O Fuji-san, and who seems to like to have me for a mistress and to live
next to the P----s, whose cook is her great friend, and trained her.
She is rather a better-class girl than most servants, and was early
left an orphan, and her guardian is glad for her to be with people
who will look after her. She is quite pretty, and unusually bright
and intelligent-looking. I expect it will seem to you a preposterous
thing to do, to take a house and go in for “furnishing” and all the
worries and expense of a household. But in Japan it is very different
from in England--the houses need practically no furniture, the huge
cupboards in every room hold all one’s goods, and so wardrobes, etc.
etc. are superfluous (and, besides, they utterly ruin the look of a
Japanese room), while the soft _tatami_ (special thick mats in every
house) serve as carpets, bedstead, and mattress, and all one needs
is a thick quilt to lie on, another to cover one, with a couple of
sheets and a pillow. I have the few chairs and the table and cabinet
I had for the last house, and with a lovely brilliant blue cloisonné
vase on an ebony stand, a dwarf pine tree, and a bunch of white cherry
flowers in the tokonomo, my room looks an aesthetic dream, with its
cream walls, cream floors, and wooden trellis-work with white paper
windows. If I could but carry it as it is to London! Yet here people
prefer Brussels carpets and rooms packed with knick-knacks. They are
living in the realisation of the dream of our aesthetes and “simple
livers,” and they prefer the things we are trying to escape. I speak
of the foreigners, but even the richer Japanese are casting aside the
exquisite refinement, the studied and cultured beauty of simplicity, to
add a mêlée of “foreign” additions and “luxuries” to their rooms. The
soothing harmonies of form and tone are broken, and there is a strife
of shrieking colour, of glaring inharmonies.
=April 12.=--I gave my little maid _carte blanche_ to buy the
_essentials_ for her kitchen. One stove, costing 5s., I had already
arranged for, the rest she had to buy. At the end of the day she came
with all the items written down in a bill 3 yards long. I went in
fear and trembling to inspect it and the purchases, and was greatly
relieved to find the sum total _under ten shillings_. Many of the items
were deliciously amusing; for instance, 1 sen 5 rin (a sum equal to a
farthing plus half a farthing) attracted my attention. It was a fan
to fan the charcoal when it refused to burn. For one farthing she got
a splendid lamp cleaner, for 8d. a lamp with white glass shade, while
¾d. more provided the chain to hang it up by. The second stove cost
5½d. and burns splendidly; it is made of red earthenware, and has
a little door that opens and shuts. These items will make you think
that I am either making game of you or of myself, but seriously, I set
no limit to the girl’s purchases, and she has got the usual things
an unsophisticated Japanese uses in her kitchen. Of course, I have a
few things, and bought some expensive items like enamel saucepans and
frying-pans--but I think this little house has not cost me £3 to fit
up, and, as I said before, to fit up comfortably, and with a distinct
beauty. I only hope the housekeeping will run as smoothly as it
promises to do, and the house prove as convenient to live in as it is
pretty to look at.
=April 13.=--The way that maid manages a four-course dinner, with three
saucepans and half a dozen bits of charcoal in the fivepenny stove, is
nothing short of miraculous--everything was very well cooked too. I
wasted about an hour over the house this morning, but got off to the
Institute after that. It is rather farther to go now, and takes some
time even with the tram, but one can’t get everything one wants, and
were I near the Institute, I should be so far from all the foreigners
as to be quite isolated, and that, I find, in this climate, is not very
healthy.
=April 14.=--The cherry trees are now wonderfully beautiful; contrary
to the croakings of the pessimists, the snow has not ruined them, and
the trees are covered with bloom. They say they are bleached, and
certainly the pink is so delicate as to be entirely elusive when one
looks at an individual bloom. I went to the renowned Oyeno Park, where
groves of trees are laden with bloom. It was a little late, and some
of the petals were falling, so that there seemed to be a whirling
snowstorm of flakes that gleamed pearly white in the sunshine. The
ground was covered, and all the pools of water left by the recent snows
were thickly fringed with white. Tokio is everywhere a fairy-land of
beauty, for cherry trees by the hundred are blooming in it. One has
the impression of being in the midst of clouds that float between
the branches of the pine trees, and rest over grey roofed cottages.
The strip of soil in front of the Embassy is covered with a treble
avenue of flowering trees, and the paths are petal-strewn between the
brilliant green grass patches. The difference in the grass in the last
two weeks is very noticeable--from a brown patchy covering over bare
earth it has become a thick emerald cloak.
=April 15.=--My little maid’s guardian came to see me and to thank me
for taking care of her. As a matter of fact it is she who is taking
care of me; I couldn’t have imagined a house run more smoothly. The
guardian is a nice man, good-looking, though middle-aged, and able
to speak German, so we got on all right. He brought me some pots of
pretty flowers, and some pansies with scent which are treasures, as the
lovely pansies here are scentless. It is a very curious point, how well
English flowers grow here, getting lovely large blooms, but one and all
losing their scent. It makes one quite sad when great luscious roses,
pansies, and even mignonette, are scentless--they seem to have lost
their souls.
=April 19.=--I spent the morning gardening; in my little garden nothing
much is growing yet, the last people were very careless. I have dug
and planted, the chief thing I planted being stones. I have learnt
their value in a garden, and I also go out with a watering-can and
water my poor little stones. Alas, all the really beautiful ones were
too expensive to buy. I went in to lunch with the P----s, because they
were having ice-cream, and afterwards went to tea with old Mr. G----
(father of the Mr. G---- I mentioned at the Takashima coal mines, near
Nagasaki). His house is surrounded by an extremely lovely garden, with
masses of flowers, and a view right across to Fujis. While we were
standing on the lawn a lady visitor turned down her glove and rubbed
some bites on her arm. Mr. G---- bent over her, and with an air of
courteous solicitude, said, “That is not one of my fleas, I hope.” No
one seemed to think the remark in any way curious till I said I wished
I had a snapshot of that to send to _Punch_.
=April 22.=--Cutting fossils till 3.30, and then I went to Professor
_M----_, and then on to the _S----s_ to pay my party call. Professor
_S----_ was out, but Mrs. _S----_ at home, and as nice and talkative as
could be expected in Japanese, when the concrete bounds the realm of my
speech. When I got home I found Professor _S----_ had just been to see
me! and we had each travelled 6 miles to visit each other, and crossed.
I was very sorry. He had brought some butter, made by the agricultural
students, hoping I should like it. I had once mentioned how difficult
it was to get butter fit to eat in Tokio.
To-day I saw the first bewitchingly pretty child I have seen in this
country--with great round black eyes, with a look of heaven in them.
She was dressed in a scarlet flowered kimono that showed the outlines
of her little limbs, and her hair was tied with scarlet ribbon in
a little tuft at either side. She was dancing along with a parasol
held high over her head, but she would not even smile at me, and I
would gladly have taken her in my arms and kissed her, she looked so
perfectly in tune with the dancing cherry clusters and the blue heavens.
=April 23.=--I feel that I can never go into a tram again. The horror
of my last ride! A leper came and sat down beside me, almost on top
of me, and the cars are so crowded I could not get away. He was not
in the worst stages, of course, but some of his finger-tips were
eaten away and one eye was blinded--there is none of the “white as
snow” business about lepers, it is an eating away of the digits, and
finally the limbs. I was only near him for five minutes, till the first
stopping-place--but----. I have said before, I think, that the Japanese
don’t think it really contagious; there was perhaps not the least
danger, but we are accustomed to think mere contact with a leper fatal.
The single cherries are now over, and the long double ones beginning.
They are rose pink and really as big as small rambler roses, each head
hanging down on its long stalk. The rich clusters on the branches are
quite unimaginably beautiful; could one suppose the kisses of tiny
children materialised and hung by fairies against the blue sky, one
might well believe the cherry flowers to be the kisses of all the
golden-haired pink-cheeked babies.
=April 24.=--Friday again--how fast and furious fly the weeks, and
there are only four in a month, four and a few days ōmaki. When
they give you a one-sen present after a five-dollar purchase, they
call it ōmaki here, and many a sen have I received that way. I wish
Nature would give me a few years ōmaki here and now, I want to stay
here longer. I went to lunch at the Faculty, the first of the term.
Professor _S----_ very nice; afterwards I went to inquire how Professor
_F----_ was, but he was too ill to see me.
=April 25.=--Saturday. Fossil-cutting all morning. The double cherries
are now beginning and are showing masses of colour between the trees
of single cherry, which are quite green. Pansies are everywhere in the
little shops, and so are gold-fish. Many small shops have suddenly
added glass globes of gold-fish to their wares; the white glass
sparkles in the sun, and the fish are very bright and pretty. They are
very clever at grafting gold-fish. One may get them with two or more
tails so neatly grafted on that the creatures live very happily, and
look quite as though they had been born so, and were rather proud of it
than otherwise.
=April 26.=--A very beautiful sunny day. I dried my hair in my little
garden--it will break my heart to leave this house and garden, there
is no doubt about it. It isn’t more than 20 yards square, but it
is full of features--two ponds, a river, stepping-stones, woodland
glades, pansy beds, and tiny grass plots. As I sit in it and look
over the roof of my tiny house I see the blue sky through a group of
tall cryptomerias, with a tall silver ash stem, a maple and chestnut
clothed in vivid green to throw up their blackness in strong relief. I
picked the dead flowers off the blooming plants, and then set out with
sandwiches and some writing to the woods, which I was optimistic enough
to expect to find in Tokio! And I found them! Within half an hour of my
house I came upon a sudden steep track off the high road, and followed
it into a wood on a hill, where I lay all day, with a vast panorama of
green valleys below my feet, violets and wild wistaria around me, and
pine trees over my head, and no human being near me all the time. Thank
God for the quiet woods. It is the best source of strength and comfort
I know, to lie on a hill alone all day.
This little wood is the first quite solitary comfortable place I
have found in Tokio’s immediate neighbourhood--one could hardly have
expected to get so sweet a place so near a big city. But I trust to my
feet to lead me to woods wherever I am, even in London’s suburbs, and
they generally do.
=April 27.=--A quiet day at work at the University; some new delight in
the way of flowers appears every day and charms me. I put a new plant
into my garden most evenings.
=April 28.=--After this week of glorious weather that to-day should
be wet--cruel! _The_ day when the Emperor and Empress had invited
me (as well as a few hundred other people!) to the Imperial garden
party. All the morning it literally streamed with rain, but I hoped
against hope, uselessly, of course, for the early morning decides
whether the Emperor will be there or not. However, about half-past
one my hope was rewarded, for the rain stopped, though it was not
bright, and that meant we would be allowed to see the gardens, which,
of course, is a thing in itself well worth doing. So I decided to set
off, not, of course, in my best bib and tucker, and Mrs. P---- went
with me, a little against her will. The others would not come, though
J---- had bought a new frock and a four-guinea hat for the occasion,
which is _the_ event of the summer season. Right glad I was that I
went--the gardens were lovely, and there were a lot of people in
semi-garden-party state. We ate the chicken and ice-cream, fruit and
champagne intended for the whole party, and had really a much more
enjoyable, if less distinguished, time than if the official party had
taken place and the Emperor been present. A number of the diplomats
were there.
By far the most striking individual was an Indian prince, in a glorious
pale-blue and gold uniform, with turban and a delicious gold pompon. He
was extremely tall and thin, and held himself erect as a young pine.
The cherry petals were falling, and whitened the pines and floated
on the lake in wind-blown drifts. The wistarias were covered with
buds just clouded with a purple haze, and every one of the many pines
and other gymnosperms gleamed brilliant green among trees, the young
shoots’ vividness giving an effect of bloom, where the maple leaves
were crimson. The maple, which has crimson leaves in spring, does not
get the brilliant colouring in the autumn, like the other species, but
is equally highly prized for its spring beauty. The garden slopes down
to the sea, which runs along one wall of stone, and in the trees were
hundreds of sea-gulls. The benevolent despot has fenced off a part of
the garden; here no one is allowed to enter, and here the wild-birds
nest--the sea-gulls building and rearing their young on branches of
trees covered with luxuriant epiphytes! Some of the trees are very
old, and in one I found a big tufted bamboo growing as an epiphyte
in the ancient stem of a flowering cherry tree. Something disturbed
the nesting birds--was it the smell of champagne and cigars in the
neighbourhood, or the clanking of spurs and swords?--and they rose in
hundreds and wheeled in the sky, such a flight of them I have never
seen. Some were pure white and gleamed like cherry petals in the grey
sky, but most were grey, like the drifting clouds.
=April 29.=--A quiet day’s work, the weather was bright, lovely, out of
sheer perversity. My maid gave me some fritters for dinner, of a kind I
had not ordered, and when I asked her what they were, she said _hassu_,
that is, the lotus. The sacred flower makes delicious fritters! I
daresay if one could capture the rosy-tinted evening clouds they would
make good ice-cream.
=May 2.=--I went to Professor _Fw----’s_: he was kindly taking me as
his guest to an afternoon luncheon-party at the Admiralty gardens. At
his house I met an interesting Japanese who spoke excellent English,
and who is said to be one of the greatest Japanese musicians. He
invented an organ of some sort, and has had a special audience with the
Kaiser Wilhelm. We drove to the Admiralty, passing safely the fierce
bayoneted sentries, and across a yard hideous with brick buildings and
smoky chimneys--through a gate in a high wall, and were--in a deep
forest glade, under shade of palm trees and ferns, back in time three
hundred years! The gardens were those of a very famous Daimio, and were
laid out with the greatest care and at a boundless expense. In them
are all the stages of the Tokkaido,--scenes from China, wild mountain
views and iris gardens, falls of water and lakes. In fact a series
of scenes of wonderful beauty, of peace and suggestion, of dreamland
poetry--only the tallest of the cryptomerias and pines were standing as
dead skeletons, killed by the smoky chimneys on the other side of the
boundary wall. These great gardens are entirely closed, and it is very
difficult even to get permission to see them, the authorities of the
Admiralty are so afraid of spies.
The special party to-day was to welcome the married daughter of one
of the earliest and most useful of the American missionaries, a Dr.
Brown, who had had a school in Yokohama, and who had as pupils many
men now very distinguished. Among other people I was introduced to a
very charming, thoroughly Europeanised, and handsome man--and of course
did not catch his name. He walked with me a little while through the
gardens, and we talked of the beauty of Tokio and the destruction of
that beauty by “reformations” some years ago, before the Japanese had
learned to appreciate native art as well as they do now (though much
of the same sort goes on to-day), and I quoted one of the specially
terrible places, the hideous red-brick Exhibition-like buildings
(Government buildings) that ruin the view of the grey moat with green
banks and trees and old white and grey buildings round the palace, one
of the most lovely sights any city in the world can show. I exclaimed
against the vandalism, the criminal folly of the architect, whom I
surmised was some second-rate foreigner. “Yes,” my companion answered,
“it _is_ bad. I was the Chairman of the Building Committee at that
time, but I suppose the architect was morally responsible.”
You may imagine my feelings. I knew, of course, by the look of the man
he was some one of importance, but how could I guess who he was? I am
not sorry, however, that he heard it.
A further surprise awaited me; he made the speech of the evening, and
turns out to have been Dr. Brown’s youngest and most promising pupil,
and to-day to be the world-known Ambassador Tsuzuki, representative
at the last Hague Conference! He said good-bye very graciously--his
laurels don’t rest on the beauty of those buildings, and I had not
touched him on a vital point after all.
=May 3.=--I really had to make up my mind once for all to learn to
get on a bicycle by myself without the aid of a devoted male friend.
Hitherto I have always ridden with people who put me on--here I am
alone. I bought a bicycle from the missionaries, which had been
discarded by one of their number. But after being at the bicycle shop
for a little it seems in good order, for it was an excellent frame,
and now I determined to ride, as Tokio’s distances waste so many
hours a day that I can stand it no longer. After a few hours’ steady
determination, I find I can get on very well without the male friend.
But those of you who read this and have played that part, don’t think I
could have got on without you at the time.
About midday I decided to go and see the renowned Azalea gardens at the
village of Okabu, some few miles off, and so I took my maid as a treat
for both of us (she never having seen the flowers), and shut up the
house. There is no lock or key, and any thief had only to slide a paper
screen and slip in, but we told the cook next door to keep a weather
eye open, and set off gaily in the sunshine.
Along the main street of Okabu are a dozen nursery gardens, all
filled with azaleas, and so laid open that you can walk round and
see everything, and buy what you please, but not unless you please.
Even when you want to buy it is rather difficult to find any one who
will sell to you. When you do, he will just seize the flowering bush
and pull it up, shake the mud off the roots, wrap them in paper and
tie a big loop of string to it; you carry it home, stick it anywhere
in your garden, and it goes on as though it had never moved an inch.
The sunshine and rain make things grow so easily here, it certainly
doesn’t depend on any special “skill of the Japanese” in this case, for
I myself stuffed the azaleas into my garden and saw the man pull them
up like weeds.
In one garden there was an entry fee--of three farthings. Here the
whole garden was filled with plants all one height (about 3 feet),
and all flat on the top, and all covered with flowers--a crimson sea.
Generally speaking, though, the flowers individually were far less
beautiful in colour, and smaller in size than our azaleas, the interest
and special charm lay in the masses of them, and the number of gardens
one after the other that cultivated them.
There were crowds of people in their best clothes, and stalls on the
road selling sweets, and the inevitable hair ribbons of brilliant
colour; with here and there a gold-fish dealer or a seedsman.
We lunched in a little tea-house and came back laden with flowers--four
beautiful glowing azaleas, a brilliant fern-like green shrub, and
a budding yellow broom, for which I paid a sum total of exactly
elevenpence.
The roots were all tied up neatly in paper--and then they wouldn’t
let us on the car! Other people were carrying them tied up in
_feruskés_ just exactly as ours were in paper, so I was furious and
asked a policeman why. “Had we no _feruskés_? Then we must cover them
completely in paper, and the officials would not see them.” “But the
roots were covered in paper,” I replied, “other people have them like
that.” “Ah, they have roots in _feruskés_ or handkerchiefs, then the
officials cannot see that the roots are there, but they can see the
roots through paper. If, however, you cover them completely, then they
will not know they are flowers at all. Roots are not allowed on the
tram.”
We went to a shop and got newspapers to cover them up, and the same
officials who had barred my way smiled approval!
=May 4.=--A pouring day, the roads simply awful, as it came down in
torrents all night. My little plans for getting to work early on my
bicycle were all knocked on the head. I saw not a soul in the Institute
all day, and was glad when Mrs. P---- came across to have a little
chat. I am arranging about a Debate, Tokio doesn’t seem really to know
what that is! But we meet at parties and talk endless gossip, so I
am going to give a tea-party, have an amusing Debate (if possible),
and found a society which, I hope, will live for ever, like Mother’s
Norwood one. I forgot, because in a way it came in between two days,
that the other night we went to the Greek Church Easter Service. It
is held at midnight, and the Russian Greek Church is by far the most
successful of the churches here. It is the only one with an imposing
building, the only one with a great choir, and a sense of wealth and
success in the appearance of the interior. The great domed building
stands high on a hill, and can be seen from most parts of Tokio. We
found a huge crowd of Japanese waiting to go into the gates, and as
they entered each bought a candle and lit it, so that, as well as the
regular altar and other candles, the church was illuminated with
hundreds of these tapers. The Bishop, in gorgeous white and gold, was
seated in the centre of the church, and swung incense over the people,
while a choir, quite unaccompanied, sang the whole service. This choir
is splendid, though composed of Japanese, and is one of the wonders
of the church. The congregation crowded into the church area, where
there were no seats, but the floor was covered with carpet (which would
certainly be a sea of candle grease in the morning), on which the
people stood or sat. There were very many children present, some very
tiny, and all in their best. A few of them were charmingly beautiful
pictures. The service, sung by the choir, was followed by few of the
congregation; they stood or sat reverently, seeing to their candles and
sometimes crossing themselves, but they did not hesitate to go through
their ceremonial bows if they met an acquaintance, some going down on
the floor and touching it with their foreheads, to the peril of the
tapers. The service was principally chanted, but sometimes the voices
rose into a grand chorus, and all the time the Bishop and his clergy
kept up a picturesque ceremonial. The altar was magnificent, vast, and
gilded and lit with huge candles. We felt the whole ceremonial and its
setting splendid, impressive, but almost weird. The power of the Bishop
is clear, if one only knew that he got all those hundreds of Japanese
out at midnight, while for social functions they find 9 o’clock too
late.
We had to walk home, and came through the outer palace gardens
and under the ancient Japanese gates, lovely in the moonlight, and
palpitating with the lives of the past.