Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 April 2022
EARLY YEARS
SHIMAMURA TAKITARŌ (HŌGETSU) was the eldest of four children. His parents were Sasayama Ippei and Chise. He was born in an isolated, impoverished village called Kuza (not pronounced as Kusa) in Shimane prefecture where his father was the manager of the ironworks. When their furnace was severely damaged by the 1872 Hamada earthquake, he had a new one built not far away from the old one. However, his father went bankrupt in 1876, when he was only five years old. The Sasayamas frequently moved house, but never far from where Hōgetsu was born. His father also changed jobs, running a sake shop, working for the village office, producing wax, selling everyday goods at the iron mines and ironworks, and polishing rice at a mill, but none of these jobs lasted long. When Hōgetsu was ten years old, he entered Kuza's local primary school. He was by far the most intelligent among its pupils, but because of his father's bankruptcy and heavy drinking habit, the frequent visits of creditors, and the incessant quarrels between his parents he grew up to be a gloomy, melancholic, and quiet boy.
The Sasayamas were too poor to send him to higher schools and he had to find a job. He was first an apprentice in the dispensary of a hospital in a larger town where he was allowed to attend school whenever he had any free time. He left the hospital after only one year and found another job as an office boy in the law court. Unlike the hospital dispensary, the law court closed at the fixed time in the evening, so the new job allowed him to attend private schools in the evening. In 1886 a new thirty-two-year old public prosecutor named Shimamura Bunk- was posted to the law court. He had no male heir and discovering that Ho- getsu came from an impoverished family, but had intellectual ability and ambition, he proposed to adopt H- getsu and fund him through university. H- getsu jumped at this offer, as otherwise he could not continue his studies, obtain a good post and escape from the poverty that had been haunting him. However, Bunk-'s offer to adopt their eldest son infuriated H-getsu's parents and despite repeated pleas, his father would not consent to the adoption of his son.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.