'Do not fail to write down your first impressions as soon as possible,'
said a kind English professor [Basil Hall Chamberlain: PREPARATOR'S
NOTE] whom I had the pleasure of meeting soon after my arrival in Japan:
'they are evanescent, you know; they will never come to you again,
once they have faded out; and yet of all the strange sensations you may
receive in this country you will feel none so charming as these.' I am
trying now to reproduce them from the hasty notes of the time, and
find that they were even more fugitive than charming; something has
evaporated from all my recollections of them--something impossible to
recall. I neglected the friendly advice, in spite of all resolves to
obey it: I could not, in those first weeks, resign myself to remain
indoors and write, while there was yet so much to see and hear and feel
in the sun-steeped ways of the wonderful Japanese city. Still, even
could I revive all the lost sensations of those first experiences, I
doubt if I could express and fix them in words. The first charm of Japan
is intangible and volatile as a perfume.
It began for me with my first kuruma-ride out of the European quarter
of Yokohama into the Japanese town; and so much as I can recall of it is
hereafter set down.