ASJ 130th Anniversary Special Events: 
The Keene Lecture


Lecture 2002-10-30
Writing a Biography of Emperor Meiji
Dr. Donald Keene


The October meeting  was one of the highlights of the year's events.  We enjoyed the hospitality of the Swedish Embassy, and the gathering was graced not only by the presence of our patrons, T.I.H. Prince and Princess Takamado, but by that of T.I.H. The Crown Prince and Princess; the Grand Chamberlain Mr. Akio Watanabe and Mrs. Watanabe also attended. The evening's programme was chaired by the Swedish chargé d'affaires, Mr. Karl Leifland, as the new ambassador, Mr. Mikael Lindström, had not yet presented his credentials; however, His Excellency and Mrs. Lindström hosted a reception in their residence after the meeting. The audience exceeded the capacity of the lecture theatre, but the embassy provided a large screen and sound system for the overflow seated in the hall outside.

Mr. Leifland began by welcoming the participants and speaking of Swedish-Japanese relations, which dated back to the visit of the botanist Thunberg, and then congratulated the Society on completing 130 years of history; it was exactly 130 years ago to the day that the Society's first lecture had been given in Yokohama. Dr. Berendt then took the floor to introduce our distinguished speaker, Dr. Donald Keene, who addressed us on the subject "Writing a Biography of Emperor Meiji", with reference to his recently-published book "Emperor of Japan", which he had written first in Japanese and then in English. 

Near the outer edge of the grounds of the Gosho, the old Imperial Palace in Kyoto, said Dr. Keene, there stands an inconspicuous wooden cottage near the Well of Good Fortune (Sachi no i); in this small house the future Emperor Meiji was born, and tradition has it that he was first washed in water from the well. His mother, Nakayama Yoshiko, was the daughter of an impecunious noble who had built this place (on borrowed money) as a birthing house near her home because it was traditionally believed that a building was polluted by childbirth and likely to be destroyed afterwards. It is ironical that such were the humble origins of a man who was to become the most famous of Japanese emperors, whose shrine in Tokyo, the Meiji Jingu, now attracts millions of worshippers.

In fact, his fame rests not on his own accomplishments but on the momentous events of his reign. He was only fifteen when the "Meiji Restoration" occurred (this is also the 150th anniversary of his birth in October 1852, later celebrated, with the adjustment of the calendar, on November 3rd), so he was incapable of making any significant contribution at that point; yet it is true to say that the men who effected the changes of the new regime regarded him as their guiding spirit. Even so, he figures surprisingly little in the histories of the era, whether written by Japanese or foreign scholars, although his name is associated with victories in wars with  China and Russia, and the forging of an alliance with Britain.

This paucity of information is not for lack of documentation. The official chronicle, Meiji Tenno ki, lists not only the events in which he directly participated but everything happening in society around him. Many accounts were also published after his death by those who served him, but they lack specificity, as the writers had seemingly been bound to secrecy. The best source of information comes from the less inhibited foreign writers, who were allowed to visit Kyoto as a first step in improving international relations. Unlike his xenophobic father, Emperor Kômei, Meiji was willing to meet foreign diplomats, and the first audiences took place on March 23rd and 26th, 1868. The French and Dutch envoys were received on the 23rd, but the audience granted to the British minister, Sir Harry Parkes, was delayed for three days as his party was attacked by swordsmen on their way to the Palace. The British diplomat A.B. Mitford has left a description of the boy emperor as he was at the time. He was a tall, dignified youth dressed in a white coat and long padded silk trousers which trailed like a lady's train, with an eboshi surmounted by a stiff plume of black gauze on his head. His eyebrows were shaved and painted in high up on his forehead; his cheeks were rouged and his teeth blackened. He spoke barely above a whisper, and his words were repeated for the interpreter, who was Ito Shunsuke (later Hirobumi). The Mikado expressed his regret at the unfortunate occurrence that had caused the delay in the ceremony, and trusted that permanent friendly relations would be established.  Although the speech was not remarkable, Mitford was impressed by the fact that  the Boy-God allowed his sacred face to be seen by "the beasts from Without".

We do not really know what Meiji looked like in his later years. The few photographs that exist were all taken when he was young. Nor was his portrait ever used on banknotes or coins. In the first official photograph, taken in 1872, he is still in Japanese dress; it was taken for use by the Iwakura Mission, but it was not (ostensibly) ready in time for their departure, perhaps indicating that it was suppressed as not being appropriate for presentation. A new picture was taken in the following year, showing him in the familiar military uniform, with his hair cut. The picture subsequently used as his official portrait was not a photograph, but was taken from a drawing made by the Italian artist Edoardo Chiossone as he peeped through a crack in the fusuma (see Vol. 10  of the Transactions), and this idealized portrait served the purpose better than a photograph. Meiji is also seen in brightly coloured nishikie prints, which show he engaged in various daily activities, but his face in these representations bears little or no resemblance to his actual features.

With all the wealth of documentation available, not excluding innumerable legends and anecdotes,  it is astonishing that the few existing biographies have not succeeded in creating a believable portrait of the man. Anecdotes are recounted in an effort to show that Meiji had a "human" side, but these are rarely of interest, and sometimes baffling. (Why did he, on seeing a camel among the booty from the Sino-Japanese War, command it to be given to a certain nobleman -- who passed it on to the Ueno Zoo?) Other  biographers have tried to debunk him as a cipher or a tyrant, but these mistaken views only deepen the mystery of his abiding fame. Unlike Queen Victoria, he himself kept no diary, and no letters written by him have been turned up. The tanka that he wrote (estimated at 100,000) were jotted on scraps of paper which were thrown away after being copied by a calligrapher. Nor have we any recording of his voice, so that we do not even know whether he spoke standard Japanese or the language of the palace. There are contradictions in the descriptions given of his childhood -- was he a healthy and active boy, or was he sickly and timid? Was he, or was he not, an intelligent and judicious sovereign with a concern for the welfare of his people? Did he or did he not read the newspapers assiduously? Did he have simple or expensive tastes? Little can be gleaned from his tanka, and the official rescripts issued in his name were composed by others. Of his taste in art, at least, it seems he preferred Japanese-style paintings and ceramics, and at exhibitions he would buy up whatever pleased him. He and the Empress and the Empress Dowager often visited Ueno Museum to view the collections of private individuals. When traveling around the country he would buy any local wares that pleased him; he did not expect things to be given to him, as they were to European royalty, though he would accept  gifts made to him by a host who wanted to express appreciation for the visit. He also gave generously to restore old Buddhist temples.

Although he clearly had conservative tastes, he did not reject anything just because it was foreign. He was hardly ever seen in Japanese dress, and did not object when the Empress decided to wear Western dress, as she felt it was truer to ancient Japanese costumes than the kimono. He may have preferred Japanese food, but at formal dinners only Western food was served. (He is reported to have had an impressive appetite, and the only food that he refused was sashimi.)

It may in fact be that there was no other side to him than the one that could be observed. He showed himself a stoic, who rarely expressed preferences, and rarely complained; he was almost ostentatiously impassive. His indifference to comfort has been ascribed to his Confucian training, and yet his father and others at the court who had received the same training did not show his stoicism. He seems to have possessed some inner force which enabled him to follow his own code of behaviour to the very end, when he painfully dragged himself up the stairs to the Tokyo University graduation exercises, leaning on his sword. A chamberlain has recorded that he never saw the Emperor either extremely happy or extremely sad. When he informed the Emperor that his most trusted minister, Ito Hirobumi, had been assassinated, this was received with merely a grunt, and Meiji received equally unemotionally the news of the death of his son, Prince Akihito.

In the same way he made no complaint when, during the course of his progresses around the country, he would have to sit bolt upright on his heels for hours on end in a swelteringly hot palanquin, while his chamberlains would beg permission to walk. Nor did he display any signs of fatigue upon arrival, when he would have to listen to verbose speeches or examine local products. He never forgot that he was a descendant of a long line of ancestors, and felt obliged to follow the ancient practice of kunimi -- looking at the country, his country. Equally, he recognised the people he met as his people, however humble their occupation. The men closest to him in later life, like Ito Hirobumi, were of humble stock, but he never looked down on them.

At the start of his reign many commoners showed little interest in the Emperor, so Okubo Toshimichi urged him to follow the European practice of making himself visible to the people. Okubo hoped to make him into a monarch along the lines of Louis XIV, as an intermediate stage in the creation of a constitutional monarchy. But Japan did not lend itself to the erection of imposing monuments such as Versailles or the enhancing of the monarch's image through the winning of victory in battles. Meiji's glory stemmed rather from the length of his reign and the unwavering image he presented of deep concern for the Japanese people.

In the end it is difficult to feel one knows Meiji even after ploughing through all the records. It is as though he repels all attempts by a biographer to come closer. We could not have expected his consort, Empress Shoken, to reveal what she felt about his concubines, or his son, Emperor Taisho, to explain why his relations with his father were so strained, but we would know him better if, for example, Sono Sachiko, the mother of his last eight children, had indicated that this seemingly distant man had a warmer side to his personality. As it is, biographers have tended to discuss Meiji's reign in terms of the extraordinarily able and vividly contrasting men who surrounded him, leaving only a ceremonial role for the Emperor in whose name their glorious achievements were accomplished.

 Yet he himself must have made some contribution, even if only by reason of the fact that his accession at such a young age left the way free for the architects of the Restoration. But even when young, he could make important decisions, as when he intervened to prevent the invasion of Korea advocated by Saigo Takamori and others. His repeated tours of the country also helped to instill a sense of nationhood among people who still owed primary allegiance to their local han. The wording of his rescripts was surely the work of his ministers, but were his own personal opinions reflected in them to any degree? One recurring theme is the expression of the Emperor's hopes for peace. This may have been no more than a convention, but his behaviour during the wars in his reign suggests that he genuinely disliked war. Ultimately his reputation may reside in the fact that, like Queen Victoria, he lived so long. The day after his death, the newspapers referred to him as taitei, "the Great", and this term was frequently used of him until the end of the Pacific War in 1945, and a modern historian has said, "Never in modern history -- no, in the whole of Japanese history -- has there been any other such great emperor."

After Dr. Keene's presentation, Dr. Berendt invited questions or comments, and Fr. Neal Lawrence took the opportunity to thank Dr. Keene for speaking of Meiji's tanka. Dr. Berendt then called on Meiji's great-grandson, Prince Takamado, to give the vote of thanks. Prince Takamado spoke first of his having been greatly impressed by reading Dr. Keene's biography of Meiji, which he called a successful portrait. He then told an amusing story relating to how he had first come to know of Dr. Keene.  His parents had visited Columbia University, and his mother found herself sitting next to a young man who turned out to be able to speak Japanese. She asked him what his speciality was, to which he solemnly replied, " 'Chikamatsu' de gozaimasu" -- at which she maintained a wary silence for the rest of the dinner! It was noteworthy, he said, that so many of the men who had played important roles in that period which had been so decisive for the future of Japan had come from rural areas.

After the meeting, all those present moved upstairs to a sumptuous reception in the residence of the ambassador, who was in no hurry to send us all home. The Crown Prince and Princess left before the party began to break up, but our patrons -- and the speaker -- stayed and engaged in animated conversations until the very end.