Photo/Illutration Inazo Nitobe (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

“Haste not, Rest not” goes a framed, witty motto in English, hand-written with a traditional Japanese calligraphy brush by Inazo Nitobe (1862-1933).

The piece leaps out when visitors step inside the Morioka Memorial Museum of Great Predecessors in Iwate, the capital city of the prefecture of the same name, where an exhibition is being held until Sept. 4 to mark the 160th anniversary of the birth of this outstanding man who was an author, educator, agricultural economist, diplomat and politician.

Retracing his life, anyone would be awestruck by his extraordinary achievements.

He authored “Bushido: Soul of Japan” in English; was appointed an undersecretary of the League of Nations at the time of its foundation; and committed himself to the education of young Japanese women as the first president of Tokyo Women’s Christian University.

And from the final years of the Showa Era (1926-1989) into the Heisei Era (1989-2019), he was the “face” of Japan’s 5,000-yen banknote.

At the museum, the above-mentioned framed motto was shown with another version that states, “Haste not & Rest more.”

“This one was written for his disciples, and you can feel his gentleness,” said Satomi Nakahama, 43, the museum’s head curator.

The parents of psychiatrist Mieko Kamiya (1914-1979) were introduced to each other by Nitobe before they married. Nitobe often visited the couple’s home when Kamiya was a little girl, and she remembered him as a “doting grandfather” who would lovingly pinch her cheeks.

Kamiya eventually analyzed Nitobe professionally. In her book “Sonzai no Omomi” (The weight of existence), she diagnosed him as “an extreme perfectionist” who suffered frequently from depression and needed to undergo repeated therapy for his “chronic emotional instability that no amount of self-help effort could improve.”

I always associated him with midsummer and imagined him as a man brimming with passion. But perhaps he was more of a “late summer” person who knew his own weakness and loneliness.

While upholding his lofty ideal to be a “bridge that spans the Pacific Ocean” and constantly admonishing himself against “taking a rest,” he was acutely aware of his own fragility that forced him to rest.

And that was precisely why he became a great bridge that connected Japan and the rest of the world.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug, 27

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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