DEAR PAGE,--Though I never hear from you directly, the _T.-D._ brings
me occasionally very emphatic proof that I am not forgotten, and am
perhaps forgiven. So I venture a line or two, hoping you will not show
the letter to anybody.
I told you some years ago I was married; but I did not tell you I had
a son,--who is, of course, dearer than my own life to me. Curiously,
he is neither like his mother nor like me: he takes after some English
ancestor,--for he is grey-eyed, fair-haired (curly chestnut), and
wonderfully strong: he is going, if he lives, to be a remarkably
powerful man; and, I hope, a more sensible man than his foolish dad.
Well, now two perils menace me. First, the immense reaction of
Japan,--reasserting her individuality against all foreign influence,
which has resulted in the discharge of most of the high-paid foreign
employees; secondly, the war with China. The Japanese--essentially a
fighting race, as Bantams are--will probably win the battles every
time; but if China be in dead, bitter earnest, _she_ will win the
war. (Probably her chances will be snatched from her by foreign
intervention.) But whatever be the end of this enormous complication,
Japan is going to empty her treasury. The chances for Government
employees are dwindling: my contract runs only till March, and the
chances are 0.
Of course, I can peg along somehow,--getting odd jobs from newspapers,
etc., doing a little teaching of English, French, or Spanish. I can't
help thinking I would do better to go abroad--especially at a time when
every American 100 cents is worth nearly 200 Japanese cents.
Here goes. Could you get me anything to do if I started in the spring
for America? I mean something good enough to save money at. I am past
all nonsense now, and for myself only would need very little. But it
would not be for myself that I should go. I should want to be sure of
being able to send money to Japan, by confining my own wants to good
living and an occasional book or two. If you could get me something
anywhere south of Mason and Dixon's line, I should try to be practically
grateful in some way. I am not in the least desirous of seeing Boston
or New York or Philadelphia--or being obliged to exist by machinery.
I would rather infinitely be in Memphis or Charleston or Mobile
or--glorious Florida.
Or can you get me anything educational in Spanish-America? I could
scarcely take my people to the U.S.,--but to South America I might try
later on. I am now 44, and all grey as a badger. Unless I can make
enough to educate my boy well, I don't know what I am worth,--but I feel
that I shall have precious little time to do it in. Add 20 to 44,--and
how much is left of a man?
Perhaps you will think--if I am worth thinking about at all: "Well, why
were you such a d----d fool as to go and have a son?" Ask the gods!
Really _I_ don't know.
Ever faithfully--or, as the Japanese would say, _un_faithfully,--yours,