Literary Japonisme
 文学のジャポニスム論
I. 'Bushido Japonisme' in 20th Century Utopianism & Political Idealism
II. Japan in the British Imagination during the 17th and 18th Centuries 
III.  The Post WWII Japonisme Renaissance in America, 1955-1985
アメリカにおける「ジャポニスム・ルネサンス」 1955年～1985年  

 "For it is quite clear, in my mind, that these samurai form the real body of the State.“ 

                                                                                                               A Modern Utopia, Chap. 9 'The Samurai', p. 277

So wrote H.G. Wells in 1905, a man whose visions of the future were often prophetic, and which still have a hold on us today.  For who has not seen a film that is based on, or at least taken a hint from The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, or The Invisible Man?  Yet few know that, riding on the crest of a full-blown British craze for Japan in the early 20th century, the creed of the Japanese samurai played a critical part in Wells’ vision of an ideal future world, as described his novel, A Modern Utopia.  Though hardly discussed nowadays, in its time it was "instantly hailed as one of the great revolutionary works of modern history" (Hirschfield p.55), and highly acclaimed by his literary peers.  From Henry James came:

"Bravo, bravo, my dear Wells!" 

while Joseph Conrad praised its "intellectual kindliness"; Lewis Mumford called it the "quintessential utopia" (in Hillegas p.64, 66); and the eminent psychologist William James saw it prodding the next generation towards good.  It even influenced that archdean of psychological conditioning, B.F. Skinner, in formulating his own version of utopia, Walden Two.  It was nothing less than "central to the development of the utopian tradition in the 20th century," according to Mark Hillegas, one of the foremost scholars on Wells, who concludes: "No wonder that Utopian came to mean Wellsian for men like Forster, Huxley, and Orwell."  And it was praised not only for its ideas, but its artistry as well.  The renown literary critic of the day, Van Wyck Brooks, called it: 

"a beautiful Utopia, beautifully seen and beautifully thought"  (in Hillegas p.64) 

But let us quote Wells himself, arranging his prose like verse:  

"About it go planets, even as our planets, but weaving a different fate, 

and in its place among them is Utopia,

with its sister mate, the Moon. 

It is a planet like our planet, 

the same continents, the same islands, the same oceans and seas, 

another Fuji-Yama is beautiful there

dominating another Yokohama... "   

                                                                                     (Wells p.13)

Japan as Utopia

Since the time of Marco Polo, Japan as a world apart, imbued with utopian qualities, has been an idea that has lured a colorful variety of men towards it as different as Christopher Columbus, Rudyard Kipling, and Steven Jobs.  Over time, Jesuits and later travelers added to the mystique by writing a slew of books on discovering Japan---as a place of the unexpected, of the profoundly different---a quasi-mythical land.  Thus Francis Bacon's New Atlantis begins with Japan as one of the original destinations; Jonathan Swift sent Gulliver to Japan on his third voyage; in Melville the seas of Japan are Moby Dick’s playground.  It represented the opposite of whatever was mundane, and as Hawthorne would write “there could hardly be a less hackneyed theme than Japan”. (in Miner p.18)   Whether a land glittering in treasures or serene spirituality, or much later a juggernaut of economic and social efficiency, Japan was, not only in the West, but in countries of Asia as well, the symbol of the extraordinary---whether good or bad.  

One of those idealized visions of Japan has revolved around the samurai, the warrior class of feudal Japan.  We might call it the Japonisme of the samurai and their code of bushido.  But we should really separate the two: ‘Samurai Japonisme’ to refer to the general influence of samurai imagery and martial arts; reserving ‘Bushido Japonisme’ for the influence of samurai personalities and their bushido code as a model for leadership and character building, as a moral and political ideal.  For the samurai as gentleman, not just as warrior, has had an impact on the world’s ideas about Virtue and Idealism much greater than most people realize.  

What we look at here is H.G. Wells’ (1866-1946) brand of utopia or an ideal society, and the role the samurai had in it; whether he simply borrowed the term as an eye-catching device (as book reviews and internet summaries would have it), or if he incorporated the ideas behind the name, that is the ethos of bushido, into his conception of utopian leadership and virtue.  

The quick answer is: yes---his utopian ‘samurai’ can be recognized as akin to their Japanese counterparts.  We find much in common in his writing with the prevalent ideas about the samurai that had reached Europe just a few years earlier; two books were particularly influential in Western conceptions of bushido at the time:

1) Uchimura Kanzo’s (1861-1930) Japan and the Japanese. Essays, published first in English, in 1894 (republished  as Representative Men of Japan, 1908), and often noted to have been admired by prominent public figures, including President Theodore Roosevelt, President John F. Kennedy, and Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts.  Interestingly, in the 1911 edition, Japan is the first specific example in ‘Scout Law’ of the Boy Scout Handbook, distributed to every boy scout:

“In Japan, the Japanese have their Bushido or laws of the old Samurai warriors.” (Chap 1, Scout Law)

2) Nitobe Inazo's (1862-1933) Bushido: The Soul of Japan, also first published in English, in 1899, likewise admired by Teddy Roosevelt. Nitobe in later editions comments how flattering “is the news that has reached me from official sources, that President Roosevelt has done it undeserved honor by reading it and distributing several dozens of copies among his friends.” (10th edition preface, in the 13th edition, p.X)

Both Uchimura and Nitobe’s books went through many reprintings, and were translated into many languages.  And while both contain a strong strain of visionary idealism, here it will be the latter, Nitobe’s Bushido, that we shall hold up as the mirror to Wells’ utopian samurai.  

Firstly, there should be no doubt about the central importance of the samurai in Wells’ novel, a point repeatedly emphasized by the main character: “...I am inclined now at the first onset of realisation to regard it as far more significant than it really is in the Utopian scheme,  as being, indeed, in itself and completely the Utopian scheme.” (Wells 9.1 p.259)  And some pages later, it is the “...samurai, in whose hands as a class all the real power of the world resides.”  “Ah!” said I, “ and now we come to the thing that interests me most." (Wells 9.3 p.277)

Like Wells, Nitobe emphasizes the samurai as the guiding principle of the nation: “What Japan was she owed to the samurai.  They were not only the flower of the nation but its root as well.  All the gracious gifts of Heaven flowed through them. Though they kept themselves socially aloof from the populace, they set a moral standard for them and guided them by their example.” (Nitobe 1900 p.147---henceforth all Nitobe page numbers will be from this edition) 

Let us now delve further into Wells and Nitobe’s ideas of the samurai, letting them speak mainly for themselves:  

Bearing and Self-Restraint à la Japonaise

Starting with appearances and first impressions, like the image of samurai, otherwise known as 'bushi' of Edo period Japan, in Well’s Utopia there are: 

“certain men and women of a distinctive costume and bearing, and I know now that these people constitute an order, the samurai, the “voluntary nobility,” which is essential in the scheme of the Utopian State.” (Wells 9.1 p.259) 

His twist is that the samurai are a 'voluntary' nobility, but otherwise, if we take a deeper look, much like the bushido code, there is a “prescribed austere rule of living” and an assumption that self-sacrifice in men and the self-management of desires is expected, reminiscent of Zen-influenced samurai behavior where:

“self-seeking is no more the whole of human life than the satisfaction of hunger; that it is an essential of a man's existence no doubt, and that under stress of evil circumstances it may as entirely obsess him as would the food hunt during famine, but that life may pass beyond to an illimitable world of emotions and effort.” (Wells 9.1 p.261) 

—Or as Nitobe says, much in the same vein, that it was: 

“SELF CONTROL which was universally required of samurai. The discipline of fortitude on the one hand, inculcating endurance without a groan, and the teaching of politeness on the other, requiring us not to mar the pleasure or serenity of another by manifestations of our own sorrow or pain, combined to engender a stoical turn of mind, and eventually to confirm it into a national trait of apparent stoicism.“ (Nitobe pp.66-67)  

Maintenance of Samurai Dignity and Refinement

For Wells’ samurai, as for samurai in the Edo period, that which was ignoble ('gehin') or lacking in dignity were forbidden, such as acting or singing in public:

“Acting, singing, or reciting are forbidden to them, though they may lecture authoritatively or debate. But professional mimicry is not only held to be undignified in a man or woman, but to weaken and corrupt the soul; the mind becomes foolishly dependent on applause, over-skillful in producing tawdry and momentary illusions of excellence; it is our experience that actors and actresses as a class are loud, ignoble, and insincere.” (Wells 9.5 pp.289-290) 

We find the explanation in Nitobe, who goes over various terms that refer to avoidance of disgrace known as 'haji': 

“...na (name) men-moku (countenance), guai-bun (outside hearing) ... A good name---one’s reputation, the immortal part of one’s self, what remains being bestial---assumed as a matter of course, any infringement upon its integrity was felt as shame, and the sense of shame (Ren-chl-shin) was one of the earliest to be cherished in juvenile education. “You will be laughed at,” “It will disgrace you,” “Are you not ashamed?” (Nitobe p.45)

Elsewhere Nitobe and Wells speak of the role of pride, but we might add the importance attached to ‘hokori’ (sentiment of honor, dignity beyond calculable value) something more than just pridefulness, as well as the value of ‘hinkaku’ (refinement, grace). 

A Transition from an Age of Conflict to Peace 

Interestingly, Wells hints the samurai were once fine swordsmen: “For a time, most of the samurai had their sword-play, but few do those exercises now, and until about fifty years ago they went out for military training...” (Wells 9.5 p.292)

Wells’ samurai are no longer a military force, but the samurai’s warrior connotation remains.  The “...samurai, who began as a private aggressive cult, won their way to the rule of the world.  “I would like to have that history,” I said.  “I expect there was fighting?” He nodded.”  (Wells 9.4 p.279）According to Wells, they evolved into “a more militant organization” and, reminiscent of Japan’s transition from an age of warring factions to one of unification (戦国から太平の世へ), so too, Wells’ samurai  “...prevailed against and assimilated the pre-existing political organisations, and to all intents and purposes have become this present synthesised World State.” (Wells 9.1 p.262)   And while those militant aspects would be less utilized in a peaceful world utopia, like the idea of bushido in an age of Tokugawa peace, 

“Traces of that militancy would, therefore, pervade it still, and a campaigning quality---no longer against specific disorders, but against universal human weaknesses, and the inanimate forces that trouble man---still remain as its essential quality.” (Wells 9.1 p.263) 

This reminds us of Nitobe quoting a certain Mr. Mallock, who claims historical progress is produced by a struggle “not among the community generally, to live, but a struggle amongst a small section of the community to lead, to direct, to employ, the majority in the best way.”  To which Nitobe comments: 

 “Whatever may be said about the soundness of his argument, these statements are amply verified in the part played by bushi in the social progress, as far as it went, of our Empire.”  (Nitobe p.108  bold print by this author)

Thus, while Wells’ hypothetical samurai unite and lead the entire world forward, the real-world samurai of Nitobe have played a similar role in the actual social progress of the Japanese Empire.  

Echoes of ‘Bunbu Ryodo’ (proficiency in both arms and letters)

The reality of samurai life and activity during the Japanese Edo period is not all that different from what Wells describes in his utopia, as the actual samurai were a more numerous part of the population than the aristocracy was in Europe: “Our Founders put it that a candidate for the samurai must possess what they called a Technique, and, as it operated in the beginning, he had to hold the qualification for a doctor, for a lawyer, for a military officer, or an engineer, or teacher, or have painted acceptable pictures, or written a book, or something of the sort.” Wells 9.4 p.282)  Of course not all Japanese samurai had a 'technique'; rather, among them were always those who had specialty knowledge, contrasting to the case of nobility in Europe, where specialists (as different from scientists who were considered philosophers) were generally from outside the aristocracy before the 19th century.  Also, the painting of pictures was considered an appropriate pastime for the samurai of the Edo period, though not as a profession.  

The samurai of Wells' Utopia combine a militant bent with intellectual/literary/artistic talent in a ‘bunbu-ryodo’ (文武両道 proficiency in both arms and letters) fashion.  Just as the Edo period samurai were admonished not to slacken in their physical discipline, so for Wells’ utopian samurai, “Next to the intellectual qualification comes the physical, the man must be in sound health, free from certain foul, avoidable, and demoralising diseases, and in good training.” (Wells 9.5 pp.284-285)  And they are guided by a set of samurai rules, somewhat reminiscent of various Edo period samurai rules such as the ‘Buke Hatto’ (武家法度) mentioned by Nitobe (p.4) and ideas of body and mind training (心身共に鍛える---this author's observation): “The Rule aims to exclude the dull and base altogether, to discipline the impulses and emotions, to develop a moral habit and sustain a man in periods of stress, fatigue, and temptation, to produce the maximum co-operation of all men of good intent, and, in fact, to keep all the samurai in a state of moral and bodily health and efficiency.“ (Wells 9.4 p.279-280)  Obviously nobles in Europe trained their bodies and prayed, but this is much more than that.  It is a highly codified regimen with a psychological awareness more along the lines of samurai martial arts.  

A Confucian-style Education

Sounding much like the five classical books of Confucian learning, in Wells’ Utopia there is also a body of canonical works:

“The Canon pervades our whole world. As a matter of fact, very much of it is read and learnt in the schools.” (Wells 9.4 p.284).

“Our Founders made a collection of several volumes, which they called, collectively, the Book of the Samurai, a compilation of articles and extracts, poems and prose pieces, which were supposed to embody the idea of the order.” (Wells 9.4 p.282-283)

---just as there are books of poems, prose, and articles that comprised Chinese classics-based Edo period samurai education.  Wells’ utopian values are along the lines of order, rationalism, and deism, where harmonious relationships among people, and between the universe and the individual, could be achieved by human effort---somewhat along the lines of Tokugawa Neo-Confucianism, known as 'Shushi-gaku' (朱子学). 

In fact the system for recruiting elites sounds also Japanese, or at least Far Eastern.  Wells even has a sort of 'ronin' student system, where applicants can try over and over again, year after year:  “And so anyone who has failed to pass the college leaving examination may at any time in later life sit for it again---and again and again.“ (Wells 9.4 p.281)  It may have been that Wells was also incorporating features of contemporary Japanese Meiji society he had heard of, as material to flesh out his vision of Utopia.  

The Virtue of ‘Kinben’ (Diligence) and the Practice of Reading Aloud 

Like samurai sons in Japan having to read aloud (素読 sodoku) spiritually elevating works, we find Wells’ samurai also (though there is an added twist of new recent publications on the required reading list as well):

“...must read aloud from the Book of the Samurai for at least ten minutes every day. Every month they must buy and read faithfully through at least one book that has been published during the past five years, and the only intervention with private choice in that matter is the prescription of a certain minimum of length for the monthly book or books. But the full Rule in these minor compulsory matters is voluminous and detailed, and it abounds with alternatives.” (Wells 9.6 p.297) 

The Japanese idea of not only comprehending content, but emphasizing the practice, form, and habit of reading as being critical to nurturing character and the communal bond, is also found in Wells:

“Its aim is rather to keep before the samurai by a number of sample duties, as it were, the need of, and some of the chief methods towards health of body and mind, rather than to provide a comprehensive rule, and to ensure the maintenance of a community of feeling and interests among the samurai through habit, intercourse, and a living contemporary literature.” (Wells 9.6 p. 298)

Or as Nitobe puts it in his section on the “Education and Training of Samurai”:

“...it was not objective truth that he strove after, ---literature was pursued mainly as a pastime, and philosophy as a practical aid in the formation of character.” (Nitobe p.61)

Conceptualizations of a Hierarchical Society for Utopia

While the historical samurai society based on functional categories contrasts with Wells’ utopian samurai society divided into psychological categories, those psychological types are still closely related to their functions in society.  The 'Shi-No-Ko-Sho' (士農工商samurai-farmer-craftsman-merchant) four divisions of society in the Japanese system also were assumed to reflect a different set of values, abilities, and psychological makeup appropriate to each group. 

In Wells’ Utopia: “Four main classes of mind were distinguished, called, respectively, the Poietic, the Kinetic, the Dull, and the Base. The former two are supposed to constitute the living tissue of the State; the latter are the fulcra and resistances, the bone and cover of its body.” (Wells 9.2 p.265)  The nature of his classes can be somewhat guessed; obviously the first two are preferred over the latter.   Wells’ samurai are of the Poietic and Kinetic, somewhat corresponding to a Japanese idea of an imaginative Bun (文・文才) and an active Bu (武・武勇); and undertake most of the managerial and intellectual tasks just as the real samurai did:

“Typically, the samurai are engaged in administrative work. Practically the whole of the responsible rule of the world is in their hands; all our head teachers and disciplinary heads of colleges, our judges, barristers, employers of labour beyond a certain limit, practising medical men, legislators, must be samurai, and all the executive committees, and so forth, that play so large a part in our affairs are drawn by lot exclusively from them.” (Wells 9.4 p.278)

The samurai of both Wells and Nitobe do much more than the nobles of Europe, as they function in almost all aspects of social regulation, from petty administration to large-scale construction, from literary education to even mechanical oversight.  Let us not forget every bushi was expected to be able to write a line of poetry, even at the moment before self-inflicted death.  In Europe there was a greater divide between the sword and the pen when compared to Japan; what we might even call an anti-intellectual attitude existed among sportive British nobles.  Scribes were not of nobility, and given there were those with literary talent (like Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford), scholarship was for clergy and not for aristocrats until the 18th century, though of course there must be exceptions.  Even in the latter 18th century, we might recall with a chuckle, Edward Gibbon being heckled by the Duke of Gloucester regarding his opus magnum, The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire: 

“Always scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh? Mr. Gibbon?” (Sutherland #159 p.109)

Disdain for Money and Disassociation from Commerce 

Commerce and finance are given low status in Wells, as in Nitobe, despite English aristocratic society becoming receptive to financial and merchantile activity relatively early on (Chapman 1986), and certainly compared to Japan.  Nitobe says of samurai society: “Of all the great occupations of life, none was farther removed from the profession of arms than commerce.  The merchant was placed lowest in the category of vocations…” (Nitobe p.39)  As for money:  “He disdains money itself, ---the art of making or hoarding it. It is to him veritably filthy lucre.  ...  It was considered bad taste to speak of it, and ignorance of the value of different coins was a token of good breeding.” (Nitobe, p. 63)   The regard of Wells’ utopian samurai for money is similar:

 “The idea of a man growing richer by mere inaction and at the expense of an impoverishing debtor, is profoundly distasteful to Utopian ideas...” (Wells 9.5 p.287)

“Originally the samurai were forbidden usury, that is to say the lending of money at fixed rates of interest. They are still under that interdiction, but ... it is now scarcely necessary.” (Wells 9.5 p.287)   Money lending of course, was forbidden to the samurai of Japan. And Wells goes on to give an explanation that would serve, almost word for word, for a history of Edo period samurai attitudes and rules regarding commerce.  Here is an excerpt:

It is felt that to buy simply in order to sell again brings out many unsocial human qualities; it makes a man seek to enhance profits and falsify values, and so the samurai are forbidden to buy to sell on their own account or for any employer save the State, ...and they are forbidden salesmanship and all its arts.” (Wells 9.5 p.287)

Wells adds: “I suppose no samurai may bet?” The answer of course is: “Absolutely not.” (Wells 9.5 p.290)  Indeed, sometimes we can hardly distinguish Wells’ utopian leaders from feudal Japan’s ruling class in these matters. 

The Mirroring of Shinto Belief

Nitobe lists Shinto religion as an important source of bushido, and its core value, he explains, as inborn goodness, without original sin: 

“Shinto theology has no place for the dogma of original sin. 

On the contrary, it believes in the innate goodness and the God-like purity of the human soul...” (Nitobe p.8) 

So Wells says:       

“The leading principle of the Utopian religion is the repudiation of the doctrine of original sin; 

the Utopians hold that man, on the whole, is good. That is their cardinal belief.” (Wells 9.7 p.299)

Sometimes with similar wording, sometimes more fully recast, but getting across the same message, we find various religious ideas outlined in Nitobe paralleled in Wells’ ideas of utopian spirituality.   

Shinto-like Rituals of Purification and Conceptions of Health

Nitobe says, “Occasional deprivation of food or exposure to cold, was considered a highly efficacious test for inuring them to endurance.” (Nitobe p.20)  In Wells, that idea is combined with ideas reminiscent of Shinto religious concepts and rituals of purification and vitality, as well as the avoidance of 'kegare' (pollution/taint):  “the samurai must bathe in cold water and the men must shave every day; they have the precisest directions in such matters” the body must be in health, the skin and muscles and nerves in perfect tone, or the samurai must go to the doctors of the order, and give implicit obedience to the regimen prescribed.” (Wells 9.6 p.297)  

Meditation and ‘Shugyo’  

Wells’ samurai also mix Zen-type meditation and something similar to Shugendo (mountain asceticism) or ajari (Buddhist teacher) style 'shugyo' (physically demanding, often outdoor, training for spiritual advancement):

“But the fount of motives lies in the individual life, it lies in silent and deliberate reflections, and at this, the most striking of all the rules of the samurai aims. For seven consecutive days in the year, at least, each man or woman under the Rule must go right out of all the life of man into some wild and solitary place, must speak to no man or woman, and have no sort of intercourse with mankind.” (Wells 9.7 p.302-303)

In Nitobe’s chapter ‘Sources of Bushido’ the first source to be raised is Zen Buddhism: '"Zen" is the Japanese equivalent for the Dhyana, which "represents human effort to reach through meditation zones of thought beyond the range of verbal expression."  Its method is contemplation, and its purport, as far as I understand it, to be convinced of a principle that underlies all phenomena, and, if it can, of the Absolute itself, and thus to put oneself in harmony with this Absolute.”' (Nitobe pp.7-8)  Zen emphasizes the personal experience of  truth, away from distractions, where each man’s meditation and realizations of a greater unity are his alone; so too in Wells’ utopian religion: “The aspect of God is different in the measure of every man’s individuality, and the intimate thing of religion must, therefore, exist in human solitude, between man and God alone." (Wells 9.7 p.302)  

Traditional Japanese Dietary Habits and ‘Sessho’ interdictions

The below hardly needs explaining.   Its similarity to traditional Japanese cusine and the Buddhist interdiction against 'sessho' (殺生), or the unnecessary taking of four-legged life for nourishment is evident:

“In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughter-houses. And, in a population that is all educated, and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig. We never settled the hygienic question of meat-eating at all. This other aspect decided us. I can still remember, as a boy, the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughter-house.”

“You eat fish.”                                                                                                                                                        (Wells 9.5 p.286)

‘Hara hachibu’ and Pride/Dignity in Hunger

Likewise, attitudes toward eating also reflect samurai pride and restraint.  Concepts of eating in moderation ‘hara hachibu’ (腹八分 literally 8/10ths full) or learning how to curb one’s excesses ’taru wo shiru’ (足るを知る) and ‘bushi wa kuwanedo takayouji’ (武士は食わねど高楊枝), meaning keeping one’s head high (literally one’s toothpick) even in extreme hunger, are reflected in Wells’ utopia:

“Our Founders organised motives from all sorts of sources, but I think the chief force to give men self-control is Pride. Pride may not be the noblest thing in the soul, but it is the best King there, for all that. They looked to it to keep a man clean and sound and sane. In this matter, as in all matters of natural desire, they held no appetite must be glutted, no appetite must have artificial whets, and also and equally that no appetite should be starved. A man must come from the table satisfied, but not replete.” (Wells 9.5 p.293-294)

Samurai Social Decorum: Restraint in Clothing, Care of Coiffure, and Elaborate Rules of Attire

Wells' samurai men and women dress somewhat alike, and even if to the Japanese themselves male and female kimonos might seem exceedingly different, they appear to Westerners as much more alike compared to the stockings and tights or tapering pants of men versus long and wide skirts of women that were typical of English aristocratic dress up to the 19th century (in fact the growing comfort of men's dress in the West, with kimono inspired gown-like coats is another aspect of japonisme, which we cannot cover here).  

Furthermore, the daily dress of Japanese 'buke' (samurai family) women, emphasizing restraint, was not conspicuously different among the various ranks of the samurai, excepting the 'Oooku' (a 'harem' but not quite) of the shogun, or a daimyo princess.  It may be said that for the most part, male and female dress at social events in aristocratic European society went to greater excess compared to the samurai during the 18th century, for instance.  Wells seems to hint at such a past:  “Every woman who could command money used it, we found, to make underbred aggressions on other women.  ...  But the samurai, both men and women, and the women under the Lesser Rule also, all have a particular dress. No difference is made between women under either the Great or the Lesser Rule.” (Wells 9.5 p.294)    

But it is not a uniform like a military one, or a European suit. The appearance of dress in the street is varied, giving the impression of much more milder climate than London.  "White is extraordinarily frequent; white woollen tunics and robes into which are woven bands of brilliant colour, abound."  Furthermore, "No Utopians wear black, and for all the frequency of the samurai uniform along the London ways the general effect is of a gaily-coloured population."  (Wells 9.8 p.313)  This of course was a contrast to the London of Wells' time, where men wearing black, not just suits, but all the way from their top hats to their leather shoes was common public dress, with images of Queen Victoria, years before in eternal mourning, also coming to mind.  In Japan, black was worn primarily indoor or on specially occasions only, and not as everyday outside wear.  Kimonos of various tones would be more frequently seen, such as Wells describes "dyed an unobtrusive brown or green" over fine underclothing (Wells 9.8 p.313), by which Wells seems to refer not to underwear, but a visible underlayer garment, perhaps somewhat like traditional Japanese two layered inner white and outer colored kimono wear, excepting that the material has been changed to wool.  Wells' imagery is also reminiscent of illustrations in Mortimer Menpes' Japan: A Record in Colour (1901) among other books with images of Japanese dress circulating in Britain at the time.      

Repeatedly Wells speaks of the elaborate rules regarding dress, and mentions "the mysterious philosophy of dress". (Wells 9.5 p.296)  Nitobe discusses the "philosophy of clothes" (Nitobe p.31) in the context of the "spiritual significance of social decorum", and how various schools of etiquette had arisen in Japan with meticulous rules.  Certainly there are rules in every culture; but it is the high degree of formal codification, and the fact that such rules would actually be maintained, that made such a strong impression upon  Western observers.    

Utopian samurai dress for women is described as "against being conspicuous" and being "discreet" (Wells 9.5 p.296)  much like it was in Edo period Japan for samurai women, conditioned by regulations, belief and custom.  “Is the Woman’s Rule a sumptuary law as well as a regimen ?  I mean---may she dress as she pleases ?” “Not a bit of it,” said my double." (Wells 9.5 p.294)    

In Wells Utopia, not only do fashions have vague resemblances to Japanese dress in terms of form and aesthetic restraint, even certain hairstyles remind us of the traditional Japanese kamigata:  

“You have seen the men's dress---always like this I wear. The women may wear the same, either with the hair cut short or plaited behind them, or they may have a high-waisted dress of very fine, soft woollen material, with their hair coiled up behind.” (Wells 9.5 p.295)

The great care devoted to the upkeep of hair and clothes to prevent any disarray (乱れ midare) characteristic of the Edo period samurai men and women also appears in the conversation of Wells' characters: 

I had a thought, and added, “Don't they sometimes, well---take a good deal of care, dressing their hair?”

My double laughed in my eyes. “They do,” he said.”(Wells 9.5 p.295)

Chastity, Marriage, and Family

For Wells’ samurai, like that expected of Japanese samurai women, “There is a Rule of Chastity here---but not of Celibacy.” (Wells, 9.5 p.292)  In his utopia, family and marriage mean a greater submission to the precepts of the samurai and the subordination of individual interests, echoing that of the historical samurai family where a woman’s duty was to produce heirs: “Women samurai who are married, my double told me, must bear children...” (Wells 9.6 p.298)  

Men and women of Modern Utopia must obey the samurai codes, and if a woman were from outside of it and not up to following it, if they wished to get married, he would have to forsake his samurai status, and vice versa---as it was in Japan, with some modification:

“A man under the Rule who loves a woman who does not follow it, must either leave the samurai to marry her, or induce her to accept what is called the Woman's Rule, which, while it excepts her from the severer qualifications and disciplines, brings her regimen of life into a working harmony with his.” (Wells, 9.5 p.294)

Even Wells’ greater equality, or should we say similarity of women and men having to undergo physical hardship in the wilderness is not wholly at odds with the bushido concept where women practice martial arts, and grim responsibilities are expected of them in defeat in war.  They are women “who emancipated themselves from the frailty of their sex and displayed an heroic fortitude worthy of the strongest and the bravest of men.” (Nitobe quoting Lecky p.93) which is quite different from the Western conception of chivalry and damsels in waiting. 

Finally, Wells, while saying that the samurai are not hereditary by law, and that it is a ‘voluntary nobility’, in the 'reality' of his imagined world:  

“There can be no doubt that these marriage limitations tend to make the samurai something of an hereditary class. Their children, as a rule, become samurai.” (Wells 9.6 p.299) 

Neither Plato's Guardians nor Knights Templar, but Cousins of the Real Samurai

For all intents and purposes then, Wells’ samurai are very much an elite class with bushido type values, close to the historical samurai, that is for a work of fiction set in an imaginery London, where other ideas must be woven in as well.  Naturally, there are also many different ideas in Wells' work not related to Bushido; that is the nature of fiction.   

And while some might argue for Plato's Republic as a model for Wells, the Athenian philosopher's 'Guardians' hardly compare to Nitobe's 'Bushi' when it comes to explaining Utopian ‘Samurai' men and women.  While there are constant points of comparison with Wells in terms of content and literary expression throughout Nitobe's entire book, Plato's more lengthy work offers sparse parallels of a more generic type. 

Furthermore, even if some of the samurai qualities discussed above might be shared with the nobility of other nations (though to a lesser degree), that is besides the point.  That is to say, had Wells chosen to name and base his characterization of his ruling class on the medieval 'Knights Templar', for instance, instead of the 'Samurai', it matters not that other knightly orders, such as the Hospitallers or Teutonic Knights also wore chain mail, fought with straight swords, were similar to a monkish order, and crusaded in the Holy Lands; it would be enough that those key traits were raised by Wells as qualities belonging to the Templars.  That would be sufficient to counter anyone who said the name was used without any relation to the Templar's actual historical organization.  And if Wells added something more to the characterization (as he did in with his 'Samurai'), such as, let's say, "the Templars voted in world-wide elections wearing pink hats" (which of course the historical Templars did not) that would not change the fact that Templars they fundamentally are; just that they had become pink-hatted, voting Templars.  

The lesson that needs relearning here is that we must always look to the original sources, least some authoritative secondary source lead us astray into believing something otherwise from what the source itself says, especially when it comes to the degree of Japan's influence.  For actually, Wells’ interest in the samurai is just the proverbial tip of a much broader phenomenon: 

The Cult of Japan in Early 20th Century English Intellectual & Political Circles

Just how profoundly impressed Westerners, especially Englishmen, were with Japan at the time (c.1900-1914), is especially striking due to the vehement disdain for other races commonplace at the time.  Indeed, the most adulatory remarks about Japan came precisely from those who were most sure of the ‘white man’s burden’---as Rudyard Kipling---so astonished were they at the exception to the rule.  Japan became a guiding light, a beacon of efficiency in many an English mind, where bushido was the country's driving force:  

“For a short time, under the impact of events in the Far East, there was an extravagant cult of Japan in Britain, partly fostered by The Times’s military correspondent, Colonel Repington, who popularized ‘bushido’ (the code of honour of the Samurai) and ‘did much to create the legend of a people inspired by a more than medieval sense of knightly chivalry and by a superhuman contempt for death.’” (Searle, p. 57) 

This “extravagant cult of Japan” was widespread among the cultured well-to-do; and the socialist Fabians (which included George Bernard Shaw), who were the center of politico-intellectual high society at the time, some of them with Utopian leanings, were very much part of that cult. 

Men like Sydney Haldane, Baron Olivier, prominent Fabian and Labor Party member serving as Governor of Jamaica, then Secretary of State for India; or Philip Lyttelton Gell, editor for the Oxford University Press, later President of the British South African Company; or Baroness Beatrice Webb, economist who coined the term 'collective bargaining', and one of the founders of the London School of Economics (along with her husband Baron Sidney Webb, also a leading Fabian), were enthusiastic believers in Japan, to name a few. (Searle, p.58-59)  Archibald Primrose, Lord Rosebery, a leading member of the Liberal Party under Gladstone, Prime Minister during the years 1894-1895, and also a Japan enthusiast, wrote the foreword to Alfred Stead’s Great Japan: A Study of National Efficiency (1906).  In the first paragraph of that foreword he states: 

“Japan is indeed the object lesson of national efficiency, and happy is the country who learns it.” 

The author of the book by the way, in his third chapter “Bushido, the Japanese Ethical Code”, quotes Nitobe repeatedly, though also often attributing lines simply to one or another “certain” unidentified “Japanese writer”.  

Even more effusive is Sir Oliver Lodge, the eminent physicist with many discoveries and patents to his name---for scientists too, were part of this 'cult'---who delivered in 1904 an address in Birmingham, saying: 

"Witness the magnificent spectacle of Japan today; the state above the individual; common good above personal good; sacrifice of self and devotion to the community; these great qualities on which every nation has risen to glory, were never displayed more brightly in the world than now before our eyes." (in Lodge 1905 p.10, in Holmes p. 321-322)

And what is more, those qualities, according to Lodge, discussing an article from the Times, were ' "the soul of the nation", a translation of the Japanese term Bushido.' ---Phrasing which by the way, does seems to echo Nitobe's title, Bushido: the Soul of Japan.  Lodge goes on to say what he (and this applies to other English intellectuals as well) found attractive in bushido, something more than just European style chivalry: "It is a sort of chivalry, but the term "chivalry" does not convey it; our nearest approach is "public spirit"...  ...---a spirit which must be near akin to the divine idea of Sacrifice for the salvation of the world." (Lodge 1905 p.11)  It amazed Lodge that something akin to the early spirit of Christianity was alive and well in the Japan of the 20th century. ---And this sounds not only of Nitobe, but even more so of Uchimura Kanzo, for those who know him.   

Finally, let us quote the founder of the Boy Scouts, Robert Baden-Powell, who, in his chapter on 'Chivalry of the Knights' in Scouting for Boys (1908) recounts an episode from the Russo-Japanese War: 

"When the Russians were besieged in Port Arthur by the Japanese in 1905, the Japs got close up to their forts by digging long, deep trenches, into which the Russians were not able to shoot.  On one occasion they were so close that a Russian soldier was able to throw a letter into the Japanese trench.  In this letter he said that he wanted to send a message to his mother in Russia, as she was very anxious about him; but as Port Arthur was now cut off from all communication he begged that the Japs would send the message for him; and he enclosed a note for his mother and a gold coin to pay the cost.  The Japanese soldier who found the note, instead of tearing up the letter and keeping the money, did what every scout would do, took it to his officer, and the officer telegraphed the Russian's message to his mother, and threw a note back into the enemy's fort to tell him that he had done so." (Baden-Powell 1908 p.244)

Again, it is not the ferociousness of Japanese soldiers that is emphasized, nor does Japan appear in the sections on 'Self-sacrifice' or 'Politeness' where we might expect it, but rather in the section on 'Kindness'; and the episode above may be said to reflect the bushido spirit of compassion to the enemy, known as 'bushi no nasake' (武士の情け).   

The close publication dates of various books incorporating bushido ideas in Britain at the time might indicate that English literary rivals were racing to get there first (---recall that even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1903 had Sherlock Holmes saved practicing "baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling" against Moriarty, in 'The Adventure of the Empty House'; Baritsu=Barton's Jiujitsu).  It is easier to understand Wells’ placing of the samurai at the top of his idealized political system in this context.  The samurai were much in vogue at the time, no less so than ukiyo-e artists had been among impressionist painters a few decades earlier.  

Conclusion

While it might be argued that Uchimura Kanzo’s syncretic approach in his numerous works calling for a Christian-Bushido mix of moral universality can be seen in aspects of Wells’ Utopia, the lengthy comparison above with Nitobe’s Bushido alone should be sufficient to dispel any doubts regarding H.G. Wells’ serious interest in the samurai; that he was not simply borrowing the term, but had given his leadership class that name for a good reason; and that in all likelihood he had acquired his knowledge from the works of Japanese authors, and perhaps Western commentators on Japan at the time.  Wells in later years tended to underplay the Eastern connection, pointing here and there and elsewhere---perhaps because his were a little bit too close to Nitobe's samurai.