MATSUE, January, 1891.
DEAR PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN,--Your kindness in sending me a
postal card while suffering so much yourself from sickness, is something
that touches me very much. I hope to thank you better later on.
I myself am very sick. I boasted too soon about my immunity from cold.
I have been severely touched where I thought myself strongest--in
my lungs--and have passed some weeks in bed. My first serious
discouragement came with this check to my enthusiasm; I fear a few more
winters of this kind will put me underground. But this has been a very
exceptional winter, they say. The first snowstorm piled five feet of
snow about my house, which faces the lake, looking to Kizuki. All the
mountains are white, and the country is smothered with snow, and the
wind is very severe. I never saw a heavier snowfall in the United States
or Canada. The thermometer does not go so low as you might suppose, not
more than about 12 above zero; but the houses are cold as cattle barns,
and the _hibachi_ and the _kotatsu_ are mere shadows of heat,--ghosts,
illusions. But I have the blues now; perhaps to-morrow everything will
be cheerful again. The authorities are astonishingly kind to me. If they
were not, I do not know what I should do.
I trust you are now strong again. I send you a few _mamori_ from the
famous shrine of Sakusa (county I-yu) where Yaegaki-san are worshipped,
the "Deities who couple and set the single in families." It is said that
these, so soon as a boy or girl is born, decide the future love and
marriage of the child,--betrothing all to all from the moment of birth.
Three Shintō deities are the presiding gods: Susa-no-o-no-Mikoto, his
wife Inada-Hime-no-Mikoto, and their son Sakusa-no-Mikoto, from whom, I
suppose, the place takes its name. The mother of Inada-Hime and Taka o
gami-no-Mikoto, and Ama-terasu-Omi-Kami, are also there enshrined.
Here, amid stone foxes and stone lions, a priest sells love-charms. Some
of these consist of the leaves of _Camellia Japonica_.
There is a tree in the temple court (or rather two trees, which have
grown into one); this is considered both symbolical and magical. There
is also a pond in which newts live. The flesh of these newts, reduced to
ashes, is considered an efficacious aphrodisiac. It is also the custom
for lovers to throw offerings wrapped in bits of white paper into the
pond, and watch. If the newts at once run to it, the omen is good; if
they neglect it, it is bad.
In the Middle Ages this temple used to be in the village of Ushio, on
the boundary of the counties of O hara and Ni ta, but was removed to its
present site many hundred years ago. There are curious traditions and
poems, mostly of an erotic character, regarding this shrine.
Trusting you will soon be quite well, believe me always sincerely yours,