1890.
DEAR MISS BISLAND,--Do you think well enough of me to try to get me
employment at a regular salary, somewhere in the United States. I have
permanently broken off with the Harpers: I am starved out. My average
earnings for the last three years have been scarcely $500 a year. Here
in Japan prices are higher than in New York,--unless one can become a
Japanese employee. I was promised a situation; but it is now delayed
until September.
I shall get along somehow. But I am so very tired of being hard-pushed,
and ignored, and starved,--and obliged to undergo moral humiliations
which are much worse than hunger or cold,--that I have ceased to be
ashamed to ask you to say a good word for me where you can, to some
newspaper, or some publishing firm, able to give me steady employ, later
on.