1890.
DEAR ELIZABETH,-- ... I feel indescribably towards Japan. Of course
Nature here is not the Nature of the tropics, which is so splendid and
savage and omnipotently beautiful that I feel at this very moment of
writing the same pain in my heart I felt when leaving Martinique. This
is a domesticated Nature, which loves man, and makes itself beautiful
for him in a quiet grey-and-blue way like the Japanese women, and the
trees seem to know what people say about them,--seem to have little
human souls. What I love in Japan is the Japanese,--the poor simple
humanity of the country. It is divine. There is nothing in this world
approaching the naïve natural charm of them. No book ever written
has reflected it. And I love their gods, their customs, their dress,
their bird-like quavering songs, their houses, their superstitions,
their faults. And I believe that their art is as far in advance of our
art as old Greek art was superior to that of the earliest European
art-gropings--I think there is more art in a print by Hokusai or those
who came after him than in a $10,000 painting--no, a $100,000 painting.
_We_ are the barbarians! I do not merely _think_ these things: I am
as sure of them as of death. I only wish I could be reincarnated in
some little Japanese baby, so that I could see and feel the world as
beautifully as a Japanese brain does.
And, of course, I am studying Buddhism with heart and soul. A young
student from one of the temples is my companion. If I stay in Japan, we
shall live together.--Will write again if all goes well.
My best love to you always.