment." Taken naively, the phrase is hyperbolic; twenty-five-year men are not difficult to uncover in American bureaus and corporations too. However, it does call attention to a discernible slug- gishness in salaryman mobility from employer to em- ployer, a prizing of company loyalty, and a reluctance to hire a man who has once been another's knight or squire. To this extent the salaryman has much less room in which to maneuver than do the merchant and the farmer, however much the latter two might prefer not to liquidate their enterprises. The salaryman's life is more clearly segregated into a workshop sphere and a household sphere. Although he may carry his office problems home with him, his wife and children do not ordinarily enter into his office activities except as spurs to his ambitions. Here again he has less maneuverability than the farmer or mer- chant, who are in a better position to exploit the labor power of other family members. Salaryman wives often take jobs during the early years of marriage. But, once children are in the household, the place of the proper salaryman wife, like that of the proper samurai wife, is in the home. With his life so dependent upon the social frame- work of his office, the salaryman, more than the farmer or merchant, must learn to exploit his personality. True enough, the merchant sells his friendliness and service as well as his goods. But the salaryman has little in the way of objective goods to offer; he must sell his sub- jective self, and in an all but monopsonistic market. He needs to be almost diseasedly sensitive to his rela- 38
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- 56. A GENEROUS SPANIARD. what then must the feeling be at losing a faithful leg? The trial was decided on; but in justice to Dr. Mathews I feel called upon to declare that he most fully pointed out the imminent danger attending the experiment. Thus far I have entered into detail in consequence of a remark made to the General Medical Board, Drs. Weir, Franklin and Car, who said, when I appeared before them in London, that the medical officer who saved my leg was in no way borne out in making the attempt, for there were ninety-nine chances to one against my life. It is true that the wound was as severe as could possibly be inflicted; the tibia and fibula were both shattered, and the orifice made seemed the entrance to a quarry of bones, five-and-thirty pieces of which exfoliated and kept the wound open for several years. When I was carried out of the field my whole fortune consisted of one crusado novo, a Portuguese silver coin value three shillings. This I had much difficulty in persuading the poor cottagers to accept, not from a consideration that the sum was an inadequate remuneration for the mutilation of their mattress and whatever food they supplied, but solely from pure motives of generosity. They wept at my parting, and prayed to every saint in heaven or elsewhere for my speedy and perfect recovery. On my arrival therefore in hospital, I possessed not a single farthing; and in my situation other nourishment was required than that of a ration pound of bread and beef. My host, Don Martin D’Echiparre, continually sat by my bedside. Looking upon him as a generous and liberal person, I, after a few evenings, candidly confessed my pecuniary embarrassments, requesting him to lend me a few dollars and offering him my gold watch until I should receive a remittance from the paymaster. He replied, “Do you take me for a Jew? I never lend less than a hundred guineas; these you may have when you please.” This I considered a bombastical evasion and declined his offer. Next morning he made his usual visit and approaching close said in a low voice, “You refused last night to take a hundred guineas; take at least these fifty,” and he held them forth. I told him that so large a sum was both superfluous and useless;
- 57. however, after a good deal of controversy, he consented to lend me so small a sum as ten guineas. After a lapse of three months an order was received to remove the hospital depôt to St. Jean de Luz. What was to be done? I had received no remittance; consequently I had no means of repaying the ten guineas, six of which were already spent—one more was absolutely necessary to defray the cost of my removal to St. Jean de Luz, which would take four days. I was to be carried in a litter borne by inhabitants, to pay whom would require the greater part of the guinea. To pay back the remaining three would be but a poor return; but my truly noble and generous host having entered the room, relieved me from my unpleasant dilemma. After expressing his deep regret at my departure, he thus addressed me: “Being aware that you have had no remittance from the army; and knowing from the hospitable and generous manner in which you have entertained the many officers who continually came to see you, in which hospitality I nightly participated with pleasure, that you must want money, I put these four farthings in my pocket for you,” presenting four Spanish doubloons. “I offer you,” continued he, “this small sum because of your obstinacy in refusing the hundred guineas; but if you will accept that sum and another hundred in addition, you would please me much more. Do not pay me from St. Jean de Luz nor from England, but only when you get home to your friends in Ireland; and if you never pay, it will be of no consequence whatever.” However I declined to accept either hundreds or doubloons: and after mutual protestations of sincere friendship and regard, we bade each other a final farewell and parted with unfeigned regret. This anecdote I relate as highly honourable to the country in which it occurred. D’Echiparre was a Frenchman by birth, but a Spaniard by adoption, and in the Spanish language we always conversed. He was a Valladolid merchant and had realised upwards of ten thousand pounds, which in that part of the country was considered a handsome fortune. On my arrival at St. Jean de Luz I was so fortunate as to procure two months’ pay (not in advance for we were seven months in
- 58. A POSTCHAISE, BUT NO ROAD. arrear), when I immediately sent the ten guineas to my generous host. The time having arrived to get rid of the cumbrous sick and wounded officers, we were removed to los Pasages and there embarked in a transport bound for Portsmouth; but the wind proving contrary prevented our entering the channel and we were compelled to put into Bantry Bay in Ireland. Here we anchored close to a village, if I recollect right, called Castletown, and put up at an inn kept by the widow Martin. The wind continuing very boisterous and contrary, we resolved to travel overland through Ireland. Enquiring for a postchaise, we were informed that there was a postchaise, but that some miles of the road were as yet unfinished, and consequently not carriageable. Upon this we dropped down to the village bearing the name of the bay. Here having learned that the road was perfectly good, we landed our baggage and went ashore; but now to our great dismay we found that this village had no postchaise. In this dilemma we decided to place our baggage on pack-saddles and to travel as in Spain. The operation of packing had commenced, when looking into the courtyard I discovered a hearse. Upon enquiry the waiter said: “Please, your honour, it is an ould lady who died here lately, and her friends thought they would bury her proudly; so they sent to Cork for the hearse and it is going back to-day to Bandon.” I sent for the driver and immediately concluded a bargain; he engaged to carry us to Bandon in the hearse; and thence we were to have two postchaises to take us to Cork for a sum agreed upon. The pack- saddling was relinquished; and the whole party, consisting of Captain Taylor, 28th, with a broken thigh, Captain Girlston, 31st, a broken arm, Captains Bryan and Cone, 39th, sick leaves, and Captain Blakeney, 36th, a broken leg, entered the hearse. Our first stage was Dunmanway, where we made a tremendous meal; the innkeeper complimented us by saying that he never saw travellers in a hearse make so hearty a breakfast. Our appearance must have been extraordinary; for as we moved along in the carriage of death, but
- 59. A ROAD, BUT NO POSTCHAISE. not with its usual pace, the country folk, abandoning their legitimate avocations, ran after us for miles. On our arrival at Bandon thousands of the inhabitants followed and impeded our way. I recollect that a regiment of militia quartered there ran like others to see the novel show, when hundreds of the runabout crowd cried out to them: “Get ye out of the way! What have ye to do with the honours of war? Look there!” and they pointed to our crutches, which stuck out from the open hearse in all directions, like escutcheons emblasoning the vehicle of death. At length we got safe to our inn, attended as numerously as if the hero of the Peninsula himself had been present. Here I called upon a lady who lived close to our inn—a Mrs. Clarke. She had two sons in the army, with both of whom I was intimately acquainted, particularly the eldest; he was a brother officer of mine in the 28th Regiment and was afterwards removed to the 5th Regiment, in which he lost a leg. To him we are indebted for that valuable publication, The United Service Journal. The other I knew in the 77th Regiment; he also had been severely wounded in the leg, so that the lady had seen both her sons on crutches. When she saw the rough crutches which I carried, or rather which carried me, she offered me a pair more highly finished, belonging to one of her sons; but since mine were made of the halberts of two sergeants who lost their lives charging into the redoubt under which I fell, I declined the lady’s very polite offer. Next morning we set out for Cork; and being actually enclosed within postchaises we contrived to screen our honours of war from public notice and therefore were not cheered to our hotel. At Cork the party separated, each making his way to England as best he could. On my arrival in London, I waited on Sir Henry Torrens, military secretary to His Royal Highness the Commander-in-chief. I mentioned to the secretary my intention of memorialising the Duke of York for promotion by brevet, in consideration of my voluntary services and severe wounds received whilst so serving. Sir Henry after hearing my statement said that I was perfectly right, but at the same time
- 60. advised me to procure testimonials of my services from my different commanding officers in support of my memorial. With this advice I willingly complied, conscious of my having on every occasion endeavoured to perform my duties to the fullest extent of my abilities. After such encouragement from so high an authority as the Commander-in-chief’s secretary and firmly relying on the nature of the testimonials which I should receive, I considered my promotion certain. I immediately wrote to Colonel Cross, commanding 28th Regiment at Fermoy, and to Colonel Browne (late 28th), commanding 56th Regiment at Sheerness. With their replies and a memorial to His Royal Highness, I waited on the secretary; but on presenting them, he, without even opening them, said: “Recollect, Captain Blakeney, that I did not promise you promotion. I cannot give away majorities.” I replied that I did not apply for a majority; I only asked for the rank by brevet, which was throughout the army considered as a reward for meritorious officers when regimental promotion might be attended with difficulty. I received no answer. Chagrined and disappointed because, when the secretary had told me that I was right in making a memorial and had advised me to get my commanding officer’s testimonials, he now opposed that memorial before he even submitted it to the Commander-in-chief, I retired with strong impressions, which I now decline to state. In a short time I received an answer to my memorial stating that I could not at the present moment be promoted by brevet, but that I should get a majority when a favourable opportunity offered. Unbounded confidence was not inspired by this promise from the Horse Guards, particularly after what had passed on the subject. How far this diffidence was justified may be seen in the sequel. The above statement may appear extraordinary; but between the time of my first interview with Sir Henry Torrens and the arrival of those testimonials from my various commanding officers, which the secretary had suggested, the star of Napoleon had begun to set. His abdication soon followed; war was no longer contemplated; and the claims of officers, of whatever nature, were abandoned to a heartless neglect.
- 62. A CHAPTER XXIX. AT THE GRAND REVIEW IN PARIS. fter remaining in London at a heavy expense while I awaited the answers of my commanding officers and the result of my memorial, I left town and joined the 2nd Battalion of the regiment, then quartered at Lewes. Here I remained for some time; and then being still on sick, or rather wounded, leave, I visited my old acquaintance, the Prince d’Arenberg, from whom I had received repeated and pressing invitations. Arriving in Brussels, I found that unfortunately he was then in Italy. When I was rather weary of Brussels but unwilling so soon to go back to England, especially as the prince was shortly expected to return, some particular friends, Sir John Burke of Glenesk, Sir William Elliot and Lord Bury, aide-de- camp to the Prince of Orange, determined on an excursion to Paris, and I was prevailed upon to accompany them. We travelled in Burke’s private carriage. The early part of our journey was excessively agreeable; but on drawing near the capital we encountered an extraordinary number of vehicles of every description and on approaching a small town within a post or two of Paris towards dark, we met a train of from thirty to forty carriages. Upon asking the cause of this great concourse, a Mrs. Atchison, whom with her two amiable daughters we had known at Brussels, exclaimed from one of the carriages, “What, are you not aware that Napoleon will be in Paris to-morrow?” and she added that every British subject there was hastening away as fast as post-horses could be procured, which was attended with much difficulty and
- 63. NAPOLEON HOME FROM ELBA. delay. Thunderstruck at this information, for not a word even of Napoleon’s escape from Elba was known two days before at Brussels, we immediately stopped; and as soon as we could procure change of horses we proceeded to Cambray. Here the party separated: Mrs. and the Misses Atchison escorted by the two baronets leisurely proceeded to Brussels; Lord Bury and I shaped our course with all speed for Ostend, on our way to England. We were detained at Cambray until towards dark by the difficulty of procuring post-horses; but just as we were about to set forward, a French officer carrying, as he stated, despatches of utmost importance, galloped into the yard, his steed covered with foam. He immediately demanded a horse, and the authority which he carried left the postmaster no choice; he immediately provided one. I asked the officer a few questions as to the sentiments entertained in the capital and of the nature of his despatches, but I could procure no direct reply. As I was getting into Lord Bury’s cabriolet, with his lordship and his private servant, I chanced to mention that our route lay through Lisle, when the man of despatch at length opened his mouth, saying that he also was bound for Lisle, and that if we would take him into our carriage and let the servant ride his horse, he would engage to pass us through the different enclosed towns which lay in our route, at which without his intervention we should be detained if arriving after dark. This proposal was made in consequence of the inclemency of the weather, which was tremendous, incessant heavy rain, accompanied with high winds, thunder and awful lightning. Though Bury felt reluctant to expose his servant to the raging elements, yet our great anxiety to get clear of the French territory overcame every other consideration. During our progress I asked our new companion many questions, but he would appear much fatigued and slept, or feigned to sleep, the greater part of the time; however, he kept his word in passing us through the towns. On presenting his credentials the drawbridges were dropped, we entered, changed horses and passed on without our passports being looked at until we arrived at Lisle. Here our
- 64. companion left us with scant ceremony. Being no longer under the protection of the man of despatch and having arrived after dark, we were not permitted to leave the fortress until morning. We afterwards learned that this officer, who sat so very comfortably in Lord Bury’s carriage between two British officers, was at the time the bearer of disaffected despatches to induce the two Generals Lallemande to declare in favour of Napoleon. Our night at Lisle was restless; but fortunately we got off next morning without meeting any obstruction, and having soon entered the Belgian territory felt a degree of security which previously we considered very doubtful. Our feelings somewhat resembled those experienced by the Prince d’Arenberg after crossing the Spanish frontier into Portugal. Although now freed from dread of detention, yet we relaxed not in posting forward to Ostend. On arrival Lord Bury waited on General Vandeleur, commanding the British troops there, and related the circumstances attending our journey. The general was excessively astonished and appeared somewhat startled, not having had the slightest knowledge of Napoleon having left his island; indeed he seemed rather incredulous. Bury requested that I should be sent for to the hotel, where I was making hasty preparations for our departure to England. On appearing, I confirmed Lord Bury’s statement, adding that from all I could collect along our route, or rather flight, I felt perfectly convinced that Napoleon was at that moment in Paris. Courtesy, and I believe courtesy alone, induced the general no longer to appear incredulous. At the same time he begged us to be very cautious as to what we should say, for if what we had heard were true he would find himself in rather an embarrassing position among the Belgians, who seemed much inclined towards the government and person of Napoleon. Being politely dismissed by the general we proceeded to England, and landing at Ramsgate pushed forward to Canterbury. Here we halted for breakfast, when hundreds collected round the hotel since a report was spread that the Duc de Berri had just
- 65. THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO FOUGHT. arrived from France, whom they were anxious to behold; but upon learning that it was the English Lord Bury, not His Royal Highness the French Duc de Berri who had arrived, they retired rather disappointed. That night we arrived in London, but not a soul would give credence to our account; and Napoleon was victoriously sitting on the throne of France and in the heart of the capital some days before even his departure from Elba was known in London. Immediately on my return I applied to Sir Henry Torrens for a staff appointment in the army of Belgium; and I asked that, should His Royal Highness not have an opportunity of appointing me at present, he would be pleased to permit my proceeding there, as from my acquaintance with many general officers under whom I had had the honour of serving, I felt emboldened to think that I should be employed. This letter was written to Sir Henry Torrens at his own request; but as he was a few days afterwards sent to Brussels to confer with the Duke of Wellington, I repeated my request to Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw, Military Secretary ad interim. To this application I received an answer to the effect that the commander- in-chief was sensible of my zeal for active service, but had no present opportunity of employing me on the staff, nor could he comply with my request for leave of absence. It may be necessary here to state that at that period a general order had been issued strictly prohibiting all officers on leave of absence from leaving the kingdom without the special permission of the commander-in-chief. My leave of absence which terminated on the 24th of the month was renewed as a matter of course, but not without the prohibition mentioned. My regiment being in Ireland and not ordered to the Netherlands, I still remained in London urging my request, but to no purpose. In the meantime the battle of Waterloo was fought; and the 36th were ordered to reinforce the duke’s army. I now procured permission to proceed direct from London. Major-General Sir William O’Callaghan was ordered out at the same time; and as we had been intimately acquainted in the Peninsula, I now acted as his aide-de-camp. In
- 66. this way I anticipated the arrival of the regiment in Paris by at least a month, which gave me full opportunity, uninterrupted by regimental duties, of examining the discipline, dress and movements of the different armies then in Paris, particularly as they passed in review order. This review was a splendid spectacle. Each crowned head of the powers engaged had nominally a regiment in the army of each brother sovereign; and each in his turn marched past as colonel of his regiment, saluting with due military discipline the crowned head to whose army the regiment belonged. The Emperor Alexander wore his cocked hat square to the front, kept firm on his head by a black ribbon tied under his chin. When he saluted in marching past his chosen master, he shot his right arm at full length horizontally from his right shoulder, and then curving the arm with tolerable grace to the front he touched the upper part of his forehead with his hand, the fingers closed together and the palm turned downwards. His appearance was soldier-like; yet he seemed not a hardy veteran, but rather a good-humoured, well-conditioned English yeoman than the representative of Peter the Great. Contentment, apparently uninterrupted by thought or reflection, seemed to sit on his unruffled brow. The King of Prussia wore his hat fore and aft. In saluting he sent his right hand perpendicularly upwards, the palm turned towards his face, his fingers stiff and their tips brought suddenly against the point of his hat. Sullenness was portrayed on his countenance. His figure was tall; but I saw nothing lofty about him save his station, which, had it not been hereditary, would never have been his. He was what we call in a horse wall-eyed. Nothing indicated the determined warrior, polished courtier or profound statesman; and during the whole time in which I presumed to regard him I do not recollect that a single thought of the Great Frederick flashed on my mind. The Emperor Francis wore his hat neither square nor fore and aft; the right cock was brought rather forward. In saluting, his right arm was slowly brought up to meet the fore part of his hat, to touch which his fingers were bent into a bunch. His stature was scarcely above the middle size, his face melancholy
- 67. A PAGEANT OF EMPERORS. and overcast; it did not appear to be that sullen melancholy which indicates disappointed ambition—it seemed rather to be produced by painful recollections of happy scenes and feelings which, like blooming youth gone by, can never return. His deportment was that of an over-thoughtful, but an affable gentleman; dejection he combated, but could not shake off; he would appear happy, but failed in the endeavour. His former deadly foe and conqueror (a fortunate revolutionist emerged from obscurity) was now united to the child of his affections, the descendant of the Cæsars. The overthrow of the one must drag down the other. Unwillingly then he drew his sword, for whatever he might have previously suffered he now made war against his daughter and her husband. These conflicting feelings must have harassed his very soul; his position was cruelly embarrassing; and it was impossible to witness his distress and not participate in his feelings. His appearance throughout proclaimed him an unwilling actor in the gorgeous show. He alone seemed to reflect that players sometimes act the part of kings, but that here the farce was reversed. It struck me as rather singular and wanting in delicacy that every band of music in the Austrian, Russian and Prussian armies, while they marched past the group of kings, played the tune by us called The Downfall of Paris; but I subsequently learned that among the nations mentioned, as also in France, the music bore a quite different name and meaning. During these reviews the troops of the foreign nations marched from Paris through the Place Louis Quinze; and passing through the Champs Elysées filed off into the suburbs. The last review, or rather march past, was by the British troops. The line of route was now reversed. Our troops, proudly following the tattered flags but upright standards of Britain, debouched from the Champs Elysées, and after marching past filed through Paris. The music played at the head of every regiment was the inspiring tune “The British Grenadiers.” The duke took his station close to the Place Louis Quinze, towards the entrance from the Champs Elysées. He was dressed in the uniform
- 68. THE IRON DUKE. of a British field-marshal; he grasped a mamaluke sabre, the hand which held it resting on the pommel of his saddle. In this position he remained for some hours during the marching past of the troops; and although he evidently saw all, yet he moved not at all; and during the whole time (for I was near) even his sword moved not an inch from its original position. All the working was in his mind; his body was absolutely still. As the British troops moved forward they called forth general admiration; and, candidly speaking, their appearance was splendid in the extreme. This opinion is not prompted by either partiality or prejudice; but having had the opportunity of previously beholding the parade of the allied troops, all showing stage effect rather than the free use of the limbs, I could not avoid noticing the contrast between them and the British soldiers, whose movements were in strict conformity with the intention of Providence in providing joints to be freely used for the easy carriage of the body. It was this manly, free and firm step which induced the Emperor Alexander after the reviews were over to declare that he would introduce the British discipline and system of drill into his army, since the English movements were more in conformity with the natural structure of man. Even the dress of the British soldier was calculated more for comfort and use than for mere outward appearance, and yet was far from being unseemly. The Russian troops appeared like rampant bears; the Prussians like stuffed turkeys; the slow-going Austrians were in figure, countenance and appearance altogether characteristically Germanic; the French, from their being well inured to fire and moving with such little up-and-down steps making but little progress to the front, brought to mind that species of animal called turnspit in the active performance of his duty. But the object of general regard, and that which attracted the attention of all, was the hero who led the British troops through an unparalleled series of brilliant campaigns and victorious battles. The all-seeing eagle eye which illumined his countenance, the aquiline nose which stamps talent on the countenance of man, together with
- 69. EXECUTION OF MARSHAL NEY. the peculiar length of upper lip, marked him apart. In all he seemed the Roman of old—save in pomp. Shortly after the reviews the 36th Regiment arrived in Paris, and on the same day Sir William O’Callaghan’s aide-de-camp, his nephew, Captain Colthurst, made his appearance. The general being thus provided, I joined my regiment. We were quartered at Montmartre, the theatre of Marmont’s fidelity. Subsequently we encamped in the Bois de Boulogne; thence we moved into cantonments not far distant from Versailles. A part of the regiment were quartered in the Chateau of the Postmaster-General of France. His history so far as it relates to his attachment to Napoleon, his imprisonment and the mode of his escape aided by a British general officer lately reinstated in rank, is already well known. Towards the close of December 1815 the regiment was ordered home. We passed through Paris on the day that Marshal Ney was shot; whether our presence there during that melancholy occasion was accidental or designed I cannot say, but it was probably designed. His death was worthy of his former undaunted character, which gained him the title of “Le brave des braves.” Disdaining to have his eyes bandaged he commanded the soldiers appointed for his execution to fire; and shedding bitter tears they obeyed his order, by which France was deprived of the bravest and brightest genius who ever led her armies to victory. On the second restoration of Louis XVIII. a general pardon was granted by proclamation in his name to all French subjects then residing in Paris; but by a strange construction of words it was argued that Ney was not included, although at the time he did reside in Paris, if a soldier be considered as ever residing anywhere. Soult, although he fought in the ranks of Napoleon at Waterloo, yet made so noble a defence that the Duc de Richelieu durst not push the prosecution; yet His Grace declared that it would be an abuse of mercy to pardon Ney. He was found guilty of high treason, upon which verdict he was executed. But against whom or what was the
- 70. treason? Not against France, in whose defence or for whose aggrandisement he fought five hundred battles, and never drew his sword against her. His treason then consisted in his unfortunate choice of allegiance between two individuals: one, the Emperor selected by the French nation and under whose standard all the armies of France were ranged; the other a king indeed but a nominal one, a king who fled his country on the approach of a foreign invader, as Napoleon actually was on coming from the Island of Elba. This king too was opposed by the nation upon whom he was foisted, as he himself gratefully but imprudently proclaimed by declaring that next to God he owed his crown to the Prince Regent of England. This insult to his countrymen was deeply felt all through France, and cannot be more forcibly expressed than by the manner in which the French at the time proclaimed him as “Louis XVIII., King of France and Navarre, by the grace of three hundred thousand foreign bayonets.” As traitor against this king, Ney was executed; but, had he been spared, the monarch’s crown would have been the brighter, and the bravest of the brave have been spared to his country. In our route to Calais the detachment of the regiment to which I belonged passed through the village of Creçy, where we halted for a day. Natural curiosity, not unmixed with national pride, induced some of us to visit the plains glorious to Edward III. and the Black Prince. Our guide pointed out the little tower in which the victorious Edward is stated to have taken post during the battle; it had all the appearance of having been a windmill. The glorious days of the Edwards and Henrys flashed on our imaginations: days when the warlike monarchs led their gallant troops in person and by their heroic example fired them to deeds of glory; days when personal merit was promptly and impartially rewarded. Rewards for gallant deeds of arms did not then depend upon a county election. The chief who witnessed and who consequently could best judge possessed the power to reward without reference to the jarring interests of voters at home. On surveying the extensive plain, our guide pointed out a mound, distant from the windmill about two miles. Here it was, he
- 71. said, that the French army made their last desperate effort. A small chapel is built on the site, called “La Chapelle des Trois Cents Corps Nobles,” to commemorate the fact that where the chapel stands three hundred nobles of the contending armies fighting fell. On returning to our billets I signified to the man of the house my wish to visit the hallowed spot next morning, as it was then too late in the day. Upon this our good host entertained us with many legendary tales of the chapel, and said amongst other things that the door could never be kept shut. My evident incredulity rather displeasing him, he protested most solemnly that bolts and locks had been repeatedly put on the door to endeavour to keep it shut, but to no purpose: it was always found wide open in the morning; and as to watching it, none could be found sufficiently daring to make the attempt. Notwithstanding the solemn assertions of our good host, I told him that I was determined to proceed to the chapel next morning and shut myself within its mysterious walls. When he had used many arguments to dissuade me from my purpose but found me still determined, he remarked that there was one difficulty in my shutting myself up there, since, in consequence of the fact that the chapel could never be kept closed, it had been without a door for more than a century. Much disappointed, but still perceiving by the solemn manner of my host that his account of the chapel was not intended as a jest, I told him that I should certainly go there next morning and nail a blanket against the doorway, to witness the consequence of closing the chapel; and this foolish act I was determined to carry into execution, but as we received orders that night to continue our march at daybreak next morning, my quixotic enterprise was frustrated. The impossibility of closing the chapel was religiously believed by every inhabitant of the place, not excluding the parish priest. We embarked at Calais and descended at Ramsgate and Dover, and thence proceeded overland to Portsmouth, which we garrisoned until the year 1817, when we embarked for the Island of Malta.
- 73. I CHAPTER XXX. AT BRUSSELS WITH DUKE D’ARENBERG. n 1819 I procured leave of absence to proceed to England; and in this year I repeated my visit to Brussels. I found Prince Prosper at home and received the most marked attention from the old duke, his father. Here it may not be irrelevant to mention that Napoleon, as contributing to fortify his unwieldy empire, insisted on the Prince Prosper marrying a Miss Tacher, a niece of Josephine, and transferred to him his father’s title, Duke d’Arenberg, at the same time by a similar arbitrary act compelling the old unduked duke to assume the title of a baron of the French empire. This was one of Napoleon’s master strokes of policy. Prince Prosper was now married to his second wife having been previously divorced from his first duchess, Miss Tacher that was, to whom the mustachios had been sent from Lisbon. At the old duke’s table I had always a cover; and a groom and a pair of horses were exclusively at my service. The duke was a remarkably fine old man, but had been blind for many years when I had the honour of making his acquaintance. The calamity occurred through the following lamentable circumstance. At his father’s house, celebrated for hospitality, a large party of friends were entertained, for whose greater amusement rural sports were resorted to. The wild-boar hunt was generally selected, in which the duke, then a young man, took great delight; but as one of the guests, who was chargé d’affaires of the British Court, expressed an
- 74. A NOBLE SERVITOR. unwillingness to join in the boar hunt, preferring partridge-shooting, the young duke in courtesy gave up his favourite amusement and joined his friend, for whom he entertained the greatest esteem. All being arranged, the parties set forth, and on their arrival at Enghien, a considerable estate belonging to the duke about five-and-twenty miles from Brussels, the sport began. The duke took his station behind a hedge; and his English friend screened himself behind a neighbouring fence. The cover being very close, beaters were sent in to drive out the birds, as in woodcock-shooting in England. A rustling sound being heard by the Englishman, who had the boar hunt, which took place in the same parts, still in his mind, he fired through the fence and lodged the contents of his gun in the face of his friend. At a cry of distress from the duke, the Englishman broke his way through the fence, when fancy his horror at perceiving his dear friend prostrate on the ground, his figure recognised, but all his features disguised by blood and his eyes incapable of seeing his agonised friend. Nearly frantic at witnessing the dreadful result of his incautious fire, he holloaed out for assistance; and on the arrival of some domestics he instantly ran into the town of Enghien, and ordering a postchaise drove off to Brussels, nor stopped he, except to change horses, until he arrived at Ostend, where he instantly embarked for England, never again to return to the Netherlands. The two faithful friends never more beheld each other, one because he was blind, the other on account of a horror which he could never overcome. The duke was carried to Brussels and the first medical aid which the Netherlands could produce immediately consulted. The most eminent physicians and surgeons of France and England were sent for, but to no purpose—the vision was for ever destroyed. During my visit at Brussels, by the duke’s desire, I passed a few days at Enghien. Being alone, I was entertained by an old family steward, who always resided there. The family mansion having been burnt, its place was supplied by two handsome pavilions. The old domestic, who had been previously advised of my visit, was the most respectable person for his station whom I ever met; in truth, he appeared a
- 75. perfect gentleman of the old school, as well in dress as in address. Nearly seventy chill winters must have passed over his head, but although those rigid seasons left many a rough stamp behind, his sympathy and warm heart gave ample testimony that an equal number of genial summers had done their part. His white hair was bound with black ribbons and formed a massy queue, extending some way down his shoulders; yet, silvered as were his venerable locks, he was highly powdered too,—this always gives a peculiarly dressy appearance. His coat was of the old-fashioned cut, sloping backwards from the lower part of the breast to the extremity of the skirts and bearing large steel buttons. His waistcoat was of a similar cut, having long low-flapped pockets, below which were short velvet breeches, black silk stockings and polished shoes with large silver buckles. To be attended by such a personage during dinner distressed me very much. I should have felt more easy if in place of serving he had sat down and borne me company; this I proposed, but no remonstrance of mine could prevail upon him to acquiesce. He remarked that he could never so far forget his duty and respect as to sit at the same table with his lord’s guest, and moreover that I should be without the attendance which he had received orders to give. I then proposed that the young lad who always rode after me should wait. To this he objected, unless I ordered it, which I declined to do, perceiving by a half-muttered expression that it would be indecorous to introduce a stable groom into the dining-room. After dinner, which I hurried over, I insisted on his placing a second wineglass and obliged him to sit down, stating that there were many circumstances relative to his lord with which I wished to become acquainted, and for which I had the duke’s authority. This he considered as a mandate and sat down; yet such was the distance at which he placed his chair from the table that he imposed upon himself the obligation of standing up whenever I prevailed upon him to take his glass of the good wine, which I had always to pour out for him. During my stay at Enghien this respectable gentleman-butler related many anecdotes of gallant deeds performed by the Dukes
- 76. THE FRIEND WHO SHOT HIM. d’Arenberg, but as was natural dwelt most upon those scenes which took place in his own time. Next morning he conducted me to the spot where the fatal accident deprived his lord of sight. The old man was of the shooting party; and with tears in his eyes he described the whole scene most minutely and pathetically. Having seen all the grounds, I returned to the pavilion; but on that day too I could not prevail on the old man to sit down to dinner, and finding him inflexible and being hurt at seeing so old and so respectable a person on his legs whilst I sat at dinner, I determined to depart next morning. On coming away I cordially shook the good old man by the hand, and would most willingly have made some donation, but I could not presume to offer him money, knowing how much it would hurt him; I should as soon have offered such an affront to the duke. When I returned to Brussels the good old duke asked me with the greatest coolness if I had seen the spot where he was deprived of sight. He seemed to treat the circumstance with perfect indifference; but he evidently felt great emotion whenever the name of his unhappy friend was mentioned, and I repeatedly heard him say, “My poor friend! he suffers more than I do.” Some years after the accident took place the duke visited England, and calling upon his friend, who happened to be out, left his name and address. When the other returned and saw the duke’s card, he instantly ordered post-horses and departed for Italy, not being able to summon fortitude sufficient to encounter that friend whom he so highly prized. The duke suffered much by this disappointment; for although deprived of the power of seeing him, still it would have afforded him the greatest consolation to press to his bosom the friend whom he now more than ever esteemed. Not long after the duke travelled into Italy, where he was doomed to experience a similar disappointment. Happening to visit the same town in which his friend was living for a time, he paid him a visit, but not finding him at home did not leave his card, as he hoped to meet him another time; but when the friend returned and heard from his servant a description of the caller, he instantly set out
- 77. for England. They never met after the sad accident; and they both departed this life nearly at the same moment. During the duke’s sojourn in England he ordered a machine to be made entirely imagined by himself, which in his lamentable state enabled him to play at whist, a game to which he was very partial and which afterwards principally contributed to his amusement. It was a small mahogany box about eighteen inches long, six inches deep, and the same in breadth; it screwed under the leaf of the table in front of where the duke sat to play; in its side were four rows or little channels, and in each channel were thirteen holes corresponding with the number of cards in each suit; in each of these holes was a movable peg, which could be pushed in or pulled out. The pack being dealt out, a page, who sat close to the duke, sorted his cards, placing them in suits and in order of value from left to right, each suit being separated from the others by the duke’s fingers, between which they were placed by the page. Beginning from the left with spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs in order, the peg corresponding with each card in the duke’s hand was drawn out, so that the duke passing his fingers over the machine learned each card in his hand by means of the corresponding peg. Each of the other players named the card which he played. For instance, the person sitting on the left of the duke said, “I play the seven of hearts”; the next, “I play the ten”; the third, “I play the queen,” when the duke exclaimed, “And I play the king,” and infallibly down came the king. I never saw him make a mistake. When he had played a card he pushed in the peg corresponding to that card. On one occasion having had the honour of being his partner against the Marquis de Grimelle and another, I won a napoleon, which I bored and kept in memory of having won it with a partner totally deprived of sight. The duke was much pleased at my doing so. The duke entertained in princely style. His table displayed the choicest viands, the rarest productions of the seasons and the most exquisite wines. I remarked that on fast-days there was a particular kind of white soup always placed before the abbé who was attached to the family. Curiosity induced me to ask Prince Prosper, next to
- 78. LETTER FROM H.R.H. THE DUKE OF KENT. whom I always sat, of what this select soup consisted. The prince replied in a suppressed tone of voice that it was extracted from frogs; “For,” said he, “the Church has decided that those animals are not to be considered as flesh: but yet, since the soup thus produced is not sufficiently rich, a couple of pounds of veal are added; and although he is fully aware of the deception practised, the abbé is so good a person that he pardons the cook and absolves him from all sin.” My leave of absence allowing me to remain no longer at Brussels, I returned to England. At parting, the good, the truly noble old duke presented me with a letter of introduction recommending me to the protection of H.R.H. the Duke of Kent; and although, as I have stated, he had been blind for many years, yet I saw him write the concluding one or two lines and subscribe his name to this letter. On my arrival in London, finding that the Duke of Kent was then at Sidmouth, I presumed to write to him, enclosing Duke d’Arenberg’s letter. In my letter to His Royal Highness I gave a short summary of my services, at the same time stating that an introductory letter from so humble an individual as myself to a personage of such exalted rank could have no other object than that of soliciting His Royal Highness’s protection in forwarding my military promotion. By return of post I was honoured with the following reply: “Sidmouth, January 8th, 1820. “The Duke of Kent was favoured last night with Captain Blakeney’s letter of the 6th instant, including one from his esteemed and illustrious friend the Duke d’Arenberg, and he feels anxious not to lose a moment in assuring Captain Blakeney that if he possessed the means or influence necessary to expedite his promotion they should instantly be exerted to the utmost in his behalf both from the friendship and esteem he bears the good duke through whom he has
- 79. been introduced to him, and from conceiving Captain Blakeney’s statement of his services to warrant his friendly interference in his behalf; but the fact is that the duke cannot interfere with any point regarding army promotion beyond the limits of his own corps, the Royal Scots, in which, from the circumstance of its having been during the whole war double the strength of any other regiment, there are too many claimants upon him for long and faithful services for it to be in his power to hold out the slightest expectation to Captain Blakeney of being able to bring him into that corps. This he can assure the captain is a matter of real regret to him, and he trusts when he says so that Captain Blakeney will give him credit for his sincerity. In concluding this letter, the duke feels it an act of justice to the good Duke d’Arenberg to observe that it is impossible for any gentleman to plead more warmly the cause of another than His Serene Highness has that of Captain Blakeney, or to state more strongly the obligations he owes him for his liberal and friendly conduct towards the Prince Prosper whilst that nobleman was a prisoner of war under his charge. If Captain Blakeney should happen to be in town when the duke returns to Kensington, which will probably be the end of March or beginning of April, the duke will have great pleasure in receiving him and in explaining the matter more fully to him viva voce than it is possible for him to do in a letter, however extended the length of it might be. Should Captain Blakeney have occasion to address the duke again previous to his arrival, he is requested to leave his letter at Messrs. Kirklands, No. 88, Bennet Street, St. James’s. “Captain Blakeney, 36th Regiment.” I scarcely need say that such a letter as this from the son of my Sovereign was to me most highly flattering, and on it was founded the delusive expectation of presenting myself before His Royal Highness and verifying the statement of my services as advanced in my letter. I applied at the Horse Guards for copies of the different
- 80. LETTERS OF GRAHAM AND ABER CROM BIE. recommendations forwarded from time to time in my favour by general and other officers, as well as of those which accompanied my memorial presented to H.R.H. the Duke of York in 1814. These were very liberally given to me, and are as follows: From the Right Honourable General Lord Lynedoch, G.C.B. “Isla de Leon, March 30th, 1811. “Sir,—I have the honour to state to you that I have just received a report from Lieutenant-Colonel Browne of the 28th Regiment, who commanded the flank battalion which so greatly distinguished itself in the action of the 5th instant (i.e., at Barossa), of the eminent services of this officer. All the other officers of the regiment left wounded, and himself severely hurt by a contusion, he continued to animate and keep the men of those companies together during the hottest fire, giving the lieutenant-colonel the most essential assistance. As Lieutenant Blakeney is a lieutenant of July 1805, I trust this statement will be most favourably considered by the commander-in-chief, and that this officer will soon reap the reward of such distinguished conduct. “I have the honour, etc., etc., etc., “Thomas Graham, “Lieutenant-General. “Colonel Torrens, Military Secretary.” From the Honourable Colonel Abercrombie, C.B.
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