MATSUE, October, 1891.
DEAR DEVILISHLY DELIGHTFUL OLD FELLOW,--I have been dancing an Indian
war-dance of exultation in my Japanese robes, to the unspeakable
astonishment of my placid household. After which I passed two hours in
a discourse in what my Japanese friends ironically term "The Hearnian
Dialect." Subject of exultation and discourse,--the marriage of Miss
Elizabeth Bisland. If she only knew how often I have written her name
upon the blackboard for the eyes of the students of the Normal School
to look upon when they asked me to tell them about English names! And
they pronounce it after me with a pretty Japanese accent and lisp:
"_Aileesabbet Beeslan_!" Well, well, well!--you most d--nably jolly
fellow!!
... Civilization is full of deadly perils in small things,--isn't it?
and horrors in large things--railroad collisions, steamboat explosions,
elevator accidents,--all nightmares of machinery. How funny the quiet of
this Oriental life. The other day a man brought a skin to the house to
sell,--a foreign skin. Very beautiful the animal must have been, and the
price was cheap. But the idea of murder the thing conveyed was horrible
to me, and I was glad to find my folks of the same mind. "No, no!--we
don't like to see it," they said. And the man departed, and in his heart
pain was lord.
Oh! as for vacation, I always get two months, or nearly two months,--the
greater part of July and all of August. This time I have been travelling
alone with my little wife, who translates my "Hearnian dialect" into
Japanese,--eating little dishes of seaweed, and swimming across all
the bays I could find on the Izumo coast. They take me to be a good
swimmer out here; but I am a little afraid to face really rough water
at a distance from shore.--About getting to you, I don't really see my
way clear to do it for another year or two--must wait till I feel very
strong with the Japanese. Just now friend Chamberlain is trying to get
me south, to teach Latin and English, at $200 per month, in a beautiful
climate. I would like it--but the Latin--"_hic sunt leones!_" I am
awfully rusty. Should I be offered the place and dare to take it, you
would find me at Kumamoto, in Kyūshū,--much more accessible than
Matsue. I think I have a better chance of seeing you here than you of
seeing me. But what a dear glorious chap you are to offer me the ways
and means;--I'll never forget it, old boy--never!
Pretty to talk of "my pen of fire." I've lost it. Well, the fact is,
it is no use here. There isn't any fire here. It is all soft, dreamy,
quiet, pale, faint, gentle, hazy, vapoury, visionary,--a land where
lotus is a common article of diet,--and where there is scarcely any
real summer. Even the seasons are feeble ghostly things. Don't please
imagine there are any tropics here. Ah! the tropics--they still pull
at my heart-strings. Goodness! my real field was there--in the Latin
countries, in the West Indies and Spanish-America; and my dream was
to haunt the old crumbling Portuguese and Spanish cities, and steam
up the Amazon and Orinoco, and get romances nobody else could find.
And I could have done it, and made books that would sell for twenty
years yet. Perhaps, however, it's all for the best: I might have been
killed in that Martinique hurricane. And then, I think I may see the
tropics on this side of the world yet,--the Philippines, the Straits
Settlements,--perhaps Reunion or Madagascar. (When I get rich!)
Besides, I _must_ finish my work on Japan, and that will take a couple
of years more. It is the hardest country to learn--except China--in
the world. I am the only man who ever attempted to learn the people
seriously; and I think I shall succeed. But there is work ahead--phew!
I have sent away about 1500 pp. MSS., and I have scarcely touched the
subject--merely broken ground.
... Fact is, there is only one way to really marry a Japanese
legally,--to be adopted into a Japanese family after marrying the
daughter, and so become a Japanese citizen. Otherwise the wife loses
her citizenship--a terrible calamity to a good girl. She would have to
live in the open ports, unless I could always live in the interior. And
the children--the children would have no rights or prospects in Japan.
I don't see any way out of it except to abandon my English citizenship,
and change my name to _Koizumi_,--my wife's name. I am still hesitating
a little--because of the Japanese. _Would_ they try to take advantage,
and cut down my salary? I am thinking, and waiting. But meantime, I am
morally, and according to public opinion, fast married.
By the way, she would very much like to see E. B. If E. has a yacht,
make her "sail the seas over" and come to this place; and she will be
much pleased and humbly served and somewhat amused.
Well, so long, with best heart-wishes and thanks,