by a will-o'-the-wisp. The last line allows of two readings.
_Kokoro-hosoi_ means "timid;" and _hosoi michi_ (_hoso-michi_) means a
"narrow path," and, by implication, a "lonesome path."]


II. RIKOMBY[=O]

The term _Rikomby[=o]_ is composed with the word _rikon_, signifying
a "shade," "ghost," or "spectre," and the word _by[=o]_, signifying
"sickness," "disease." An almost literal rendering would be
"ghost-sickness." In Japanese-English dictionaries you will find the
meaning of _Rikomby[=o]_ given as "hypochondria;" and doctors really
use the term in this modern sense. But the ancient meaning was _a
disorder of the mind which produced a Double_; and there is a whole
strange literature about this weird disease. It used to be supposed,
both in China and Japan, that under the influence of intense grief
or longing, caused by love, the spirit of the suffering person would
create a Double. Thus the victim of _Rikomby[=o]_ would appear to have
two bodies, exactly alike; and one of these bodies would go to join
the absent beloved, while the other remained at home. (In my "Exotics
and Retrospectives," under the title "A Question in the Zen Texts,"
the reader will find a typical Chinese story on the subject,--the
story of the girl Ts'ing.) Some form of the primitive belief in
doubles and wraiths probably exists in every part of the world; but
this Far Eastern variety is of peculiar interest because the double
is supposed to be caused by love, and the subjects of the affliction
to belong to the gentler sex.... The term _Rikomby[=o]_ seems to be
applied to the apparition as well as to the mental disorder supposed
to produce the apparition: it signifies "doppelgänger" as well as
"ghost-disease."