KŌBE, April, 1895.
DEAR HENDRICK,-- ... Apparently the war is over; and we
are glad,--with due apprehension. Possibilities are ugly. The doom
of foreign trade in Japan has, I think, begun to be knelled. In
twenty-five years more the foreign merchants will be represented here by
agents chiefly. The anti-foreign feeling is strong. I am not sure but it
is just. Only--the innocent pay, not the guilty.
As for me, I must confess that I am only happy out of the sight of
foreign faces and the hearing of English voices. Not quite happy,
though--I am always worried for the future. I drew the lots of the gods:
they replied yesterday at Kiyomizu in Holy Kyōto: "All you wish you
shall have, but not until you are very old." H'm! Is that Delphic? Can I
become very old?
No: Kazuo is not a Japanese rendering of Lafcadio. It signifies only
"First of the Excellent," or "Best of the Peerless Ones," but it does
serve for both purposes to the imagination.
As I watch the little fellow playing, all the dim vague sensations of
my own childhood seem to come back to me. I comprehend by unexpected
retrospection!
My eye is not yet quite well. But I expect it will last for some years
more.
Best thanks for that admirable and timely letter of advice. Of course I
shall follow it absolutely. Wish I had the advantage of being closer to
my loved adviser,--for more reasons than one.